Work is progressing well

Despite the torrential rain yesterday, work to protect the Model of Messines on Cannock Chase is progressing well, massive thanks to all our volunteers who braved the weather. The work continues today.

More about the Battle of Messines

As our project on the Messines model draws to a close, we would like to provide some additional information about the battle and the New Zealanders who fought there:

nzhistory.net.nz Has a selection of pages dedicated to Messines


www.army.gov.au has an article on the Australian involvement at Messines

plugstreet-archaeology.com is No Man's Land's site about the work we are doing in Belgium



We can now also confirm that the reinstatement will begin on Monday 14th of October, if any of our volunteers would like to assist or any new volunteers would like to help it would be much appreciated. Please email Jo on cannockwwiexcavations@gmail.com to let us know which day(s) you can help. If you haven't volunteered on site during the excavation,  please contact Jo  to register before arriving on site.

Cannock Model Information Boards

Our information boards have now been removed from the site for safe keeping, but copies are now available below.

Click the images to enlarge for reading:

Our Project in the Media

In addition to the TV coverage on BBC1, Midlands Today and News 24, our project has been mentioned in a number of newspapers and on radio, here in Britain and in New Zealand:

Dig begins on Cannock Chase to uncover unique wartime model

New Zealand Lieutenant Colonel Mike Beale visits WW1 Messines model in England

WW1 terrain model of Messines in Belgium built by ANZAC troops in England is excavated

WW1 Messines model excavation in England

 Dolores Ho of the National Army Museum in Wouiaru interview NZ radio programme

The model will also feature on Inside Out, West Midlands, as yet we don't have a confirmed date for broadcast and on Countryfile on BB1 on the 11th of November.

The filming of Countryfile has delayed the finalising of our project and we now expect to begin the process of covering the model on Monday 14th October 2013, if any of our volunteers would like to assist or any new volunteers would like to help it would be much appreciated. Please email Jo on cannockwwiexcavations@gmail.com to let us know which day(s) you can help. If you haven't volunteered on site during the excavation,  please contact Jo  to register before arriving on site.

Tanks in Action

During the Second World War, Channock Chase was used to test tanks built in the factory nearby, we have discovered a nice link to this fact as one of the best surviving features of the Great War Model at Brocton Camp is a fortified farm, known as "Fanny's Farm". The farm is shown as an L shaped block right on the edge of the model, the back corner clipped as as not to impede the drainage channel, the circular trench system surrounding the buildings is very clear and survives well, being buried a little deeper than other areas of the model.

Lee & some of the volunteers checking the map at Fanny's Farm.

The farm was situated on the northern boundary of the New Zealand Division's sector on the 7th of June 1917. As the troops advanced they were held up for a time by machine gun fire from the farm. This enemy strong hold was over come when a Mk IV tank arrived to assist the infantry, and holed the wall, allowing the capture of the machine gun crew and other enemy soldiers within.

Successful Saturday

Today has been a great day on site with lots of volunteers including a group from the young archaeologists club, organised by the Friends of Cannock Chase. 

We have also had a huge number of visitors throughout the day.

This afternoon the last turf was lifted from the model and, despite some incorrect reports in local newspapers,  the project is on schedule and the model will be ready for the 3D scanning team next week.

Site photography is now under way to record the archaeology and will also be used to create a texture for the digital recreation of the model. Though we hope the weather forecast for tomorrow is wrong as bright sunshine makes photography more difficult and slows progress was we have to use a shade screen to create flat areas of shadow.

Have we answered the puzzle of the Messines Church Model?

Partly:

Records reveal that the German artillery spotters were using the bell tower as viewing platform to guide their guns onto the British lines to the east and south of Messines in the early months of the war. The enemy being able to direct his fire with precision was a huge problem for the British Forces and in October or November 14, a well placed artillery shell sliced the bell tower from the stone tower, depriving the enemy of the high viewing platform

Further investigation of archive sources may have revealed the answer to the style of church, we have located a photographic post card of the church dated 1914, which shows the tower without the embellished bell tower on top, giving the appearance of a square Norman style tower.

This image matches more closely with the photos of the model, though legend has it that the model included a pocket watch in the tower as the church clock. A feature that is absent from the actual church, though today the Peace Bells chime with a different melody every quarter of an hour and a full peel on the hour. Well worth pausing to listen.


We  are also pleased to report that we have also been contacted by the family who had the model church in their garden for many years.  They have also been able to provide us with some photographs which confirm the story of the pocket watch embedded in the structure. Unfortunately the model of the church no longer survives but at least we can now tell it's story in full.

The Puzzle of Messines Church Model

Messines Church with the distinctive tower dominates the landscape today, as it did before the Great War, having been rebuilt to almost the same design.

As an obvious land mark, it also formed the centre point of the Model of Messines here on Cannock Chase. However as we can see from the 1930's photographs of the model, the interpretation of the building appears very different.

This raises an important question, why did they depict what appears to be a square towered Norman style church as the centre piece for the model?

We are in possession of two images of the model which include the church, both show this configuration. Unfortunately for our investigations, the model of the church is missing, having been rescued from the decaying model many years ago, it was last seen in a garden in the village of Brocton, does anyone know where it is now? It would be helpful to our project to be able to view it, are there any photographs of it in the garden?

Remembering the Dead

Although the Battle of Messines was a great success the loss of life was still very significant. Many men lost their lives in the advance and the hand to hand fighting to take the fortified towns. At Messines, the success of the New Zealand Division also contributed to their losses. In taking and holding the town well before the appointed hour to move forward to take the second line of German defences, resulted in a large number of troops gathering amongst the newly captured ruins of the towns. Before the order to advance was given, the enemy artillery regrouped and launched a barrage of shells on the town, causing many casualties.

Messines Ridge Cemetery, resting place of many New Zealanders.

As with all the major battles of the Great War, some bodies were never recovered and over the intervening years the remains of men are discovered during archaeology and building work. 

In 2012 a New Zealand soldier was discovered during work in Messines, he was laid to rest with full military honours.

 

 

Video from the ceremony.

School children visit Messines Model

Today 100 school children aged between seven and ten made a visit to our site to view the Messines Model on Cannock Chase and Freda's Grave. The four classes were given a tour of the site and an overview of the Battle of Messines by Angela, Jon and Lee.

The archaeology is going well with the excavation extended by a good few metres, thanks to a stirling effort by our volunteers. The team have located three sides of the model and hope to find the extent of the area covered by the model tomorrow.

Family History and the Great War

Today the scale of the Great War is difficult to comprehend, the lives of every family in every town across the whole world was affected by the conflict. Almost every family had someone serving in the armed forces or the munitions and war effort factories.

Do you know what your family were doing 100 years ago?

The Wartime Memories Project are developing a Guide to tracing your Family in the Great War which you may find helpful, their website is also a huge resource for sharing stories of the conflict, with links to many other useful websites.

The Men of Messines

 Looking back through time, it is easy to look at the major battles of the Great War from the point of view of tactics, landscape and politics, but these were battles fought by individuals who formed the Platoons within Companies, which made up the Battalions, which formed the Brigades, which made up the Divisions of the Army. It is the stories of these individuals which reveal the details of the battle and the lives of people at that time.

No Man's Land, have a website which follows the progress of our work in Belgium, included in the site are pages dedicated to the men of Plumer's Second Army and also the men of German Army at Messines whose role in the battle must not be forgotten.

If you can add the names of any men who took part in the Battle of Messines, please use the forms on our website to add their story.

Community links via the Cannock Great War Project.

Today we have had a visit from Lt Colonel Mike Beale of the New Zealand Defence Force, who travelled up from London to see the site and strengthen links between the local community here in Staffordshire and the islands of New Zealand. He was very impressed with the work we have done on site and the historical research and was able to provide our team with information on how the NZ Forces use training maps today and historical information about their part in the 1917 attack on Messines. He was also able to liase with a colleague via mobile phone, to pin point the location of Frickleton's VC action.

Lt Col Beale also laid a wreath in the corner of the site.

We were also joined on site by a group of sixth formers from a local school who helped with the excavation.

 Today's guard dog, Buddy.

7th June 1917 - The Capture of Messines

The fighting at Messines was heavy, the enemy had held the town for three and a half years, during which time they had fortified the cellars and built concrete bunkers inside some of the buildings as well as an extensive trench network with machine gun posts and pill boxes. All situated on the crest of the hill, giving a huge advantage to the defenders.

Messines today from the Allied observation post on Hill 62.

The New Zealand troops were faced with machine gun fire and vicious hand to hand fighting to take the ruined town. An account of the New Zealanders at Messines tells the story in greater detail than we could cover on this blog.

A Busy Day

Sunday was a very busy day at the Messines Model with a lot of visitors from near and far, quite a few also had personal connections to Brocton Camp or the New Zealand Rifle Brigade and it was great to hear their stories as we worked. For part of the day we also had musical accompaniment from Robert Owen, who played tunes from the Great War and New Zealand. In the afternoon we had an aerial visit from Peter Martin who kindly agreed to take some air photos for us. We were also visited by a birthday party group of youngsters who enjoyed Martin's explaination of the Battle of Messines and the model.

Progress on the excavation is going well, with some key points in the geography of the battle being revealed.

 

This part of the model shows the trenches at what is now the New Zealand Memorial.

Charlie keeping watch.

7th June 1917 - The Battle Begins

At 3.10am on the 7th of June 1917, nineteen of the huge mines planted beneath Messines Ridge were detonated. The huge explosions signaled the start of the attack and along the ten mile front, Allied soldiers who had moved into position during the night, got to their feet and advanced behind the creeping barrage of their artillery. Unlike many other battles, the first wave of troops did not climb out of the trenches in the classic "over the top", the effect of the shock wave of the explosions was expected to cause damage to the trenches, as the front lines were so close together. Rather than wait in the trenches, the men waited lying flat on the ground close to the trenches.

The advance to the front lines during the night did not go completely as planned. The enemy were well aware of the impending attack and in most cases of the tunneling work to lay the mines. In the Australian sector, the men of the 33rd Battalion made their way through the tracks of Plugstreet Wood and were subjected to bombardment of German gas shells, which resulted in a number of casualties, including some dead, who now lie side by side in Toronto Avenue Cemetery within the wood.

Over the months leading up to the battle, the German's had dug their own tunnels in an attempt to prevent the Allies from laying the mines. In the New Zealand sector, the mine at Petite Douve Farm was discovered by the enemy and the river diverted to flood the underground workings and render the explosives useless. At the northern end of the salient, the hand to hand fighting in the vast tunnel network beneath Hill 60 is well documented. At the southern end, the team from No Man's Land, have been undertaking archaeological investigations in the area attacked by the Australian 3rd Division and in 2011 uncovered the entrance shaft to a German counter tunnel.

 Members of No Man's Land excavating a German tunnel shaft.

For the troops of the British Second Army, the blowing of the mines was an awesome sight, for the enemy just a few hundred yards away, it was terrifying. Reports tell of the once stoical men of the German Imperial Army so badly shaken that they were reduced to tears, disorientated and deafened.

However not all had been disabled by the blasts. The geology of the land restricted the placement of the mines and the fortified towns of Messines and Wytschaete escaped the destruction from underground, the mines being placed on the German front line down slope of the towns. Here the New Zealanders and Irish men were engaged in fierce fighting to secure the ruined houses and their fortified cellars.

Twin craters from the mines near to Wytschaete

Due to the loss of the mine at Petite Douve, the New Zealander Division only had one mine in their sector, at Ontario Farm close to the Wulverghem to Messines Road. Here the soil is very sandy and the explosion had very different effects, the shockwave causing the enemy fortifications to sink due to liquefaction, instead of a distinct crater, the sand settled back and the men reported the site of  the explosion bubbled like porridge for many days as trapped gases found their way to the surface. 

Tried and Tested Methods

Plumer's plan for Messines Ridge included a very ancient tactic to overcome the fortress of the enemy. He would tunnel beneath the lines and lay massive explosive charges beneath the key strong points to destroy them at the moment of the attack.

This tactic had been used on a smaller scale from early in the war, most famously at Hill 60, the much fought over high point close to Ypres, well known for the underground war as each side tried to out flank the other with silently dug tunnels, explosives and counter mines.

The mines at Messines Ridge were carefully planned, the geology studied in detail and small scale tests were carried out by the Royal Engineers in the UK and France. Tunneling for the Messines Offensive began in early 1915, no easy task in the dense blue clay of Flanders.

All the work had to be done in secret and in silence. Specialist Tunneling Companies were formed in the Royal Engineers, made up not of soldiers, but of miners, men who were used to working underground in the coal mines of the north of England, Canada and Australia and the men who worked on the tunnels for underground railways and canal systems. They began work behind the British Lines, with mine engineers sinking deep shafts through the layers of sand into the firmer clay below.

As the Second Army prepared in the training camps of Britain, including the New Zealand Rifle Brigade at Brocton Camp, the workers of the explosive factories prepared 600 tons of deadly ammonal, the miners extended the tunnels, inch by silent inch.

By the spring of 1917 Twenty Four mines had been laid, from twelve tunnels crossing No Man's Land 70 feet below the surface.

Lions & Donkeys or Plans well made?

Lions led by Donkeys, is often the view of the Great War, men sent over the top with no hope of any gain. This view may be true of the Battle of the Somme, as the attack was brought forward and launched without support, but the Battle of Messines is one of the most successful allied attacks of the entire conflict. 

Even before the Pals Battalions were mown down in the attempt to capture the chalky downs of the Somme, plans were being made to dislodge the enemy from Messines Ridge.

The city of Ypres, famously held by the Allies, was not only a symbol of the stand against the enemy, but also a key point of the transport hub in Flanders, well connected by rail, canal and the road network, but also on a salient, a bulge in the front line, vulnerable to attack from three sides. To the north of the city the landscape is almost flat, to the south a ridge of small hills form a curve.

This topographical map from the No Man's Land website www.plugstreet-aracheology.com shows the city of Ypres in the low, darker, areas at the top and the front line marked in brown curving around the western edge of the high ground shown in lighter shades. This map centres on Wytschaete, the highest point of the ridge, with Messines occupying the next high point and Plugstreet Wood marked in dark green at the bottom.

In the spring of 1915 a plan was hatched to take back the ridge. Many of the Allied Divisions, including the Pals Battalions and Commonwealth Forces were already in training for the Offensive which would later become The Battle of the Somme, these units would become the British Third and Four Armies. Under the Command of General Plumer the Second Army was formed, their first objective would be Messines Ridge,   to straighten the front line, and allow the Allies to push forward from Ypres in what would be known as the Third Battle of Ypres, planned to take place just weeks after the Battle of Messines.

The Second Army was made up of a mixture of experienced and new units, with the battle hardened British 23rd Division being assigned the notorious Hill 60 close to Ypres, with the London Territorials of the 47th Division at their side. The strong point of St Eloi would be attacked by the 41st Home Counties Divison, with the 19th Western Division to their right. The key town of Wytschaete would be attacked by the 16th and 36th Irish Divisions. The town of Messines would be the responsibility of the 2nd Anzac Corps, which included the British 25th Division, the New Zealand Division and on the southern slopes towards Plugstreet Wood, the 3rd Australian Division, who would be facing the enemy for the first time.

The problem was how to dislodge the enemy from their fortifications on the hilltops.

Why Messines?

Messines is the smallest town in Belgium, situated on a small ridge in the rolling landscape, not far from the border with France. Today it is a quiet place, the red brick houses, rebuilt on the foundations of those destroyed during the Great War, at first glance appear to be more than 90 odd years old. Only the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery on the eastern edge, the Irish tower and New Zealand Memorial on the southern edge, the multitude of flags international fluttering outside the Peace Village and the musical chime of the Peace Bells marking the passing of time from the church tower, provide any indication of events almost a century ago.

 The New Zealand Memorial at Messines.

About ten miles to the north is the city of Ypres, famous during the Great War for remaining in allied hands, the fiercely defended symbol of defiance against the invading army. A few miles to the south is Armentières, also in Allied hands, between the two the front lines sweep in a wide curve with the German Imperial Army holding the ridge and the towns of Messines and Wytschaete with their excellent views over the surrounding countryside. 

This was the situation from October 1914 onwards. The Allies had halted the advance, but were unable to push the enemy back. Both sides dug in, fortifying the lines, using farm houses and town houses as shelter from the shelling and defensive points against infantry attack . In the towns on the ridge the German's had the advantage of the cellars beneath the houses and in Messines the large cellars beneath the Institution Royale were ideal.

Despite appearances, the Allies did not just hold the line for the next three years, plans were afoot to break the enemy's hold on Flanders, and Messines was central to that plan.

Soggy Sunday

With the weather forecast predicting rain, rain, wind and more rain, members of No Man's Land and a small number of volunteers arrived on site at 9am, under grey skies we all expected the worst. However, the tarpaulins had remained in placeover night and after a session of bailing and careful water management, we were able to uncover part of our working area and cautiously begin work.

Archaeology and wet weather are not a good mix, as it is all too easy to make a mess and potentially miss small features in the mud. The model of Messines was constructed using fragments of brick, pebbles and poor quality mortar, 40 plus years of exposure to the elements and almost another half century burried beneath a thin layer of top soil, has left the model in a fragile condition. When wet, the crumbling structures of the model are soft and even more easily damaged, so extra care had to be taken.

Despite the conditions we managed to extend our excavation by a few meters and just to the south of the town of Messines we began to uncover an area of the model which depicts the scene of one of the most famous incidents of the attack on the 7th of June 1917. Pte Samuel Frickleton of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade took out two enemy machine gun posts, allowing the men of his company to advance and capture part of the town, for this action he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

After much discussion, consulting of historic documents, trench maps and additional information provided by our contacts in New Zealand, including a copy of Sam Frickleton's own hand drawn map, our team narrowed down the possible points of this action and discovered a small feature in the model, which may pinpoint the location of one of the two machine gun posts.

The plaque next to Messines Church commemorating Frickleton's VC, it states

his action was  "Close to this place" have we now pinpointed the exact spot?

As we paused for lunch the clouds began to close in and the advancing waves of rain brought an end to our site work in mid afternoon, we retreated to the shelter of the tea room and continued to follow the paper trail of maps and documents to confirm our theories on the location of Frickleton's heroic action and chased tales of other individuals on the 7th of June 1917 and the landscape we hope to reveal tomorrow.