WAR UNDERGROUND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16798, 14 March 1918, Page 6

WAR UNDERGROUND.

GREAT SYSTEM OF TUNNELS,

VAST EXTENT OF WORKS.

LONDON, Mar. 5. Mn. Hamilton* Fyke, correspondent of the Daily Mail on the western front, says :— Tho reduction of mine warfare is due to tho adoption of a system of lightly holding the front lines and driving galleries of the most difficult character under the back trenches, where the bulk of the enemy congregate. Tho Germans now never attempt long-distance mining. The tunncllers from West Australia and Queensland have made a perfectly wonderful system of underground works. These, on the front I have been visiting, will probably remain for centuries tho most interesting relics of tho war. 1 descended with an Australian officer, and walked for a mile on duck-boards. We '> plunged into a holo leading down to a deep subway, entered the galleries, anl walked for three hours at depths of from 20ft to 60ft. We explored only a email part of tho workings. The roof is generally above the height of a man. The tunnels are lit by electricity. The air is fresh, ventilating fans being used. Once we heard the Germans picking and scruffling in a dug-out. Tho accuracy with which tho enemy's movements are followed is uncanny. Once their knowledge enabled tho lunnellers to explode three German mines during a raid. Tho Australians seldom allow the enemy to succeed with his mines. Once, aiter : working for weeks liko giants, they undermined an ambitious enemy project and brought it to naught. The general has complimented them, saying that in their sector not a single soldier has been killed by a mine explosion. The tunnellcrs live, sleep, and eat in the galleries. I watched them, some lying in bunks, some reading, and some playing cards, happy in the knowledge that their position was invulnerable to sheila and gas. I saw tho underground cookshop, where an appetising dinner was in preparation, and a dressing station, where tho wounded from abovo were convoyed by means of a smooth-running tramway, The work of tho tunnellers is skilled, laborious and dangerous. Above the graves of their fallen might be inscribed: " They save others; themselves they would not save."