France reveals British WWI cave camp - BBC

[Yrys]

France reveals British WWI cave camp

France has reopened a labyrinth of medieval quarries under the northern town of Arras which the British army converted into an underground hideout for 24,000 soldiers during
World War I. The BBC's Emma Jane Kirby went to investigate.

Eighteen metres (60ft) underground and immediately I'm cold, slightly unnerved by the dimness of the light and very uncomfortable as the chalky ceilings constantly drip
freezing water on my head. Although these secret caves were a huge step up from the horror of the World War I trenches, this was no cushy billet either.

Used briefly as an air raid shelter in World War II, the caves were sealed and largely forgotten about. But now they are a museum. After an hour wandering around the
network, my clothes are damp and my teeth are chattering. The 24,000 soldiers who were hiding here for eight days before the Battle of Arras in 1917 must have been
chilled to the bone before they surfaced into the daylight to fight for their lives.

Poignant messages

The traces of the former occupants are everywhere. Graffiti on every wall tells the tale of the frightened soldiers, chiselling their initials into the chalk, desperate to leave
some mark of their existence. I stop beside a rough love heart and can just make out the letters L and J and I imagine how, 91 years ago, J must have been nervously
waiting for her sweetheart L to come home. The Battle of Arras was so bloody that it is almost inevitable he did not. A little further along, an artistic soldier had painted a
woman's face onto the wall. She is ethereally beautiful and Madonna-like - a loved wife, an adored mother or perhaps just a much-needed fantasy or a lucky charm?

The tunnels are wide and tall - 12m high in some places - which allowed the British army to create a highly sophisticated network. There was an operating theatre and a
hospital with 700 beds, there were cook houses, post boxes for the soldiers to write their letters home and even a light railway. Throughout the 19km (12 miles) of
interconnecting tunnels, each pillar was clearly marked with a number to help the soldiers find their way around.

Familiar names

Each cave section was also given a name by the engineers who helped create them. The southern part that makes up the museum is called Wellington, named, perhaps
wistfully, by the homesick soldiers of the New Zealand Tunnelling Company. Angela Convers, the museum tour guide, told me the Northern section (not open to the public)
had been dug by Yorkshire miners.

"It's funny to think that hidden 20 metres under this little French town, and completely unknown to them, you have Glasgow, Edinburgh, Crewe and London!"

On Easter Sunday, the day before the Battle of Arras, the soldiers held a service to pray for courage. You can still see the melted wax on the pillars they used as a
makeshift altar and a painting by a soldier of his comrades at prayer. At 0530 the next morning they were marched to Exit 10 and told to climb the stairs to the outside
world. At the last moment they were ordered to leave their great coats behind to allow them greater freedom of movement. As the hatch lifted, the first thing the men
would have seen was that it was snowing.

The briefest glimpse into Arras cemetery tells the story of what happened to most of those soldiers. During the six weeks of battle, the British army alone recorded 4,000
casualties per day.

In the daylight, I remembered a prayer of thanksgiving carved into the chalky wall of a tunnel by a soldier grateful not to be in the mud of the trenches: "Thanks be to God
for providing us with this shelter from shells and bullets." The tunnels gave only a temporary respite from the horrors of the Great War. The second the trap doors opened,
the protection abruptly ended.

2 pictures on link article

 

[Haletown]

Think Vimy Ridge.

Their "Battle of Arras" was our Vimy.  Easter 1917. It was snowing on the British troops as well as ours.

Some of the tunnels under Vimy have been open for awhile, until they found a very large underground mine charge that was still there from the War.

 

[Richie]

Two of the twenty one mine charges used at the Battle of Messines in June, 1917 were left unexploded and one was hit by lightening in 1955, finally exploding (no one was killed). I seem to recall a TV documentary a few years ago about efforts to safely deactivate the final mine; those activities may still be going on.

 

[geo]

Heh.... 90 year old explosives.... wonderful challenge

 

[AJFitzpatrick]

A friend of mine recently completed her Masters thesis in geological engineering on the stability of the excavations at Vimy Ridge. No one wants a bus to fall into a hole.
She had the opportunity of crawling around some of the otherwise inaccessible tunnels and such. Apparently there are quite a few no-go areas in the Canadian tunnels on the basis of unexpended ordinance and explosives. Although she didn't get into the German tunnels, apparently those are even more littered with it.

 

[the 48th regulator]

http://www.history.ca/ontv/titledetails.aspx?titleid=113089

Fantastic documentary,

And those 48th....Always leaving their mark.

dileas

tess

 

[ModlrMike]

Slighlty OT but... I just finished reading Burton's Vimy. Cover to cover in two days. A fantastic read, and having been to Vimy, I was able to picture in my mind's eye much of what he wrote about.