Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/86/1 - August 1917 - Part 3

8    22
all bn connected by / French.
A notice on one of these
passages said pointed / way - To "No 3 Section"
This means No 3 Section of
the 2nd Aust. Tunnelling Coy.
A little later we struck
to / right down one of these
passages, then onto /
surface; & behind the l side
of a house;  across the
main street - it runs
straight to / German lines
& was hung across with
a rather battered low
screen of bao sacking through
which you looked straight
up to some distant sandhills
across the Yser.  The houses
bn on / other side have
their backs onto the sand
dunes & you are straight
away out of sight o /

8    23
Germans there.  They were
pitching 5.9 or 4.2
at two or three points
in / sand but we came
near none of it.  Presently
we saw a burrow in the
back of a dune.  This ws
one of / entrances of
the Reserve Tunnelled
Dugouts of wh we are
putting in 750 ft of 6 x 4
tunnelled dimension.  It
runs in abt odd angles
- wh I did not understand
until Mulligan explained
tt it follows the hummock
of the dune.  Wherever there
is enough sand above it
- say 20 feet- there the
tunnel wanders.
The sand is the best

8    24
possible protection - it
explodes a shell very
quickly after impact.  On
the top the shell is dangerous 
as it makes a shallow
crater & throws its fragments
very wide &, I believe, low;
but it is the best possible
head cover.
Our miners knew
how to work in sand at
once.  They had been used
to working through sandy
drift in Australia -
They simply sank a steep
incline (60 degrees from
the horizontal is the best.
'Sketch - see original document' - put a stairway in it
eventually for an entrance
for the garrison).  Then they
drive in at about one
or two inches above

8    25
water level.  They
put in first strong "bridge
sets" 'Drawing - see original document' resting
on cleats
spiked into
the "legs"
(or sidebeams
of the tunnel
timbers)
They then drive in over
the beam which is blackened
in the above sketch "spiling"
or "spilling", in order to
keep up the roof
'Drawing - see original document' They hold up the
face with "face
boards" supported
by "dogs" fixed driven
into the face at
one end & the
"sets" at the other.  The
upper face board is then

8    26
removed by taking out
its dog, & the sand scooped
out by hand or trowel
to abt 6 in. & the face
board then set back again.
The second face board is
then removed, & the sand
behind this also scooped
out & the board replaced
- & so on, working from
top to bottom until the
whole face is set back 6 in
when it begins again.
The 2nd A. Tunnel Coy
had driven two tunnels
well out towards the
two German strong points
- the Black Dune on the
right & the strong point on
a similar dune near the
sea, when the Germans

8    27
attacked of July 10.  This
was a sheer tragedy.  The
Germans had (so far as
we know) no knowledge
of these methods, & had not
tunnelled the dunes.  Our
tunnels, beginning well
back in our lines, had
abt reached a point under
our own front trenches.  There
were tunnellers in them;  &
if the Germans filled them
up with whisky, as
Mulligan says, they may
quite likely have got them
talking about their method,
- & if so they can convert
the whole dune region
into a fortress of immense
strength. That we had not
done so - that we had not even
tunnelled under the Yser after

8    28
these 2 years, is a monument
to the want of enterprise
of the French who held the place.
The British when they
came in seem to have made
two mistakes.  They firstly
let the French withdraw their
guns before we had ours in 
position already, replacing
them;  & secondly they started
to "liven things up" with their
infantry, in the dour British
manner, before their artillery
was in a positn to support
them.  The Germans decided
tt / British were going to attack
there;  tt they would have
far more difficulty in attacking
if they were South of the Yser
than N. of it;  & consequently
pushed them back, at once,
across the Yser mouth.

8    29
G.H.Q tried to make light
of it - but it ws a very
heavy score for the Germans &
a really serious misfortune
for us.  We have now, as
a preliminary, to attack across
the river in ? boats arrd [[shorthand]]
a not very good divn is
being put in to do it
our monitors have bn lying off / coast
registering from the sea.  The attack ws to have come
off by this, but has bn put off.  In / meantime
all day long we saw / Gs. shooting into /
sea.  Nobody seemed to know why they were
doing this.  Of course they have noticed
our monitors there & are registering / positns from wh
they think / naval attack or bombt will take place.
The tunnellers are driving
out a runnel from the [[shorthand]] to the

8    30
last house in / town (called the [[shorthand]] )
& wh is to be complete by a certain date.  These
tunnels are pushed on 
very quickly by working
from both ends & also by
sinking an incline abt
halfway & working from
both ends there.
____________________________
On the day after the
'Sketch - see original document'
North bank o / Yser was lost
the Australian tunnellers sent
out a party (as above)
to tunnel dig a bit of trench
at once on the S Bank
of the Yser.  They had to
creep from cover to cover
but got thro w a loss of 3
men.  Undoubtedly / Germans
saw them.
They are old men
compared w most of ours.

31
X 4^th Army want to make
use of them (or rather half of 
them) as a carrying party
- as there will be no work
for them at first.  Mulligan
has protested.  I told White,
& he & Gen Birdwood, later,
when they went up to see
Rawlinson, spoke to him
abt it.  They say they want
them for it because it will
ensure the stuff getting
through.  But it seems
sheer waste to use such
a company in tt way.

8    32
But a splendid set;  ^X & Mulligan
Gen Harvey, Director of Mining
at G.H.Q. had just been up
the afternoon we arrived, &
was, so Mulligan told us,
exceedingly surprised at their
work.  The Australian miner
will always take tremendous
risks - and works very fast.
They were working at one face
without face boards - when we
saw them - cutting forward.  Mulligan
sd quietly to the man in charge there -
"Daniels, old man - if anything
happens tonight, you are for it -
you understand."  I only realised
afterwds tt he meant tt if the face
falls in he wd punish him - At
another face - from [[shorthand]] we found
the _^solitary man there struggling w a huge
heap of tumbled sand.  It had
fallen in - not irremediably however.
They were working agst time