Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt was a German field fortification, west of the village of Beaumont Hamel on the Somme. The redoubt was built after the end of the Battle of Albert and as French and later British attacks on the Western Front became more formidable, the Germans added fortifications and trench positions near the original lines around Hawthorn Ridge. At 7:20 a.m. on 1 July 1916, the British fired a huge mine beneath the Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt. Sprung ten minutes before zero hour, the mine was one of 19 mines detonated on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Geoffrey Malins, one of two official war cameramen, filmed the detonation of the mine. The attack on the redoubt by part of the 29th Division of VIII Corps was a costly failure.
Plan of the H3 mine placed beneath the Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt
The explosion of the mine under Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt, 1 July 1916 (Photo 1 by Ernest Brooks)
The explosion of the mine under Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt, 1 July 1916 (Photo 2 by Ernest Brooks)
Hawthorn Ridge mine crater, Somme, November 1916 (note shadow of photographer, left foreground) (IWM Q 1527)
Mines on the first day of the Somme
On the morning of 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme during World War I, underground explosive charges planted by British tunnelling units were detonated beneath the German front lines. The joint explosion of these mines ranks among the largest artificial non-nuclear explosions.
A mine gallery with timber roof support (Canada 2003)
Miners laying charges for one of the mines on the Somme, 1–13 July 1916.
Geological cross-section of the Somme battlefield
Plan of the H3 mine placed beneath the Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt