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During WW1 both sides dug beneath No Man’s Land to lay explosives to blow up enemy trenches. Sometimes opposing tunneler’s would meet and viscous subterranean fights would ensue. The myths around the use of ‘Obrez’ or cut-down rifles has ground over the years, and while its likely some were used, we’ll probably never know just how many were used.
I recently had a chance to look at a very handy SMLE, which while cut-down, still had its butt stock. I think this made this particular rifle a lot handier to use - still firing one of these in a narrow tunnel in the near-pitch black must have been horrific!
In this week’s TAB video I talk about the concept and realities of an Obrez SMLE and talk about what weapons British/Empire tunnellers used from their own accounts.
Thanks for watching guys, check out the accompanying blog for more photos over on the TAB site, here!
118 ‘Brussels’ was a War Department-owned Austerity 0-6-0 saddle tank steam engine made by
Hudswell Clarke. Between 1945 and 1969 it worked on the Longmoor Military Railway (LWR).
The Austerity 0-6-0 locomotives were designed by The Hunslet Engine Company for shunting during World War Two. They continued to be used by both the British military as well as the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) and coal mines into the 1970s.
Engine No.181 of the same class as Brussels operating on the LMR (source)
Brussels was used on the Longmoor Military Railway in Hampshire. The Royal Engineers built the first parts of what would become the LMR in 1903 to serve the Bordon and Longmoor Military Camps. This was later expanded with the Woolmer Instructional Military Railway before the lines in the area were renamed the Longmoor Military Railway (LMR) in 1935. The British Army and the Railway Inspectorate used the line to train personnel how to build and operate railways, as such its layout changed frequently until it closed down in October 1969. During its history the LMR was operated by the Royal Engineers, Royal Corps of Transport and Royal Logistics Corps.
This Pathe newsreel shows the LMR in action c.1961 (source)
When the line was closed down 118 Brussels was purchased from the Army by a local enthusiast who hoped to run it on parts of the LMR which would be run as a tourist attraction. This plan fell through and Brussels was offered to the Keighley & Worth Railway Society. Today Brussels is preserved at KWR’s depot at Oxenhope, Yorkshire.
Sources:
All main images taken by the author.
Longmoor Military Railway, Friends of Alton Station, (source)
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Historical Trivia: Captured in the Kaiserschlacht
On the 21st March 1918, the German Army launched Operation Michael near Saint-Quentin in Northern France. This was the opening of the Kaiserschlacht or great German Spring Offensive which marked the furthest German advance on the Western Front since 1914. The attack on the British Third Army saw heavy casualties with approximately 20,000 dead and 35,000 wounded lost on the first day of the offensive.
The 21st March also marks the British Army’s single worst day for men taken prisoner with 21,000 officers and men captured. Thomas Cass with the Royal Engineers was one of the men captured in the rapid German assault:
There was masses of Germans, they come over like hoards. They come over and overwhelmed us and so I was taken prisoner at 2 o’clock and I was in the German trenches with them until 8 o’clock at night. Then we got up behind the line and they were collecting all the prisoners – the German guards were – and we had to march back to St Quentin, then. I always remember one German soldier, a young chap he was, he was marching by the side of me, and he patted me on shoulder and I’ll always remember what he said. He said, ‘Brave Englander’, and patted me on the back.
Many were forced to surrender when they were left isolated in defensive pockets along the line which had been cut off by German shock troops. These pockets either fought to the last man or surrendered when their ammunition ran out. The photograph above shows some of the 4,000 men captured near Bapaume and Arras in March 1918.