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wodin -> RE: So one thing has always intrigued me... (2/22/2013 4:50:40 PM)
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OK found the Info..A good account of Operation Strandfest July '17 (with drawn map) An attack by the German 3rd Marine Division where out of two British full strength battalions only 35 men got away as they threw away their weapons and swam back across the Yser River, only to be hit by a German Bombardment (The Germans took 31 Officers and 1,235 junior ranks prisoner that day). This account is in Jack Sheldons Passchendaele book . Also Peter Bartons Battlefields of the First World war has some air recon photos and panorama (at one point the British where considering doing a beach landing to attack the germans from the Sea..thankfully for those involved it didn't happen because the Germans new all about it from captured POW's.
Anyway the trenches where mainly dug into the sand Dunes using sand bags to fortify it plus the followed the ridges between the dunes aswell, there are aload of sand dunes before you get to the beach and this is where they where, the beach was actually quite narrow. Once it got to the beach funny enough Germans then dug in along the beach towards their rear following in line with the beach and the British\French\Belgium vice versa also copious amounts of barbed wire was used. They even did patrols where they'd strip off to their underwear and take a pistol then swim out to sea then along abit and come out on the beach to then move\crawl (obviously at night) towards the enemy dune line to do recon\patrol.
Also the Dune area was a place the Germans liked to test any new gas..Mustard gas for instance was first used there.
The pics in the book might not come out well scanned...so maybe if you Goog;e for Nieuport Bains (not Nieuport which is just abit further inland) \ Yser River area in WW1.
The British and Australian tunnelers created a huge underground network which today is causing all kinds of trouble as parts of the land and house collapse as the tunnels give way. Tunneling in WW1 is fascinating and I recommend people buy a book on it..they even manged to tunnel under the dunes to mine a large dune on the German side.
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