The 252nd Tunnelling Company was one of the tunnelling companies of the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

created by the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. The tunnelling units were occupied in offensive and defensive mining involving the placing and maintaining of mines under enemy lines, as well as other underground work such as the construction of deep dugouts for troop accommodation, the digging of subways, saps (a narrow trench dug to approach enemy trenches), cable trenches and underground chambers for signals and medical services.The Tunnelling Companies RE
, access date 25 April 2015 252nd Tunnelling Company is particularly known for creating the

Hawthorn Ridge mine Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt was a German field fortification, west of the village of Beaumont Hamel on the Somme. The redoubt was built after the end of the Battle of Albert (25–29 September 1914) and as French and later British attacks on the We ...

during the

Battle of the Somme The Battle of the Somme ( French: Bataille de la Somme), also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place bet ...

1916, which formed part of a series of mines that were placed beneath the German lines.

Background

By January 1915 it had become evident to the BEF at the Western Front that the Germans were

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

to a planned system. As the British had failed to develop suitable counter-tactics or underground listening devices before the war, field marshals French and Kitchener agreed to investigate the suitability of forming British mining units. Following consultations between the Engineer-in-Chief of the BEF, Brigadier George Fowke, and the mining specialist

John Norton-Griffiths Lieutenant-Colonel Sir John Norton-Griffiths, 1st Baronet, (13 July 1871 – 27 September 1930) was an engineer, British Army officer during the Second Boer War and the First World War, and a Member of Parliament. A colourful figure in his day ...

, the

War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...

formally approved the tunnelling company scheme on 19 February 1915. Norton-Griffiths ensured that tunnelling companies numbers 170 to 177 were ready for deployment in mid-February 1915. In the spring of that year, there was constant underground fighting in the

Ypres Salient The Ypres Salient around Ypres in Belgium was the scene of several battles and an extremely important part of the Western front during the First World War. Ypres district Ypres lies at the junction of the Ypres–Comines Canal and the Ieperlee. ...

at Hooge, Hill 60, Railway Wood,

Sanctuary Wood Sanctuary Wood is an area east of Ypres, Belgium which was the site of fighting on the Ypres Salient in World War I. Memorials * Hill 62 Memorial * Sanctuary Wood Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery * Sanctuary Wood Museum Hill 62 See al ...

, St Eloi and The Bluff which required the deployment of new drafts of tunnellers for several months after the formation of the first eight companies. The lack of suitably experienced men led to some tunnelling companies starting work later than others. The number of units available to the BEF was also restricted by the need to provide effective counter-measures to the German mining activities.Peter Barton/Peter Doyle/Johan Vandewalle, Beneath Flanders Fields - The Tunnellers' War 1914-1918, Staplehurst (Spellmount) (978-1862272378) p. 165. To make the tunnels safer and quicker to deploy, the British Army enlisted experienced coal miners, many outside their nominal recruitment policy. The first nine companies, numbers 170 to 178, were each commanded by a regular Royal Engineers officer. These companies each comprised 5 officers and 269 sappers; they were aided by additional infantrymen who were temporarily attached to the tunnellers as required, which almost doubled their numbers. The success of the first tunnelling companies formed under Norton-Griffiths' command led to mining being made a separate branch of the Engineer-in-Chief's office under Major-General S.R. Rice, and the appointment of an 'Inspector of Mines' at the GHQ

Saint-Omer Saint-Omer (; vls, Sint-Omaars) is a commune and sub-prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais department in France. It is west-northwest of Lille on the railway to Calais, and is located in the Artois province. The town is named after Saint Audomar, ...

office of the Engineer-in-Chief. A second group of tunnelling companies were formed from

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

miners from the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the

Monmouthshire Regiment The Monmouthshire Regiment was a Army Reserve (United Kingdom), Territorial infantry regiment of the British Army. Originating in units of Volunteer Force (Great Britain), rifle volunteers formed in Monmouthshire (historic), Monmouthshire in 1859, ...

, who were attached to the 1st Northumberland Field Company of the Royal Engineers, which was a

Territorial A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...

unit. The formation of twelve new tunnelling companies, between July and October 1915, helped to bring more men into action in other parts of the Western Front.Peter Barton/Peter Doyle/Johan Vandewalle, Beneath Flanders Fields - The Tunnellers' War 1914-1918, Staplehurst (Spellmount) (978-1862272378) p. 165. Most tunnelling companies were formed under Norton-Griffiths' leadership during 1915, and one more was added in 1916.Watson & Rinaldi, p. 52. On 10 September 1915, the British government sent an appeal to

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

to raise tunnelling companies in the

Dominion The term ''Dominion'' is used to refer to one of several self-governing nations of the British Empire. "Dominion status" was first accorded to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the Irish Free State at the 1926 ...

s of the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...

. On 17 September, New Zealand became the first Dominion to agree to the formation of a tunnelling unit. The

New Zealand Tunnelling Company The New Zealand Tunnelling Company (also ''New Zealand Engineers Tunnelling Company'') was a tunnel warfare unit of the Royal New Zealand Engineers during World War I which specialised in sapping and mining. The tunnelling companies were occupied ...

arrived at

Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymouth ...

on 3 February 1916 and was deployed to the Western Front in northern France.Anthony Byledbal, "New Zealand Tunnelling Company: Chronology"
online
), access date 5 July 2015 A

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

unit was formed from men on the battlefield, plus two other companies trained in Canada and then shipped to France. Three

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Au ...

tunnelling companies were formed by March 1916, resulting in 30 tunnelling companies of the Royal Engineers being available by the summer of 1916.

Unit history

The Somme 1915/16

Beaumont-Hamel - General view of the battlefield

In the Somme sector of the Western Front, local but very fierce underground fighting had taken place in the winter of 1914 and spring of 1915 at

La Boisselle Ovillers-la-Boisselle is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. Geography The commune of Ovillers-la-Boisselle is situated northeast of Amiens and extends to the north and south of the D 929 Albert–Bapaume r ...

Fricourt Fricourt () is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. Geography Fricourt is situated on the D147 and D64 junction, some northeast of Amiens. History Fricourt is about a kilometre from Mametz. It was close to ...

, Bois Français and

Carnoy Carnoy () is a former commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. On 1 January 2019, it was merged into the new commune Carnoy-Mametz.Fowke moved the 174th and 183rd Tunnelling Companies there to relieve the French engineers, but the British did not have enough miners to take over the large number of French shafts and the French agreed to leave their engineers at work for several weeks. To provide the tunnellers needed, the British formed the 178th and 179th Tunnelling Companies in August 1915, followed by the 185th and 252nd Tunnelling Companies in October. The

181st Tunnelling Company The 181st Tunnelling Company was one of the tunnelling companies of the Royal Engineers created by the British Army during World War I. The tunnelling units were occupied in offensive and defensive mining involving the placing and maintaining of ...

was also present on the Somme. The tunnelling companies were to make two major contributions to the Allied preparations for the

(1 July – 18 November 1916) by placing 19 large and small mines beneath the German positions along the front line and by preparing a series of shallow

Russian sap Sapping is a term used in siege operations to describe the digging of a covered trench (a "sap") to approach a besieged place without danger from the enemy's fire. (verb) The purpose of the sap is usually to advance a besieging army's positio ...

s from the British front line into

no man's land No man's land is waste or unowned land or an uninhabited or desolate area that may be under dispute between parties who leave it unoccupied out of fear or uncertainty. The term was originally used to define a contested territory or a dump ...

, which would be opened at zero hour and allow the infantry to attack the German positions from a comparatively short distance. From October 1915 until April 1919 252nd Tunnelling Company served under Third Army. After its formation, the company was employed in the Hebuterne-

Beaumont-Hamel Beaumont-Hamel () is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. During the First World War, Beaumont-Hamel was close to the front line, near many attacks, especially during the Battle of the Somme, one of the larg ...

sector of the battlefield, where it helped prepare the opening of the battle on 1 July 1916 and continued operations throughout the fight. In the north of the battlefield, the unit dug a large mine, code named ''H3'', at

Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt was a German Empire, German field fortification, west of the village of Beaumont Hamel on the Somme River, Somme. The redoubt was built after the end of the Battle of Albert (1914), Battle of Albert (25–29 September 1914 ...

and prepared twelve

s facing Serre. Digging the saps required a large force of labour, and by April 1916 the unit had 1,900 infantry attached. Near the Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt at Beaumont-Hamel, 252nd Tunnelling Company excavated three tunnels under no man's land: The first was a tunnel dug overnight to link to the now famous

Sunken Lane A sunken lane (also hollow way or holloway) is a road or track that is significantly lower than the land on either side, not formed by the (recent) engineering of a road cutting but possibly of much greater age. Various mechanisms have been pro ...

(shown in the film

The Battle of the Somme The Battle of the Somme ( French: Bataille de la Somme), also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place be ...

, released in August 1916) with the old British front line, and through which British units moved into position before the attack. In the early hours of 1 July, the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers would use this tunnel to move up into the "Sunken Lane", the starting position for their attack on Beaumont-Hamel. The two other tunnels were

s, dug to within of the German front line, ready to be opened at on 1 July, as emplacements for batteries of Stokes mortars. They were called ''First Avenue'' and ''Mary'', named after the communications trenches leading into them. The large ''H3'' mine, located north of ''First Avenue'' and ''Mary'', was placed by 252nd Tunnelling Company beneath

, the German stronghold on the ridge. Work on ''H3'' began in spring 1916. The tunnellers under the command of Captain Rex Trower dug a gallery for about from the British lines about underground beneath the German position on the crest of the ridge. By the end of May, the mine gallery had been driven , despite considerable trouble caused by the hard chalk and the number of flints in the face. To preserve silence, the face was softened by the application of water. In June the gallery was finished and charged with of

Ammonal Ammonal is an explosive made up of ammonium nitrate and aluminium powder, not to be confused with T-ammonal which contains trinitrotoluene as well to increase properties such as brisance. The mixture is often referred to as Tannerite, which is ...

. The

VIII Corps 8th Corps, Eighth Corps, or VIII Corps may refer to: * VIII Corps (Grande Armée), a unit of the Imperial French army during the Napoleonic Wars * VIII Army Corps (German Confederation) * VIII Corps (German Empire), a unit of the Imperial German Ar ...

commander, Lieutenant-General

Aylmer Hunter-Weston Lieutenant General Sir Aylmer Gould Hunter-Weston (23 September 1864 – 18 March 1940) was a British Army officer who served in World War I at Gallipoli in 1915 and in the very early stages of the Somme Offensive in 1916. He was also a Scottis ...

, wanted the Hawthorn Ridge mine to be sprung four hours before zero hour, so that the crater could be captured and consolidated and the alarm on the German side would have died down. On 15 June 1916, the Fourth Army headquarters ruled that all mines on 1 July should be blown no earlier than eight minutes before zero but an unsatisfactory compromise was reached with Hunter-Weston to blow the Hawthorn Ridge mine ten minutes before zero hour. A witness to the detonation of the Hawthorn Ridge mine was British

cinematographer The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the photographing or recording of a film, television production, music video or other live action piece. The cinematographer is the ch ...

Geoffrey Malins Arthur "Geoffrey" Herbert Malins (18 November 1886 – 1940) was a British film director most famous for camera and editing work on the 1916 war film '' The Battle of the Somme'', which combined documentary and propaganda, and reached an audienc ...

who was filming the 29th Division attack. He had his camera set up about away, trained on the ridge and waiting for the explosion at : The mine completely destroyed the Hawthorn Redoubt, garrisoned by the Reserve Infantry Regiment 119. The unit's regimental recorded that Many Germans were entombed in a large dugout, all four entrances of which were blocked, but they were rescued later in the day. Others were crushed or blown to pieces. Despite the shock and disorientation caused by the detonation of the mine, German troops immediately occupied the rear of lip of the crater. The Germans also immediately brought down a heavy artillery barrage onto the British trenches. The 2nd Royal Fusiliers, crossing no man's land to occupy the crater, came under heavy German rifle and machine-gun fire from either flank and the rear lip. A few of 2nd Royal Fusiliers managed to reach the closest lip of the crater and held on until noon when they were forced out by a German counter-attack. The failure to take the Redoubt had a serious effect on the

' operations north of the

River Ancre The Ancre (; ) is a river of Picardy, France. Rising at Miraumont, a hamlet near the town of Albert, it flows into the Somme at Corbie. It is long. For most of its length it flows through the department of Somme. For a short stretch near Puis ...

. After the detonation of the ''H3'' mine at

on 1 July, 252nd Tunnelling Company on 4 July began work on a second mine, loaded with of ammonal, which was placed beneath the crater of the first explosion. This new mine was fired to signal Zero Hour at the start of the

Battle of the Ancre The Battle of the Ancre was fought by the British Fifth Army ( Lieutenant-General Hubert Gough), against the German 1st Army (General Fritz von Below). The Reserve Army had been renamed the Fifth Army on 30 October. The battle was the la ...

on 13 November 1916, when a successful British attack took the village of

. The crater visible on Hawthorn Ridge is therefore actually a double crater, lined today with trees and thick undergrowth, but not filled with water. The site affords good views of the location of the German positions.

Vimy Ridge 1918

In early 1918 half of 252nd Tunnelling Company, arriving from

, was attached to

172nd Tunnelling Company The 172nd Tunnelling Company was one of the tunnelling companies of the Royal Engineers created by the British Army during World War I. The tunnelling units were occupied in offensive and defensive mining involving the placing and maintaining of ...

Vimy Vimy ( or ; ; Dutch: ''Wimi'') is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region of France. Located east of Vimy is the Canadian National Vimy Memorial dedicated to the Battle of Vimy Ridge and the Canadian soldiers ...

.The Durand Group: Vimy Ridg
online
access date 2016-08-03 Vimy was an area of busy underground activity for much of the war. Between October 1915 and April 1917 an estimated 150 French, British and German charges were fired in the -long Vimy sector of the Western Front.The Durand Group: Vimy Ridg

access date 2016-08-03 The British gallery network beneath Vimy Ridge eventually grew to a length of .The Durand Group: Vimy Ridg

access date 2016-08-03 Other units active around Vimy, particularly in preparation for the

Battle of Vimy Ridge The Battle of Vimy Ridge was part of the Battle of Arras, in the Pas-de-Calais department of France, during the First World War. The main combatants were the four divisions of the Canadian Corps in the First Army, against three divisions o ...

(9-12 April 1917) were 172nd, 175th, 176th, 182nd and 185th Tunnelling Companies.The Durand Group: Vimy Ridg
online
access date 2016-08-03

Spring Offensive 1918

In the German attack of March 1918, the 252nd Tunnelling Company was engaged in defensive mining operations and facing the attack near

Boursies Boursies () is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. Population Heraldry See also * Communes of the Nord department The following is a list of the 648 communes of the Nord department of the French Republic. The communes ...

. Once the front had stabilised after the German offensive, British engineers began digging stronger defences. 252nd Tunnelling Company instructed the field companies of 42nd (East Lancashire) Divisional Engineers in digging deep dugouts. In August the Allied

Hundred Days Offensive The Hundred Days Offensive (8 August to 11 November 1918) was a series of massive Allies of World War I, Allied offensives that ended the First World War. Beginning with the Battle of Amiens (1918), Battle of Amiens (8–12 August) on the Wester ...

began. During the pursuit after the

Second Battle of Bapaume The Second Battle of Bapaume was a battle of the First World War that took place at Bapaume in France, from 21 August 1918 to 3 September 1918. It was a continuation of the Battle of Albert and is also referred to as the second phase of that ba ...

, 42nd (EL) Divisional RE had one field company on front-line work, with Captain Dean's section of 252nd Tunnelling Co attached to search dugouts and roads for booby-traps and mines, clear broken bridges wit explosives, and it also reconnoitred village wells that had been damaged by the retreating Germans.Anon, ''History'', pp. 41, 81–4, 189–92.

References

Bibliography

* * *

External links

Military units and formations of the British Army in World War I Tunnelling companies of the Royal Engineers Tunnel warfare in World War I