Who would have thought that Hill 60, a small hill formed from the diggings of the railway line to the city of Ypres in Belgium, would be the catalyst for the deadly game that was fought out 30 metres beneath the surface of the Western Front in World War I.
You have probably recently read or seen details of the recently released film and book Beneath Hill 60.
The author of the book, Will Davies, is an acclaimed World War I historian and a gifted storyteller and, as a consequence, Beneath Hill 60 is one of those "can't put down" books.
Will has been a friend and client of our firm for many years and we were very pleased to have provided legal services to him in relation to this excellent book.
Beneath Hill 60 is the action packed story of Australia's cat-and-mouse underground mine warfare - a secret battle fought not so much by soldiers but by miners, a story detailing the sense of claustrophobia, monotony and danger that these miners faced in these tunnels each day.
The story revolves around the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company, led by Captain Oliver Woodward, which was responsible for the mines under Hill 60. Woodward himself was late to enlist – because, as a mining engineer, his skills were required back home to keep essential services going – and, as a consequence, he was a recipient of a white feather in an envelope (suggesting cowardice). However, when he did enlist, and went to the Western Front, he was awarded the Military Cross for bravery – not once but three times – one of only four Australians to achieve this during the war.
These tunnellers performed some truly amazing work, and in the midst of carrying out their mission, they saw their comrades blown to pieces, buried in the murky mud or drowned in the "liquid limestone".
The charges beneath Hill 60 were set off, in conjunction with 18 others in June 1917, as part of a large scale allied offensive which broke the gridlocked trench warfare that had existed there for three long years. But even in a war infamous for extensive loss of life, the consequences of the explosions under Hill 60 and its adjoining features were alarming as they not only literally smashed open the German frontline, but obliterated an estimated 10,000 German soldiers in doing so.
Will Davies has captured the trials and tribulations of Oliver Woodward and these Australian miners, and related the exhilarating and shocking truth of their plight – and of their success - and told the story of the "secret" underground war on the Western Front.
And it is all true!
