Jeremy Banning

Fred’s annotated map showing mining areas along the British Front. 251TC’s area around Cuinchy is circled.

In May 1915 Fred Brown enlisted as a private soldier in the 18th Battalion Royal Fusiliers at the age of 17 years, 10 months. After training at Clipstone Camp, Nottinghamshire and Tidworth Camp the Battalion sailed for France in November 1915 as part of 98th Brigade, 33rd Division, soon transferring to 19^th Brigade in the same Division.  After a  short time the Battalion entered trenches near Festubert north of the La Bassée Canal.

Following a hard winter spent in and out of the trenches and in hope of a six week break away from the front in Rouen Fred volunteered for a course of engineering. Sadly for Fred and his fellow volunteers the course was far from what was envisaged – they were now temporarily attached for fatigue duties to 251 Tunnelling Company, Royal Engineers, billeted in nearby Béthune.  Their role was to acts as ‘beasts of burden’, working underground removing spoil excavated from the face by more experienced miners. After a few weeks Fred applied for a transfer and was accepted into the Royal Engineers as 256302, Sapper Fred Brown.  He served with 251 Tunnelling Company for the remainder of the war. Toward the end of his life Fred recorded his wartime experiences in typed form and by tape recorder.  These were left with his second wife’s family who have been kind enough to pass them on to me. My thanks to Mary Burgess for her kindness. The photographs used in the Audioboo links are of a dapper looking Fred in later life. The recordings are not brilliant quality, being taken from old D90 cassette tapes. Over the next few weeks I will post as many of Fred’s audio recordings as possible.

1. Hear Fred describe the start of a typical working shift on the Western Front as he moves from Béthune to Cuinchy

IGN Map extract showing the area between Bethune and Cuinchy. Reproduced from http://www.geoportail.fr/

2. Hear Fred describe the descent into 251TC’s labyrinthine tunnels at Cuinchy and how the work of spoil removal took place underground

British trench map extract from December 1915 showing trench lines around Cuinchy and Auchy.

3. Fred describes his shift in a lone listening post spent listening for the sound of German miners

Mine workings and tunnel plans – craters on the Cuinchy Front. Fred’s handwritten annotations show his daily journey to work from Béthune.

Recommended reading on military mining and the underground war

• Beneath Flanders Fields: The Tunnellers War 1914-1918 by Peter Barton, Peter Doyle & Johan Vandewalle

• Underground Warfare 1914-1918 by Simon Jones

•  Tunnellers by Captain W. Grant Grieve & Bernard Newman

• War Underground: The Tunnellers of the Great War by Alexander Barrie

By Jeremy Banning