Kampf um Höhe 60 (Westfront)

Hill 60 was captured by the German 39th Division on 10 December 1914 during the First Battle of Ypres (19 October – 22 November 1914). French preparations to raid the hill were continued by the British 28th Division, part of II Corps which took over the line in February 1915. The raid was expanded into an attempt to capture the hill despite advice that the hill could not be held unless the Caterpillar nearby was also occupied. French mine galleries which had been started under the hill were continued, when it was found that the area was the only place not waterlogged. Men experienced in mining from Northumbrian and Welsh engineer units extended the French Vorlage:Convert gallery. The British attacked the hill on 17 April 1915 and captured the area quickly with few casualties but then found that the salient created made holding the hill very costly. Both sides accused the other (erroneously) of using poison gas and German attacks on the hill in early May did use gas shells and recovered the ground, although the first attempt failed despite using gas.

British mining under the hill and the neighbouring ground began on a much more ambitious scale in August 1915 and by October 1916 two mines under Hill 60 had been filled with charges of Vorlage:Convert and Vorlage:Convert despite great difficulty, including the demolition of Vorlage:Convert of a German gallery above the British diggings wth a camouflet. An Australian Tunnelling Company maintained the galleries until 1917, when they were fired along with 17 other mines, at the beginning of the Battle of Messines (7–14 June). Twenty-three years later the area was fought over again, when the British 5th Infantry Division stopped the advance of three German divisions from 27–28 May 1940 and saved the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).

Background

Strategic developments

Hill 60 was a low rise on the southern flank of the Ypres Salient and was named after the 60 metre contour which marked its bounds. Hill 60 was not a natural highpoint; it was created as a result of the digging of the nearby railway cutting. As such it was a strategically significant area of high ground on the crest of the Ypres ridge with good observation, particularly towards Ypres and Zillebeke. The hill had been captured by the German 39th Division on 10 December 1914, from the French army. After the Race to the Sea, it became a significant strategic point coveted by both sides for the duration of the war.Vorlage:Sfn

Prelude

British attack preparations

One of the unique elements of the fighting at Hill 60 was an intense level of combat underground staged by the engineers and tunnellers on both sides. In the first operation of its kind by the British, the Corps of Royal Engineers specialist tunnelling companies laid six mines by 10 April 1915, which were planned by Major-General Edward Bulfin, commander of the 28th Division.Vorlage:Sfn Two mines in the north were charged with Vorlage:Convert of explosives each, two mines in the centre had Vorlage:Convert charges and in the south one mine was packed with Vorlage:Convert of gun-cotton, although work on it had been stopped, when it ran close to a German tunnel.Vorlage:Sfn

Battle

17–22 April

On 17 April at 7:05 p.m. the first pair of mines were blown and the rest at fifteen-second intervals. Débris was flung almost Vorlage:Convert into the air and scattered for Vorlage:Convert in all directions, causing some casualties to the attacking battalions of the 13th Brigade of the 5th Division making the attack.Vorlage:Sfn The German garrison, a company of Infantry Regiment 172 was devastated and the survivors overwhelmed, those capable of resistance being bayonetted; twenty were taken prisoner for a British loss of seven casualties. The British began to consolidate and by 12:30 a.m. had dug two communication trenches to connect the new positions to the old front line. German artillery-fire gradually increased on the hill after falling around it for some time. At around 4:00 a.m. on 18 April, German counter-attacks began which were repelled with many losses. German high explosive and gas shells and machine-gun fire in enfilade from Zandvoorde and the Caterpillar, forced the British to withdraw below the crest on the right flank. German attacks continued all day on 18 April but at 6:00 p.m. a counter-attack by two British battalions retook all of the hill. Before dawn on 19 April most of the 13th Brigade was relieved by the 15th Brigade.Vorlage:Sfn The Germans maintained a heavy bombardment of the hill and on 20 April attacked again, mainly with bombing parties, before infantry assaults were attempted at 6:30 and 8:00 p.m. German attacks continued into 21 April by when the hill had become a moonscape of overlapping shell-holes and mine craters. The divisions of II Corps and V Corps simulated attack preparations on 21 April but on 22 April British attention was diverted further north, where the French 45th Division was struck by the first German gas attack of the Second Battle of Ypres.Vorlage:Sfn

1–7 May

Hill 60 was retaken by the Germans following a series of gas attacks from 1–5 May. On 1 May a German attack preceded by a gas discharge failed for the first time; after a bombardment by heavy artillery the Germans released the gas at 7:00 p.m. from positions fewer than Vorlage:Convert away from Hill 60 on a front of Vorlage:Convert. The gas arrived so quickly that most of the British troops were unable to put on their improvised respirators. As soon the gas reached the British positions the Germans attacked from the flanks with bombing parties, as their artillery laid a barrage on the British approaches to the hill. Some of the British garrison were able to return fire, which gave enough time for reinforcements to arrive, after rushing through the gas cloud. The German infantry were forestalled and bombing parties forced them back. The original garrison suffered severely for holding on despite the gas and lost many casualties.Vorlage:Sfn

The 15th Brigade held the hill and about Vorlage:Convert of the line either side, when the Germans discharged gas from two places opposite the hill at 8:45 a.m. on 5 May.Vorlage:Sfn The wind blew the gas along rather than across the British defences and only one sentry was able to sound the gas alarm. The British defence plan required troops under gas attack to move to the flanks but the course of the gas cloud made this impossible.The gas hung so thick that even by redamping cotton respirators, it was impossible to remain in the trenches and those troops who stood their ground were overcome. German infantry of the 30th Division advanced after fifteen minutes and occupied nearly all of the front line on the lower part of the hill. British reinforcements arrived and bombed their way up a communication trench which began a fight that lasted all day. Two more battalions were sent up but at 11:00 a.m. but before they arrived the Germans released more gas to the north-east of the hill.Vorlage:Sfn

The right flank of the British defence at the Zwarteleen salient was overwhelmed, which increased the gap left by the first discharge; enough men on the left survived to pin the German infantry down until 12:30 p.m. when a battalion arrived after advancing through the gas cloud and an artillery barrage. Constant counter-attacks forced some of the Germans back and regained some of the lost trenches. The Germans held on to the crest and released more gas at 7:00 p.m. which had little effect and the infantry attack which follwed was repulsed by rifle-fire. At 9:00 p.m. the 13th Brigade arrived with orders from Major-General Morland, the 5th Division commander to retake the hill. The brigade attacked at 10:00 p.m. after a twenty-minuite bombardment but found that the darkness, broken state of the ground and alert German infantry made it impossible to advance, except for one party which reached the top of the hill, only to be forced to withdraw at 1:00 a.m. by enfilade-fire from the Caterpillar and Zwarteleen. The hill was untenable unless a considerable amount of ground on the flanks was also occupied. Both sides were exhausted and spent the next day digging-in until dawn on 7 May, when bombers from three British battalions attacked with two companies of infantry, who were all killed or captured.Vorlage:Sfn

Aftermath

Analysis

The German army had been waiting for favourable weather to use gas in an attack at Ypres and used the fighting at Hill 60, to lay blame on the British for being the first to use gas, after the British mistakenly accused the Germans.Vorlage:Sfn Doubts among some of the British commanders, as to the tactical wisdom of converting a raid into an attack intended to retain the hill, were borne out by the cost of holdng the hill and its loss, as soon as the Germans were ready to attempt to recapture it.Vorlage:Sfn Der Weltkrieg the German Official History, recorded that the British used new sapper detachments to prepare the attack on Hill 60 and that on 18 April Saxon troops had recaptured the hill, except for the craters where the attack failed because new chemical shells (T-Geschosse) were ineffective. Fighting continued util the hill was re-captured on 5 May.Vorlage:Sfn^{[Note 1]}

Casualties

On 7 April seven British casualties were suffered in the initial attack.Vorlage:Sfn On 1 May the 1st Dorsets lost over 90 men to gas poisoning, 207 were brought to dressing stations where 46 men died immediately and another 12 after long suffering. Of 2,413 casualties of the BEF admtted to hospital 227 died; the battalion had only 72 survivors. The 1st Bedfordshires suffered similarly, having recently taken on many fresh and inexperienced replacements.Vorlage:Sfn The 13th Brigade casualties from 17–19 April were 1,362 men and the 15th Brigade lost 1,586 casualties from 1–7 May out of the 5th Division total of 3,100 men.Vorlage:Sfn Vorlage:Sfn

Subsequent operations

Battle of Messines 1917

Deep mining under the German galleries beneath Hill 60 began in late August 1915 with the 175th Tunnelling Company R.E. which began a gallery Vorlage:Convert behind the British front line and passed Vorlage:Convert beneath. The 3rd Canadian Tunnelling Company took over in April 1916 and completed the galleries, the Hill 60 mine being charged with Vorlage:Convert of explosives in July 1916 and a branch gallery under the Caterpillar filled with a Vorlage:Convertcharge in October. The 1st Australian Tunnelling Company took over in November 1916, led in part by Captain Oliver Woodward and maintained the the mines over the winterVorlage:Sfn Vorlage:Sfn At 3:10 a.m. on 7 June 1917 19 mines filled with Vorlage:Convert of explosives, were detonated under the German lines.^{[Note 2]} Although two mines did not explode the blasts created one of the |largest explosions in history, reportedly heard in London and Dublin, demolishing a large part of the hill and killing c. 10,000 German soldiers.Vorlage:Sfn^{[Note 3]} The Battle of Messines (7–14 June 1917) was conducted by the British Second Army, under the command of General Herbert Plumer, on the Western Front near the village of Messines in Belgian West Flanders during the First World War. The offensive at Messines forced the German Army to move reserves to Flanders from the Arras and Aisne fronts, which relieved pressure on the French Army. The tactical objective of the attack at Messines was to capture the German defences on the ridge, which ran from Ploegsteert ("Plugstreet") Wood in the south through Messines and Wytschaete to Mt. Sorrel, to deprive the German Fourth Army of the high ground south of Ypres. The ridge commanded the British defences and back areas further north, from which the British intended to conduct the "Northern Operation", to advance to Passchendaele Ridge, then capture the Belgian coast up to the Dutch frontier.Vorlage:Sfn

The 47th and 23rd Divisions formed the left defensive flank of the attack, advancing onto the ridge around the Ypres–Comines canal and railway, past the mines at Caterpillar and Hill 60. The cuttings of the canal and railway were a warren of German dug-outs but the 47th Division crossed the Vorlage:Convert of the German front position in 15 minutes, close up to the creeping barrage, German infantry surrendering along the way. Soft ground in the valley south of Mt. Sorrel, led the two infantry brigades of the 23rd Division to advance on either side, up to the near crest of the ridge, arriving while the ground still shook from the mines at Hill 60.Vorlage:Sfn North of the canal, the 47th Division had to capture a spoil heap Vorlage:Convert long, where several German machine-gun nests had been dug in. The British attacks established a footing on the heap at great cost, due to machine-gun fire from the spoil heap and others in Battle Wood further north. The 23rd Division had many casualties caused by flanking machine-gun fire from the spoil heap while clearing Battle Wood, which took until the evening.Vorlage:Sfn

27 May 1940

Hill 60 was the site of a battle between the Germans the 17th Brigade of the 5th Infantry Division of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). Part of "A" company of the 2nd Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers (2 RSF) on 27 May 1940, during the Second World War.Vorlage:Sfn Although the hill was the scene of a tremendous mortar and artillery barrage (Coy HQ being set up in and around the famous Anglo/German/Belgian pill-box), there was hand-to-hand fighting on the nearby Zwarteleen crossroads, when a fighting patrol from 2 RSF set-off to destroy German machine gun and mortar positions that had been established there. The actions of this patrol enabled the evacuation of the defences on the railway and allowed for a successful withdrawal to the canal line and a general withdrawal towards St.Eloi, Kemmel and Dikkebus. Other companies of 2 RSF held the railway line between Hill 60 and the canal bridge. The Inniskillings were to their right and rear, on the main road 2 RSF's D company was in reserve and the 6th Seaforths held "the Dump". Constant German attacks by three divisions were repulsed during 28 May, which reduced the two 5th Division brigades to c. 600 men each and exhausted the artillery amminution of I Corps.Vorlage:Sfn The division held the "Dunkirk corridor" open for another day, which saved II Corps and the rest of the BEF. Thousands more troops were able to withdraw into the Dunkirk perimeter and the 5th Infantry Division then moved to the Yser with the 42nd Division, to fill the gap left when the Belgian army capitulated.Vorlage:Sfn^{[Note 4]}

Notes

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Footnotes