Beneath Hill 60 Read online

  In June 1917, Edgeworth David was promoted by General Harvey to Chief Geologist, attached to the Inspector of Mines at the General Headquarters of the British Expeditionary Force. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, was mentioned in dispatches on three occasions and promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. While he was at the front, his son won a Military Cross while serving as a Regimental Medical Officer with the 6th Cameron Highlanders and his daughter served as a driver with the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.

  After the war, he was made a Knight of the British Empire and became known as Sir Edgeworth. He resumed his work at Sydney University, but his main focus was to complete a comprehensive geological map of Australia. To do this, he took leave from the university and travelled around the country collecting samples and mapping the geology of the continent. It was published in 1932 as Geological Maps of the Commonwealth of Australia.

  Edgeworth David, a popular and celebrated academic, was hero-worshipped by his students and attracted many of the best minds to geology. During his life he was awarded numerous honours and prizes including honorary doctorates from the universities of Wales, Cambridge, Sydney and Manchester and the highest recognition from scientific and geological societies worldwide. He died of pneumonia in 1934 in Sydney and was given a state funeral at St Andrew’s Cathedral before being cremated with full military honours.

  With the completion of the Prowse Point dugout on 18 August 1916, Woodward’s No. 2 section was moved to nearby Hill 63, close to Hyde Park Corner, to start work on a new system of dugouts. Woodward was ordered to take an intensive ten-day course at the 2nd Army Mine Rescue and Mine Listening School, at the Headquarters of the 177th Royal Engineers Tunnelling Company, at Proven, about 30 kilometres to the northwest and well behind the line. A model mine had been constructed at the school, complete with shafts, galleries and tunnels. This model allowed for the training of tunnellers in different types of soils, and gave them the opportunity to hear manufactured sounds underground. Using a geophone, they were taught to identify and locate these sounds and, with the aid of a chart and an electrical microphone, to calculate the exact distance of the site where the sound originated.

  When Woodward returned to Hill 63, he was heartened by the progress the men had made. Major Hill MC, a mining engineer who Bean wrote ‘was constantly at them to increase the speed of the work’, reported that the Australian companies ‘were exceptionally effective, provided they were given some vital task to work off their energies’.11 Seeming to echo Woodward’s disappointment at being given defensive tasks, he wrote: ‘listening and pumping was not enough – their keenness and efficiency are too great for nominal defensive [work]’ and that it was ‘Godsent’ that work at Hill 63 had been found for these Australians where they could tunnel to their heart’s content into the bowels of the hill.12

  The massive Hill 63 dugout was completed in just nine weeks, with nearly 200 men employed on its construction, under Woodward’s command. Officially named the Wallangatta Dugouts, though popularly known as ‘the Catacombs’, its entrance was adorned with a cut-out metal kangaroo. Inside there was sleeping accommodation for 1200 men in bunks, which was unique so close to the frontline. The entrance had gas-proof doors, and the entrance tunnel was spacious at nearly two metres square. There was also a good ventilation system and electric lighting throughout, the work no doubt of the ‘Alphabet Company’. An impressive and comfortable billet for the troops, it often comes up in soldiers’ diaries as having been a welcome and safe refuge from the frontline.

  The Wallangatta Dugouts were officially opened to great ceremony by General Sir Herbert Plumer in the presence of a swag of generals and high-ranking staff. It was rumoured that when the Germans observed the many vehicles, officers and men gathering at the nearby Hyde Park Corner intersection, they ‘stood to’, expecting a British attack.

  As the officer in charge of the work, this was a very special day for Oliver Woodward. There was a band and a fanfare of trumpets to welcome General Plumer, and after welcoming the high-ranking guests Woodward escorted them around the new dugout, commending the hard work of his men and pointing out the fine timber lining and overhead lighting system. ‘[I was] in a world far removed from War … but with a thud I returned to reality,’ he wrote.13 For just then, another Australian officer sidled up and whispered in his ear. Unfortunately, but not completely unexpectedly, a group of tunnellers had pinched the rum and were in a sorry state, sprawled out on the proposed tour route ahead. ‘Get the blankards out of here – get them out of sight at least,’ he whispered back.14 The officer promptly disappeared into the labyrinth while Woodward quickly devised a new route.

  Later he gave the men a good talking to, but took no disciplinary action. ‘Had not the Sappers adequately punished themselves? By their own foolish action they had missed the wonderful sight of twenty-odd Generals, a happening which they will regret when they are old men,’ he wrote.15

  Woodward’s innate understanding of when to punish his men gave them a respect for their commanding officer. Indeed, they appeared to like him. Sapper Frederick Tiffin, who had come to France on the Ulysses, made a small wooden box from timber he had salvaged from the destroyed Cloth Hall in Ypres and gave this to Woodward as a sign of his respect. Woodward’s family still has it today.

  With the generals back in their cars and now safe far away behind the lines, Woodward congratulated his men, shook hands with his fellow officers and poured himself a stiff rum. He felt very proud. As the infantry moved in and dropped their muddy rifles on his clean floorboards, so ended ‘one of the most romantic days’ of Woodward’s life as a soldier.16

  A major chapter in Oliver Woodward’s life had come to a close. And now he would have his chance to prove that he and his men had what it took for offensive mining. For they had already begun their phased takeover of mining operations about ten kilometres to the north, at the notoriously dangerous Hill 60.

  In early October 1916, while the finishing touches were being put on the massive dugout at Hill 63, three sections of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company had gone to the frontline opposite Hill 60. By early November, only Woodward’s section remained, and on the 3rd they set out from Ploegsteert Wood sector for the Lille Gate, Ypres. It was dark and quite cold as they departed that night for their posting to Hill 60. Woodward assembled the men at White Gates, a crossroads behind the northeast of Hill 63, to await the motor transport that would take them and their pile of kitbags and cases towards the front. Woodward had long known of Hill 60 and its reputation: the mining and underground fighting and the blood that had been shed for this tiny square of high ground. Among the tunnellers, the talk was of survival, tunnel depths, escape and rescue, of ‘Proto’ equipment, grey-blue clay and running sand, and of death, the enemy and the legend of Hill 60. For Woodward, the task was a source of pride and honour rather than of fear and apprehension. To him, the Ypres salient:

  … was so rich in tradition of the deeds of the British Army that all service in this area was regarded as setting the mark of efficiency on troops selected for duty there. In the case of tunnelling companies, service in the Salient carried an additional honour in that Hill 60 marked the spot of the first large scale British Mining activity. Thus not only were we called upon to acquit ourselves like men of the British Army, but in addition had jealously to guard the honour of our particular Branch of the Service – that of Tunnelling.1

  Sitting in the back of canvas-covered trucks, the men jolted north parallel to the front. The trucks travelled without lights, bumping along the rutted road in convoy, their hard rubber tyres finding every pothole and broken log on the corduroy road. But even at this snail’s pace, the cold wind lifted the mud-splattered tarpaulin and froze the line of men sitting huddled on the hard wooden benches. And out to the east, there was the unending flash of artillery, flares and crashing explosions. Welcome to the salient.

  A lurch and the crunch of gears and they had arrived at Kruisstraat, on the outskirts
of Ypres. Here Woodward was informed that he was to be commanded by Captain Avery, and the tour of duty on Hill 60 would be four days in the line and four days’ rest in camp.

  From here there were no roads fit for motorised transport, and even if there had been, the noisy, smoky vehicles would have drawn fire from the Germans on Hill 60. The men grabbed their rifles with frozen fingers, and in single file they tramped off into the night, the blackness consuming them and the sound of their boots muffled by the mud. On they went towards the German line, first passing the dangerous Shrapnel Corner, just south of Ypres and the Lille Gate, where other Australian tunnellers had been busy building a dugout for the AIF in the rampart walls. From here, they took to the duckboard track, past Transport Farm, then along the Fosse Way communication trench, an approach to the front that was regularly shelled.

  Ahead, flares lit the sky and the sounds of battle could be clearly heard in the cold night air. German shells began landing in Larch Wood, a headquarters and casualty clearing area ahead on their route. The men, unfamiliar with the sound of incoming artillery, dived for the mud and lay prone while the shells crashed along the railway embankment and the British support line. It was soon over. Dragging themselves out of the mud, the party moved off, wet and cold. The smoke and dust drifted back, and the pungent smell of explosives came to them, distinct and frightening.

  The men passed through Larch Wood and quietly eased into the frontline at 10.30 pm, two hours after they had set out. Less than 100 metres away was the German frontline. The enemy had dug down through the bodies of the French, British and their own dead to re-form the shattered ground into something resembling defensive trenches. In the Allied trenches, sandbags lined the parapet and in places timber supported the muddy, weeping walls. Duckboards raised the trench floor above the water level and the fire step had been made stable. They could sense immediately that life was wretched, tense and desperate.

  Woodward hardly had time to drop his bag and rifle before he was informed that his first shift would start at 1 am. He took instructions on what the well-dressed, fashionable mining officer was to wear in the frontline, and he was not impressed. Over his drab, baggy Australian woollen uniform trousers he dragged heavy, thigh-high rubber boots and then, to dampen sound, wrapped them in sandbags and tied them at the sides. Next, he took off his Sam Browne belt and replaced it with the khaki web belt he’d been issued, onto which he threaded his holster and pistol. Over his head and onto his chest went his gas mask, in what the training manual called the ‘alert’ or ‘ready’ position. And then onto his head went a rolled-up sandbag, an annoying, itchy accessory. ‘Even when clothed in the regulation Officers’ Uniform I was never sufficiently vain to imagine I might be mistaken for a guardsman, but attired in this rigout I began to develop an inferiority complex,’ he wrote.2

  Woodward related a story of an Australian officer decked out in this assortment of clothes passing along a frontline trench occupied by a British unit. As he went, he called out ‘Make way for an officer,’ but the Tommies, well used to the humour of Australians, failed to stand aside. The officer reprimanded them and demanded an apology. This they immediately offered, but the Australian officer turned on them again, telling them they had no reasonable excuse not to recognise his rank and ‘voice of authority’.3 And the Australians complained of English arrogance and stupidity. They could find it in their own ranks, too.

  Suitably attired, Oliver Woodward set out for his first tour of duty on Hill 60. He and a Canadian officer went down along the tunnel that ran parallel to the British front and stopped off at the 26 listening posts spread out on the Hill 60 side of the railway cutting. At one point Woodward stopped and crouched to use a listener’s geophones for the first time since he had been trained in their use at the tunnelling school at Proven. Unlike at the school, which was far behind the lines, noise seemed to come from everywhere. There were the surface explosions of shells, the trench work above, electric motors and the hum of ventilation. He was totally shocked by his inability to interpret the cacophony. To him, it sounded as though the Germans were tunnelling all around him.

  The upper level of tunnels beneath Hill 60 comprised the defensive mining system, which was very extensive. From the frontline trench five vertical shafts dropped down to a depth of five metres. From these, parallel tunnels were pushed forward underground, like five fingers stretching towards the German frontline. At 25 metres out, they stopped and a tunnel was dug to connect them, running parallel to the Allied frontline. Along this tunnel five-metre-long tunnels were dug ten metres apart, towards the German frontline. At the end of each, short tunnels were dug to the left and right so that it terminated in a T shape. Listening posts – 26 in total – were established there. On the other side of the railway cutting, opposite the Caterpillar, there were two shafts protecting 100 metres of frontline. Known by the names ‘Hooks’ and ‘Eyes’, these two shafts led down to the lateral tunnel, where listening posts were also established at ten-metre intervals. The defensive system was only five metres below ground, so could collapse if struck by a heavy shell. For the tunnellers at this level, death could come from above or below.

  Then there was the intermediate level, dug by the Canadians. The entrance to the Berlin Tunnel was in the railway embankment well back from the frontline, in the main support trench known as Bentham Road. The tunnel was an incline that after 150 metres dropped to a depth of about 14 metres. A gallery had been driven to the left, extending for 45 metres, where it branched to the left and right. It was known as the intermediate or ‘D’ System and the galleries were respectively known as ‘D’ Left and ‘D’ Right.4 From here, the Canadians had broken through into the German workings, captured some sections of the enemy’s gallery and destroyed others, particularly communication shafts, with camouflets. This intermediate area was crucial to the whole Hill 60 system as it was hoped that containing the fighting and countermining to this area would lead the enemy to believe that this was the deepest level of the Allied system.

  In fact, the real danger for the Germans lay in the deep level, which contained two galleries loaded with the massive mines that would be detonated on the morning of the offensive. These were accessed from the Berlin Tunnel, which, after the intermediate level, continued, the incline finally descending to a depth of nearly 28 metres. Here to the left was a chamber nearly 100 metres long.

  Another tunnel had been dug out from the Berlin Sap to the right for 150 metres to a point just past the Caterpillar spoil dump. By August 1916, the Canadians had laid into the Hill 60 gallery high explosives including 21 tonnes of ammonal and 3.5 tonnes of guncotton packed into petrol tins and sealed with pitch. They had completed the tamping of the mine with bags of earth taken from their digging beneath the Caterpillar.

  No sooner had they finished this than water burst in, flooding the Berlin Tunnel and cutting off the newly laid charge beneath Hill 60. The tunnel was also filled with carbon monoxide gas from the firing of German camouflets and so a double problem confronted the Canadian tunnellers. Though the Australian Alphabet Company had installed electricity for pumps and ventilation, this equipment soon broke down and hand pumps had to be used. Once the Canadians had pumped the water out they were then able to check their explosives. Fortunately the petrol tins and pitch had kept out the moisture, and the explosives were sound and undamaged. They added more ammonal, and nine firing circuits with more than 60 detonators spread amongst the charges. By October 1916 they had also packed the gallery under the Caterpillar with 32 tonnes of ammonal and tamped it, ready for firing.

  During this work, they broke into a German gallery, which they found extended well behind the British lines but had been abandoned. They quickly incorporated this into their new system. However, soon afterwards the Germans were heard pushing a tunnel forward very close to the already tamped Hill 60 mine, and GHQ, knowing the work and the fatalities involved in its construction, gave permission to fire the mine if necessary. In the end it was not necessary, as the Ca
nadians cleverly diverted the German effort by selectively countermining their galleries and putting them off their work.

  At 7 am on 4 November 1916, as Oliver Woodward staggered exhausted from his first shift underground at Hill 60, he was familiar with the tunnels, the listening posts and the German work in the area, and he had a new appreciation for the men who formed the first line of underground defence, the men of the uncelebrated and largely ignored listening service.

  As the cold, black night gave way to the weak rays of the dawn sunlight, Oliver Woodward slipped into his dugout and lay down. Although it was only a six-hour shift, it had been an arduous one, especially after the exhausting trek up to the line. He had secured two extra blankets, good Australian wool ones, too, but these were not enough to keep out the cold. He felt the chill along the length of his spine and shivered as he drew up his knees and pulled the itchy woollen blankets over his head. He had done this in Tenterfield as a kid when the winter temperatures had dropped and the frost had covered the front lawn. How he wished he were in Tenterfield. He thought of his family and the boys he had grown up with – so many of them here in Belgium now, shivering just like him.