Tours of WW1 - Spanbroekmolen Mine Crater
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
- In 1914 Spanbroekmolen was the site of a windmill.
At the end of the First Battle of Ypres in November 1914 the German Front Line was established in this location on the high ground of the Messines Ridge.
Between then and 7th June 1917 the Germans spent a year and a half developing well-established positions here with concrete bunkers and strong defensive positions.
The mine at Spanbroekmoelen was started by 171st Tunneling Company, Royal Engineers, on 1st January. Six months later the mine was finished. To celebrate the mine's completion two officers made their way into the chamber with four bottles of champagne and drinking glasses. The main charge for the mine was made up of 50 LB (pound) boxes of ammonol, totalling 90,000 lbs (pounds).
The main charge was finally completed on 28th June 1916 and officially completed, according to the War Diary, on 1st July 1916.
The attack on Messines Ridge had been planned since January 1916.
However, it had to be delayed to June 1917, because of the Germans offensives at Verdun and the Somme.
Once blown, the mine left a 75m wide by over 12m deep crater, and the detonation destroyed the German lines.
The site is now a memorial called the "Pool of Peace".
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These historical vignettes are fantastic. More please
Spencer King yes!
And they call it a mine, a mine!
This isn't a mine... it's a tomb!
A tomb created by lots of bomb.
A Roaring fire, Malt Beer! RED MEAT OFF THE BONE!
We make for the Gap of Rohan. We should never have come here. Get out of here get out!
That is a giant crater. The explosion must had been earth shaking for miles. I have some photos of battle fields where this tactic was used extensively. Looks like the surface of the moon.
Imagine the amount of earth and sand that fell back to earth after the explosion. Hundreds if not thousands of cubic meters.
Suddenly at dawn, as a signal for all of our guns to open fire, there rose out of the dark ridge of Messines and "Whitesheet" and that ill-famed Hill 60, enormous volumes of scarlet flame [...] throwing up high towers of earth and smoke all lighted by the flame, spilling over into fountains of fierce colour, so that many of our soldiers waiting for the assault were thrown to the ground. The German troops were stunned, dazed and horror-stricken if they were not killed outright. Many of them lay dead in the great craters opened by the mines.
- Sir Philip Gibbs
Some of the mine explosions were so big, they were heard in Britain.
Among the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever made (intentionally). And as mentioned, was reportedly heard over the channel in London and as far away as Dublin. It wasn't the largest mine detonated, but almost.
news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/06/biggest-blast-before-atomic-bombs-messines-world-war/
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography" To add to some of the other posts below, 19 mines used, 1 blew up in 1955, 4 remaining. Probably the definitive book on the UK side is "Beneath Flanders Fields", ISBN 978-0-7735-4301-0
One of the mines of this operation didn´t blow up at all, it still lies buried and noone knows the exact location.
Another one of those mines also did not explode during the war, it did quite some time later, after a thunderstorm, if I remember an old documentary right.
try FOUR. the one that blew in '55 was part of a set of 4 known as the birdcage mines. another was flooded and abandoned.
Ian have you seen the movie "Beneath Hill 60 " made in 2010 about Australian miners in WW1
Surely a war enthusiast would never come across a movie such as that.
Nasty McJackass Ian is a weapons enthusiast not a war enthusiast
I didn`t mean it like that. Also, don`t one tend to follow the other on these subjects?
As much as we worry about nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. Let this be a reminder we had plenty of weapons of mass destruction before any of that. And we used them, a lot.
I think there's an area in France called the Red Zone. Poison gas rounds are still leaking from WWI making the area dangerous.
A moments silence for the fallen.
Apparently from books and items I've read about these tunnel explosives the sound could be heard as far away as London
Took a school trip there today on a battlefield tour. The few kids that seamed to grasp how much explosive is needed to do that were stunned.
With respect to all the fallen of the Great War. Rest In Peace.
Ian, the history you present to us is always interesting. Thank you.
During the American Civil War Union Forces surrounding the City of Petersburg Virginia dug a mine under the Confederate trenches and exploded a large cache of gunpowder. Due to lack of proper coordination and command failures the following Union Army assault was repulsed with heavy casualties.
General Ulysses S. Grant said of the debacle: "It was the saddest affair I have witnessed in this war." and "Such an opportunity for carrying fortifications I have never seen and do not expect again to have."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Crater
I think one of the Union Generals was drunk that day and so was late on the command. 'Battle of the Crater' -Petersburg, VA.
@@edwil111 I believe the General was General Ambrose Burnside, and what I remember is he was drunk all day and that he had ordered his Assistant Corps commander to command the assault. Burnside was relieved of Command and placed on leave.
Please do more of these. This is the stuff I love. But holy hell is it humbling.
Remember going there as a cadet. Interesting area, lots of great tours.
Blown up 101 years ago on my Birthday. Damn! Sad to think that so many people died from this explosion.
You can't help but marvel how nature can transform an event so violent and destructive into something beautiful.
Nature always finds a way.
This group of mines explosion was the first largest explosion, the second was Halifax, then the Navy base explosion, followed by the Atom bomb. There are three left, one got hit by lighting and a second is siting under a farmers barn.
Please Rest In Peace boys, all countries included, your mission, your watch is over now. I hope for your sake and all soldiers of all wars your in GODS hands now. No pain or terror just peace, rest and happiness
"Diameter of complete obliteration 430 feet" ....fuck
It is awe imspiring to see how much warfare can change and influence the environment it rakes place in. That crater is huge.
I had a distant relative relative killed due to this delayed mine,,,, i hope he is still resting in peace....
....but are there any fish in there?
Wonderful to see the place so serene and truly at peace.
Can't wait to see more of these interesting spots!
Amazing that it is owned by Toc H, the group that ran a r&r club for soldiers in Poperinghe, Belgium, during WW1. I read about it in Harry Patch's memoir. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toc_H
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Patch
Haven't double-checked yet to see if it not a hoax but I just watched a a show that said one of these on the Belgian border touched off in 1955. 26,000 pounds of high explosive estimated.
+Jon Applegate That is correct. From what I understand, there were a total of 24 mines. They used 19 in the attack, and one blew up during a thunderstorm in 1955. The other 4 remain INTACT, and no one knows where they are!
I was shaking my head as Ian was explaining. A mine did that?!? I am not much into curse words, but Holy Shit.
Ooooh a mine. Thought mine as in a hidden explosive just a few inches deep. But no, mine as in an underground system/tunnel. I think I remember seeing a documentary about this years ago.
I recently watched a video where a chap took some drone footage of a similar crater in France.
th-cam.com/video/lJu8b8oUbkc/w-d-xo.html
What a hellscape that must have been.
Not quite thousands of tons, unless the pounds on the marker aren't English pounds.
My Grandfather was first sent to Ypres when he was deployed to The Western Front. After two weeks rotating though the trenches he was given a temporary assignment to the tunneling units. He sent three weeks working in the mines under Hill 60 and the conditions in the mines he describes were truly horrific
Wow..... thanks Ian
Isn't "thousands of tons of explosives" a bit of exaggeration here?
Wikipedia article states 45 tons, which is impressive indeed, but far from thousands.
Billions.
Dozenz of explozzivz! Dozzenz!
So many!
Mine warfare was extensively used in the Spanish Civil War too, and there are still some craters near Madrid that can be visited. Not as big as this one though.
its even still being done nowadays, there's a video of one in Syria i think, and first you see what are probably like 10+ story apartment buildings and such, and then the mine goes off, and just dwarfs the whole city. its truly frightening how huge mine/tunnel explosions can be.
in fact ive seen multiple videos from syria using mines. very impressive
syria
th-cam.com/video/Kbbvn3JLCFg/w-d-xo.html
wwi
th-cam.com/video/YPGrrnpzB_Y/w-d-xo.html
That's a paddling pool compared to the messines ridge crater.
I suspect there weren't 19 mines, but 10. If you compare the 9 in "1917" and the number of mines written on the stone, it doesn't look alike. The rock is just scratched making it look like a fancy old-style 9.
there were 24 mines of which 19 were used in the attack, 1 exploded during a thunderstorm in 1955 and 4 are still buried underground to this day.
Ah
source? would like to give it a read
90,000 lbs is 45 tons of explosives, not "thousands of tons" lol.
Billions
: p
Really enjoy this kind of content. Good stuff.
Wait so it was a mine operation to essentially make an explosive mine. Am I the only one getting a little confused here?
How it worked. They would dig a shaft behind our front lines then horizontally out under no mans land until they were under the enemy front line. They would then pack in tons of high explosive, and just before the infantry charged across no mans land, they would blow that section of the enemies front line apart for "easy" access. Both sides were at it with both sides also trying to foil each others attempts.
Isn't the English language fun? Once upon a time explosives places underground were called torpedoes. However this was a military mining operation so... Mine mine! :)
That’s the origin of the word “mine” in context of a land mine. It originally was a literal mine shaft packed with explosives.
This really confused me too, do they mean mine as in a place where you dig for ore, or the explosive mine you step on, both would kinda work in this situation lol.
Ian, you need a drone for sites like these.
Welcome to Europa 🎈 InRange
Been there! On a school trip. 😁
We getting a Hill 60 video too?
Hill 60 video is in your video store. Canal -60 video not there yet. I suspect than Ian's tour is related to ongoing Hill 80 excavation.
We’re the allies successful in this attack? Or was it a failure like in the mine attack in Fredericksburg?
this was one of the most successful attacks by the allies because after obliterating the German lines they didn't try to push any further. The objective was to eliminate the elevated positions which the Germans used for spotting artillery strikes and also shorten the front line a bit.
Eeeeey ive been there like 3 months back
So just to put it into context this explosion was in the region of 40 Kilotons give or take!!!! The bomb at Hiroshima was 15 KTs an airburst so not that comparable but still....bloody hell!
Halifax explosion was 2.9 kilotons and it was bigger than all Messines mines combined. Although human casualties in Messines were bigger.
There is small difference between kilopounds and kilotons
There is a 35 kiloton ww1 shells stash at paardemarkt, it's a "little" bigger than that.
I had no idea that this was ever used again. This sounds exactly like the same tactics the Union used against the Confederates in the civil war battle of Petersburg. I wonder if they are somehow connected?
Tactics like this are as old as siege warfare. Before the invention of gunpowder they dug tunnels and chambers underneath fortress walls, packed them with flammable materials and started a fire. The heat cracked the ground and the walls above which led to a collapse. After that ground troops assaulted the breached wall. After gunpowder was invented these tactics got much more efficient. The Ottomans used it during the Second Siege of Vienna and managed to destroy multiple outer defense works and to blow a hole into the main curtain wall of the city. The defenders managed to defend the breach, but the Ottomans started a second mine to make a second breach. Luckily for the defenders they managed to intercept the mine with a counter-tunnel (counter-tunneling was also used extensively during World War 1 to stop the enemy from building mines) before the sappers could ignite the charges. Tactics like this were also used during the Thirty Years War and the Napoleonic Wars, so it is plausible that Union Sappers would use these same tactics during the American Civil War. The Japanese later also used this tactic during the Siege of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War.
Just a small rectification, sappers (from french sappeurs) were military engeneering units for above ground, thus a trench that advances on a enemy fortification is called a sappe. Units that worked under ground were called miners.
i cant see any comments ...
Wow, what a hole...
Thank you , Ian .
Is that in Belgium?
www.wo1.be/en/db-items/krater-spanbroekmolen-pool-of-peace
Yes, south of Ypres.
You're correct, my friend. It's located in Heuvelland, south of Ypres.
Yes
Thnx :)
How huge a mine was it to create such a massive hole wtf
91 thousand pounds huh.. D:
google earth or maps link please
how about a trench map side by side a modern one?maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=15&lat=50.7818&lon=2.8692&layers=101464924&right=BingHyb
probably gives a clue to what one of the next ones might be too