Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/220/1 - September 1918

AWM38
Official History,
1914-1918 War: Records of C E W Bean,
Official Historian.
Diaries and Notebooks
Item number: 3DRL606/220/1
Title: Folder, September 1918
Includes references to Bellicourt tunnel.
AWM38-3DRL606/220/1
 

Original DIARY NO.220
AWM38 3DRL 606 ITEM 220 [1]
DIARIES AND NOTES OF C. E. W. BEAN
CONCERNING THE WAR OF 1914 - 1918
The use of these diaries and notes is subject to conditions laid down in the terms
of gift to the Australian War Memorial. But, apart from those terms, I wish the 
following circumstances and consideration to be brought to the notice of every
reader and writer who may use them.
These writings represent only what at the moment of making them I believed to be
true. The diaries were jotted down almost daily with the object of recording what
was then in the writer's mind. Often he wrote them when very tired and half asleep;
also, not infrequently, what he believed to be true was not so - but it does not
follow that he always discovered this, or remembered to correct the mistakes when
discovered. Indeed, he could not always remember that he had written them.
These records should, therefore, be used with great caution, as relating only what
their author, at the time of writing, believed. Further, he cannot, of course, vouch
for the accuracy of statements made to him by others and here recorded. But he
did try to ensure such accuracy by consulting, as far as possible, those who had
seen or otherwise taken part in the events. The constant falsity of second-hand
evidence (on which a large proportion of war stories are founded) was impressed
upon him by the second or third day of the Gallipoli campaign, notwithstanding that
those who passed on such stories usually themselves believed them to be true. All
second-hand evidence herein should be read with this in mind. 
16 Sept., 1946. C. E. W. BEAN.

AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL 
ACCESS STATUS 
OPEN
 

220.
Draft from dictation
457-458

BELLECOURT TUNNEL
September 29th, 1918.

Lt. Brown, Gas Officer of the 8th Brigade, visited t he
Tunnel at Bellecourt on September 29th. He went into it
about 6 p.m. by one of the dugouts entrances in which the 30th
Battalion Headquarters was.  He went to look for gas apparatus
at the same time having a general lookround - .
He found no gas, but a few Americans. They did not know what
was the position at the Northern entrance of the Tunnel at this
time. Some were asleep. In one place there was an Officer in
charge. The men were tired out, they had just got down the
dugout and did not know the position in the tunnel at all. He
took them along to their Commanding Officer, but their Commanding 

Officer did not anything. The Commanding Officer accompanied
him to Colonel Street (?).
The second time he went down was early in the afternoon of
September 30th. He got the idea that no one knew what was on
the left of the position and he thought that by getting through
the Tunnel, out amongst the Germans to the left, they might be
able to bring back some useful information sor to try to find this
out through the Tunnel. He went along with an Electric Torch
which he shaded with his fingers. When they were about half way
through the Tunnel, he heard Machine gun fire overhead in the open. 
He climbed up into another dugout. He did not know whether it
was our own people about or the Germans. He heard voices, and
for a time he thought that they were Germans. He put the light on
one side and went very cautiously. Getting nearer the found that
they were Americans in this dugout also, they did not know anything
about the Tunnel being below them till at_all either to left or
right. Brown told them it was as well to put someone as Sentry. 
Their C.O. realised this at once. He sent two officers with
Brown along the Tunnel working further North. There is no bend
in the Tunnel. There are three forts in the Tunnel one nearthe
Souther exntrace built of concrete, another about the centre of
Bellecourt Tunnel three quarters built. It blocks the whole canal
except its own occupants from firing there. Then
North of Bellecourt was a thi-rd in course of construction. From
there you could see daylight looking North. It looked like a
little candlelight in the distance and got bigger and bigger as they
approached. Whilst they were still on the way after the third
Fort, after going some distance along with the Americans, they could
see daylight fairly big ahead of them when all of a sudden it
disappeared. Just for a fraction of time Brown wandered what it
was, for he got the blast of an explosion and heard the nowise

and they were knocked over. Some of the staircases in the shafts
were blown away. (There was one every 1,000 yards). This made it
very difficult for anyone to be sure of escaping through the Tunnel
if he got cut off there. They were frightened that another mine
might blow up behind them if they waited and so they cleared back
along the tow path for all they were worth. 
There are not ^many amny boats along that path. There is also
a big pumping machine down there for pumping water up. After the
mine blew up there was no light down there - the entrance was
fairly blocked for it was all dark. The third fort is anothing
like half way along the Tunnel and yet immediately after passing
it they could see daylight. Brown, therefore, understood that there
was no brake in the Tunnel. 
Brown had his hand over the light so that he himself was in
shadow; the Germans probably saw the light coming along and thought
that we were going attacking through the Tunnel, or else, it might
have been a chance that they blew it up just then. The Americans
 

were aboutnhalf way. This party of Americans had
relieved another American Unit in the dugout above. Below
in the Tunnel there was nobody North of Bellecourt.