2017 Battlefield Tour Page 28

Hill 60

If High Wood was the place not to be on the Somme then you definitely didn’t want to be at Hill 60 near Zillebeke in the Ypres Salient. Hill 60 and the nearby Caterpillar were actually man-made features from spoil dug out of a railway cutting. Hill 60 was 200 feet high and in a flat landscape, any high ground was hotly contested. Hill 60 was bitterly fought over for 4½ years and changed hands 6 times.

On 5 May 1915, the Germans used Chlorine Gas against Hill 60, causing over 300 casualties, 148 of whom died.

At the start of the Battle of Messines Ridge on 7th June 1917, a total of 20 deep mines containing a massive 385 tons of Ammonal explosive and gun cotton were fired within a 20 second period along the 10 miles of the Front Line between Zillebeke and Ploegsteert. The devastating rippling effect of the explosion killed 10,000 German troops and was heard as far away as Dublin. It was the largest non-nuclear man-made noise in history.

The two most northerly mines of the 20 were exploded under Hill 60 and the Caterpillar spoil heaps. The tunnel was known as the Berlin Tunnel and ran parallel to the railway line before branching off to the two chambers. It was originally started by the 175th Tunnelling Coy RE in August 1915, taken over by the 3rd Canadian Tunnelling Coy in April 1916.

Finally, the 1st Australian Tunnelling Coy took over in November 1916 and completed the galleries and chambers. Hill 60 chamber contained 53,500 lbs (23¾ tons) and the Caterpillar 70,000 lbs (31¼ tons) of explosives. A total of 55 tons.

Adjacent to the entrance to the site are memorials to the 14th Light Division and the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company. The Australian memorial still shows bullet hole scars sustained during the Second World War. In May 1940 ‘A’ Coy, 2 Bn, Royal Scots Fusiliers were dug in on Hill 60 when defending the area against the Germans in an effort to keep the corridor open for British troops withdrawing to Dunkirk. They gained an extra day enabling tens of thousands of troops to escape from Dunkirk.

The memorial to the 9th London (Queen Victoria Rifles) Regt lies in the site on raised ground. It was a member of the Queen Victoria Rifles that won the VC on Hill 60 on 20 April 1915. Being the first Territorial officer to win the award.

A large concrete bunker in the centre of the site is preserved almost as it was found at the end of the war. It was built by the Germans and modified by the Australians in 1918.

At the side of the railway line, 600 yards north of Hill 60 is Larch Wood (Railway Cutting) Cemetery containing 856 graves of Allied troops who died in the vicinity. Due to the very nature of mine warfare, many bodies were missing and never found. These are commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres.

On the railway bridge separating Hill 60 and the Caterpillar is a memorial to two French Resistance fighters. Pierre Marchant and Lucien Olivier were shot by German soldiers near Hill 60 on 2 September 1944. They had been arrested driving a lorry loaded with munitions for the Resistance in their hometown of Lille in France when they were arrested by the SS and put on a prisoner transport train to Belgium. When their train stopped between Zillebeke and Hollebeke, to await the arrival of an extra engine from Ypres, to haul the train over the incline. Marchant and Olivier were shot trying to escape whilst the train was stationary. Their bodies were dumped by the line at the bottom of an embankment and found by locals about 200 metres from Hill 60….RIP