The 179 Tunnelling Company was one of the tunnelling companies of the Royal Engineers created by the British Army during World War I. The tunnelling units were occupied in offensive and defensive mining involving the placing and maintaining of mines under enemy lines, as well as other underground work such as the construction of deep dugouts for troop accommodation, the digging of subways, saps, cable trenches and underground chambers for signals and medical services. 179th Tunnelling Company is particularly known for its role at L'îlot de La Boisselle and for firing the Lochnagar mine during the Battle of the Somme 1916. The Lochnagar mine formed part of a series of 19 mines that were placed beneath the German lines on the British section of the Somme front to assist the start of the battle.
179th Tunnelling Company
Geological cross-section of the Somme battlefield
Plan of the Lochnagar mine; for an aerial view of the site with marked front lines, see here
Plan of the Y Sap mine. The Glory Hole site was known as Granathof to the Germans and as L'îlot de La Boisselle to the French.
The Lochnagar mine south of the village of La Boisselle in the Somme département was an underground explosive charge, secretly planted by the British during the First World War, to be ready for 1 July 1916, the first day on the Somme. The mine was dug by the Tunnelling Companies of the Royal Engineers under a German field fortification known as Schwabenhöhe. A large crater survived the war known as the Lochnagar crater or the Trou de mine de La Boisselle.
Geological cross-section of the Somme battlefield
Plan of the Lochnagar mine
The memorial cross
William Orpen: Mines and the Bapaume Road, La Boisselle (Art.IWMART2962)