Mesen
The Mines
The following table is intended to give an idea of the scale of work undertaken by Major Norton Griffiths and those under his command. The details have been taken from the Official History.
Some of the galleries by necessity had to start 450 metres behind the British front line before pushing out towards the German emplacements. The total length of the tunnels could be anywhere from 400 metres to almost 700 metres for the longest at Kruisstraat. Some were not simple single tunnels but branched to form a number of chambers each filled with an average of 18,000 kilos of explosives.
The Messines Mines from North to South
| Name | Completed | Depth (Metres) |
Charge (Kilos) |
Gallery (Metres) |
Crater (Metres) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hill 60 Group | |||||
| A Left | 01 08 16 | 27 | 24,236 | 73* | 87 |
| B Caterpillar | 18 10 16 | 31 | 31,710 | 421 | 116 |
| St Eloi | 28 05 17 | 38 | 43,306 | 409 | 101 |
| Hollandscheschuur Group | |||||
| No 1 | 20 06 16 | 18 | 15,492 | 252 | 105 |
| No 2 | 11 07 16 | 16 | 6,749 | 14* | 65 |
| No 3 | 20 08 16 | 16 | 7,927 | 120 | 61 |
| Petit Bois Group | |||||
| No 2 Left | 15 08 16 | 17 | 13,590 | 64* | 127 |
| No 1 Right | 30 07 16 | 21 | 13,590 | 631 | 114 |
| Maedelstede Farm | 02 06 17 | 31 | 42,582 | 491 | 117 |
| Peckham | 19 07 16 | 21 | 39,411 | 349 | 101 |
| Spanbroekmolen | 28 06 16 | 27 | 41,223 | 522 | 131 |
| Kruisstraat Group | |||||
| No 1 and No 4 | 11 04 17 | 17 | 22,473 | 120 | |
| No 2 | 12 07 16 | 19 | 13,620 | 52* | 112 |
| No 3 | 23 08 16 | 15 | 13,620 | 659 | 101 |
| Ontario Farm | 06 06 17 | 32 | 27,180 | 393 | 67 |
| Trench 127 Group | |||||
| No 7 Left | 20 04 16 | 23 | 16,308 | 76* | 71 |
| No 8 Right | 09 05 16 | 23 | 22,650 | 413 | 104 |
| Trench 122 Group | |||||
| No 5 Left | 14 05 16 | 18 | 9,060 | 134* | 99 |
| No 6 Right | 11 06 16 | 23 | 18,120 | 296 | 109 |
| *Gallery is a branch off the main tunnel | |||||
If it took a man an hour to advance a gallery 30 centimetres then it would have taken over 16,000 man hours to dig the nearly five and a half kilometres of tunnels.
If the gallery was 170 cm high and 70 cm wide, that would make approximately 6,500 cubic metres of clay to be brought to the surface and hidden away from the prying eyes of German pilots.
The total weight of explosives used amounts to 431,700 kilos.