Mining Operations at Hilt 60.
THE YPRES TIMES
79
By K. Weatherbe and A. C. Young.
T almost every point along the old British front line where facilities for observation
were in dispute, military mining was carried on. Few localities earned a more
sinister reputation for this kind of warfare than that inconspicuous eminence
in the LysYser watershed known as Hill 60.
Here, on April 21st, 1916, an officer lay, ventre a terre, four fathoms beneath No
Man's Land, with tubes from a small wooden disc clamped to his ears. The atmosphere
was heavy with the smell of raw earth, moist and stijl.
The officer was a listener belonging to the 3rd Canadian Tunnelling Company.
He had remained motionless in one position for possibly an hour before there came to
his ears, trained in practice tunnels back at Poperinghe to detect and interpret all sorts
of underground noises, what he took to be a stifled cough. Immediately his senses,
drugged almost to semi-somnolence by the oppressive silence, became taut and alert.
Not a muscle moved, but, though he continued a long time to listen with strained
attention, the sound was not repeated.
Three months earlier the enemy had blown a mine under the bend in our trench
No. 42. To head off hostile attempts at recovering the portion of this which had not
been wrecked, our miners sunk a shaft, No. 17, and drove a gallery hard and straight out
from its foot.
About the end of March, incoming 3rd Canadian Tunnellers took over from the
175th Company R.E. and continued its extension. Four shifts, relieving one another
every six hours, carried on at top pressure continuously night and day except for such
periods, when listening was in progress, as that during which the suspicious sound
referred to above was observed. At frequent intervals thereafter for four days, attempts
were made, without result, to obtain confirming evidence of the enemy's near presence.
Then, at 4 p.m. on April 25th, another mine went up, carrying aloft dismembered bodies
of some 8th Battalion Infantry and crushing out the lives of two sappers. Only thus
were suspicions confirmed that Germans had won the race against time, and that their
gallery must have progressed beyond the point of intended interception some time
before our own passed a few feet over it.
Before narrating an occurrence that had a more fortunate sequel and one which
affected the tactical situation to an incomparably greater extent, it may not be out of
place to describe briefly the history and general characteristics of mining operations in
this area.
During final stages of the First Battle of Ypres, Byng's Cavalry dug themselves in
on the forward slope and handed over to supporting troops from the French XVI Corps.
On December 10th, 1914, our Allies here were forced back before a final sporadic hostile
assault. Subsequently, preparations were made to regain the lost summit, and a
Lieut. Bruyeat was commissioned to undermine and blow up the enemy's fortifications.
Monmouthshire miners assisted in carrying on the work which was eventually
completed in the spring of 1915, a 28th Division brigade having in February relieved
the French. Five chambers were excavated and charged by R.E. of the 171st Mining
Company under Lieut. Norton Griffiths. They were exploded at dusk on April 17th,
and, in the attack which followed, infantry from the 5th British Division recaptured the
coveted point of vantage. In the face of repeated attacks with gas, they held it until
May 5th, when it passed once more to the enemy, in whose custody it remained for over
two years.
Throughout the whole of this period mining activity was continued with ever-
increasing intensity.
To the earlier R.E. Tunnelling Companies engaged here the utmost credit is due.
