View across No Man's Land between Ypres and Messines in 1917 by Lance Corporal Hugh F. Ward, 97th Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps. Ward painted this while he was in the sector before, during, and after the June, 1917 Battle of Messines Ridge. Initialed 'H.W.'.

Initialed 'H.W.'.

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From Messines Ridge in Flanders, due south of Ypres, German observers overlooked British preparations for an offensive Douglas Haig planned from July 1917. For five months British, Canadian, New Zealand, and Australian miners tunneled beneath the ridge, then packed their tunnels with explosives: 19 heavy mines with 933,000 pounds of high explosive.

At 3:10 AM on June 7, 1917, 19 explosions lifted and brought down the ridge, throwing the earth and the soldiers defending it into the air before they fell to earth. An estimated 10,000 German soldiers were killed or buried alive in the explosions which was followed by a bombardment and rapid British advance against stunned defenders.

The explosion was felt in southern England, by Prime Minister David Lloyd George in London, and even by a sleepless student in Dublin, 500 miles away.

Since early 1915 tunnelers had dug mines and countermines on the Western Front, mining beneath forts, fortresses and enemy entrenchments. The tunnelers, many of them miners in civilian life, tunneled, listened for enemy digging, blew camouflets to destroy the enemy's mining, sometimes broke through into enemy tunnels, and sometimes fought underground.

The plan, developed by British Lieutenant-Colonel John Norton Griffiths, to mine Messines Ridge, had been approved on January 6, 1917. Four days after the British attack, the Germans withdrew from Messines and Wytschaete, retreating to the east. Haig continued with his preparations for the Third Battle of Ypres.

Start Date: 1917-06-07

End Date: 1917-06-14