177th Tunnelling Company
| 177th Tunnelling Company | |
|---|---|
| Active | World War I |
| Country |
 United Kingdom |
| Branch |
 British Army |
| Type | Royal Engineer tunnelling company |
| Role | military engineering, tunnel warfare |
| Nickname | "The Moles" |
| Engagements |
World War I Hooge |
The 177th 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.[1]
Background
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.[2] Following consultations between the Engineer-in-Chief of the BEF, Brigadier George Fowke, and the mining specialist John Norton-Griffiths, the War Office approved the Royal Engineers tunnelling company scheme on 19 February 1915.[2]
The first nine tunnelling 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.[2] To make the tunnels safer and quicker to deploy, the British Army enlisted experienced coal miners, many outside their nominal recruitment policy. 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.[2] 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.[3]
Twelve tunnelling companies were ultimately formed under Norton-Griffiths' leadership in 1915, and one more in 1916. A Canadian unit of tunnellers was formed from men on the battlefield, plus two other companies trained in Canada and then shipped to France. Three Australian and one New Zealand tunnelling companies were formed by March 1916. This resulted in 30 tunnelling companies of the Royal Engineers by the end of 1916.[1]
Unit history
177th Tunnelling Company was formed at Terdeghem in June 1915, and moved into a wide area facing Wijtschate.[1]
Between November 1915 and August 1917, the Company was stationed in the Railway Wood-Hooge-Armagh Wood area of the Ypres Salient, where it was engaged in mining activities against the Germans on the Bellewaerde Ridge near Zillebeke. The area belonged to one of the eastern-most sectors of the salient and was the site of intense and sustained fighting between German and Allied forces for much of the war (see Hooge in World War I).
March 1918 saw the Company working on construction of the Fifth Army's 'Green Line' near Templeux, when the enemy attack struck. After this the Company was engaged in Somme bridge demolition, and other defensive activities.[1]
Memorials
A memorial dedicated to 177th Tunnelling Company and its activities is RE Grave, Railway Wood, maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC). It is located in the former Ypres Salient, on the Bellewaerde Ridge near Zillebeke, about 4 kilometres east of Ypres. The memorial marks the site where twelve soldiers (eight Royal Engineers of the 177th Tunnelling Company and four attached infantrymen) were killed between November 1915 and August 1917 whilst tunnelling under the hill near Hooge during the defence of Ypres. The men were trapped underground and their bodies not recovered, and after the war, the memorial was erected on the hill.[4][5]
Lieutenant Boothby's letters
The officer mentioned on the Cross of Sacrifice at RE Grave, Railway Wood was Second Lieutenant Charles Geoffrey Boothby (13 December 1894 – 28 April 1916), service number 147252, from near Birmingham. He first attended Clayesmore School, then Christ College, Brecon, between 1909 and 1913. In the autumn of 1913, he entered Birmingham University, and spent a year studying dentistry. He was just short of his 20th birthday when he applied for a commission in December 1914. A year later he was seconded from 8th Battalion, South Staffordshire Regiment to the Royal Engineers. Also in 1915, when he was twenty-one, Boothby had just met eighteen-year-old Edith Ainscow. They exchanged love letters over a period of 18 months until Boothby was reported missing in action in spring 1916, having been blown up by a German mine at Railway Wood on the Bellewaerde Ridge near Ypres. The letter exchange between Boothby and Ainscow survived the war and was eventually published by Edith's son Arthur Stockwin in 2005.[6]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 The Tunnelling Companies RE, access date 25 April 2015
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "Lieutenant Colonel Sir John Norton-Griffiths (1871–1930)". Royal Engineers Museum. Retrieved 2010-06-21.
- ↑ "Corps History – Part 14: The Corps and the First World War (1914–18)". Royal Engineers Museum. Retrieved 2010-06-21.
- ↑ www.wo1.be accessed 19 June 2006
- ↑ wo1.be, accessed 19 June 2006
- ↑ 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)
Further reading
- Alexander Barrie. War Underground – The Tunnellers of the Great War. ISBN 1-871085-00-4.
- The Work of the Royal Engineers in the European War 1914 -1919, – MILITARY MINING.
- Jones, Simon (2010). Underground Warfare 1914-1918. Pen & Sword Military. ISBN 978-1-84415-962-8.
- 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).