The underground warfare was a particular type of combat where guile was the main asset. The enemies engaged in a kind of mortal chess game. They tried to outwit each other, anticipating the movements and attacks of their opponent with the help of a special listening device: the geophone[1]. The work of the Tunnellers could never be hurried. It demanded calmness, efficiency, and silence.
Upon their arrival at the front line, the New Zealand Tunnellers joined the L sector, located to the north of the town of Arras. Each Tunnelling Company operated in a defined combat area that differed from the divisions on British Army Trench Maps[2]. Thus, the New Zealand Tunnellers worked between the 181 Tunnelling Company to the north, which occupied the M sector near Thélus, and the 184 Tunnelling Company, which was stationed in the K sector, to the south of Roclincourt.
Nevertheless, the New Zealand Tunnellers had barely begun their underground operations when the whole Company exchanged its position with the 185 Tunnelling Company. A fortnight after arriving on the front line, they were sent to a sector named “Chantecler,” located approximately 1100 yards south of their previous position[3].
The New Zealand Tunnellers were now in the J sector, to the north of the Scarpe, a canalized river that flows northeast of Arras. This change of position was due to the difficulties experienced by the inexperienced New Zealanders in organizing their underground operations.
To make up for the severe lack of knowledge—and especially hands-on experience in underground warfare—most of the Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, and Tunnellers were sent in small groups to the Mine School, while the rest of the Company began operations in their new sector[4].
The Tunnellers quickly adopted their own working methods, often at the expense of the Royal Engineers’ manuals. For example, they preferred to use inclined entrances rather than the traditional vertical shafts, which slowed down the work of the men[5]. Shafts were also more vulnerable and could reveal the presence of Tunnellers in a specific area of the front. The discovery of an underground access by the enemy was always followed by intense and sustained shelling of the position.
Like all Tunnelling Companies, the New Zealanders worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in 3 shifts. Each shift consisted of an officer, a sergeant, a corporal, a lance-corporal, and about 15 sappers[6]. The Tunnellers were supported in their daily efforts by British infantrymen. Each shift worked 8 hours beneath the trenches, then returned to the Company quarters in Arras for a rest period of between 16 and 24 hours, depending on the phase of the war.
Underground warfare largely depended on the battlefield—particularly its geology. Across the entire operational area of the New Zealanders, the subsoil was made up of a thick and uniform layer of hard chalk[7]. This geology was generally ideal for creating an underground system.
The Tunnellers used picks and other digging tools to carve their tunnels into the chalky stratum. Typically, one man worked at the face of the tunnel, delivering steady blows with the pick. The narrow width of the tunnels made tool use difficult. In the chalk, the tunnel walls were usually left bare and were supported with a minimum of woodwork[8].
Nevertheless, the hard chalk proved highly resistant when the Tunnellers needed to detonate a charge. The purpose of mining was to load explosives at the head of a tunnel to destroy an enemy position. A mine was only charged when the men were certain they were close to an enemy gallery.
New Zealand Tunnellers and German Miners were engaged in underground combat marked by attacks and counterattacks. After a brief course in mining and sapping, the New Zealanders quickly adapted to their underground role. The Chantecler sector was quieter, giving them time to gain experience in this unique form of warfare.
As soon as the Tunnellers began working in their new sector, the German Miners fired a mine[9]. Fortunately, the men were safe and sound. The explosion caused no damage, though the presence of gas in one of the tunnels prevented the men from continuing their task.
More firmly established underground, the Germans detonated four additional mines targeting the New Zealand tunnels and succeeded in destroying a portion of the British front line at the beginning of June 1916[10]. Three large mine craters—named Cuthbert, Clarence, and Claude by the British after a folk song by Arnold Blake—formed on the ground, and German infantry took advantage of the situation to cross the no man's land. The Tunnellers barely managed to escape. British soldiers from the Norfolk Regiment and the Royal Warwickshire Regiment repelled the raid, inflicting heavy losses[11].
Between mid-June and mid-November 1916, underground warfare entered a relatively quiet phase. The German attack in early June had weakened the geology, making new operations more difficult to organize. As a result, the enemy retreated along almost the entire front of the New Zealand sector. The Tunnellers took this opportunity to construct an effective defensive mining system in front of the British trenches[12]. Nevertheless, the underground fighting had already begun to lose momentum.
Despite some operations in August and September, the Tunnellers were given new missions, and underground warfare no longer occupied them significantly after October 1916. The Company had instead begun preparations for its future role in the upcoming Battle of Arras.
1. James Campbell Neil, The New Zealand Tunnelling Company, 1915-1919, Auckland, Whitcombe & Tombs, 1922, p. 24, “In order to magnify and to accurately determine earth noises our chief instrument was the Geophone”.
2. Peter Barton, Peter Doyle & Johan Vandewalle, Beneath Flanders Fields, The Tunnellers' War 1914-15, Gloucestershire, Spellmount, 2007 (2004), p. 67.
3. The National Archives United Kingdom, WO 95/407, War Diary of the New Zealand Engineers Tunnelling Company, 29 March 1916, “Get instructions to take the front now occupied by the 185th. Coy in lieu of that now held. New front known as CHANTICLEER located to N.E. of ARRAS between front lately held and the 184th. Coy.R.E.”
4. James Campbell Neill, The New Zealand Tunnelling Company…, op. cit., p. 27-29, “When these [Tunnellers] returned to the unit they were replaced by others until all the officers and N.C.O.’s together with many of the sappers had taken the course.”
5. Ibid., p. 91.
6. Anthony Byledbal, Les Soldats fantômes de la Grande Guerre souterraine, 1915-1919. De l'Immigrant pākehā au vétéran oublié : les hommes de la New Zealand Engineers Tunnelling Company, Doctoral thesis, under the supervision of Sophie-Anne Leterrier (University of Artois) and in collaboration with Nathalie Philippe (University of Waikato), University of Artois, 2012, p. 271.
7. Ch. Delattre, Carte géologique à 1/50 000 : Arras, XXIV-6, notice explicative, Orléans, Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières, 1968, p. 5-6.
8. James Campbell Neill, The New Zealand Tunnelling Company…, op. cit., p. 39.
9. The National Archives United Kingdom, WO 95/407, War Diary…, op. cit., 7 April 1916, “Enemy blew at J4. at 10.30.p.m. evidently against our left branch.”
10. Ibid., 4 June 1916.
11. James Campbell Neill, The New Zealand Tunnelling Company…, op. cit., p. 49, “The Norfolks and Warwicks suffered some casualties in the trench fighting before the Germans were driven out.”
12. Anthony Byledbal, Les Soldats fantômes de la Grande Guerre souterraine…, op. cit., p. 343-366.
Anthony Byledbal, “Beneath Artois Fields“, New Zealand Tunnellers Website, NaN (2009), Accessed: . URL: www.
