The Mystery of the two French Crosses

The church at Tinwell have an altar cross which was said to have been brought back from the bombed-out church in the village of Doingt. They assumed that their vicar during WW1 had collected it, but recently it has been suggested it was Percy Hooson who had moved to Tinwell from Easton in 1933.
Tinwell, after several years of planning are returning their cross to Doingt in June.
We were aware that our church in Easton on the Hill had a metal processional cross missing the figure of Christ that Percy Hooson had brought back from an unknown location on the Somme.
As it was known that Ben Hooson, Percy’s grandson had Percy’s war diary we contacted him to see if there was any mention of Tinwell’s cross. Although there was no entry to help Tinwell in their research we have the following amazing entry:

June 8, 1917
Busy all day. Evening walked to Mesnil. A wonderful show of yellow Iris on either side of the road leading into the village.  The place has been badly shelled but there is still some semblance of a village.  The church as usual has received special attention.  The wooden steeple was lying in the Nave, the vestments were lying in a heap outside.  I brought away the processional cross, from which the crucifix had been taken.  In another part of the village I picked up a perfectly good blue cope and placed it in the most waterproof room I could discover.

Note: Percy was the vicar of Easton from 1912 to 1932, and was a founding member of the village Horticultural society. We have discovered that he was based at Doingt at the time of his diary entry and that Mesnil was only 2.4 miles away!