WW1 Underground (1 Viewer)

[Rob]

Today a search of underground tunnels and dugouts around the glory hole on the Somme begins, it will take years of work and those involved hope to recover many bodies of lost tunnellers and Soldiers. Its been all over the BBC news today and is the biggest search ever undertaken on the Somme. Heres hoping the years ahead recover many of our heroes and give them the burial they so richly deserve.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13630203

Rob

 

[lancer]

Very interesting, Rob. Thanks for posting this. I can't help but wonder if any of those tunnels will be intact after all this time. It will certainly be a pain staking process and I wish them success. A very worthy undertaking. -- Al

 

[Rob]

You're welcome mate.I was wondering the same thing Al, I know some of them are intact but the dry chalky soil on the Somme probably isn't as good at preserving as the wet soil of the Ypre Salient. They started today and have already begun entering tunnels, as soon as they started they found a poem written on the side of a tunnel by a soldier sheltering there. The years are going to turn up many many things I think.

Rob

 

[Mitch]

I saw that and watched some of the reading of the walls that the miners etc wrote underground at the time. Very moving
Mitch

 

[trooper]

The underground war is still potentially lethal. When the mines under Messines Ridge were set off two failed to detonate and the scenery was so disrupted during the ensuing combat that their location was lost. One exploded during a lightning storm back in the 1950s, fortunately with no loss of life and little material damage apart from a few broken windows. The second was found a year or so ago and a TV program showed the chamber still packed with boxes of explosives. I don't recall any follow up to this program and so don't know when, if or how the discovery was treated but I should imagine that after all these years the find would have been highly unstable. Trooper

 

[Rob]

Yes I remember the program and it was quite eerie to see all that explosive sitting there sweating away just waiting to go up. I had a feeling it was said to be so dangerous they preferred to keep it where it was. There was another docu in which there is another one sitting waiting to go up under the car park on Vimy ridge.

Rob

 

[lancer]

The underground war is still potentially lethal. When the mines under Messines Ridge were set off two failed to detonate and the scenery was so disrupted during the ensuing combat that their location was lost. One exploded during a lightning storm back in the 1950s, fortunately with no loss of life and little material damage apart from a few broken windows. The second was found a year or so ago and a TV program showed the chamber still packed with boxes of explosives. I don't recall any follow up to this program and so don't know when, if or how the discovery was treated but I should imagine that after all these years the find would have been highly unstable. Trooper

A mystery solved. Thank you. I have always wondered about that missing mine. Glad to know it was found without it going boom. -- Al