Beneath Hill 60

by Will Davies

  Norton-Griffiths’ next major project, however, would be his final undoing. Tenders were being called for the raising of the wall of the Aswan Dam in Egypt. Norton-Griffiths’ tender was submitted in late September 1929, just four weeks before the New York stock-market crash. He won the contract, but soon financial problems plus continual clashes with the Egyptian authorities slowed the work, and finally it stalled. These problems affected his health. After writing to the Egyptian government in a last desperate attempt to salvage the project and get new financing in place, he travelled north to Alexandria, where at San Stefano he was seen to take a small rowing boat out into the bay. Sometime later his body was found floating with a bullet hole in the head. There were suggestions that he had been murdered by the Romanians because of his earlier destruction of their country, but the general consensus was that this was suicide. He was just 59.

  So ended the life of an amazing man, an independent, courageous free thinker and doer who had a vision both for himself and the country he served.

  In the summer of 1915, the Royal Engineers of the 175th Tunnelling Company had started what would become a very important strategic tunnel at Hill 60. Beginning 200 metres behind the British frontline, they had driven a long horizontal tunnel in the direction of Hill 60. Approaching the railway embankment, they began sloping the tunnel downward, but not without great difficulty. First they struck the shallow water table, then below that, watery, sandy clay that proved almost impossible to dig through and to retain in any safe and stable way. The shoring broke and the liquid earth seeped through the cracks, spurting onto men’s faces and clogging up their pumps. To counter this, a wooden caisson was introduced, which created an airtight chamber for the men to work in.

  And their efforts paid off. Deeper, they hit the blue clay, and with the efficient clay kickers on hand, quickly pushed a narrow gallery towards Hill 60. Nearly 30 metres deep, it went under the German lines and became known as the Berlin Tunnel because, the men joked, at this rate they would soon be under Berlin. It would become the service tunnel for the mines on Hill 60 and the Caterpillar, and be fought over, flooded, attacked, collapsed and countermined for the next 18 months. They also continued shallow mining, just five metres below the surface, to divert German attention from the deep tunnelling.

  During fighting in early 1916 at the nearby Bluff, a German miner was captured and told of a German gallery that was being built to blow up the bridge across the railway cutting, which was on the British frontline. The British started a new countermining operation. Working fast, the tunnellers dug a branch gallery and fired a number of mines, collapsing about 60 metres of German tunnel and wrecking the enemy’s entire system. But the explosion also seriously damaged 60 metres of the Berlin Tunnel, an unfortunate side effect. A German tunneller later captured on the Somme said that the blast had travelled along the German tunnel and destroyed a shaft near the surface, and that the ground was so shattered after this explosion that the Germans were never able to sink a shaft in that area again.2

  In April 1916, the 3rd Canadian Tunnelling Company relieved the exhausted Royal Engineers. They entered the shattered Berlin Tunnel and found that 250 metres were still intact. After clearing the debris, they began driving new galleries under Hill 60 and the Caterpillar. Within three months, they had rebuilt the shattered system and dug a tunnel well beneath the German tunnelling system, and well under the enemy frontline. The Canadians then began a clever defensive system by digging a series of intermediate tunnels between their deep mines and the shallow system above.

  Beneath, the German miners sweated in the dark passages, breathing in the foul air and fearing for their lives. Just like the British miners, the men worked in silence, hunched over, fighting the oozing, liquid sand that extended down four or five metres in this area, or working the hard clay with a sticheisen – a tool like a large apple corer – which was a far less efficient way of mining clay than the British ‘clay kicking’ method. Then they filled their sandbags, slowly and carefully, ensuring they avoided each other in the low light of the narrow gallery, and dragged them out.

  In silence, the guts of Hill 60 were slowly torn out. Bag upon bag was filled, tied off and hauled down the long, timber-lined galleries. In the early days of mining the Hill there were no electric mining lamps, and miners were loath to use carbide and further foul the already putrid air. And the problem was always air. Although they had installed mechanical ventilation systems of various kinds, which had improved the air quality and their comfort, there was always the associated noise, whether it be the hum of the motor or the huffing of the air.

  Since the Allies had lost the ridge line, they had been at a continual disadvantage. The Germans consolidated their defences, built concrete blockhouses and underground shelters, and dispersed their artillery in well-constructed positions on the ridge to fire upon the Allied front. Griffiths’ original plan was for just six deep mines, but once a major mining offensive was agreed upon, this was expanded to many more targets along the salient. Now the plan was to prepare 23 mines at depths of 30 metres, not the 15 metres originally planned, and to double the amount of explosives. Secrecy was of primary importance, and the mines were always referred to as ‘deep wells in connection with water supply’, a ruse that seemed to work.3

  The northernmost mines were under Hill 60 and the Caterpillar. The next mine south down the line was at St Eloi. The large British blows in March 1916 had stirred up a hornets’ nest in this area and the Germans, after re-taking the craters and their lost ground, kept up a relentless artillery and mortar bombardment of the British lines opposite.

  In the spring of 1916, the 172nd Company was replaced by the Canadians, who immediately commenced a deep shaft well back from the frontline. Within three weeks, they were down to 30 metres, had put in a station ten metres down and had driven a gallery to contain a power plant and other equipment. Here the Canadians worked in very difficult conditions. The soil was wet and fluid, the hard clay was unstable and cave-ins were common. In other places the ground was shattered and fragile and old galleries criss-crossed the area, making tunnelling dangerous. At one point, the main gallery flooded, stopping work, but the Canadians soon had the water pumped out, the silt removed and the tunnel operational again. They then pushed a gallery forward, deceiving the Germans and outflanking their countermining efforts, finally driving under the German frontline and on below the old craters from the 1916 explosions.4 They enlarged a gallery well behind the German frontline, and by late May 1917, they had completed the placement of a massive charge of 50 tonnes of ammonal, the biggest in the long history of military mining.

  Along the next 900 metres of the frontline, tunnelling was next to impossible in the sandy clay, so the defensive systems were only five metres deep, which made them vulnerable to cave-ins through shelling. When the Canadians took over this section of the front in 1915 from the 250th Tunnelling Company of the Royal Engineers, they immediately began deep mining on the Hollandscheschuur salient. They dropped a shaft to 18 metres then pushed out a gallery that was quickly driven under the German lines 40 metres away, and then to a point 100 metres beyond it. Fearing a German trench raid would reveal the opening to their shaft, they carefully concealed the opening by making it resemble a dugout protected by a machine gun between two inclined entrances. They also built a second shaft to ensure access and an escape route. The Germans were well aware of the Canadian tunnels and fired a large charge in May 1915 that created a crater they called Cöln. Just as the Canadians had finished their construction and were about to lay their charges, the Germans exploded another large charge in June 1916, creating a crater they named Cassel. This slowed the Canadians’ work, but the first of the three Hollandscheschuur mines was ready by 20 June 1916, the second mine by 11 July and the third mine by 20 August, just under a year before they would be needed.

  A little further south at Petit Bois, tunnelling was commenced in late 1915 by the 250th Tunnelling Company of the Royal Engineers. They drove a
shaft to a depth of 18 metres and pushed out a gallery, before deepening the shaft to 30 metres. By early June 1916, the British had dug a 450-metre-long tunnel under and past the German frontline. However, on 10 June, at 6.30 am, the Germans blew two heavy mines that exploded above the British tunnel, causing 75 metres of gallery to collapse and trapping 12 tunnellers in an undamaged section near the face, where the tunnel was only one metre square.

  As in mining communities across Britain, the tradition among tunnellers was to always attempt a rescue, no matter how slim the chance that anyone had survived. A rescue team raced to the shaft and with Proto breathing equipment they were soon underground at the caved-in area of tunnel. Clearing the long section of collapsed earth and shattered timbers was very slow. A Welsh rescue specialist named Haydn Rees decided instead to dig around the collapsed part and build a parallel tunnel. Frantically they dug, oblivious to the noise they were making and desperate to get to their entombed mates.

  Though the explosion had shattered the 12 miners’ nerves, they were all uninjured. Finding they were trapped and only a tiny amount of air was entering through a small ventilation pipe, they began to tear away at the earth, but soon an argument broke out: some believed they should dig themselves out while one experienced miner from Cumberland, Sapper Bedson, argued that they should stay calm, lie still and conserve the little air they had.

  Desperation took over, and a deep animal instinct to survive. The men ignored Bedson’s suggestion and attacked the face, dragging away broken timber and clawing at the sticky clay. But soon the exertion left them heaving and convulsing on the wet tunnel floor, gasping for air that was now heavy and foul. And then the tiny trickle of air that had sustained them suddenly stopped, and a new panic overtook them.

  It was now late in the afternoon. Bedson suggested to the men that they spread out along the length of the tunnel and rest, breathing slowly to conserve the air. He crawled to the face, made a bed of sandbags and, after taking the glass from his watch so he could feel the time, curled up and drifted into a light sleep. His end of the tunnel was slightly higher than at the site of the collapsed face and, as a result, the air was a little better. He felt some comfort in the knowledge a party of coalminers that had been trapped for 13 days was rescued safely. If he could just hold on, a rescue party would get him out.

  Early the following morning, the men started to spread themselves along the tunnel, but at 5 pm the first man died. The others quickly followed and by the end of the third day, 11 men were dead, spread along the tunnel. Only Bedson was alive. Though he was ravenously hungry, he did not eat the two hard army biscuits he had in his pocket for fear these would make him thirsty. He also had a water bottle, but would only sparingly wash out his mouth and return the water to the bottle. He kept his head, kept himself warm and kept track of the time.

  Meanwhile, Haydn Rees and his tunnellers were desperately working forward. Instead of the usual rate of four to five metres a day, now they were clearing out more than 12 metres a day. But they had a long way to go: a daunting 75 metres and straight towards the Germans. By the fourth day, they still found the tunnel beside them broken and collapsed. There would be little hope of anyone being alive after this time, and the order went up to the surface to prepare 12 graves. Yet they pushed on.

  And then, six-and-a-half days after the Germans blew their mine, the rescue party broke into the stinking tunnel. In the narrow shaft of the officer’s torch beam, the line of bodies could be seen extending towards the face. The rescue party withdrew to the surface and reported the sad loss of the tunnellers lying below.

  Crouched at the face on his bed of sandbags, Bedson had neither heard nor seen the men of the rescue party, but he did notice that the air felt a little fresher and the pressure had dropped. He crawled along the tunnel and over the bodies of his dead comrades, until he came unexpectedly to the hole made by the rescue party. Just as he did, the rescue team returned and was astonished to see Sapper Bedson still alive. Exhausted, he extended his hand, saying, ‘It’s been a long shift. For God’s sake give me a drink.’5

  The rescue party carried Bedson back along the new tunnel and out into the fresh air. He was given more water then loaded onto a stretcher and carried along a communication trench towards the rear and the Casualty Clearing Station. Suddenly, the ground erupted with shellfire – he was not out of harm’s way yet. Fortunately he arrived and was inspected by a medical officer, who wrote that he was ‘clear and rational’ and basically unhurt from his long and frightening ordeal.6 He was rushed back to England.

  Bedson had already been wounded on the Ypres salient in 1914, had recovered and then been sent to Gallipoli. There he was wounded again, recovered and again sent to the trenches of Flanders, though this time as a tunneller. Even after his latest awful experience, Bedson requested to return to his tunnelling company and resume work, but it was felt he had already contributed enough to the war, so he was given a job at a Base Depot safe behind the lines.

  The tunnellers at Petit Bois eventually drove a shaft nearly 600 metres long, and at the end dug two separate tunnels splitting off in a Y shape, which they then charged. The Germans countermined, blowing three charges from the large mine craters above. These did not destroy the British mines, but believing they had, the Germans suddenly ceased their work, leaving the British to quietly maintain their mines.7

  Just to the south of Petit Bois was the Maedelstede Farm mine. Here two shafts had been built and two tunnels pushed forward with the objective of Wytschaete Wood some 800 metres away, well behind the German lines. Light railways were constructed that worked hard at night, shipping spoil back well behind the line and out of sight of the Germans, and bringing up food, ammunition and materials.

  Next, heading south, was the mine at Peckham Farm. Started in late 1915, it progressed slowly because many of the men fell sick due to the severe winter. By early January, the tunnellers were down to a depth of 20 metres, where they began work on a tunnel towards the German strongpoint. The ground was heavy and the clay, which had a high moisture level, swelled and snapped the lining timbers of the tunnel like celery. Heavier timber had to be brought in, which also slowed the work.

  By March 1916, the Canadians had taken over and the tunnel had extended to 150 metres. The Germans began heavily shelling the shaft workings and entrances and raided the trenches. In late April, the tunnellers were called upon to line the parapet and fight off an attack, and the heavy German trench mortars known as minenwerfers forced the closure of three shafts.8

  By the end of April 1916, the Peckham chamber had been charged with 35 tonnes of ammonal, but a series of collapses and flooding at one point cut off access to the charges. The tunnellers dug diversion galleries, but these, too, struck bad ground. In the end, a parallel tunnel three metres above the old tunnel was dug, and the Canadians were able to break back into the old shaft 300 metres out, just ten weeks before the mine was to be blown.

  The 250th Company had also begun work in December 1915 on the Spanbroekmolen mine, 400 metres south of Peckham Farm. They succeeded in getting a shaft down through wet ground that was difficult to mine, then handed over to the Canadians in January 1916. The Canadians in turn handed over to the 171st Company and by June 1916 the tunnel had been completed and the charges laid. With time on their hands, the ambitious tunnellers started a tunnel towards ‘Rag Point’, 360 metres further behind the German lines. The tunnel had gone 350 metres by mid-February 1917, when the Germans blew a camouflet. Then, just as the tunnel was passing under the German frontline at Narrow Trench, another German camouflet collapsed 150 metres of trench. Not wishing to draw German attention to their deep shafts, the Rag Point objective was abandoned.9

  Work started at Kruisstraat, 600 metres south of Spanbroekmolen, in December 1915 on what would become the longest tunnel under Messines Ridge. It stretched 700 metres from the shaft off the Kingsway communications trench, to well behind the German frontline. Four separate explosive charges were laid, but the men co
ntinually battled the problem of water seeping in. Special sumps and a major bailing effort were required to maintain the charge, and work was completed less than a month before zero hour.

  South of Kruisstraat, the tunnellers found a very different soil profile to the surrounding area. Waterlogged sand went down to a depth of 30 metres, making it almost impossible to build a stable shaft. Three were attempted, and the last one, dug in February 1917 at Boyle’s Farm, was deep enough to allow them to drive a gallery and begin offensive tunnelling. After pushing forward, they dug down further, to a depth of 35 metres, where they struck the blue clay. A new drive forward began, 35 metres below no-man’s-land. Suddenly, disaster. At 165 metres in, the tunnellers working at the face hit bad ground, and water and quicksand poured in. They retreated and built a strong dam, but not before 30 metres of tunnel had been lost. Above, German shelling smashed the shaft head and left several men dead. Doggedly, the tunnellers returned to the face, pushing their shaft forward and under the German strongpoint, Ontario Farm, about 1.5 kilometres west of Messines village.

  On 24 August 1916, in a deep gallery beneath Petite Douve Farm, the British unexpectedly broke into a well-built German gallery, making a large and very obvious hole in the enemy tunnel. Quickly the British tunnellers blew a camouflet, hoping to smash the German gallery and flood their workings. It did little damage and the Germans fired a heavy camouflet on 27 August, completely smashing the British gallery, so much so that the workings were rendered useless and were immediately abandoned. This was a great disappointment for the Canadians when they took over, but they had the last laugh. To deny the Germans access to the destroyed Allied mine workings, they ceased pumping out water, allowing the tunnels and galleries to flood. Because of the porous nature of the soil and the shattered ground, water easily found its way into the German workings, flooding them, too. The Germans were diverted into pumping out their own tunnels. And the Canadians kept them pumping: they dammed water and released some every time the water level dropped in the German workings.