I watched this last night
i had never even thought of miners going to war especially as miners,but this true story tells one hell of a good tale. it does have a few discrepancies ...like the Brits started the mines in 1914 then came the Canadians ...and the aussies never came till a year or so later.but it is an aussie film (the best i have ever seen) so you can expect a bit of favoritism. here's a review.
1915. Two massive armies facing each other along the Western Front have fought themselves to a standstill. The count down to the Battle of Messines Ridge has begun. The allies’ audacious plan to break the deadlock depends on a small company of Australian miners led by Captain Oliver Woodward.

These ordinary men from mining towns across Australia were given just two weeks military training before being thrust into the war. Poorly equipped, with scant regard for military etiquette, the miners’ task is to defend a leaking, labyrinthine tunnel system snaking beneath the Messines Ridge. The tunnels hide a deadly secret; a series of massive mines. If the plan succeeds it will produce the biggest explosion the world has ever known and could change the course of the war.

But no-one seems to know when the order will be given to blow the mines. With constant inundation of mud and water and endless vibrations from heavy artillery, the tunnels are in imminent danger of collapse. Disaster looms as the Germans discover the Australians’ underground activity. A deadly cat-and-mouse game is played out thirty metres below the fields of Flanders and, as zero hour approaches, the whole allied strategy could be in jeopardy.

this place is now on my must visit list,as allot of the trenches and craters still remain as does whats left of the hill ..

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There's also one of the two mines that didn't go off on the day still full of bang - I saw a programme some years back where they spoke to the farmer who lives on top of the site, who was fairly sanguine about it, his attitude was "if it goes off, I won't know about it because I'll be dead straight away" 😮

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Where did you see it? Doesn't seem to be available round these parts.

There is a web-site Heroes of Mine a Mines Rescue site. It has some very interesting information about the Mines Rescue involvement with the Western Front tunneling war.

been told one of the several that didnt go off was set off by litening (in the 50s?) and vanished a farm and all its buildings.
hubby is into all that history stuff

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try this book for more information on the subject. You will find this type of attack was developed well before WW1

http://www.moorebooks.co.uk/shelves/cart.php?target=product&product_id=18437&substring= 

Mike

would be willing to send a copy to interested people...at the price of a stamp 😮
pm me .

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For further information re Hill 60, we have previously mentioned this topic on AN Forum in the topic "Eerie places above ground" dated 3rd July, 2009. Look at Toadstone's entry for the 29th July in which he kindly gave us a "link" to the website of the Australian film "Beneath Hill 60" which was being filmed in 2009. The website address is:-

http://www.beneathhill60.com.au/index.htm 

and gives a lot of interesting information and photographs.

We also mentioned Hill 60 on the forum on the 8th February, 2009 in the topic "FS Book of Miners who fought in the first world war".

I thought that as it's of interest (although slightly :offtopic: ) I'd tie in the topics in which we've discussed it, so all available information can be read by AN members who have joined the forum since the earlier information was put up on the site and are interested in Hill 60.

My interest lies in the fact that my father (also Iclok's grandfather) were there as part of the 46th (North Midlands) Division, which served on the front line of the Ypres Salient, where Hill 60 was sited, between July-September, 1915. As a small child I grew up with tales of the "Great War", it was very much a part of our lives, now just long forgotten memories. Another interesting book that I have is "Captain Staniland's Journal - The North Midland Territorials Go To War" by Martin Middlebrook published by Leo Cooper an imprint of Pen and Sword Books Ltd., in 2003. On page 50 there is an excellent map of the Ypres Salient shewing the position of the front line at the beginning of July, 1915.

This was was one of the first tasks of the newly created 171st Tunneling Company (under the command of Norton Griffiths - good book on the subject Barrie, A. [1961] War Underground. Ballantine Books. - a newer edition is now available).

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As this topic has come up more than once and several forum members have a personal interest in it I've put 8 photos in my personal album. All were from a visit in July 1937 before the site was 'modified' by WWII and therefore represent views that are no longer available. The memorial to Queen Victoria's Rifles was destroyed in 1940 and was replaced after WWII by a smaller memorial built from the debris of the original.

Hill 60
🔗Personal-Album-3945-Image-54493[linkphoto]Personal-Album-3945-Image-54493[/linkphoto][/link]

Some degree of underground access seems to have possible pre-WWII
🔗Personal-Album-3945-Image-54497[linkphoto]Personal-Album-3945-Image-54497[/linkphoto][/link]

Preserved trench
🔗Personal-Album-3945-Image-54496[linkphoto]Personal-Album-3945-Image-54496[/linkphoto][/link]

Pill box (still there I believe)
🔗Personal-Album-3945-Image-54495[linkphoto]Personal-Album-3945-Image-54495[/linkphoto][/link]

3 Photos of the original memorial to Queen Victoria's Rifles
🔗Personal-Album-3945-Image-54490[linkphoto]Personal-Album-3945-Image-54490[/linkphoto][/link]

🔗Personal-Album-3945-Image-54491[linkphoto]Personal-Album-3945-Image-54491[/linkphoto][/link]

🔗Personal-Album-3945-Image-54494[linkphoto]Personal-Album-3945-Image-54494[/linkphoto][/link]

Memorial to 1st Australian Tunnelling Company
🔗Personal-Album-3945-Image-54492[linkphoto]Personal-Album-3945-Image-54492[/linkphoto][/link]

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Dear Digit... great photos... I like the one saying tunnels... I still find it incredible that mining and warfare have gone hand in hand for centuries.... 🙂

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There are various practice works by the Canadians near here 1st and 2nd WW, including at least one mine that my brother rediscovered last year. Message me if you want to know a bit more.

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Thats where the Free Miner`s of the FOD got thier granted rights,for tunneling under ? Castle.

Tunneling with the use of explosives was well documented in the American Civil War.

it was on one of the discovery channels, tons of nasty stuff just stacked up, some with old detts and primed, I would NOT liked to have been near it or even lived with 50 miles of the place, and they are still finding more and more of em....a tourist place....mmmmm 😮

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Think our's is clear, but stuff does turn up from time to time, mostly mortars.

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I went to a farm near Bastogne some years ago as a guest of a Belgian Railways official.... The farmer had just discovered about 30 x 88mm Rounds (AP) scattered through a part of his copse he had just felled .... I asked who had picked them up and stacked them so nicely by his house.... "I did" he replied 😮 .... It felt a little odd eating dinner in the knowledge that on the otherside of his wall was enough HE to send us all to Kingdom come!

He apparently had a pretty good metalware harvest every year ranging from MG42 ammo by metre and lots of mortar rounds.... his farm was heavily damaged during the war and he rebuilt it. He had some lovely bits and bobs of American memorabilia as they used his place as a checkpoint.

Apparently every so many months the army would come and collect said munitions!

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Probably the biggest link to warfare and mining in Cornwal,l is the inordinate amount of munitions that were dumped down mineshafts when the Americans upped sticks and left. Being one of the group that first got into Wheal Uny we found anti personel mines and rifle rounds.
Whilst crawling through two feet deep mud overlian with a foot of water under the downs near St Agnes at Wheal Devonshire, A friend put his hand down onto something solid and pulled out a live mortar round!!!.......Nice! :blink:

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a bit nearer home, I used to dig for spent bullets on a shooting range on the old Palais Royal grounds at Matlock Bath during the war, the army used it for a while. ...a long sand pit with a sandbag bank at one end. the old building was a brilliant playground for a 5 year old.

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There an old shooting range near here that's still full of unexploded munitions etc. CCW in their 'wisdom' designated it 'Open Access Land' a few years ago. A nightmare for the FC as they own the land. :lol: :lol: :lol:

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I took some good pictures of hill 60 during a visit to my Great uncles war grave, but I am not sure how to upload them !! :surrender:

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