Customer Reviews

Beneath Flanders Fields: The Tunnellers' War 1914-18

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is how books should be produced. Clear reproductions of contemporary photo's, beautifully executed line drawings that help explain & illustrate the text and clear color modern photos of what remains on site today.

The book covers the deep tunneling 'war' in Flanders in great detail, with the other tunneling sectors - where conditions were less difficult - in less detail & in their own section. And does so from both sides, which is still uncommon in any modern military books - most being written from the point of one side or the other.

I have also recommended this book to acquaintances well outside the military history field - it is an excellent book for those interested in 20th Century engineering and equally to those with an interest in archeology - I expect to see some of the techniques described in this book being used in future field excavations in anthropology.

I was vaguely familiar with the extent of mining in WWI due to a TV special on one of the history channels, so I decided that I would like to know more and bought this book. The team of authors with various backgrounds put 25 years worth of research into this work, and man, does it ever show. Superbly researched, extremely well written, and jammed full of crisp, rare period photographs and maps, topped off with a high quality printing. No way will you be disappointed with this book, and should you ever have the opportunity to tour the WWI battlefields, you'll never look at the ground beneath you feet the same again!

The book was brilliant, detailed, meticulously written and the lay out was superb. I would like to endorse this book to anyone interested in the Great War especially as this specific part of it has not received the recognition that it deserves from both sides of this epic struggle. The book will interest all not only people with military back ground.

From an Avid war history reader and earlier special forces UDT EOD solder.
Paal S. Dinessen.

Some history books deal with momentous events, but pay little attention to the stories of those caught up in the events. This book avoids that mistake. It takes one aspect of a war that brought death and misery to so many -- tunnelling. Not only do we get a well-researched account of the strategic importance of tunnelling on the Western Front, but we're taken down the tunnels with the miners themselves and experience the nervewracking tension that came with working in silence in a claustrophobic space while being hunted by enemy tunnellers.

Part of my interest is personal -- my great-grandfather was killed at Flanders. He listed "miner" as his occupation on his attestation papers, although there's no evidence that he worked as a tunneller during the war.

The book is beautifully laid out (if we can use that term with such a horrific war), and includes fascinating present-day photos of some of the tunnels and bunkers that they entered as part of the research for the book. They also make extensive use of journals kept by miners and their officers. We don't usually think of history books as page-turners, but this one comes close.

When we think of military mining we rarely reflect back to WWI and think instead of the Cu Chi tunnels, Tora Bora, etc. But the engineers in WWI really raised underground warfare to a high (and terrifying) art. I can't imagine the horror of scrambling down a gallery to rescue your friends, and a camouflet (mixed with mustard gas) is detonated behind you - trapping you forever. Or, even worse, knowing that your trench line has been mined and there isn't a thing you can do about it but wait to die. This book is the best I have read on the subject of WWI mining.