Physical description

Index, ill, maps, p.305.

Publication type

non-fiction

Summary

In the Ypres Salient, the secret struggle beneath no man's land became one of engineering, technology and science - and of carefully calculated assassination. This book reveals how this most intense of battles was fought and won. Few on the surface knew the horrific details of the tunnellers work, yet this silent, claustrophobic conflict was a barbaric struggle that raged day and night for almost two and a half years. On 7 June 1917 the most dramatic mine offensive in history at Messines Ridge opened. After Messines, the tunnellers turned to the construction of deep dugouts, structures which housed tens of thousands of troops, men for whom life on the surface had become almost untenable. Often electrically lit and ventilated, they incorporated headquarters, cookhouses, soup kitchens, hospitals, drying rooms and workshops. Hundreds were built, and thanks to the Flanders geology many still survive today, and are can be seen in photographs in this book.