# Major CB North - Royal Engineers? WW1



## 54/102 CEF (27 May 2012)

A lady wrote in about her WW1 Royal Engineer Major father who commanded the 1st Canadian Tunneling Company near Ypres Belgium from 29 May 1916 to 18 Sep 1917

It turned out he was a Canadian Mining Engineer from Nova Scotia who enlisted in Sep 1914 with Canadian Engineers and went over seas. In June of 1916 he was assigned as OC 1st Canadian Tunneling Company. It appears he remained a Royal Engineer Major until July of 1917. The first image you see led to succeeding images from the London Gazette which detail that he won the Distinguished Service Order and a Military Cross with the 177th Mining Company, Royal Engineers. 

As OC 1st Tunneling Company he ran tunnels under German Lines and from time to time sent them back to Berlin at a very fast speed

He fired what was known as the St Eloi Crater near St Eloi Belgium a few miles S of Ypres on June 7 1917

Here`s what it looked like http://data2.collectionscanada.ca/e/e059/e001452771.jpg

Here`s an excellent map by a group that studies this topic http://www.durandgroup.org.uk/Messines_attack.htm

This link tells you all about why they did what they did http://www.durandgroup.org.uk/ - click Mining in WW1 to see the whole story

The mines they planted were all detonated as shown above on 7 June 1917. This was part of the Messines Offensive which led to the 3rd Battle of Ypres and ended at Passchedaele in November 1917

After the 7th June blast the Tunnelling Companies turned more to surface operations and road building - thats probably why he went back to Captain

95,600 pounds of explosive in the mine he built http://data2.collectionscanada.ca/e/e059/e001452762.jpg

Link here mentions  96.500 pounds of explosives ..... http://www.firstworldwar.com/today/steloicraters.htm

A photo of it today http://www.westernfrontphotography.com/main.php?g2_itemId=2630

A Belgian Link - http://www.wo1.be/eng/database/dbDetail.asp?TypeID=15&SubTypeID=32&ItemID=5661

Which if you click the link to the PRACTICAL INFO - it gives you accurate coordinates which I plugged into Google Earth and my WW1 mapping program - to show you where the location is as attached

Walking up to the pond where the crater is today http://www.panoramio.com/photo/57032768?source=wapi&referrer=kh.google.com

On the maps you`ll see a red circle – that`s how much excavation damage there was from the 100 yard crater he blew

Major North passed away in April 1960


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