JUST a year ago, I watched a British media special about this very crater and the battle of the Somme. The host walked along the rim under those trees and discovered a palm size part of a human skull !! Can't remember the name of the show but it left a big impression on me. I'm sure there are many more just below the surface.
I was privilaged to visit the crater in Sep 2016. My heart went out to both sides. Thank you to the owner for making it available to the public. Thank you sir!
I went down a rabbit hole and found this. 4,000 feet into the air. It must have looked and felt like the gates of hell rattled and opened. A War to end Wars? Sadly not, but that does not diminish the courage and the heroism of men as young as 12 who fought and died so we could be free. It was done once again for us and several Wars since but WW1 & WW2 should show us that such things should never be repeated. The toll was not just in the dead and wounded which numbered 40 million in WW1 but those whose minds would never be the same again. RIP and we will meet again. Thank you for this video. I really appreciate your take on this bloody day.
"but that does not diminish the courage and the heroism of men as young as 12 who fought and died so we could be free." If you honestly believe the world wars (or any other) wars are fought so that you can be free then you're as foolish as the young men who were groomed into fighting the Great War *for exactly the same reason* . You do of course realize that Hitler and the nazis justified their wars and invasions so that *Germany and its people could become free* . Do you live in a country justifying invasion of other countries so that *you* can be "free" the same way as the nazis? Then you have learned *nothing* from history. We wouldn't even have the rise of Hitler and the nazis if not for the harsh Versailles Treaty. Ad to the fact Germany was constantly forced to pay expensive loans for their war damage. Then this angry Austrian corporal comes around and tells the people they're not going to take this abuse anymore and that the only way for them to be free is to brake free from their shackles put upon them by "enemy people". "the courage and the heroism of men as young as 12 " There's nothing heroic about war. Ask anybody who has been in one. There is just survival and who remains. History is written by the winners of wars not your "brave heroes". When it came to WWI the whole war was a gigantic p*ssing contest between the world's rivaling colonial powers. "but WW1 & WW2 should show us that such things should never be repeated." It WILL be repeated as long the likes of you see wars as very clear-cut black-and-white affairs and see them as "heroic": As long as you fail to understand that the guy on the other side is *equally convinced* he is doing it for something "heroic" and "noble". " It was done once again for us" Who are "us" ??
@@kungfucow547 WWI was not a "pissing match" per se, but rather a excellent example of why permanent alliances are bad. It also shows how important it is to maintain diplomatic relationships and minimize tensions. The whole thing was set off by the assasination of a locally important person by someone that we might consider a domestic terrorist by modern standards.
For all of you talking about Australian tunnelers, I am a former Royal Engineer. R.E.'s were tunneling for over a year before the first New Zealand troop arrived ( February 2016 ). The Australians arrived later. No one is criticing or demeaning NZ or Aus efforts, they were superb. The bottom line is that all tunelling units attached to the R.E.'s took advantage of the techniques and training developed before the Commonwealth units were even in existence. Got that? Before the Commonwealth units were even formed. The war was a collaborative effort with the Commonwealth coming together to beat the Germans. Those of you who feel it was an "Australian" or "NZ" or even "British" victory/achievement at the Lochnagar Crater need to check your thought processes. You are insulting the entire Royal Engineer corp. And remember that Aus and NZ soldiers were part of that corp, so therefore you are insulting them. It was a Commonwealth victory, it was an Allied victory. The entire R.E. corp worked for this. In case you are interested, the R.E. and equivalent's worldwide are underestimated as we don't ordinarily fight on the front lines. Our job is even more dangerous. It is we that build bridges, clear minefield's and the like under enemy fire. Our life expectancy is twenty-four hours. Any notion I had of surviving war as an R.E. ended when our training officer pointed out that a multiple-rocket launcher battery would wipe out a one square mile area with a single launch "and of course thay are going to target the engineeers building the bridge to allow infantry and tank brigades through." That was before the advent of drones, and we have all seen how devastating they can be. Do not insult our soldiers by turning this into a British v Australian "who deserves credit" issue. They fought together, they died together, do not insult these incredible men by talking stupid.
Very well put. Commonwealth or Empire it was all with a common root and a common goal, to overthrow the German Empire. But if you talk to any American they will tell you they saved us twice. They may have helped shorten it but the Commonwealth or Empire Soldiers from every Country and of every Nationality was responsible for the ending the War to end all Wars.
@John John's Knee I understand it very well. The sane and mature among us, including former soldiers, are entitled to take five minutes out of our day to point out uncomfortable (for some ) truths.
I think you're out of line here. Okay you're a little sensitive about this thing and who did what and when, but I don't see a direct attack with intent to insult. You need to relax a little bit. Go have a pint.
Clay Kickers. As brave as those who were up top but the unsung heroes who ended 10,000 lives in 4 minutes. Lives that needed to be lost to boost the morale and help the stalemate.
I visited this a couple months back it is absolutely MASSIVE the crater I can’t imagine what it was like to be a soldier on both sides and seeing all that dirt go flying into the air
Shells we find today are artillery or plane bombs. These things always went off You don't forget were you buried a few tons of explosives in the ground
Denis Merlevede > many mine sites were abandoned and are still left there today. In fact in the 1950's an electrical company installing electric posts carrying power to homes, one of the poles was installed above an abandoned mine site which was hit by lightning which then detonated the buried explosives. The Messines ridge craters only twenty out of twenty six mine sites were detonated leaving six sites still buried to this day. All of this info is easily found online and here on YT.
"The guns will rust. Grass will grow and there'll be nothing left of any of this. The land will heal itself as everything does in the end. We'll be long gone by then but maybe not forgotten."
The crater was never an objective on the day, as whoever takes the credit for digging the mine, it was in the wrong place. It was supposed to be under the German front lines - but was actually a good distance in front of them. As a result many German soldiers survived the explosion in deep dugouts, which were rather better constructed than the British front lines. This is understandable as the Germans were in a prepared defensive position. This meant the day turned out very badly for the 10th (Service) Battalion, the Lincolnshire Regiment aka The Grimsby Chums. This was a “Pals” battalion - people recruited mostly from one town who knew each other, and in this case many from the same school. (I’m from Grimsby and went to that school, many years later). It was an inexperienced unit - effectively given a simple job of occupying the destroyed enemy lines. Instead, the ones who lived to get to the crater spent a long, hot summer’s day fighting and dying there until they could pull back under cover of darkness. No one seems to have thought beyond the high morale such a unit might have - to realise that whilst they might fight well that they would die together. The practice of recruiting these “Pals” units ceased shortly afterwards.
Thank you for that. Sad but true. I believe the same was for brothers. No brother could serve on the same ship or Corp for the same reason. A Mother finding that all of her sons have died is not good for morale.
From the “Grimsby Roll of Honour 1914 - 1919” published some time between 1919 - 1920, price sixpence. “We are apt to look back with pity, almost with terror, on the day and yet it was then that Grimsby lived its noblest, for despite the fact that officers were falling, that large gaps were torn in the ranks, the "Chums" kept their faces towards their objective, and never a word has come of any man finching. Of that magnificent body, only two officers came back unwounded, and only about 100 men, leaving some 400 or 500 dead and wounded behind. Yet one of the officers, Lieut. Hendin, with four men, reached the enemy's trenches, and went through to the third line, and hung on there for four days, collecting scattered parties and consolidating his defence. All touch was lost with the rear, the lieutenant and men were counted among the casualties, but to the surprise of headquarters he returned, and was later awarded the M.C. He was killed leading another attack in 1917. Among the casualties that day were Lieut. R. P. Eason, Sec. Lieut. L. Cummins (acting Adjutant), killed; Sec. Lieut. J. Shankster, killed; Sec. Lieut. W. Swift, killed; Lieut.-Col. (the Major) Vignoles, wounded; Capt. C. H. Bellamy, seriously wounded (the latter died from his wounds), and Lieut. R. Coote Green, wounded” A list of the dead from the town is included within a complete list of the Lincolnshire Regiment’s losses. No mention of the mine is made - rather that the artillery barrage had lifted too soon...
I dunno, just remember two mines full of explosives were left. One blew up in the 50's and the other has never been found. Also it was a joint effort not just " British "
@@jake567100 irregardless they were brave men who became The Royal Engineers. The Clay Kickers as they were called had previously dug sewers in London and other Cities. So they were from Britain but I can not be sure of their origin beyond that. Certainly WW1 was not a British Victory but one of 'The Empire', no matter how antiquated that term is now. Men from every corner answered the call and laid down their lives. But the tragedy for the Australians in WW1 was how the were used and abused and treated like lives that could be given up. I say this not in malice but their treatment by putting then into Gallipoli was wrong. They fought valiantly but it was a fight that should have been done very differently. The cost in Australian life was too high but I respect their courage, devotion, grit and bloody mindedness. They were very brave men indeed. I hope I have not caused you any offence, if so I apologise. I just see that front as a tragic waste of brave men. I hope this find you and yours well.
I visited here in 2019. There were still people being recovered then. A fantastic but mystifying place. The birds sing but there is a hush over the land, as if it is holding its breath waiting for something to happen.
Was going through the war diary of my great grandfather's unit (2nd division Canadian Railway troops) for remembrance day, here is the entry for the start of the battle of Messene: 6th of July 1917, Ypres: 3:12am "At this hour the party working on st Jean-Potijse road heard the terrific explosion to the south east, A forerunner of the offensive on that shoulder of the salient. the ground rocked and heaved for fully 5 seconds. This was the signal and was immediately followed by every battery in the district opening fire in unison. Enemy retaliation became general at once, though more distributed as usual. The st Jean Politijse road was traversed intermittently by shrapenel and machine gun fire. " "This was followed by a gas wave, forcing the men to stand by with gas respirators, and by the time it passed dawn had broken and the usual vigilence of the enemy for any movement in the vicinity was greatly increased making further progress [On the rail line] out of the question"
All that death and destruction for what? Just a waste of young life from both sides. My best friend's dad fought in the battle of D-Day in WW2. He fought in the battle of the bulge and saw so much killing that he became an Free Evangelical minister after the war.
Very interesting, but I 'm wondering if you could chime in on a key point. Indeed this operation was done by the British army, however many people recall hearing that it was Australians, myself included. Were these individuals Australian conscripts?
Thanks for the question! They were Australian but were fighting as part of the British army. I should have been more specific in the video when describing the soldiers involved in the digging.
Interestingly, This wasn't the first time an Army dug under an opposing force to blow them up. This tyoe of explosion also happened during the American Civil War believe or not. During the siege of Petersburg Virginia, in July of 1864, The Union detonated a massive explosion planted by a company of Pennsylvania Coal Miners under a Confederate position. The Union then attacked to maximize the confusion of the Rebs just like what the British did in 1916. Except that the Union wasn't sucessful. Instesd of going around the Crater, The Union actually went into the Crater and got trapped since the Crater was too steep. You would've saw thousands of bodies inside that crater. It was a cheap turkey shoot for the Confederates. Most of the Union troops were slaughtered or captured. Earlier, The Union Generals were training an all black regiment to lead the assauot on the Crater. They knew what they're doing and were expected to actually go around the Crater. But at the last minute, and replaced rhem with the inexperienced white troops who were not trained on how to attack the crater. Grant called them off since the troops were black and obviously, They were fighting against Racist Confederates. The Blacks would have been forced to fight to the death. And it eould be bad, politically. Sadly, while the the Union soldiers were getting slaughtered in the Crater, General Ambrose Burnside decided to send the black troops in. They met the same fate as their fellow white comrades, but in a mkre brutal fashion. The rallying cry of the black regiments was "No quarter" since they were enraged upon hearing what happened at the Fort Pillow Massacre where hundreds of surrendering black troops were slaughtered. Because The of this rallying cry, This also enraged the Rebs who gladly gave the Black troops No quarter in return. The Battle of the Crater.
@@theconvictedquokka Untrue, the 185th tunneling company of the royal engineers started the lochnagar mine 4 months before Australia even had a tunneling company
I am surprised that the British did not try to get this tunnel closer to the Germans before exploding. The Explosion just hit right outside even the outer boarder to the trench line. The explosion does not seem like it was very useful to have that crater.
@@trager8933 other than the explosion from this video being made by british people, yes the idea is the same. Mines being places in dug tunnels and set to explosion.
Had family die on thr somme my granda took me when his travling companion had a heart attack visited tyne cote vimmy ridge the teipval memorial and the meningate layed poppys at my fallen family the history and knowledge will never leave me
Next time do your homework properly. It wasn`t only the brits digging there. British 171st, 175th and 250th Tunnelling companies 1st Canadian, 3rd Canadian and 1st Australian Tunnelling companies
How about you go do your homework properly. You are talking about the Battle of Messines, which is not even the same battlefield as the Lochnagar Crater.....How can you be so full of yourself when you are wrong still. It was the british 179th tunnelling company and the 185th tunnelling company that did the mining for this explosion. It's even on the website of the foundation for this crater dude.... lochnagarcrater.org/history/mining-at-lochnagar/
Definitely, Australians who bombed this, that is a big mistake and rather offensive. also, it was not soldiers that tunneled and made the bomb, it was miners or civilians. The biggest bomb of WWI, before Hiroshima was NOT British, and NOT soldiers, it was Australian civilian miners. Get it right! The whole context of the war is lost due to such arrogant mistakes such as these. Not all those that fought were a soldier. The stretcher-bearers for the Australians were 16 years old, they were not soldiers either as they were too young. The British Military got the credit for this. The miners did what the British military could never do. They knew NOTHING about digging tunnels. Only miners did. The only miners in the Commonwealth who used explosives in mines were the miners in Queensland coal miners. They were experts at it. And this doesn't glorify war. It just shows who were sacrificed for this war. Not all of them British soldiers.
AIF was part of the CMF, the 1st Australian Tunnelling Coy was attached to the Australian Mining Battalion. All being part of the Commonwealth were under British command. Regardless, all were soldiers of the relevant armies, no civilians were employed. The mining and placement of explosives was actually completed by the Canadian tunnellers before the Australians arrived. It was more than six months before the explosives were set off.
@ Fletcher. You obviously have some British issues, but relax buddy. Besides, you are incorrect. The Mines in the Battle of Messines were the largest planned explosion up until the 1945 Trinity atomic weapon test.
Well said mate, its like anything to do with the ww1 and the battle of the somme, also i have a trench art solid brass knife looking letter opener with e cattier and a ww1 french looking ww1 face and helmet head looking thing, which my partners grand father got it, he thought during ww1 and he gave it to us as a gift, in his last days, he was dying from asbestos poisoning after working for spicers paper and the old place / factory and remembering the nurse who came out to shave him and could not do it properly at all, so i did it and he was so grateful and said i did a better job then he could do, i started to cry. God bless him and he told me so many stories about losing his best mates during that war.🙏🙏✌✌👍👍
My great grandfather was a tunnel digger for that explosion he was a soldier but before the war a miner in cornwall like all of his friends. NOT Australian, the canadians then lad the explosives.
So no mention of the Canadian tunneling team No mention of the Australian tunneling team Just a *purely* British operation Facts seem to be things that are unimportant to Americans for some reason
JUST a year ago, I watched a British media special about this very crater and the battle of the Somme. The host walked along the rim under those trees and discovered a palm size part of a human skull !! Can't remember the name of the show but it left a big impression on me. I'm sure there are many more just below the surface.
Facts
It's nice seeing the guy from Beyond The Brick talking about stuff like this.
I was privilaged to visit the crater in Sep 2016. My heart went out to both sides. Thank you to the owner for making it available to the public. Thank you sir!
I went down a rabbit hole and found this. 4,000 feet into the air. It must have looked and felt like the gates of hell rattled and opened. A War to end Wars? Sadly not, but that does not diminish the courage and the heroism of men as young as 12 who fought and died so we could be free. It was done once again for us and several Wars since but WW1 & WW2 should show us that such things should never be repeated. The toll was not just in the dead and wounded which numbered 40 million in WW1 but those whose minds would never be the same again. RIP and we will meet again. Thank you for this video. I really appreciate your take on this bloody day.
"but that does not diminish the courage and the heroism of men as young as 12 who fought and died so we could be free."
If you honestly believe the world wars (or any other) wars are fought so that you can be free then you're as foolish as the young men who were groomed into fighting the Great War *for exactly the same reason* .
You do of course realize that Hitler and the nazis justified their wars and invasions so that *Germany and its people could become free* . Do you live in a country justifying invasion of other countries so that *you* can be "free" the same way as the nazis? Then you have learned *nothing* from history.
We wouldn't even have the rise of Hitler and the nazis if not for the harsh Versailles Treaty. Ad to the fact Germany was constantly forced to pay expensive loans for their war damage. Then this angry Austrian corporal comes around and tells the people they're not going to take this abuse anymore and that the only way for them to be free is to brake free from their shackles put upon them by "enemy people".
"the courage and the heroism of men as young as 12 " There's nothing heroic about war. Ask anybody who has been in one. There is just survival and who remains. History is written by the winners of wars not your "brave heroes".
When it came to WWI the whole war was a gigantic p*ssing contest between the world's rivaling colonial powers.
"but WW1 & WW2 should show us that such things should never be repeated." It WILL be repeated as long the likes of you see wars as very clear-cut black-and-white affairs and see them as "heroic": As long as you fail to understand that the guy on the other side is *equally convinced* he is doing it for something "heroic" and "noble".
" It was done once again for us" Who are "us" ??
Both WW1 and WW2 definitely represented major change in how wars were fought, though.
@@kungfucow547 WWI was not a "pissing match" per se, but rather a excellent example of why permanent alliances are bad. It also shows how important it is to maintain diplomatic relationships and minimize tensions.
The whole thing was set off by the assasination of a locally important person by someone that we might consider a domestic terrorist by modern standards.
Respect for showing such respect.
For all of you talking about Australian tunnelers, I am a former Royal Engineer. R.E.'s were tunneling for over a year before the first New Zealand troop arrived ( February 2016 ). The Australians arrived later. No one is criticing or demeaning NZ or Aus efforts, they were superb. The bottom line is that all tunelling units attached to the R.E.'s took advantage of the techniques and training developed before the Commonwealth units were even in existence. Got that? Before the Commonwealth units were even formed.
The war was a collaborative effort with the Commonwealth coming together to beat the Germans. Those of you who feel it was an "Australian" or "NZ" or even "British" victory/achievement at the Lochnagar Crater need to check your thought processes. You are insulting the entire Royal Engineer corp. And remember that Aus and NZ soldiers were part of that corp, so therefore you are insulting them. It was a Commonwealth victory, it was an Allied victory. The entire R.E. corp worked for this.
In case you are interested, the R.E. and equivalent's worldwide are underestimated as we don't ordinarily fight on the front lines. Our job is even more dangerous. It is we that build bridges, clear minefield's and the like under enemy fire. Our life expectancy is twenty-four hours. Any notion I had of surviving war as an R.E. ended when our training officer pointed out that a multiple-rocket launcher battery would wipe out a one square mile area with a single launch "and of course thay are going to target the engineeers building the bridge to allow infantry and tank brigades through." That was before the advent of drones, and we have all seen how devastating they can be.
Do not insult our soldiers by turning this into a British v Australian "who deserves credit" issue. They fought together, they died together, do not insult these incredible men by talking stupid.
Very well put. Commonwealth or Empire it was all with a common root and a common goal, to overthrow the German Empire. But if you talk to any American they will tell you they saved us twice. They may have helped shorten it but the Commonwealth or Empire Soldiers from every Country and of every Nationality was responsible for the ending the War to end all Wars.
@John John's Knee I understand it very well. The sane and mature among us, including former soldiers, are entitled to take five minutes out of our day to point out uncomfortable (for some ) truths.
And it only took the Commies another 75 years to overthrow Australia and NZ..
I think you're out of line here. Okay you're a little sensitive about this thing and who did what and when, but I don't see a direct attack with intent to insult. You need to relax a little bit. Go have a pint.
@@randmayfield5695 I'm a former RE, I know what I'm talking about, I doubt you do
They dug the clay out with wooden shovels using backboards which they also used to dig the sewer system out in the midlands uk.
Clay Kickers. As brave as those who were up top but the unsung heroes who ended 10,000 lives in 4 minutes. Lives that needed to be lost to boost the morale and help the stalemate.
@@chrisbentleywalkingandrambling The Moles . . .
I visited this a couple months back it is absolutely MASSIVE the crater I can’t imagine what it was like to be a soldier on both sides and seeing all that dirt go flying into the air
Cratère de la Boisselle on l’appelle en France.Tres impressionnant à voir en réalité.
Damn! Just like..........just, DAMN!!! No wonder its said the 'splosion was felt as far as London and Dublin. .....Damn.....!
140 miles away. London yes, Dublin no. But I bet it put the fear of God into the Hun.
THANKS for a great narrative.
Really enjoyed this. Well done.
Great video mate enjoyed this 👌
It’s the ones that didn’t go off that they’re worried about.
Shells we find today are artillery or plane bombs. These things always went off
You don't forget were you buried a few tons of explosives in the ground
Denis Merlevede > many mine sites were abandoned and are still left there today. In fact in the 1950's an electrical company installing electric posts carrying power to homes, one of the poles was installed above an abandoned mine site which was hit by lightning which then detonated the buried explosives. The Messines ridge craters only twenty out of twenty six mine sites were detonated leaving six sites still buried to this day.
All of this info is easily found online and here on YT.
@@dmyt58 Plenty of WW2 era plane bombs and artillery shells are still found to this day undetonated.
So unpredictable and unstable
A good explanation and well presented.
"The guns will rust. Grass will grow and there'll be nothing left of any of this.
The land will heal itself as everything does in the end.
We'll be long gone by then
but maybe not forgotten."
The crater was never an objective on the day, as whoever takes the credit for digging the mine, it was in the wrong place. It was supposed to be under the German front lines - but was actually a good distance in front of them.
As a result many German soldiers survived the explosion in deep dugouts, which were rather better constructed than the British front lines. This is understandable as the Germans were in a prepared defensive position.
This meant the day turned out very badly for the 10th (Service) Battalion, the Lincolnshire Regiment aka The Grimsby Chums. This was a “Pals” battalion - people recruited mostly from one town who knew each other, and in this case many from the same school. (I’m from Grimsby and went to that school, many years later).
It was an inexperienced unit - effectively given a simple job of occupying the destroyed enemy lines. Instead, the ones who lived to get to the crater spent a long, hot summer’s day fighting and dying there until they could pull back under cover of darkness.
No one seems to have thought beyond the high morale such a unit might have - to realise that whilst they might fight well that they would die together. The practice of recruiting these “Pals” units ceased shortly afterwards.
Thank you for that. Sad but true. I believe the same was for brothers. No brother could serve on the same ship or Corp for the same reason. A Mother finding that all of her sons have died is not good for morale.
From the “Grimsby Roll of Honour 1914 - 1919” published some time between 1919 - 1920, price sixpence.
“We are apt to look back with pity, almost with terror, on the day and yet it was then that Grimsby lived its noblest, for despite the fact that officers were falling, that large gaps were torn in the ranks, the "Chums" kept their faces towards their objective, and never a word has come of any man finching. Of that magnificent body, only two officers came back unwounded, and only about 100 men, leaving some 400 or 500 dead and wounded behind. Yet one of the officers, Lieut. Hendin, with four men, reached the enemy's trenches, and went through to the third line, and hung on there for four days, collecting scattered parties and consolidating his defence. All touch was lost with the rear, the lieutenant and men were counted among the casualties, but to the surprise of headquarters he returned, and was later awarded the M.C. He was killed leading another attack in 1917.
Among the casualties that day were Lieut. R. P. Eason, Sec. Lieut. L. Cummins (acting Adjutant), killed; Sec. Lieut. J. Shankster, killed; Sec. Lieut. W. Swift, killed; Lieut.-Col. (the Major) Vignoles, wounded; Capt. C. H. Bellamy, seriously wounded (the latter died from his wounds), and Lieut. R. Coote Green, wounded”
A list of the dead from the town is included within a complete list of the Lincolnshire Regiment’s losses. No mention of the mine is made - rather that the artillery barrage had lifted too soon...
Great History lesson
I read about the battle but now I got to actually see the site ………thank you !
Is this the guy from birck vault, looks spook familiar, but I'm not sure
Good job British! Truly a masterpiece maneuver the world will never forget!
They were Aussies not British I’m pretty certain
I dunno, just remember two mines full of explosives were left. One blew up in the 50's and the other has never been found. Also it was a joint effort not just " British "
@@jake567100 irregardless they were brave men who became The Royal Engineers. The Clay Kickers as they were called had previously dug sewers in London and other Cities. So they were from Britain but I can not be sure of their origin beyond that. Certainly WW1 was not a British Victory but one of 'The Empire', no matter how antiquated that term is now. Men from every corner answered the call and laid down their lives. But the tragedy for the Australians in WW1 was how the were used and abused and treated like lives that could be given up. I say this not in malice but their treatment by putting then into Gallipoli was wrong. They fought valiantly but it was a fight that should have been done very differently. The cost in Australian life was too high but I respect their courage, devotion, grit and bloody mindedness. They were very brave men indeed. I hope I have not caused you any offence, if so I apologise. I just see that front as a tragic waste of brave men. I hope this find you and yours well.
@@chrisbentleywalkingandrambling no doubt my friend. Every commonwealth nation sacrificed brave men, especially the British.
British@@jake567100
Wasn’t this done by an Australian tunneling company?
No that was the Hill 60 mines from the battle of Messines en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Messines_(1917)
Include Canadian Mining company
@@slavvodkaman9359 Stalin!?
uh oh why is Stalin here#
I visited here in 2019. There were still people being recovered then.
A fantastic but mystifying place. The birds sing but there is a hush over the land, as if it is holding its breath waiting for something to happen.
Yes. I experienced/felt same!
Been twice, worth a visit you do not get an idea of the size until standing there. Same goes for the craters at Messines.
Messine was 10,000 men dead in 8 seconds. Brutal but necessary unfortunately. I'll have to visit.
Agreed. I am staggered everytime I stand on the lip of Lochnagar
Was going through the war diary of my great grandfather's unit (2nd division Canadian Railway troops) for remembrance day, here is the entry for the start of the battle of Messene:
6th of July 1917, Ypres:
3:12am "At this hour the party working on st Jean-Potijse road heard the terrific explosion to the south east, A forerunner of the offensive on that shoulder of the salient. the ground rocked and heaved for fully 5 seconds. This was the signal and was immediately followed by every battery in the district opening fire in unison. Enemy retaliation became general at once, though more distributed as usual. The st Jean Politijse road was traversed intermittently by shrapenel and machine gun fire. "
"This was followed by a gas wave, forcing the men to stand by with gas respirators, and by the time it passed dawn had broken and the usual vigilence of the enemy for any movement in the vicinity was greatly increased making further progress [On the rail line] out of the question"
Apparently, Americans call Commonwealth troops all British. I've seen this in multiple vids now. But this one was actually British and Australians.
They dug with feet lying on a bench with something like a sod shovel
Very fast very silent
Clay kickers. It gave them both more leverage in the heavy clay of northern France and virtual silence while performing the task.
Great info. Thanks.
I had a single purpose for my trip to France and that was to visit the Somme. I made sure that I stopped at the Lochnagar Crater.
All that death and destruction for what? Just a waste of young life from both sides. My best friend's dad fought in the battle of D-Day in WW2. He fought in the battle of the bulge and saw so much killing that he became an Free Evangelical minister after the war.
Хорошо рассказал ! 👍🏻
Cool glasses bro
If giant holes in the ground is your thing i highly recommend learning about an american battle called the battle of pilot knob!
If giant holes in the ground is your think i highly recommend looking into an american battle called the battle of piolot knob during the civil war
Just watched the movie about the tunnelling and crater explosion. It's called 'The War Below'. (released October 2021) I highly recommend this movie.
It was Australian Coal and gold Miners that dug the shafts.
Tiffin is there
😥😥😥
Nice article. Thanks.
More info needed, where's the soil go, before and after pictures will tell the truth
The movie beneath hill 60 is on UA-cam for free with no ads. It’s about this explosion.
Very good. Thank you.
Are there still remains of German soldiers beneath or in the sides of the crater?
Didn't know Tim Heidecker was into history. Very cool.
Lots of the miners were from Cornwall rin and clay mining cant believe how big n deep it was salute to them all rip🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏😢😢😢😢
Look up Durand group on youtube . There still digging up tunnles and removing explosives.. very very interesting
i searched but found nothing.
@@joshuariddle4420 try. Thedurandgroup ww1 tunnels
Mostly ammonia nitrate bags for explosives...
Ammonal (80% NH4NO3 and 20%TNT 1.2 RE factor)
Very interesting, but I 'm wondering if you could chime in on a key point. Indeed this operation was done by the British army, however many people recall hearing that it was Australians, myself included. Were these individuals Australian conscripts?
Thanks for the question! They were Australian but were fighting as part of the British army. I should have been more specific in the video when describing the soldiers involved in the digging.
@@destinationsofhistory7077 No worries mate! Thank you for the excellent video and for your response. It all makes sense now
Imagine how many German and British bodies are buried just below
May they all rest in peace
100 feet or 70
Interestingly, This wasn't the first time an Army dug under an opposing force to blow them up. This tyoe of explosion also happened during the American Civil War believe or not. During the siege of Petersburg Virginia, in July of 1864, The Union detonated a massive explosion planted by a company of Pennsylvania Coal Miners under a Confederate position. The Union then attacked to maximize the confusion of the Rebs just like what the British did in 1916. Except that the Union wasn't sucessful. Instesd of going around the Crater, The Union actually went into the Crater and got trapped since the Crater was too steep. You would've saw thousands of bodies inside that crater. It was a cheap turkey shoot for the Confederates. Most of the Union troops were slaughtered or captured. Earlier, The Union Generals were training an all black regiment to lead the assauot on the Crater. They knew what they're doing and were expected to actually go around the Crater. But at the last minute, and replaced rhem with the inexperienced white troops who were not trained on how to attack the crater. Grant called them off since the troops were black and obviously, They were fighting against Racist Confederates. The Blacks would have been forced to fight to the death. And it eould be bad, politically. Sadly, while the the Union soldiers were getting slaughtered in the Crater, General Ambrose Burnside decided to send the black troops in. They met the same fate as their fellow white comrades, but in a mkre brutal fashion. The rallying cry of the black regiments was "No quarter" since they were enraged upon hearing what happened at the Fort Pillow Massacre where hundreds of surrendering black troops were slaughtered. Because The of this rallying cry, This also enraged the Rebs who gladly gave the Black troops No quarter in return.
The Battle of the Crater.
Thanks for sharing! Digging under enemy defenses was also a tactic used during the medieval period to undermine castle walls.
Australian job not British, I'm British and know this pls do more research before doing your documentary.
you clearly dont know it, british, canadian and australians worked on the mine
Elliot it was Australian except the only British in the team was the officer that was 100 km away
@@theconvictedquokka Untrue, the 185th tunneling company of the royal engineers started the lochnagar mine 4 months before Australia even had a tunneling company
Dude im british and know This its just a bad argument
It was a joint task pls do your research befor you comment
I am surprised that the British did not try to get this tunnel closer to the Germans before exploding. The Explosion just hit right outside even the outer boarder to the trench line. The explosion does not seem like it was very useful to have that crater.
Border
They where Aussie not the poms
@@stevenflynntheghost4845 I would imagine he got most of his info from the plaques at the sight blame the French for getting it wrong
it was timed limited, they had to do it then or else risk getting caught
Great vid i love your stuff and i love you too
My grandfather was there. He said a hill disappeared. The surviving German troops walked about like zombies
They stayed silent by a process called clay kicking, had nothing to do with bayonets
is there any actual footage of it going off?
@@trager8933 No it's not, Hill 60 was around Ypres from the battle of Messines ridge and Lochnagar Crater is from the battle of the Somme......
@@arjan2125 But Its basicly the same concept right. Australian miners digging tunnels and placing explosives ? Right ?
@@trager8933 other than the explosion from this video being made by british people, yes the idea is the same. Mines being places in dug tunnels and set to explosion.
ua-cam.com/video/S4FCXbzlaPE/v-deo.html
This is the footage of the Messines explosions.
Wait there is a movie about this called beneath Hill 60
They said 100 feet deep BUT THE COMMENTS SAID 70
WHO SHOULD WE BELIEVE
Like: 100
Comment:70
You should do more than 30 minutes of research before making a video
I'm literally shocked there is an American in Europe. Liked just for that. Someone's going to tell me your Candian now
Very cool
Wait your meant to be doing LEGO interviews hmmmmmmm
Jeez I bet there is a lot of "activity" there now.
I didn’t realize he’s American until the “There’s a lot of free parking” 🙄
Had family die on thr somme my granda took me when his travling companion had a heart attack visited tyne cote vimmy ridge the teipval memorial and the meningate layed poppys at my fallen family the history and knowledge will never leave me
Not the Lochnagar in the Cairngorms
It’s a big F ing hole …there are 500 people looking into a big F ing hole
the British ? It was mostly Australian miners check your history.
That crater looks like it could have been made by a small nuclear warhead😮😮😮
Crazy they had a glory hole in the middle of a battle. They even have it pointed out on the map.
Edit: im an idiot, they had 2
Trench’s are not 40ft deep
Alex no name tunnels under trenches might be.
When men fought like ants with guns and explosives
Can you bring your MTB to cycle down and up here? If no: I'm not interested in a fucking hole in the ground in bloody Flanders.
It's was one of the biggest explosions in human history
No...
wouldn’t say that...
Tsar is laughing !!!
@@sIurz one of. Not the biggest, just one of. I also think he means conventional, and not nuclear.
The Teuton King well he edited the comment
Next time do your homework properly. It wasn`t only the brits digging there.
British 171st, 175th and 250th Tunnelling companies
1st Canadian, 3rd Canadian and 1st Australian Tunnelling companies
Nice copy and paste from wiki there :)
@@spaceoddity3958 Well, so long as the info is accurate...
@@StevenTorrey I agree with you Steven.
How about you go do your homework properly. You are talking about the Battle of Messines, which is not even the same battlefield as the Lochnagar Crater.....How can you be so full of yourself when you are wrong still. It was the british 179th tunnelling company and the 185th tunnelling company that did the mining for this explosion. It's even on the website of the foundation for this crater dude.... lochnagarcrater.org/history/mining-at-lochnagar/
This give you an idea how cruel the English were if Germany won we could know another different story about the war !
Shut up you divvy
The diggers did the mining, not the limeys.
Atkeast they can use it as a lake
Netflix...see "World War 1 from Above".
Definitely, Australians who bombed this, that is a big mistake and rather offensive. also, it was not soldiers that tunneled and made the bomb, it was miners or civilians. The biggest bomb of WWI, before Hiroshima was NOT British, and NOT soldiers, it was Australian civilian miners. Get it right! The whole context of the war is lost due to such arrogant mistakes such as these. Not all those that fought were a soldier. The stretcher-bearers for the Australians were 16 years old, they were not soldiers either as they were too young. The British Military got the credit for this. The miners did what the British military could never do. They knew NOTHING about digging tunnels. Only miners did. The only miners in the Commonwealth who used explosives in mines were the miners in Queensland coal miners. They were experts at it. And this doesn't glorify war. It just shows who were sacrificed for this war. Not all of them British soldiers.
AIF was part of the CMF, the 1st Australian Tunnelling Coy was attached to the Australian Mining Battalion. All being part of the Commonwealth were under British command. Regardless, all were soldiers of the relevant armies, no civilians were employed. The mining and placement of explosives was actually completed by the Canadian tunnellers before the Australians arrived. It was more than six months before the explosives were set off.
@@26TptCoy Interesting. Thank you for your post.
@ Fletcher. You obviously have some British issues, but relax buddy. Besides, you are incorrect. The Mines in the Battle of Messines were the largest planned explosion up until the 1945 Trinity atomic weapon test.
Well said mate, its like anything to do with the ww1 and the battle of the somme, also i have a trench art solid brass knife looking letter opener with e cattier and a ww1 french looking ww1 face and helmet head looking thing, which my partners grand father got it, he thought during ww1 and he gave it to us as a gift, in his last days, he was dying from asbestos poisoning after working for spicers paper and the old place / factory and remembering the nurse who came out to shave him and could not do it properly at all, so i did it and he was so grateful and said i did a better job then he could do, i started to cry. God bless him and he told me so many stories about losing his best mates during that war.🙏🙏✌✌👍👍
My great grandfather was a tunnel digger for that explosion he was a soldier but before the war a miner in cornwall like all of his friends. NOT Australian, the canadians then lad the explosives.
In America we call this meteor that hit ☄️😆
the first atomic bomb was dropped at the end of world war 2 do you know your history?
Relevance?
Are we just going to ignore the "Glory Hole" on the map?
This thing is essentially the worlds deepest grave
TheKyubiisaan Ocean?
Anyone else getting No Man's World vibes here?
And it was much deeper bro do you even history???
Have you not heard of Clay-Kicking? Do some research to see how the tunnels were dug. Stopped watching at 02:30, as it wasn't going to get better.
Them badass dug using their fingernails and ate carrots to see in the dark 😂
The know it all is offended!
Lots of German blood all over there
Wearing sunglasses? Lose them. Being detached from what you were presenting made it impersonal.
You weren't in Iraq or Afghanistan.
They didn't like it up em
It was the Australians not British please do your research next time
They found a German body 4 miles away 😳 weeeeeeeeeeeeee.... lol 😆
Literally no one
Me ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ that would be a good swimming pool we just re-shaped a little
So no mention of the Canadian tunneling team
No mention of the Australian tunneling team
Just a *purely* British operation
Facts seem to be things that are unimportant to Americans for some reason
You are thinking of Hill 60 explosion, that is a different thing, go and read up on it instead of hating on a random american person
The 1st Australian Tunnelling Company
#downlivesmatter
🤡🤡🤡
Imagine a cena que deve ter sido.