Recommended: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Hawthorn Ridge Mines

Post-Exposion Plume of the 1 July 1916 Mine

A new study, published in the Journal of Conflict Archaeology, has been made available online titled "A multidisciplinary scientific investigation of the 1916 Hawthorn Mine Crater, Beaumont Hamel, Somme, Northern France."

While it is brimming with historical detail, this paper will be a delight for any of our readers with a scientific/technical bent. A few years ago, the site of two explosions at Hawthorn Ridge that marked the (premature) start of the Battle of the Somme (1 July 1916) and its conclusion (13 November 1916) came into ownership of the Hawthorn Crater Association. The new group quickly commissioned a multi-year study of the site. The study team pulled out all the stops, employing remote sensing, drones, ground-based-LiDAR and surface surveys, geophysics and archaeological investigations. Best of all, their final report makes a smashing read.

Their Map Show the Location of All the Mines
Detonated on 1 July 1916
(Note: Hawthorn Ridge Had a Second Explosion on 13 November 1916)

Some of their  findings include:

• The Germans successfully incorporated the crater rim into their front line after the blast.
• The location of an unknown tunnel dug out from  the crater by German forces to provide an advanced position in no- man’s-land
• The second mine explosion at the ridge on 13 November 1916 was much more successful that the 1 July blast, allowing the 51st Highland Division to capture the ridge and nearby village of Beaumont Hamel.
• Post-1 July, the site was subject to persistent artillery fire—some of which was ineffective due to failed detonations
• The precise location and depth of the two explosions

The Crater Today

Team member Professor Peter Doyle, a military historian at Goldsmiths, University of London, said: “The Germans had quickly mastered the art of capturing craters and used this to their advantage. . . Our study has provided new evidence of the strongpoint the Germans built from the captured crater in the middle of No Man’s Land that doomed the British attack to failure. This reinforces the idea that blowing the mine ten minutes early, to give the earth time to settle, was a very bad idea."

The full report can be read or downloaded as a PDF document: HERE