Battle of the Yser
Zwarte–Leen, Hill 60
Up and down just like an earthquake
On 3 June, four days before the Messines attack was due to begin, the forward ‘listeners’ were withdrawn and the mine shafts finally tamped. Constant testing of the cables from that point revealed that they had not been discovered and, at 3.10 am on 7 June, the Hill 60 and the Caterpillar mine, along with the 17 others on the Messines front, were blown. The explosions at Hill 60 killed 687 soldiers of the German 204th Division and blew a crater 60 feet deep and 260 feet wide.
View from crater on Hill 60 towards Zillebeke, 6 July 1917. [AWM E01911]
Hill 60 is an artificial creation consisting of the spoil taken from the nearby railway cutting when the railway was under construction in the 19th century. At the time it had the more romantic title of ‘Côte des Amants’ (Lover’s Knoll). Today the hill is in the care of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and contains a number of memorials and wartime ruins. Bunkers, small craters and shell holes, overgrown now, are everywhere and near the entrance to the site is the memorial to the men of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company.
Memorial to the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company, Hill 60. [DVA]
Dedicatory plaque, memorial to the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company, Hill 60. The holes are bullet holes made during World War II. [DVA]
Original memorial at Hill 60 to the men of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company erected in 1923. [AWM P00735-017]
Dead tree, Hill 60. [DVA]
Officers of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company responsible for the detonation of the mine at Hill 60 on 7 June 1917 at the opening of the Battle of Messines. [AWM P02333.002]
In the middle of one of the largest surviving grassed–over craters at Hill 60 is a dead tree. It is an appropriate place to contemplate that moment on the morning of 7 June 1917 when officers of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company fired the great mines under Hill 60 and the nearby ‘Caterpillar’ across the railway line. At 3.10 am the electrical switches were thrown and a British officer, standing nearby with his men ready to advance into the German lines, watched the mighty explosion:
It was an appalling moment. We all had the feeling – ‘It’s not going!’ Then a remarkable thing happened. The ground on which I was lying started to go up and down just like an earthquake. It lasted for seconds and then, suddenly in front of us, the Hill 60 mine went up.
Lieutenant Jimmy Todd, 11th Battalion, Prince of Wales’ Own Yorkshire Regiment, quoted in Lyn MacDonald, They Called it Passchendaele, London, p.41
![One of the craters at Hill 60, 17 August 1917. The original Australian War Memorial caption to this image read, in part: The ground round about was strewn with pieces of iron, timber, concrete and wire. By the amount of material one could form a slight idea of the efforts made to consolidate this important hill. English, French and German rifles, equipment and ammunition were scattered about. The unburied bodies, rags and human bones, told tales of a series of battles. [AWM E00580]](images/awm-e00580.jpg)
One of the craters at Hill 60, 17 August 1917. The original Australian War Memorial caption to this image read, in part: The ground round about was strewn with pieces of iron, timber, concrete and wire. By the amount of material one could form a slight idea of the efforts made to consolidate this important hill. English, French and German rifles, equipment and ammunition were scattered about. The unburied bodies, rags and human bones, told tales of a series of battles. [AWM E00580]
Poppies, Hill 60 area. [DVA]
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© 2008 Department of Veterans' Affairs and Board of Studies NSW :: Last update - November 2008