Hill 60: Underground War on the Ypres Salient

Hill 60 is not a hill. It is a spoil heap, the earth dug out when the railway cutting was made in the 1850s, piled alongside the track. It reaches 60 metres above sea level, which in the flat landscape of the Ypres Salient was enough to give a clear view across the British lines.

That view is why men died here in extraordinary numbers for four years.

Why Hill 60 mattered

Control of Hill 60 meant observation over the southern part of the Salient. Whoever held it could direct artillery fire across a wide area of the British positions. The British and Germans fought for this position repeatedly between 1914 and 1918.

What made Hill 60 different from most contested ground on the Western Front was what happened underground. Both sides dug tunnels beneath the hill, placed explosive charges, and detonated them under the other side's positions. The craters you walk around today were created by those explosions, not by artillery.

In April 1915, British tunnellers detonated mines under the German positions on Hill 60, creating an explosion that could be heard in Ypres. The British took the hill. Within weeks the Germans recaptured it. The fighting continued through 1915, 1916, and into 1917.

On 7 June 1917, as part of the opening of the Battle of Messines, 19 enormous mines were detonated simultaneously along a 15km front south of Ypres. Two of those mines were at Hill 60 and the nearby Caterpillar crater. The explosion was heard in London. Prime Minister Lloyd George reportedly heard it in Downing Street, of course, no real historic proof for this.

What you can still see today

Hill 60 is one of the least-altered WW1 landscapes in the Salient. The site is preserved by the CWGC and left largely as it was.

The craters: the irregular shape of the ground is the result of the mine explosions. Some craters are now ponds. Walk the perimeter path and you can read the landscape: each depression marks where a charge detonated.

The bunkers: concrete German defensive positions are still visible on the site. Do not enter them, they are structurally unsafe.

The memorial: the Queen Victoria's Rifles memorial stands on the site. The regiment suffered heavy losses here in 1915.

The preserved ground: unlike many WW1 sites that were returned to agriculture after the war, Hill 60 was never ploughed. The surface has not been disturbed. The undergrowth on the crater slopes still contains unexploded ordnance, this is one reason the site is fenced and the path network is fixed.

What remains underground: not all of the mines planned for 7 June 1917 were detonated. Two mines near Ploegsteert were not fired in 1917 and have never been detonated. They remain in the ground. Hill 60's own charges were fired, but the tunnel network beneath the site, kilometres of hand-dug passages, some with ventilation shafts still partially intact, remains underground.