Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/274A/1 - 1918 - 1941 - Part 10

Mar 31, 19390
The REVEILLE
61
It was a black cavern of a place perhaps thirty
feet by fifteen feet. On the left side were two big,
built-in coppers.
In one - on the black, greasy surface - was floating
the bloody head of a dead German, and the
torch showed up the grimed features and staring eyes.
In the other a man's elbow obtruded from the
scum. The torch switched upon a number of
wooden buckets, several of which were three parts
full of whitish grease - like beef dripping. Others
were empty, with a ring of dirty white fat midway.
Again the torch switched, and discovered a large
heap of bloody soaked clothing - German tunics,
trousers, boots, etc., thrown together in a haphazard
fashion.
And, moving round, the white flash of light
stopped upon a pile of broken and torn human
bodies - stark naked.
I have forgotten exactly how many bodies or portions
of bodies were subsequently counted. If may
have been 15 or 17. They were neatly stacked -
some tied together in threes - heads to heels, heels account

to heads.
Rats Disturbed.
There was not a living thing in this place except

the rats - the great grey, mangy carrion of the
Western Front, whose ugly bodies were clustered
with repellant red, moist sores, which in time ate

away the remnants of their fur.
The rats scurried half hesitatingly away from
the heap of bodies when disturbed, and under the
shaking floor boards.
A Digger out out his hand and touched the
crooked elbow. He lifted it from the copper.
The hand and wrist were missing, and the upper
portion of the arm badly mutilated.
A second infantryman stirred the copper containing
the grinning head with his bayonet, and
brought to the greasy surface other odds and ends
of human flesh and bone. "'Struth," he said,
this must be a branch of the bully beef business."
And so . . . 
The news spread like wildfire.
Senior and medical officers visited that black
cavern later, and endeavoured to find some flaw
in the argument that it was a boiling-down works.
No Explanation.
But there was never a reasonable explanation
forthcoming.
Here were dead bodies, naked! And coppers and
buckets to hold fat! There were no obvious signs
of an explosion within the devil's kitchen which
might have accounted for the casualties. And,
moreover, the passage leading to the black hole
had obviously been used constantly to transport
bloody flesh! And, whatever could be the object in
carrying a dozen or more bodies into such a cul-de-sac?
When the fragments of limbs in the coppers
and the pile of bodies had been examined by medical
officers, they reported that it was obvious that
a number of crude surgical operations had been
performed. Arms and legs had been sawn.
Why? So that they would fit more easily into
the coppers?
When the Australian Graves Service Unit
was operating on the Somme in 1919, eliminating
the smaller burial mounds and concentrating
bodies into big permanent cemeteries, it exhumed
a number of heavy wooden coffins in German burials
grounds.
Accidentally one of these was broken open. It
contained only earth, equivalent to the weight of
a man's body.
Other coffins were opened subsequently, and a
big proportion of them was found to be filled
with soil only.
These cemeteries were in close proximity to the
1917 Somme battle line, and abutted on the Amiens-
Peronne road. It is remarkable that the Boche, in
many instances, should have gone to the enormous
trouble and expense of preparing coffins, practically
in the then front line. But they did. The
reason is difficult to discover. A few shovelsful of
earth over the poor, maimed body was the usual
and practical procedure.
"They cooked the bodies, and the coffins were to
'kid' the other 'Fritzes' that everything was jake,'"
was the average opinion of the grave-digging Diggers.
I have never heard an explanation of the dummied
coffins, but long after I had the facts about
the Devil's Kitchen.
It was a prisoner who cleared up the mystery.
Intelligence, naturally, was mot anxious to get
more facts, and every prisoner, practically right
up to November 11, was closely examined in relation
to the disposal of enemy dead.
Truth is Out.
Months afterwards an examining officer happened
upon the Red Cross ranker who was able
to solve the mystery. It appears that the tunnel
cavern had for a long time been used as a kitchen
by troops billeted in the barges in the canal tunnel.
Then, for some reason, just before the smashing
pf the Hindenburg Line, its use was discontinued.
The wooden buckets and the coppers were practically
the only gear not removed. When the big
barrage started, certain reserve troops near the
entrance to the tunnel decided that the old kitchen
would afford much greater protection. Some thirty
or forty men clattered up the stone stairway.
They had not been long in occupation when a
heavy shell penetrated from above. The kitchen,
and they did not know it, was actually much nearer
the surface than the roof of the tunnel. The shell
burst right in the centre of the group, killing and
wounding in indescribably fashion.
Blood gushing from frightful wounds. some survivors
rushed screaming down the stairway. Others
dragged their tortured bodies to the tunnel, leaving
behind trails of clotted blood. Others lay in agony
dying amongst those already dead. Two doctors and
stretcher bearers came almost immediately, and.
where there was a chance of saving life, operated
on the spot, throwing a number of limbs, surgically
amputated, into the coppers for want of some better
receptacle. The head had been blown into one
copper in the first instance.
When the medicos had done all that was possible,
a fatigue party, with the usual German
thoroughness, set to work to salvage all the clothing
and equipment that might be employed usefully.
(Continued on Page 64.)
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THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN (continued from page 61)
Germany was in dire straits with regard to
wool and other supplies at this time.
As they worked the fatigue party tied the bodies
together to facilitate transport later to the tunnel
and some burial ground. Operations were rudely
interrupted when the Australian divisions, at daylight,
following the Yanks, filtered into the tunnel.
Subsequent investigations showed a small aperture
in the roof of the kitchen where the shell had
entered. It was remarkable that signs of the burst
were not conspicuous on the old red-bricked walls
of the kitchen. But this was explained by the fact
that most of the fragments had found billets in the
bodies of luckless Germans, and much of the force
of the explosion had gone downwards through an
aperture in the floor.
The stale caked blood on the walls of the narrow
stairway had been left by carcasses of meat being
carried and dragged to the kitchen originally.
 

T. C. BARBOUR
ARCHITECT
BOX No. 2818, G P .O.,
SYDNEY.
31st October 1925
C.E.W. Bean Esq.,
Tuggranong
C A N B E R R A .
Dear Sir,
I enclose one or two cuttings re the Boiling
Down Works discussion now being revived, in which it
was cabled in the "SUN" 26inst that General J.V.Campbell V.C.
stated "I visited the ST QUENTIN TUNNEL and saw the
vats. I am convinced that bodies were
being refined down"
As far as tthe tunnel is concerned I can verify R.S.R's
remarks re explosion (enclosed). I personally inspected
the chamber and afterwards persuaded the 30th Battn Medical
officer, (Cap H. Downer) * if I remember rightly, to view the
[* *Capt H.G. Downer was our Bn. M.O. at the time*]
vats and give his opinion. A short account of same is
contained in the M.S. Essay I forwarded to you some time
ago "The breaking of the Hindenburg Line", which I understand
you have particulars, and may assist you in your conclusions
in this matter.
A short distance from the chamber a barge full of
badly German wounded was located in the blackness of the
canal, well cared for by 2 German attendants. The dead from
this barge had been removed up through the tunnel , past the
chamber, and dumped down in daylight amongst others killed
in the stunt, which was the collection described in the
article as above.
As much as we abhorred the Boche at the time, the
story of the Boiling Down Works was not credited, and never
substantiated by any of our men as far as I am aware.
Yours faithfully,
T.C. Barbour Capt
Reserve List
late 30 Bn.
 

492.
6 November 1925.
Captain T.C. Barbour,
Box 2818, G.P.O.,
Sydney.
Dear Captain Barbour,
Many thanks for your note about the St. Quentin
tunnel. I saw the place immediately after it was taken, and of
course discovered - as did many others - what had happened. I
sent an account of the true facts (which were as you state) by
cable at the time, and it was published in the Australian
papers.
Yours sincerely,
C. E. W. BEAN
 

The REVEILLE
60
March 31,1930
THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN
(By "Quesses.")
A memory of
the Hindenburg
line.
Hand drawn diagram – see original
Diggers called
it "Bully Beef
Factory"
Did Germany, towards the end of the war, boil
down the bodies of the dead to obtain those fats
and oils so essential to the preparation of high
explosive?
From the end of 1917 until the Armistice there
were many Diggers who fully believed that a big
proportion of enemy corpses was disposed of in
this way. We had read in certain of the London
papers which came to us fairly regularly of mysterious
trains which ran from the war areas back 
into Germany after nightfall. The reports were to
the effect that these trains were closely guarded.
they were made up of trucks heavily tarpaulined.
later it was reported that someone had peeped
under a tarpaulin to discover that the trucks were
crammed with the bodies of dead Germans, tied
neck to heels in pairs.
"Fritz" Wouldn't Care.
The average Digger just took it for granted then,
although there were some sceptics who wondered
how the operations were kept secret from the German
rank and file. The matter was discussed spasmodically
in and out of the line, and the conclusion
come to generally was that "Fritz" was such a
good soldier and staunch patriot that a little thing
like being boiled down for fat after he had gotten
his issue wouldn't upset his war-time equilibrium.
I happen to be personally acquainted with the
facts as they concern the alleged branch "factory."
It was discovered in the 1918 advance in the St.
Quentin tunnel, which formed a section of the great
Hindenburg Line in front of Bellecourt. I was
among the first to view the grim underground kitchen.
Bellecourt and, just beyond, Beaurevoir and adjacent
villages saw the Australian infantry in action
for the last time. American divisions - their first
big stunt - had made the first assault with tanks and a
barrage, and they went through the forests of wire
and over the elaborate network of fortified trenches
with all the boisterous enthusiasm of youth - unscarred
and irresponsible.
They "cleaned up" every "Fritz" in sight -
strangely enough (to them) there were not many -
and went on, and on, until they discovered that not
only were Germans in front of them, but that in
the misty dawn grey shapes were looming up on
their flanks and behind them.
All Over Again.
The Diggers did that job all over again, and the
Diggers always "cleaned up" on the surface and -
below. They salved the remnant of those gallant
but unsophisticated "Doughboys," and, so doing,
dealt with thousands of Germans who had dived
below at the first onslaught to emerge later to
engage the Australians.
Bayonet parties combed the enormous underground
trench systems, which had as their basis
the five-mile-long tunnel, through which great
barges could be towed. From this tunnel, so well
protected as to be almost immune from the heaviest
shells, galleries led up to concrete emplacements
in the front line. The system was one huge maze
of fortified catacombs.
In the canal tunnel the Germans had moored
many barges, and these were used as billets by
the infantry - thousands could be accommodated -
when not on duty in the front line.
At the southern end of the canal the Australian infantrymen
clambered down the steep western bank,
across the lock gates, and on to the eastern tow
path, engaging an occasional German en route, and
sniping a number fleeing up the steep bank opposite.
Bayonet parties then proceeded along the tow
path, and one entered a small black aperture, apparently
an entrance to somewhere, a few yards
from the mouth of the tunnel. A narrow, winding
stairway allowed only one man to proceed at a
time.
The Charnel House.
Up this dark stairway went the Diggers, flashing
an electric torch. They noticed that the walls -
old, red crumbling brick - were plentifully splashed,
practically for the whole distance, with fresh blood
and blood that was black and congealed.
There was about the place a smell - a charnel
house smell. At the top of the stone stairway they
trod upon boards, and the flashing torch revealed
a sight which, in all the circumstances, was probably
more horrible than all the flesh and soul revolting
sights of the war.
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Send in a Story - Long or Short, Grave or Gay.
 

March 31, 1930
The REVEILLE
61
It was a black cavern of a place perhaps thirty
feet by fifteen feet. On the left side were two big,
built-in coppers.
In one - on the black, greasy surface - was floating
the bloody head of a dead German, and the
torch showed up the grimed features and staring eyes.
In the other a man's elbow obtruded from the
scum. The torch switched upon a number of
wooden buckets, several of which were three parts
full of whitish grease - like beef dripping. Others
were empty, with a ring of dirty white fat midway.
Again the torch switched, and discovered a large
heap of bloody soaked clothing - German tunics,
trousers, boots, etc., thrown together in a haphazard
fashion.
And, moving round, the white flash of light
stopped upon a pile of broken and torn human
bodies - stark naked.
I have forgotten exactly how many bodies or portions
of bodies were subsequently counted. If may
have been 15 or 17. They were neatly stacked -
some tied together in threes - heads to heels, heels

to heads.
Rats Disturbed.
There was not a living thing in this place except

the rats - the great grey, mangy carrion of the
Western Front, whose ugly bodies were clustered
with repellant red, moist sores, which in time ate

away the remnants of their fur.
The rats scurried half hesitatingly away from
the heap of bodies when disturbed, and under the
shaking floor boards.
A Digger out out his hand and touched the
crooked elbow. He lifted it from the copper.
The hand and wrist were missing, and the upper
portion of the arm badly mutilated.
A second infantryman stirred the copper containing
the grinning head with his bayonet, and
brought to the greasy surface other odds and ends
of human flesh and bone. "'Struth," he said,
this must be a branch of the bully beef business."
And so . . . 
The news spread like wildfire.
Senior and medical officers visited that black
cavern later, and endeavoured to find some flaw
in the argument that it was a boiling-down works.
No Explanation.
But there was never a reasonable explanation
forthcoming.
Here were dead bodies, naked! And coppers and
buckets to hold fat! There were no obvious signs
of an explosion within the devil's kitchen which
might have accounted for the casualties. And,
moreover, the passage leading to the black hole
had obviously been used constantly to transport
bloody flesh! And, whatever could be the object in
carrying a dozen or more bodies into such a cul-de-sac?
When the fragments of limbs in the coppers
and the pile of bodies had been examined by medical
officers, they reported that it was obvious that
a number of crude surgical operations had been
performed. Arms and legs had been sawn.
Why? So that they would fit more easily into
the coppers?
When the Australian Graves Service Unit
was operating on the Somme in 1919, eliminating
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the smaller burial mounds and concentrating
bodies into big permanent cemeteries, it exhumed
a number of heavy wooden coffins in German burials
grounds.
Accidentally one of these was broken open. It
contained only earth, equivalent to the weight of
a man's body.
Other coffins were opened subsequently, and a
big proportion of them was found to be filled
with soil only.
These cemeteries were in close proximity to the
1917 Somme battle line, and abutted on the Amiens-
Peronne road. It is remarkable that the Boche, in
many instances, should have gone to the enormous
trouble and expense of preparing coffins, practically
in the then front line. But they did. The
reason is difficult to discover. A few shovelsful of
earth over the poor, maimed body was the usual
and practical procedure.
"They cooked the bodies, and the coffins were to
'kid' the other 'Fritzes' that everything was jake,'"
was the average opinion of the grave-digging Diggers.
I have never heard an explanation of the dummied
coffins, but long after I had the facts about
the Devil's Kitchen.
It was a prisoner who cleared up the mystery.
Intelligence, naturally, was mot anxious to get
more facts, and every prisoner, practically right
up to November 11, was closely examined in relation
to the disposal of enemy dead.
Truth is Out.
Months afterwards an examining officer happened
upon the Red Cross ranker who was able
to solve the mystery. It appears that the tunnel
cavern had for a long time been used as a kitchen
by troops billeted in the barges in the canal tunnel.
Then, for some reason, just before the smashing
pf the Hindenburg Line, its use was discontinued.
The wooden buckets and the coppers were practically
the only gear not removed. When the big
barrage started, certain reserve troops near the
entrance to the tunnel decided that the old kitchen
would afford much greater protection. Some thirty
or forty men clattered up the stone stairway.
They had not been long in occupation when a
heavy shell penetrated from above. The kitchen,
and they did not know it, was actually much nearer
the surface than the roof of the tunnel. The shell
burst right in the centre of the group, killing and
wounding in indescribably fashion.
Blood gushing from frightful wounds. some survivors
rushed screaming down the stairway. Others
dragged their tortured bodies to the tunnel, leaving
behind trails of clotted blood. Others lay in agony
dying amongst those already dead. Two doctors and
stretcher bearers came almost immediately, and.
where there was a chance of saving life, operated
on the spot, throwing a number of limbs, surgically
amputated, into the coppers for want of some better
receptacle. The head had been blown into one
copper in the first instance.
When the medicos had done all that was possible,
a fatigue party, with the usual German
thoroughness, set to work to salvage all the clothing
and equipment that might be employed usefully.
Germany was in dire straits with regard to
wool and other supplies at this time.
As they worked the fatigue party tied the bodies
together to facilitate transport later to the tunnel
and some burial ground. Operations were rudely
interrupted when the Australian divisions, at daylight,
following the Yanks, filtered into the tunnel.
Subsequent investigations showed a small aperture
in the roof of the kitchen where the shell had
entered. It was remarkable that signs of the burst
were not conspicuous on the old red-bricked walls
of the kitchen. But this was explained by the fact
that most of the fragments had found billets in the
bodies of luckless Germans, and much of the force
of the explosion had gone downwards through an
aperture in the floor.
The stale caked blood on the walls of the narrow
stairway had been left by carcasses of meat being
carried and dragged to the kitchen originally.
 

FL.4151
=================
5800.
9 May 1930.
The Editor,
"Reveille".
Dear Sir,
The account given in your Anzac Day number of the "corpse
factory" supposed to have been discovered in the tunnel of the
St. Quentin Canal at Bellicourt is very interesting, but is
inaccurate in its statement that the riddle of this chamber remained
a mystery. It was solved immediately, and in a cablegram sent
at the time to the Australian press I fully and clearly described
the place as a regimental kitchen.
The "corpse factory" myth began with an article published
in the Berlin "Lokal Anzeiger of 10th April 1917, a year and a
half before. This contained a reference to a "Carcase-Utilisation-
Establishment", which was mis-translated by some over=enthusiastic
writer in the "Independance Belge" who - I have no doubt in good
faith - rendered it as applying to human corpses. The word
"kadaver", which in a dictionary that I have beside me at the
moment, is translated "corpse", appears to be usually employed of
the carcases of animals. The mistranslation had gone a long way
before the Germans denied the story; buy it received a certain
credence, to my knowledge, both among soldiers and civilians, many
of whom did not believe the denial. And when there was discovered
in the Bellicourt tunnel (built by Napoleon) a chamber containing
thirteen corpses, on of them in a copper, and some tins of fat,
the story circulated - originating either with American or
Australian soldiers who saw it - that a "corpse factory" had at
last been found. The majority of Australians did not believe it,
but I fancy that it eventually reached some London newspaper. I
cannot find in the Australian press of the time any reference at
all to it except my cable.
Personally, I had never believed the myth, knowing that
the Germans treated their military dead with particular respect.
When, on September 29,1918, the report came from the front that a
"corpse factory" had been found, I felt certain that it was a
mistake, and on October 1st I went with a friend to see the place.
Fortunately I kept a full diary through out the war; and on turning
to that date I find a full account of that visit. Here it is as
written on the same night:
 

A U S T R A L I A N  I M P E R I A L  F O R C E.
21st. Battalion Headquarters,
12th. October 1918.
W. Montgomery Esq.,
18 Alfred Place,
Collins Street East,
MELBOURNE.
Dear Sir,
It is with deepest sympathy I write to you with reference
to the death of your son - 929 Sgt. MONTGOMERY W., 21st. Bn.
He was wounded on the morning of 5th. October 1918 and
conveyed to hospital at TINCOURT, near PERONNE. He died that
same day and was buried in the TINCOURT CEMETERY - Map Reference
J.23.b.4.7. Sheet 62C.1/40,000.
Your son was one of the lads who left Australia in my
Company. He had won the admiration and respect of every member of
the Unit and his death is deeply felt by all ranks.
By his cheerfulness and unselfishness he had endeared
himself to all members of the Battalion.
When the Authorities proposed to disband the Battalion
in September, owing to paucity of numbers due to heavy casualties,
your son was the foremost leader of the popular party. To him,
as to all of us, the Unit was something more than a name; it was
an integral part of his daily life and feelings.
As a soldier, he has repeatedly shown exceptional zeal
and valour in action, and, in him, we lose a soldier whose name
will live for ever in the minds of those who have been his comrades
during these eventful months.
Yours sincerely,
B. DUGGAN, LIEUT.-COLONEL,
Commanding 21st. Battalion A.I.F.
 

F R A N C E,
October 21st, 1918.
My Dear Mr. Montgomery,
You will have had the sad news of your boy's death
of wounds received in the capture of Montbrehain  the last
Defence of the Hindenburg Line, on October 5th. A Machine Gun
bullet pierced the buttock and must have penetrated the vital
organs, for he passed away the same day at the 12th. Casualty
Clearing Station. His body was buried in the cemetery at
Tincourt and a cross erected over the grave in affectionate
memory. At the time of receiving his wound, your son was
bravely leading his men to establish a forward post.
[*Historia*]
I knew your boy very well, and valued him very
highly. We had many friends in common in Melbourne, and I
saw a great deal of him. Our deepest sympathy is with you
all in your heavy sorrow, and I trust that God will give you
his comfort in these sad days of bereavement.
Yours very sincerely,
SYDNEY BUCKLEY,
(Vicar of Ivanhoe) Chaplain.
21st. Battalion. 

FRANCE.
12th. Sept. Oct 1918.
Dear Sir,
It is difficult to speak of your son without becoming inordinately
eulogistic. His was a golden personality - there is no
other word for it. He was loved unfailingly, courage in the line
and unfailing kindness out of it had endeared him to all to a degree
not usually measurable in the commoner values of soldier comradeship.
He was at all times splendid. There was a consistency in his fine
qualities. He was never at any moment anything less than a
gentleman - he was often much more than that.
[*Historian*]
Even as I write, a man is saying:- "He was one of God's
Gentlemen." Another says:- "One of the finest gentlemen that
ever lived." It is odd that my written word should coincide so
completely with their speech; but it offers a living testimony to
the validity of my appreciation.
This estimate of men bred in a different atmosphere and
accustomed to what is largely an incompatable set of opinions -
speaking indeed, an almost dissimilar tongue - is really of more
worth than the generous tribute of his own friends, the depth of
whose debt is greater in proportion to the greater benefits derived
from their more intimate contact with his mind, and heart, and
character.
I was with him when he received his wound - as I was, also,
at Ypres on the occasion of his previous hurt - and he took it as
he never failed to take all else in this grim business - with undisturbed
serenity of acceptance.
He was at all times noble, brave, unwaveringly clean : a
splendid soldier with a personality as of gold.
I am. Sir,
With a respectful exhortation to pride and
not despair,
Yours very sincerely,
(Signed) ADRIAN LAWLOR.
W. Montgomery Esq.,
Melbourne,
VICTORIA.