Last week there was an excellent documentary on the BBC entitled 'The Somme: Secret Tunnel Wars', presented by Peter Barton. It is well worth a watch.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01skvnh/
The documentary focussed on the subterrenean war beneath the battlefields of the Western Front, which although having received some coverage in Sebastian Faulk's 'Birdsong' and recent Australian film 'Beneath Hill 60' is generally one of the less well known aspects of the Great War. In particular, the documentary focusses on the vicious campaign of mining and counter mining fought between the British and Germans at La Boiselle, at a place known as 'The Glory Hole', where an elite British mining team, formed from a group of men who formerly excavated the sewers underneath Manchester, set about trying to undermine and blow up the German positions in advance of the battle of the Somme in July 1916. Watching Barton descend into these tunnels, closed for nigh on 100 years, and from which certain individuals still reside, trapped under hundreds of meters of French soil, was rather terrifying. Once again, one is reminded of the extraordinary danger men of the Great War were put through day after day, although surely the horror of being buried alive with no chance of rescue must rank among the most terrible of fates!
Earlier in the year during our Year 9 trip to the Somme we drove past the excavations at this location whilst returning from the remains of the Lochnagar crater, itself the work of the miners who were the subject of this programme.
More on the project at the 'Glory Hole' can be found here http://www.laboisselleproject.com/
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