2017 Battlefield Tour Page 13

The Lochnagar mine crater near La Boiselle is the largest man-made mine crater created in the First World War on the Western Front. It was laid by the British Army's 179th Tunnelling Company Royal Engineers underneath a German strong-point called “Schwaben Höhe” (Schwaben Height). The mine was exploded two minutes before 07.30 am Zero Hour at the launch of the British offensive against the German lines on the morning of 1st July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

The mine got it's name from the Lochnagar communication trench from where the access tunnel was started. It was actually two mines 20 yards apart. When 135 feet from the German lines the tunnel was forked into two branches and the end of each branch was enlarged to form a chamber for the explosives.The mine was loaded with 60,000 lbs of ammonal, divided in two charges of 36,000 lb and 24,000 lbs. As the chambers were not big enough to hold all the explosive, the tunnels that branched to form the 'Y' were also filled with ammonal. The crater left by the mine is 100 mtrs across and 30 mtrs deep.

All twelve battalions of 34 Div of III Corps, each with a fighting strength of about 700 men, went into the attack that morning in the La Boiselle area. Elements of the DLOY who were 3 Corps Cavalry were in support a short way behind the lines facing La Boiselle in case of a breakthrough. In the event, because of the failure of the attack and the large number of casualties they were forced to man the trenches with the Lincolnshire Regt to ward off any German counter attack.

Many hundreds of British soldiers were killed in the vicinity of Lochnagar Crater on the morning of 1st July. The 102nd Tyneside Scottish Brigade (Northumberland Fusiliers) suffered the worst losses of any Bde on the first day of the Battle of the Somme; The 23rd Bn lost 629 men, the third worst battalion loss of the day. The 20th Bn lost 584 men and the 22nd Bn lost 537 men. All four battalion commanders were killed.

The wooden cross is made from beams from a deconsecrated church in County Durham as a memorial to the hundreds of men from the NE of England who fell in the area.