The Ypres Salient was one of the most intensely fought over sections of the Western Front. Early in 1917, the British high command laid down plans to seize control of the area once and for all. The starting point was the capture of the Messines Ridge, to the south of Ypres. To help with this, a series of powerful mines were laid deep under the German front line. Bryan Frayling of the Royal Engineers was one of those involved in preparing the mines. He described his anticipation on the morning of the attack, 7 June.
I had hoped very, very much that I would push the switch in that blew up Spanbroekmolen, which was the largest of them and which I'd helped to charge. Instead I was ordered to get up on Kemmel Hill that night and act as official observer for all the Tunnelling Companies. I had two subalterns with me; we put out sticks, lining sticks, on the correct bearings, and waited in pitch dark. When zero came, my anxiety of course was that some of the mines had been sitting in extremely wet ground and the explosive was ammonal which doesn't go off when it's wet. It was in soldered waterproof tins but we wondered how they'd fared…
Frayling needn't have worried –19 mines went up at 3.10 am. The result was devastating. Lieutenant John Royle of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company witnessed the impact of the explosions.
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