185th Tunnelling Company

185th Tunnelling Company
Active	World War I
Country	United Kingdom
Branch	British Army
Type	Royal Engineer tunnelling company
Role	military engineering, tunnel warfare
Nickname(s)	"The Moles"
Engagements	World War I

The 185th Tunnelling Company was one of the tunnelling companies of the Royal Engineers created by the British Army during World War I. The tunnelling units were occupied in offensive and defensive mining involving the placing and maintaining of mines under enemy lines, as well as other underground work such as the construction of deep dugouts for troop accommodation, the digging of subways, saps (a narrow trench dug to approach enemy trenches), cable trenches and underground chambers for signals and medical services.

Background

Main article: Tunnelling companies of the Royal Engineers

By January 1915 it had become evident to the BEF at the Western Front that the Germans were mining to a planned system. As the British had failed to develop suitable counter-tactics or underground listening devices before the war, field marshals French and Kitchener agreed to investigate the suitability of forming British mining units. Following consultations between the Engineer-in-Chief of the BEF, Brigadier George Fowke, and the mining specialist John Norton-Griffiths, the War Office formally approved the tunnelling company scheme on 19 February 1915.

Norton-Griffiths ensured that tunnelling companies numbers 170 to 177 were ready for deployment in mid-February 1915. In the spring of that year, there was constant underground fighting in the Ypres Salient at Hooge, Hill 60, Railway Wood, Sanctuary Wood, St Eloi and The Bluff which required the deployment of new drafts of tunnellers for several months after the formation of the first eight companies. The lack of suitably experienced men led to some tunnelling companies starting work later than others. The number of units available to the BEF was also restricted by the need to provide effective counter-measures to the German mining activities. To make the tunnels safer and quicker to deploy, the British Army enlisted experienced coal miners, many outside their nominal recruitment policy. The first nine companies, numbers 170 to 178, were each commanded by a regular Royal Engineers officer. These companies each comprised 5 officers and 269 sappers; they were aided by additional infantrymen who were temporarily attached to the tunnellers as required, which almost doubled their numbers. The success of the first tunnelling companies formed under Norton-Griffiths' command led to mining being made a separate branch of the Engineer-in-Chief's office under Major-General S.R. Rice, and the appointment of an 'Inspector of Mines' at the GHQ Saint-Omer office of the Engineer-in-Chief. A second group of tunnelling companies were formed from Welsh miners from the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the Monmouthshire Regiment, who were attached to the 1st Northumberland Field Company of the Royal Engineers, which was a Territorial unit. The formation of twelve new tunnelling companies, between July and October 1915, helped to bring more men into action in other parts of the Western Front.

Most tunnelling companies were formed under Norton-Griffiths' leadership during 1915, and one more was added in 1916. On 10 September 1915, the British government sent an appeal to Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand to raise tunnelling companies in the Dominions of the British Empire. On 17 September, New Zealand became the first Dominion to agree the formation of a tunnelling unit. The New Zealand Tunnelling Company arrived at Plymouth on 3 February 1916 and was deployed to the Western Front in northern France. A Canadian unit was formed from men on the battlefield, plus two other companies trained in Canada and then shipped to France. Three Australian tunnelling companies were formed by March 1916, resulting in 30 tunnelling companies of the Royal Engineers being available by the summer of 1916.

Unit history

The Somme 1915/16

Main article: Mines on the first day of the Somme

File:Geological cross-section Somme area.jpg

Geological cross-section of the Somme battlefield

Plan of the area south of La Boisselle with locations of the Glory Hole (top left) and the Lochnagar mine

185th Tunnelling Company was formed in Rouen in October 1915, moved immediately to the Somme area, for work at La Boisselle. Early attempts at mining by the British on the Western Front had commenced in late 1914 in the soft clay and sandy soils of Flanders. Mining at La Boisselle was in chalk, much harder and requiring different techniques. The German advance had been halted at La Boisselle by French troops on 28 September 1914. There was bitter fighting for possession of the village cemetery, and for farm buildings on the south-western edge of the village known to the Germans as "Granathof" ("Shell Farm"), to the British as "Glory Hole" and to the French as "Ilôt". In December 1914, French engineers began tunnelling beneath the ruins. With the war on the surface at stalemate, both sides continued to probe beneath the opponent's trenches and detonate ever-greater explosive charges. When the British took over the front in August 1915, the French and Germans were working at a depth of 12 metres (39 ft); the size of their charges had reached 3,000 kilograms (6,600 lb). The British tunnelling companies extended and deepened the system, first to 24 metres (79 ft) and ultimately 30 metres (98 ft). Above ground the infantry occupied trenches just 45 metres (148 ft) apart. Around La Boisselle, the Germans had dug defensive transversal tunnels at a depth of about 80 feet (24 metres), parallel to the front line. As part of the British preparations for the Battle of the Somme (1 July – 18 November 1916), 185th Tunnelling Company started work on the Lochnagar mine on 11 November 1915, and eventually handed the tunnels over to 179th Tunnelling Company in March 1916, which finished and fired it. A month before the handover, eighteen men of the 185th Tunnelling Company (2 officers, 16 sappers) lost their lives to a German camouflet at La Boisselle on 4 February 1916. Other tunnelling units involved in the Battle of the Somme were the 174th, 178th, 181st, 183rd and 252nd companies.

Vimy

British-dug fighting tunnel in Vimy sector

185th Tunnelling Company next moved to the "Labyrinth" sector near Vimy in March 1916. The German "Labyrinth" stronghold was located near Neuville-Saint-Vaast, between Arras and Vimy and not far from Notre Dame de Lorette. On 29 March 1916, the 185th Tunnelling Company was relieved at Roclincourt-Chantecler by the New Zealand Tunnelling Company. During summer and much of autumn 1916, the unit further developed and expanded its mining to create an effective underground defence at Roclincourt-Chantecler. 185th Tunnelling Company then dug subways near Neuville-Saint-Vaast in early 1917. The unit seems to have shared this sector with the 176th Tunnelling Company, which had moved to Neuville-Saint-Vaast in April 1916 and remained there for a considerable time, and the 172nd Tunnelling Company, which was relieved in this area by the 2nd Australian Tunnelling Company in May 1916.

Units of 185th Tunnelling Company were the first British troops to enter Douai, on 17 October 1918, during the great advance to victory.

See also

• Mine warfare

Further reading

• Arthur Stockwin (ed.), Thirty-odd Feet Below Belgium: An Affair of Letters in the Great War 1915-1916, Parapress (2005), ISBN 978-1-89859-480-2 (online).

External links

• List of tunnelling companies of the Royal Engineers, with short unit histories
• 'Men of 179th and 185th Tunnelling Companies' Paper by Simon Jones.