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France/Belgium Trip Post No. 18
From Fricourt German Cemetery we headed for the Lochnagar Crater near La Boiselle.
The mine crater 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 Lochnagar mine consisted of two chambers with a shared access tunnel. The shaft was sunk in the communication trench called "Lochnagar Street". After the Black Watch had arrived at La Boissselle at the end of July 1915, many fortifications, originally dug by the French, had been given Scottish names.
It was begun 300 ft behind the British front line and 900 ft away from the German front line. For silence, the tunnellers used bayonets with spliced handles and worked barefoot on a floor covered with sandbags. Flints were carefully prised out of the chalk and laid on the floor; if the bayonet was manipulated two-handed, an assistant caught the dislodged material. Spoil was placed in sandbags and passed hand-by-hand along a row of miners sitting on the floor and stored along the side of the tunnel, later to be used to tamp the charge. The mine was loaded with 60,000 lb of ammonal, divided in two charges of 36,000 lb and 24,000 lb.
The mine was exploded at 7.28 am, two minutes before 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 crater left by the mine is 300 ft across and 100 ft deep. The sound of the blast was considered the loudest man-made noise in history up to that point and was heard in London.
The British troops attacking in this sector was 34th Division of III Corps. All twelve battalions in this division, each with a fighting strength of about 700 men, went into the attack that morning. Despite the successful blowing of the mine and the damage caused to the German strongpoint, the German defenders still managed to inflict heavy casualties on the advancing British soldiers. The crater was occupied by 10 Bn Lincolnshire Regt, the 'Grimsby Chums' from 101 Brigade.
The Tyneside Scottish from 102 Brigade and the Tyneside Irish from 103 Brigade suffered nearly 4500 casualties between them. The highest losses suffered by any Division on the first day of the battle.
The wooden cross was placed at the crater in 1986, it was made from beams removed from the roof of a de-consecrated church in Gateshead. This is appropriate as a great number of the troops were from the NE of England.
To prevent it suffering the same fate as the Y Sap Crater which was filled in by the land owner, the Lochnagar Crater was purchased by Richard Dunning MBE on July 1st 1978 and became a permanent Memorial.
The crater site is administered by the Lochnagar Crater Foundation. There is a wooden walkway around the rim of the crater and it is possible to sponsor an engraved plaque on a walkway plank commemorating anyone who served their country during the Great War including those on the Home Front. These plaques remember men and women of all nations, whether they died or survived, and have become an important part in highlighting the terrible impact of the war in all walks of life. I found quite a few interesting ones including Edith Cavell, the British nurse executed by the Germans in 1915. Also Pte Theo Jones of 18 Bn DLI, the first soldier killed on British soil by enemy action. He died when a German naval taskforce bombarded the town on 16 Dec 1914.
There are two annual events, a remembrance service on 1st July to commemorate the battle and in November on Armistice Day.
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