Beneath Hill 60 (ENCORE)

0:00Looking for a simple way to stay rooted in God's Word every day? The Daily Bible Devotion app by Salem Media gives you morning and evening devotionals designed to encourage, inspire, and keep you connected with scripture. Plus, you'll enjoy daily Bible trivia and humor. A fun way to learn and share a smile while growing in your face. Get the Daily Bible Devotion app for free on both iOS and Android. Start an in-your-day with God's Word. Search for the Daily Bible Devotion app in the App Store or Google Play Store and download it today. War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history. Welcome to Key Battles of American History, a podcast in which we discuss American history

1:00through the lens of the most important battles of America's Wars. Here is your host, James Early. Welcome to another special episode of Key Battles of World War One. I'm James Early, your host, as always, and I'm joined by my friend and movie expert. At least I think so, Sean McIver. This is another, this episode is another, in a projected mini, not projected. I guess we're actually doing it early, right? It's a mini series of episodes in which Sean and I are going to discuss several of the best movies about World War One. In today's episode, we're going to discuss the 2010 Australian film Beneath Hill 60. This is a fascinating movie about Australian tunnelers who are trying to tunnel under the German lines on the western front and blow them to bits. So we'll see how that works out. Sean McIver is with me again.

2:01Of course, he's the co-host of the excellent podcast Come and Take It. And as I mentioned, a major movie buff, and I'm excited to have him with me. How you doing, Sean? Doing well. All right, well, this is the first one we've done so far that Sean had never seen before. Right, Sean? That's right. Prior to me mentioning this, this movie really is a hidden gem. I had myself never heard of it until I started researching for the World War One main series, the battle episodes. And I went into Amazon Prime and I just thought, I wonder what they have on World War One. So I Google, I mean, not Google, but I search World War One within Amazon Prime. And I got a whole bunch of things, some documentaries and shows and other things. And this popped up too. And I watched it and I thought, wow, this is great. It's very different from a lot of the other World War One movies. And again, it's just things from an Australian perspective, which is really cool. This is one of the few movies we will be discussing that actually portrays actual historical figures.

3:01And we'll talk about that more later. So before we jump into the movie itself, I will do what I usually do and just give you the basic information from Rotten Tomatoes. And IMDB, as we mentioned, this is an Australian film. It was released to the theater in Australia, but it really didn't see wide release as far as I know outside of Australia, certainly not in the US. It's given on Rotten Tomatoes an 86% favorable rating by critics and 77% by the audiences. It's two hours and two minutes. The average rating on IMDB is 7.1, which is also quite respectable. And it's really a nice, a really nice film. I like it a lot. It's, I've watched it now three times and I liked it better every time I watched it. It was nominated for a lot of the Australian Film Institute Awards. Best film, best direction, best original screenplay, best actor, best cinematography, my gosh, almost best everything.

4:04But it didn't actually win any of those awards, but it was at least nominated. It did win a few other awards in other awards categories. And it's just really an exciting film. It's very suspenseful and just a lot of fun. So we hope that if you haven't already watched it, folks, you will watch it. Sean, any opening thoughts on this movie? No, I thought it was a really good movie. I'm surprised I've never seen it before, but it's, it's a good movie and very enjoyable. It's got a really good pacing. It's kind of hard, the accents are a little tough from time to time. But the performances are great. There's, it's a very good structured, well-structured movie. As it goes, it goes back and forth between the present day on the western front and then several months before in Australia. So there's some very scenery and yeah, it's excellent. I liked it. Great movie. The movie stars Brendan Cowell as Oliver Woodward, who is the main character. Alan Dukes, Alex Thompson, Harrison Gilbertson, Duncan Young,

5:05and a bunch of other people, all Australian. And I bet even Sean had never heard of any of these guys before, right? Yeah, the only, the only actor I'd ever seen before was the young lady who, by Woodward's, Piance, Mellie Hinstout, she's been in some stuff. But most of the, most of the actors, I thought that I recognized the general because he looks just like the older head of the program of Knight Rider. If you remember that show, the older guy that, the older English guy who's who's helping Michael Knight, but I think that actress deceased. So I don't think he could be the same person. They look like, yeah, yeah, he did, he didn't look dead. He looked at least better than that. Yeah, yeah, the, although Wikipedia tells us that Hugo Weaving, who is most famous as Elrond and the Lord of the Rings, and as the original Red Skull in the Captain America movies.

6:05And of course, as the, as Agent Smith in the Matrix movies, he was originally cast to play Woodward. And he had to back out because he has, he wasn't, he was very claustrophobic. And he couldn't complete the thoughts and he backed out of the film. Yeah, they do a great job of making you feel like you're down in the mines. Some people might get claustrophobic just watching the movie. Yeah, no, but yeah, that's true. But anyway, so I've divided this movie up into several parts. There's a lot of, as Sean touched upon, there's present and then flashbacked and present, then more flashback and so on. So that's why I've got to divide it into so many parts. But let's get going. So part one opens up in May of 1916 in Armentierre, France, 30 miles below the western front. This is the only movie that Sean and I will be discussing in this series that takes place mainly below ground. So very different movie, very, very interesting movie. So in a mine underneath the western front,

7:05lieutenant Oliver Woodward or left tenant, I should say, it's pronounced left tenant by the British and the Australians. But we'll just say lieutenant because it would be kind of weird for Americans to just keep saying left tenant. But anyway, so lieutenant Woodward, who's the new commanding officer of Australian mining company arrives to take command that we first see him in an extremely dark tunnel with a candle. It's struggling to find where he's supposed to be going. He runs into a total of three different sappers. First, he runs into Jim and Walt, who were a father and son combination. And then he runs into another soldier named Tiffin. Tiffin is the last name. Tiffin is listening for Germans who may be an encounter tunnel. And that's a very important part of the movie. These guys are constantly listening to the walls of their tunnels to see if the Germans are doing something in a counter tunnel on the other side. And the Germans are doing the same. Yeah, exactly. That's one thing that's neat about this movie,

8:08is that you get a lot of the German perspective as well. It's pretty balanced, I think. And most of the action takes place from the Australian slash allied perspective. But we do get the inside of the Germans as well. Anyway, Tiffin is listening and he tells Woodward that he thinks he hears digging. Lieutenant Woodward tells him it's just his heartbeat. So then Woodward goes back to the enlisted man's quarters. There he meets the rest of the man, including a man named Corporal Fraser, who doesn't like him. Fraser first has a cold shoulder and just glares at him for about the first third of the movie or so. Sean's going to go into a little more detail here now about the tunneling and the mining units. Yeah, so I think one thing is if you hear James say, mining or a mine, we're using that interchangeably with a tunnel. You think of a coal mine or a gold mine underground with the themes. And it's not just like a tunnel that's just dug. It's actually excavated like a mine, a real deep underground mine.

9:15So, but, you know, tunnel or mine, mine, we're using that interchangeably. And if you hear the word sapper, sapper is an enlisted rank that is part of the engineers, the army engineers. It's actually a rank. It's not, it's a description. It came from the Middle Ages where you would build these sappers, would build these saps where these lines. And so originally sappers built the trenches, the deep trenches during the war, but then as they moved on, they would be tunnelers. So the, the background of the tunneling during World War One, a tunneling is actually another military tactic that's been used since, at least since the Middle Ages, possibly as back as far as the Romans. But definitely the Middle Ages, we have lots of evidence in the street of digging underneath a castle and you would dig underneath like the corner of a castle and then you would set fire to the, to the base, the wooden piers that held up like a corner of a, of a castle or battle, and then that part of the castle would collapse.

10:17And then you could rush in and take the castle. In the fifth, they did that in the movie, or sorry, in the play. In the fifth, they did that because in the fifth, they really did that. At any rate, during the First World War, the Germans were actually the first ones to mine our big dig tunnels underneath the trenches and set off an explosion. They did that in, in Belgium, they destroyed it, completely wiped out a company of Indian infantry that were manning that part of the line. And so the British reacted and they went and out and set up their own mining companies, their own, their own tunneling companies. And the interesting thing is that the, the person who actually kind of came up with the idea was a gentleman named John Norton Griffiths. He was, sorry, John Norton Griffiths. He was a British member of parliament. He had been a soldier and in a, in a, it's kind of an adventure. He did different projects and he was an engineer. He did different

11:20projects in Africa and India and all over the world. But then he was actually, I became a member of parliament and he had a company that did excavations. They did worked on the subways and they did sewage, tunneling and excavations underneath cities. So developed docs and things like that. At any rate, they was approached by the war office and to set up, to come up with some ideas of how to react to the German mines. And he actually recommended that they set, put together companies of men that were experienced workers. And he actually shut down a project he had in Liverpool in the sewers. And he made 18 men redundant, which, you know, surplus them and laid them off and enlisted them into the military to be the very first company of tunnelers. They, they, this group, they actually were in, in the front lines within four days. So that was the feature of these

12:22tunneling companies is that they kind of shortcut their military training. They really didn't get the full military training that most British infantry did. Even officers didn't. So they didn't get tactics and techniques and, and information, you know, about being soldiers. They were really recruited heavily from coal mining and other type of, you know, different mining activities. So from, from whales and from the, the coal company country in the, in Northern and Western England as, in Scotland and Canada and Australia and New Zealand, these, these, and, and also some from South Africa, where they were, where they had lots of their young manning and as many, even to old men, who had lots of experience in being underground and digging. And Griffiths also had invented a technique or come up with the technique of digging that they called it the, it doesn't matter. And they invented a technique of digging that actually enabled them to dig

13:25deeper and faster than Germans. Germans could dig about 10 feet a day. The British could dig about four feet a day. And so they actually kind of took over and became much more, much more proficient at, at tumbling warfare. And essentially, that's what it became, is tunnel warfare. But if you notice, this scene is also really good because Woodward is kind of a little bit lost. He's, and he's not, and you'll see as he goes, he's not, he's not a traditional officer. He's, he's kind of an ordinary bloke. And, but the, also, the men, when he meets them, they're not, they don't stand up and salute. They don't say, yes, sir, they don't, they don't, they, you know, they kind of talk to him like he's normal. And that's because most of these men were probably rushed to training and sent to the western front right away. So that's, that's one of the things. And, you know, the other thing we know from Galipoli is that even, even the, even with training, the Australians aren't necessarily the most disciplined and military

14:28minded of the people, you know, they are, they're already, they're already kind of not disciplined, at all, and inclined towards military structure. Yeah. And that drives the British crazy, the British, in general, not real loud about the Australians, and especially not minors. Yeah. We will see in a future scene where, well, actually, we're about to see it right now. So let's go ahead and move to the section. Yeah. So that, that long explanation, this is, this is what, you know, this, this film is really about. It's about the tunneling, but warfare. I think you're right. It's a fascinating look at something. A lot of us don't know about. We think, we're one, we think digging trenches, and we think, you know, running into machine guns in mass, and we think, you know, or most we might think about, you know, the Soppwith camel versus the, the Red Baron and his, in his Falker triplane, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the biplane and triplane fighters, you know, fabric covered fighters, you know, those are, those are the images of where we're one we have. But, you know, this was a fascinating

15:30look at another type of warfare that was very complicated and in depth and extraordinarily dangerous. Yes, definitely. All right. Well, so we left off with Woodward and Tiffin kind of listening to the wall to see if, see what the Germans are up to. Woodward tells Tiffin to take him to the officers quarters. And this requires that they actually go up into the trench at the surface for a while. And while they're doing this and they're heading over there, there's a violent German artillery barrage and several men in the trenches are wound in the barrage. Tiffin gets a little bit shell-shocked, but they finally arrive at the officers dug out. And their Woodward meets two other officers. One of them is Lieutenant Clayton, who is a British officer. And then there's McBride. McBride is in Australia, and it turns out he's an old friend of Woodward's for mining school. They had, they'd been in school together. So they kind of click right away, but not so much with Clayton. Clayton looks down on Woodward's. He doesn't think miners

16:31are real soldiers. He makes several disparaging comments and eventually just walks out. But that kind of sets the stage for who Lieutenant Woodward is and who are the men that he's going to be working with. Right. And it Woodward and McBride let Tiffin stay in the dug out with him. He's not supposed to be there. Yeah, let's Tiffin hangs around and Clayton keeps... Yeah, he has a little bit around here. Yeah, he's just trying to keep you finally at least. Clayton is a British officer. He's with the Royal Fusiliers. And this is a legacy regular army unit that was part of the British military for, you know, the Fusiliers actually originated in the, with Cromwell's Army. So in the, in the English Civil War. So it's their, their long-term British soldiers. And he probably, uh, he's, he's a young guy. He probably went to San Erister, eaten his proper army. He's, he's a proper gentleman. Yeah. And uh, he, he aristocracy, would you say? Yeah. Well, maybe not,

17:34but definitely upper class. He's an upper class British, but he makes a good point. He says they weren't mining when before you came here. And then they started mining. So he was talking about the German. So, you know, it's, it is kind of a question mark of, you know, would, would the, but we do know from history that the Germans did were the ones who started the mining. So it would have eventually made its way down to them. If not, you know, even if not, but at any rate, there you go. Class, class struggle between English and British, between the, the Aussies and the Pommies. So yeah. All right. So now we're going to go back in time. And the next scene takes place 18 months earlier in Queensland, Australia. This gives us a little bit of insight into Lieutenant Woodward's life prior to being in the army. Woodward goes and visits a family called the Wadels. The head of the family, Mr. Wadel is his boss. Actually, I did not realize that until the third time I watched it. But so, Mr. Wadel and his wife, they have several children, the oldest, at least the oldest one

18:39there at the time, is a 16 year old daughter, Marjorie, who has a major crush on Woodward. And it's clear that the feeling is mutual as well. At that time, Woodward is helping run a copper mine. And the, his boss and friend, Mr. Wadel kind of makes it clear, he thinks that Woodward should have already joined up and gone to the war. But Woodward tells him, well, I've been asked specifically to not join the army. His job was to keep the copper, keep the copper coming out of the ground so that they could build millions of shells. And then it's revealed that the Wadels son Moffat. And it's a little, it's not completely clear who Moffat is, but I did little digging in it. All right. And I just kept kind of the third time I watched it. I was trying to really figure it out. Moffat was a friend of Woodward's from, from a while ago. And I think he's the oldest son. He's the oldest son of the Wadels. He's joined. Gresh and I got. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a little ambiguous. But

19:40sometimes with this movie, you got to really pay attention because it's, there's a lot of subtleties. It's, it's a family name because the, the young girl or her middle name is actually Moffat as well. Yeah. But the point is is that this, this oldest son and friend of Woodward's Moffat, he's joined the Light Horse and he's headed for Gallipoli. And as I mentioned before, Mr. Wadel kind of glares it Woodward and implies that he should have already joined the army. James here, and now a brief word from our sponsors. Need a daily spark of hope and direction? Let the Daily Bible app from Salem Media be that spark. This free Android app delivers an uplifting verse each morning plus reading plans, devotions and trusted podcasts from leaders like Joyce Meyer and Rick Warren. Prefer to listen instead? The Daily Bible app reads verses, reading plans and chapters allowed, handy for the headphones moment of your day. Choose from versions like ESV, NIV, KJV and more,

20:41and bookmark favorites to revisit later. Share inspiring messages with loved ones right from the app. Feel God's presence in every notification. Search for Daily Bible app on Google Play and begin your day with hope, purpose and peace. Yes. You also see that Woodward and Marjorie, who is Bella Heathcoat or character, they have a flirtatious, not a romantic flirtatiousness, but they have a flirtatious relationship in the sense that they're you're pulling pranks on each other and they have a familiarity. Like they'd be like each other. She's definitely got a crush on him. He pulls armless little, like he pours a thing of salt into her tea as she's not looking away. But she's 60 and he's not. He's much older. Woodward actually is the copper mine. He's been in New Guinea where the copper mine is supervising those copper mines. So he's got a big experience,

21:42a lot of experience with different environments. One thing I was really struck with is you know, you watch you watch Gallipoli and it's set in the Western territories of Australia and it's the desert, right? And it's it's it's rough and it's it's it's much like, you know, Egypt or North Africa. But Queensland, which is on the eastern side of the continent, is it's beautiful and lush jungle mountainous jungle territory. So I mean there's there's big huge palm trees in there in this home's yard. So I think that it also shows different types, the different parts of Australia, right? It's not Australia, it's not just one particular environment. Right. So that's a short scene and then in the next part we go back to the front, pick up where the story left off earlier. There are two sappers named Tom Dwyer and Norman Morris and Morris has a nickname of Polthru. I thought that was an interesting nickname but they are

22:44listening. They start talking about Hill 60, which is Messin Ridge. This is kind of almost a legendary German strong point to the Allies have not been able to take. And then all of a sudden a German soldier just comes crashing through the tunnel wall and there he is and Morris, of course, yeah, it's a great moment of drama and terror for for I think for the German as much as for the Australians, but Morris shoots and kills him. Then the tunnel wall explodes. So it just shows you just as we've already kind of touched about and we'll keep mentioning this, but just how horribly dangerous this is. Obviously any any war is dangerous and World War One was especially horrific, but now now take it down below the earth and you don't know how far away the Germans are in the next tunnel over and they might come crashing through any minute now or they might just blow up the tunnel and you might be buried alive. It's just terrifying, right, Sean? Yeah, and they had they had short-barreled sawdoth weapons that I couldn't tell if they were

23:48if they had a sawdoth shotgun or if they had like a like an infield that had been cut down on the British troops that the I couldn't tell, but I mean, they were definitely you could tell that they were they were designed to be used inside of a tunnel in a confined space. Although Tiffin carries around an infield everywhere it goes. An infield wouldn't would be particularly as useful in inside a confined tunnel as as like a sawdoth shotgun or even, you know, pistol or something like that. So, right. Yeah, and so this is the first time you hear about Miss Sees Ridge. Miss Sees Ridge was a very long bridge line with a couple of hills overlooking the front lines of the Ypres salient, which was a bulge in the line in Belgium. It was a small portion of Belgium that the Allies held. It was a major city or fairly sizable city that the British had held onto in 1914 when the Germans were trying to in the race to the sea. They had held onto it and it was

24:53the kind of the focus of a major portion of the British efforts when when we talk about the plumber's fields and flander's fields. Ypres is in landers and the famous later famous battle small village outside of it called Passiondale, which was basically obliterated off the very map of the world because of the fighting that took place over it. So, to British and Australians, and to Canadians, you know, discussion of Miss Sees Ridge in the Ypres is definitely a major touch point. It would be like really like for us saying Bastone or Wake Island or not so much Wake Island, but definitely Bastone or Normandy. That would be kind of a cultural touch point for Americans. Ypres is really a cultural touch point for British. Yeah, you know what, it's funny. We talk about this Scott and I do in the regular series that they mispronounced at wipers.

25:55Yeah, it's really easy, but wipers that you even hear Lieutenant Woodward says that at one point he calls out wipers. I thought that was cut away. And we talk about this battle very briefly, though, it didn't make the cut as one of my 10 key battles, but it's important, nevertheless. I mean, when you look at the grand scheme of World War I, it probably isn't the main one, but it is for the British experience. And you know, for a long time, Bastone, they'll became a byword for the other devastation of war. So yeah, actually part of what Bastone was one of our key battles. I'm just talking about. Yeah, you are talking about Ypres. It's like like three miles outside of. Yeah, there's there are several battles of Ypres. Yeah, multiple ones, yes, or wipers as the British. Well, given given that given that you know, your your measurement of ground gain and loss was in the feet for most of World War I. There's multiple battles for the same territory. Yeah, no kidding. All right. So then we go back to quarters

27:01and the men get a call saying 102 drive has been crumped. And that 102's, Sean will talk more about this in a minute, but 102 drive was the location where Dwyer and Morris were listening in the German broke through. Crumped just means exploded or attacked by the Germans. It blew up. So Morris and Dwyer have gone missing. They were caught in the explosion. So Lieutenant Woodward and two men run off and they search for the missing man. First thing they find as they dig through the role is the the leg of a dead German. That was really interesting. They know it's German because the style of the boots and then they do find the two missing men. Morris is alive, but he can't hear but Dwyer is dead and he's really hurt really, really badly. He's been wounded severely. Yeah, the German the German boot has metal hobnails and they they the Fraser says you can you know it's German the metal metal boot metal metal nails you can hear them clapping all all the time.

28:05Right, which you know if you notice when they're underground they whisper. They whisper it's noise you know noise control is definitely on because everyone's listening they're constantly listening each other and anything that they do can give away their position. So Morris is Fraser's friend, he's his mate and they you know they get him out he actually is loses hearing for a while because of the explosion, but this is the point where Woodward starts to bond with the men, right? So he he helps dig the men out of dig Morris and Dwyer out of the of the the rubble. He helps find them and and this is where the men start to kind of bond with with their new commander. Yeah and they it's interesting how they you know they label each location with a specific number like 102 drive they talk about 105 drive later they that helps them to get into nowhere to go to work. Right, right. It is. Yeah and each tunnel

29:08I think it drives like it's like a street I think is but yeah they they know you know they know their their their network of tunnels that they've got built because they've got many of them and I think in this case they're actually not they're in a defensive role. They're digging tunnels not offensively to get underneath the German lines. They're actually digging tunnels to try to prevent the Germans from doing that to them. And so that's that's what they're doing is they're constantly looking for and listening for other German tunnels. Yeah that was the impression I got to it in the beginning part of the film definitely yeah all right anything else on that before we go back again let's go back all right your heart for we go back in time again this is like at the pre-war at the Waddell's house once again not too long after the first flashback Woodward is sitting having dinner with them again and he reveals to the Waddells that people are sending him feathers he opens up this little container and inside of

30:12it or I don't know good dozen feathers or so the feathers are a symbol of cowardice and they're he's getting these because he hasn't gone to the war. Mr. Waddell just looks at him and says Mr. Woodward knows how to stop the feathers and he says but he also says the whole thing will be over by Christmas and that's a that was such a common belief and not just the World War One but in a lot of wars you people grab you know dramatically greatly underestimated the length of the war all this will be over by Christmas I think about the Civil War were both sides thought they would whip the other side in a matter of weeks. Yeah I think World War One is sorry I think World War Two is one and at least for Americans is one of the few where we didn't think that World would be over by Christmas because you know in 1941 they hoped the World would be over by Christmas because we were losing to the Japanese but yeah we knew that it was we were well the word been going on already for a long time and we knew that it was a long haul war so that's one of the few wars we went into with a realistic attitude and outlook on. Yeah but the Europeans did not

31:21have that realistic outlook not in 1914 and not in 1914 1915 but no and while they're sitting there talking literally there's a knock on the door and there's a messenger who arrives with I guess a telegram and and the Wadels find out that their son Moffat has been killed at Gallipoli. Yeah and this really kind of shakes up Woodward a little bit and he they don't really they don't show this he doesn't say anything but it's pretty clear that he right then and there decides he's going to go volunteer yeah and this is confirmed by the fact that later on he's out kind of just thinking things over and Marjorie runs out to him and she pleads with them not to go the war and they have a nice romantic kiss so there's there's real man in this movie as well as horror. Yeah I will talk about those feathers yeah so I did want to say I thought I was striking when Mr. Wadels says he's broken up about his son dying and he says what what is what what what is the light horse have any business being in Gallipoli I thought it was all cliffs right yeah I was again

32:26and we remember that because yeah they were they didn't have their horses at all they they were just sewn into the he may have he may have been there with Archie and Archie and Mel Gibson yeah I forgot Mel Gibson's name already yeah but Frank Frank's Archie Frank yeah he might have been there with them so yeah so the White Feathers is a famous symbol of cowardism is particularly it's not unique to Britain but it was really heavily in in British culture actually predates the First World War there's a famous book in 1902 called the Four Feathers which is set during the the Mahatis War in Sudan and is made into about a dozen movies the most recent one with Heath Ledger yeah that was a good movie I saw that I'm sure yeah it's a very good movie it's excellent movie so I highly recommend that one but basically during the First World War young women were heavily heavily involved in movement to Shane Mannington listing to the British army

33:33and there was a prominent women's or women woman author who was actually an anti-sufferjet feminist which is really odd but she she whipped you know use the newspapers to whip young women into into presenting men who were seen in in England without a uniform present them with the White Feather and that spread actually into the Commonwealth and it caused a lot of problems because there's a lot of public servants civil servants as well as like things like police officers and things like that in England who were part of the war effort and were not able to go to the war or not you know you know it's still contributing who got presented with feathers and even men who were on leave it was definitely not popular with soldiers in the British military because men who were on leave if they were not in uniform they could be presented with a White Feather including a person who was awarded the Victoria Cross or gallantry in Glipply was on a way to a public

34:40reception in his honor and some woman walked up to him and gave him a White Feather so the British government the home office actually had a badge two badges one for civilians called the Red King and Gentry to show they were serving the war effort and another was the silver war badge given to men who had been honorably discharged and who served and been honorably discharged or to for veterans who could wear while they were on leave so they wouldn't get bothered by these women and there's a famous there's a good scene in the second season of Downton Abbey where there's a scene where some of the men are presented with the White Feathers including one whose father's agent and he could go is servant but also the driver of the family who's Irish and was what's the revolution Irish revolutionary and they walk up to him and give them White Feather and he laughs and those are on the ground so but yeah so you know what we're doesn't seem to be bothered too much by the Feathers he kind of makes a joke of it but it is it was something that

35:44was a major nuisance at the time a major issue it's just a little bit judgmental there on the part of the British people yeah not everybody can go you have to have some men stay home right and these and this was a this was a woman you know Mrs. Humphrey Ward who who didn't like women working in the in the in the arms armaments industry working for the war effort but you know so like these are young women who could have stepped up as they would in the next war and stepped up and taken roles in you know in the defense industry to allow men to be able to go and join but no instead they were walking around with White Feather you know they were cutting up their their mother's mattresses and pillows to take White Feathers to give to men who you know we're just fighting their business James here and now a brief word from our sponsors looking for a simple way to stay rooted in God's word every day the Daily Bible Devotion app by Salem Media gives you

36:46morning and evening devotionals designed to encourage inspire and keep you connected with scripture plus you'll enjoy daily Bible trivia and humor a fun way to learn and share a smile while growing in your face get the Daily Bible Devotion app for free on both iOS and Android start and end your day with God's word search for the Daily Bible Devotion app in the App Store or Google Play Store and download it today all right so now we go back to the front again and I think I'll combine these two paragraphs yeah yeah I was in the sacred time so we open up with a scene of the enlisted man and the unit staying around in their quarters talking corporal Fraser is still he's not he doesn't like Woodward at all he likes him even less now he blames Dwyer's death on Woodward but the other man defend him they say oh he's okay and they point out the good things he's done and then Woodward himself shows up and he offers the men cigarettes and he lights them but they they snuff out his

37:47light after the second one they say it's it's bad luck this is a common World War I superstition I've read about before that the belief was lighting three cigarettes brings bad luck and the reason they thought that is because it comes from the practice of if you're in the trench and you like the first cigarette then a German sniper will see you if you light the second cigarette the German sniper will get an aim on you he'll draw a beat on you so to speak and then if you light the third time you'll blow your head off so just an interesting little bit of World War I culture that they work into the movie which is really nice and then all the sudden Colonel Rutledge comes in and he's now he's in the movie for the first time this is this is Lieutenant Woodward's boss he's the regimental commander he arrives and he tells Woodward that the Germans have a machine gun in a building called the Red House this is just across no man's land on the on the German side

38:48and the Red House contains a machine gun and not just any machine gun but it's a machine gun that can inflate the British trenches well let Sean talk about that in a minute but so they need to get rid of this and so Rutledge assigns Woodward the task of destroying the Red House at at first Woodward since he's a minor and a tunneler he wants to tunnel under it and set it off underground with explosives but this will take too much time and the Colonel says we don't have that much time you just have a little bit I can't remember the exact amount of time but he wants it done fast in a matter of hours so the men instead have to go over the surface they're going to have to cross no man's land sneak up to the Red House place explosives there and set them off not going to be easy task and it's very very dangerous so Woodward asks for volunteers Morris volunteers I mean sorry Woodward says now you don't have to but he says I want to and then Tiffin stands up to volunteer but Fraser the corporal who doesn't like Woodward he tells my sit down

39:49I'm going to go instead so it's going to be Woodward Morris and corporal Fraser yeah so the scene where they talk about why they're wanting the with the Colonel while they're wanting the blow up this house um he mentioned the Colonel says there's have an infillate and Woodward says what's an infillate so it shows that he was probably rushed to training too he's not a military he's not a fighting man he's he's an engineer he's a very brilliant engineer very good engineer um and it's Clayton it actually says that they could shoot down on us from from an angle uh in that makes sense so um I just think that's an illustrative of of the fact that Woodward has not been given this bull military training and yet he's given basically a special force this assignment to co-plow up this building right outside of the trench his he's he's a tunneler he's not he's he's not a an infantryman he's not even you know it didn't have special force time but you know this is something that like a grenadier should do or something like that but uh let

40:52you know shows that they're going to they're going to do what they need to do so yeah I think Fraser I'm I'm just speculating here Sean but I think the reason he volunteers even though he can't stand Woodward at this time I think he kind of feels like if I don't go it's not going to get done right right he feels like he needs to be the one that's yeah not not calling the shots necessarily but helping to make sure Woodward doesn't screw it up right right and he's the senior he's the corporal the sergeant was killed uh he mentions he's the very first scene the sergeant was killed uh he's the senior NCO so he's he's sort of the old man in the cut and he's not literally the old man there's actually an older old man in the company uh but he's sort of the uh he's sort of the old man of the of the group right right so they they head out that evening after it gets stark there's about an hour long artillery barrage just to kind of saw hopefully soften up the Germans a little bit and then Woodward Morris and Fraser go over the bags that's an interesting phrase that literally they they're crawling out of the trench through No Man's Land had to go over

41:57all the sandbags that are piled up in front of the trench and they're in No Man's Land it's it's a sea of mud it's just constant mud Fraser gives Woodward advice for how to stay alive here he tells him for example when a flare goes off freeze don't don't drop to the ground because the Germans are just looking for movement so you got a freeze close one eye so you don't go blind and so that helps Woodward out a lot the three men they crawl across No Man's Land they nearly get shot several times and they they get to the Red House and they they going through the cellar and there they plant a satchel charge and they crawl back toward their lines you know they're doing the thing where they unload they they gradually unwind the the wire that's going to connect to the the exploder as they call it I would I would have called it the detonator but same basic thing and when they're about halfway back to the British lines they realize they don't have enough wire to connect the charge to the detonator see the it took me a little while to understand what was going on and but if

42:58finally click the third time I watched it the to be fair the first time I watched it was like six or seven months ago and I didn't really pay that close of attention but the thing is is that the exploder was back at the British trenches and they thought they would just go put the the charge in the house and then the wire would reach all the way back to the British trenches and then they would do the actual blowing up you know they would they would set off the detonator back at the British trenches but they didn't have enough wire they didn't they wasn't going to reach so what are they going to do Morris goes back to the British lines and he gets the exploder and then he's going to come back and bring the exploder and they'll connect it to the wire and then they'll explode it from the middle of no man's land I hope that makes sense Woodward and Fraser by that while while Morris is going to get the exploder Woodward and Fraser running run into somebody it turns out to be a British soldier long to hold its lieutenant Clayton the same officer that had

43:58been so rude and ugly to Woodward at the beginning of the movie and he's been badly wounded he had been sent back to cut the wire for Woodward's men that was a detail I kind of missed the first time but so that's why he was out there but he he'd gotten wounded and so they dresses wound finally Morris returns and they detonate the charge and the red house is blown up Clayton thanks them for their help and then he passes away and just one other thing I wanted to point out here is this is the movie overall is is pretty accurate historically it's based on actual historical events but the this actual raid took place on June 11th just before the start of summer so it probably would not have been quite as muddy it's certainly true that the western front was often very very muddy but that would probably not have been the case in the summer it would have been drier than what they show in this film but I think they just wanted to kind of point out just how muddy and

45:00how just how yucky and nasty was on the western front so much of the time can you thoughts Sean no that's it's a good scene it's certainly I did I like that they they're trying to get through the brick at the in the in the summer and they're trying to get them one at a time and then they you know Morris kind of sets off of the one machine gunner that's right above them that didn't get hit but he just kind of makes a movement and they fire and then razor gets an idea and he does a rock and they shoot and then he kicks through the bricks while they're shooting yeah so they can be heard there that was really smart that was clever yeah it's part of the reason why he went because they needed somebody with a lot of actual combat experience yeah but interesting Clayton actually saves their life he's wounded he saves their lives because they're in a shell in a you know shell hole trying to get the the you know the plunger the exporter is the plunger you know when you when you see Wiley Coyote you know yeah pushing down on the thing that's that's the

46:04exporter it's a plunger but when they're trying to get that hooked up to the wire machine gun fires and then Morris goes to raise his head up and Clayton grabs him and stops him and they shoot it again and he says they have a pattern right and I thought that was really really kind of cool yeah interesting he he was you know he he's been out there he's noticed he's been so he's been out there for a while obviously bleeding deaf yes all right so then the next part we go back to Australia again another flashback and Woodward goes to see Marjorie where she works and he says he's joined a mining battalion and he asks her if he can write to her she says yes if he talks to her father and gets his permission so this is a really short scene just a few minutes but we see now Woodward's actually joined joined up and he's going to head to the war interesting side fact here the character of Marjorie is 16 and Woodward is about 25 he says I'm almost a decade older so he's about 25 but the actor who played him was 33 when the film was made

47:11so he's I don't know how old the actress was but he looks I mean he's obviously you look at him he's way older than 25 you know I think he looks older than 33 to be honest with you but it's just one of those things where he looks so much older than it's kind of hard to imagine him as a couple yeah I think about that part yeah Bella Eastcott was 23 when she went 23 okay 23 yeah all right yeah I think she's working at a bank or something she's like yeah some type of typing pool with a bunch of you other young women so now it's just a nice short little scene uh-huh yeah just a a personal touch and then the next part we go back to the front again and we see the man are playing rugby I think it's Australia versus the other side Australia British soldiers and so they play this nice game of rugby all in the mud and then after the game the kernel arrives and he gives Woodward a promotion to captain and then right on the spot Woodward promotes he turns around and promotes Fraser to Sargent I think by now Fraser respects lieutenant or captain now Woodward and I think the

48:19the hatred is gone I think he's you know Woodward has won over his respect by his bravery out in that little mission they went on to blow up the Red House and so they're they're on good terms now he's he's not really you know he's willing to face the same danger that the men are right he's not one of these desk officers who never will doing put himself in harm's way and the kernel now tells Woodward that he and the company are going to move they're relocating to Hill 60 in Belgium which we've had a little foreshadowing of that before and so they get in a truck and they drive over it on the way Jim and Walt the the father and son combo that we mentioned or they tell the story of how they both decided to join up basically Walt the son joined up without really telling his parents and then Jim the father decides well I better don't have to so I can keep an eye on him so it's kind of a neat thing that they had a father and son together so they arrive at their new position the date is given as November 3rd 1916 and as soon as they

49:23get there they're taking fire from the Germans and they're running to their position three of the men though these are some of the younger men Tiffin and Walt the son that we just mentioned and then a young man named Billy whose nickname is streaky because he runs fast they get separated from the others they're pinned down by machine gun fire and they they're not able to rejoin the rest of the unit so Billy or streaky very nobly offers to be a decoy he's going to run off in one direction and draw fires that the other two can run over and join the unit and it's a very dramatic scene Billy or streaky is just about back to the to join the other man he's running super fast you can almost hear the chariot's a fire theme playing in the background but sadly right before he jumps into the trench where they're standing they're all waiting on him he's shot and killed the others then march into the new trench McBride the officer that was Woodward's former schoolmate he's

50:27already there and he greets Woodward they go underground for some sleep and then there's kind of an interesting exchange Fraser says well at least we're underground again and then Morris says and we'll be staying underground one way or another kind of a little dark humor there what he's saying is that we're either going to be underground here or we're going to be dead and buried so I thought that was an interesting line yeah so they actually yeah the the three men there's a they're walking down these planks to go to the their their trenches there the captain is told you you asked where's where's the where's our trenches and he says right right go that right that way left is straight to hill 60 so it's straight to no man's land but the three men in the back are there's a shelling and they kind of missed that instruction so that's why they've ear left and headed to the no man's land uh streaky bill billy bacon is the character name as the actor's name marco smith he actually is a indigenous australian and so he's he's he's uh you notice that he's

51:33in the very first scene went with all the other soldiers um he's not a he's not I don't know if he's aboriginal or if he's your descendant you know ancestry from indigenous but he definitely looks different than than the rest of the the men in the troop he's very smiling and very friendly has a good attitude and his joker and he he he actually before the rugby game uh woodward asked phraser who's the fastest man in the company and he says streaky uh you're looking for a runner he said now looking for a game so he's actually he's actually you know wants to know he's already putting together his rugby team uh but yeah that's why streaky you know almost makes a bill a billy bacon almost makes it back is he he's he's very fast and he nearly does make it but he doesn't quite make it good shot right as he's going over the getting to the others your set yeah kind of a war movie trope the the noble guy who sacrifices himself the rest of the unit we you see that in a lot of war movies and I mean so you see a lot of wars periods not just something that's made out but yeah but I thought it was good to see a person of color uh you know a person of you know

52:36native australian uh in this group because that was the feature of you know especially the colonial forces uh the common law forces is that in New Zealand mayori uh ancestry people you know in different different parts of australia or different parts of the british commonwealth the people of color were able to to join up as part of military so uh it's good to have that that representation in that presence in this film yes definitely all right so then we go to another flashback and this is the last one this is just three week woodward goes to war he goes to see mr. wadell and ask his permission to write to marjorie while he is gone and to spend some time with her before she leaves a very kind of an old-fashioned thing but but very much the custom at the time and be a very noble of him to do that and it's kind of funny mr. wadell tells his wife let's go for a walk and she's kind of like huh what he says let's go for a walk so if they go for a walk and that leaves woodward marjorie alone to talk and marjorie says they's never gone on a walk before this

53:40is the first time ever basically i'm paraphrasing but yeah so they get a little time before he uh ships out heads to the war yeah he says something very romantic he says when i come back they'll take you on walks every day yeah he's just a solid guy you know just a good egg you know really good good blow that's right look and now we come to what i'm calling part nine but the number doesn't matter but this is the climatic scene this is the the what would you quote the word Sean your film guy it's just the this is the correct yeah this yeah the main this is the main the main body of them exactly so now we uh for the first time that i recall we we get a little bit of the german perspective it starts with two german sappers they're in a counter mine and i think it's i just i love the cat and mouse game it's almost like a chess game you've got mines and counter mines and so on and in this case the british mines and tunnels they're not defensive they're offensive the british have developed this grand

54:45plan to they've got about 21 you know stations if you will 21 mines where they've got a boatload of explosives uh and their the the plan is to basically blow the the whole hill to smithereens and kill as many germans as they can so the germans are listening to see what the allies are doing meanwhile the allied mines soldiers have to constantly pump water out this was not the case in the first set of tunnels that we encountered but but now we're up closer to the coast there's a low water table and so it's really hard to keep water out of these tunnels the mine the allied mine with all the explosives that at least the one that we're focusing on it's 90 feet underground and it goes right under the german lines and it we are told that it contains over 60,000 pounds of explosives and as i said there's 21 similar mines nearby and between all 21 of the mines there are nearly one million total pounds of explosives so woodward goes down to check it out his

55:52his unit is going to be taking over uh control of these mines and taking over the job of eventually setting off the explosion in a couple of them and when he goes down woodward meets a minor name major north major north is a canadian he's been in the mine for three months it's mentioned that he hasn't gone to the surface in three months and and you can tell it's taken its toll on me he looks a little bit crazy he acts a little bit erratic he's got a beard he's got longer hair but he tells them when this blows it will be the biggest explosion the world has ever seen and then later he says it will end the war uh and again i just to clarify this this major major north he and his unit have been ordered out woodwards unit will be the one to take over they'll try to keep the explosives dry and to detonate them eventually that's their job but bride tells woodward that the mines won't be blown until the trenches above are full of Germans in that case tens of thousands of Germans will be killed so they're waiting a little while until the Germans the Germans

56:54are seem to be preparing an attack and they want to take out as many Germans as they can so the interesting thing is that so there's a lot of talk in this scene about planners soil composition about Belgium soil composition um so there's a layer of topsoil then under that is a layer of wet sand which is at sea level at low Belgium and and planners is very low lying country um and then there's a layer of wet sand below uh or so there's a layer of wet sand and it has water in it that's where the water table is um below that is a layer is thick blue clay and this is very very deep and so um when they're digging underneath the water table that's the big problem is getting all this water out um of this mine because you've got all these explosives well if anybody knows anything about dynamite about natural explosives and about natural glycerin as you get it wet it becomes useless and it can't become unstable it can blow up by itself and they don't want it to blow up by itself they want

57:55it to blow up when there's all these like I said all these men these German men they're waiting um they want to get all of them the interesting thing is is that this is not the first mine that they've blown up underneath till 60 uh in 1914 uh beginning in 1915 they actually blew up a mine uh very small one that the French had started and then the British one uh the British uh tumblers had blown up a fairly large one with 10,000 pounds of explosives and um the in the uh 10,000 pounds of explosives is described as having an effect like a mini earthquake that slipped the ground's white flames shooting up 300 feet into the sky concrete pig boxes and soldiers coming occupying them were knocked up to 300 yards away uh they made a 70 foot deep crater and then the the trenches were sandwiched so fast that their men found still dead stand in their standing position but the German the British as was typical didn't react as quickly as they should have

59:00and the Germans retook the position a couple days later so this is not the first time they've done this but though that first mine was under that wet sand it wasn't necessarily in the blue clay the blue clay is much more difficult but this is what's gonna allow them they're very quietly doing this and they they've put six times as much just under this one position explosives and then a million total plan total paths of explosives across the whole ridge so this is gonna be a massive explosion and that's the kind of the the crux of the the the conflict here between the Germans and the British is that the Germans gonna figure out what they're doing right so before he leaves major north is fiddling with the explosive cells who pulls one out pushes it back in it makes a loud noise and the Germans hear the noise so they know the allies are up to something and meanwhile Woodward is in his manner beginning to go down and take control they Woodward has his men check out the mine and they listen for Germans and he's looking at Hill 60 through a telescope back on the

1:00:05surface and as he's doing that a sniper's bullet hits the telescope and knocks Woodward out he says later uh boy that was close one was it it could have very well hit him in the head but instead it hits his telescope knocks him out for a while and then the sniper hits a sandbag revealing the blue clay inside and not the sniper himself but as Sean pointed out the Germans sergeant there's there's a German sergeant who's in charge of the tunneling operations he sees that blue clay that is now exposed because the sandbag has been ripped open and he tells his commander this means the British are tunneling at least 25 meters down that blue clay is a giveaway now that the Germans are realized that there is a very deep deep mine and they may have a major problem and the commander doesn't believe him there and this Sean this seems to be almost a trope I keep seeing this you know somebody says oh such and such is true and then the the first person up like that

1:01:07their supervisors is not it's impossible I can't possibly be and then oftentimes it goes to the next level and the next level person says oh okay it might be you know you know I'm making that upper I mean I we're gonna see that again in this very movie a little bit later but just yeah no you're you're not it's it's it's a common theme in films is that the generals know better yeah like the dumb supervisor like like like every yeah every you know every supervising commanding officer is it did he think and that the the lower level guy is always right I don't know just I know I'm over simplifying what what were your thoughts about this section no that's exactly right and actually the the bullet did hit or something hit his helmet because he got a he got a gash in his head it must it must have been a ricochet because I actually watched that scene twice yeah and I slowed it down and the thing actually hits part of the telescope but yeah but if

1:02:11he looked at his helmet he's got a big dent yeah front of it so he did hit the head but uh uh it's it is that was a that was a good lucky because this yeah it's like a saving private Ryan as the snipers were we're pretty good they could they could pop you through your your telescope you know through your eyepiece well then later woodward he wakes up and his unit goes down they're down in the the mine now and they're trying to short up they're trying to pump water out of it but it's it's it's a losing battle and it's taking about 60 men so woodward and McBride come up with a plan they're going to sink a shaft 90 feet down to a gallery beneath the the so-called Berlin sap which is a part of their network I suppose and they're going to install electric pumps and they're going to pump out the waters with these electric pumps they present their plan to the kernel and his supervisor who is the general and of course once again the kernels is oh it's impossible this will never work it's been tried before but they have a little bit different twist on it

1:03:16without going into the technical details you can do that later if you want Sean that one thing about this movie is it's sometimes it's hard to follow because they get pretty technical sometimes well yeah quite anyway the general like I seen earlier that this is a trope in movies like somebody comes up with an idea their immediate commander says no it's impossible but then that person supervisor says well maybe we'll give it a try the general approves the plan woodward orders the digging of diversionary tunnels to confuse the Germans and again the purpose of those is so that they the Germans will hear noise and they'll think well they're doing something in there this this is when maybe where the mine is but in fact it's it's just it's nothing is really happening there other than noise being made to confuse the Germans yeah they don't they don't want them to hear the noise in the main tunnel that's the bride the Berlin tunnel which is the big the big long deep tunnel that's that's the one they don't yeah that leads straight to the big explosives

1:04:18chamber and yeah kernel red ledges is definitely the image of the the old the old stuffy old dud you know probably yeah in the british army for a million years and you know his his main experience is probably building building you know building dams and bridges and you know but possibly if it may be fighting you know against you know you know people with spears and africa yeah you're ordering ordering Indians around or ordering it's like his job is to just say no you can't do it it's impossible yeah yeah it's you know as as as the as the British television series blackouter would say you know like my military experience the most dangerous ever got was you know fighting it picked me with it with a yeah it's a sharpen mango all right so we this shaft that would wouldward in McBride plan to build

1:05:18they begin to build it but the Germans hear them and the Austrians begin pumping the water out using the shaft while the kernel and the general are watching on the surface they're watching the effluent pipe the pipe that the water is going to come out of and at first no water comes out and the general and the curl are very disappointed and they start to walk away but then finally water starts coming out but this the curl is still skeptical he just doesn't like woodward for I guess it's maybe it's that british australian thing again or regular soldier versus volunteer slash miner but nevertheless they do get the water pumped out gym the father in the father son combo that we talked about earlier he reports to woodward that the Germans seem to be about to attack the second diversionary tunnel but the kernel doesn't like the fact that Jim is out of the tunnel he orders him back down into the tunnel the Germans set off explosives near the tunnel and Jim is killed very tragically you know Walt of course his son is is very upset about that after Jim's

1:06:21general tiffin gives woodward a wooden box that he made it was made out of some wood that he liked in shunnel talk about that a little bit more in a minute but woodward sends the box to marjorie and an interesting fun fact is that the box that they show in the movie that is the actual box that the real tiffin made for the real woodward back in during the world war one I thought that was a nice little touch yeah that the wood he mentions it was made from the in a letter to marjorie he said it was made from the the timbers of heath cathedral and that cathedral in eapras ruined from artillery fire but that the wood is probably 600 years old I mean it was a medieval yeah it was a beautiful piece of wood yeah yeah yeah the thing about is the reason they wanted to do the pumping it it's a subtle thing but if you notice that when they first go in there and to talk to north you know and the walls are just soaked it's mud every you know the walls are muddy there's water dripping everywhere and there's men all through the through these tunnels just

1:07:27constantly carrying buckets and and you know doing these pumps these manual pumps their hand and eight yeah and they make the argument to the general they'll save they'll save the labors of 60 men and that's the thing is that this it's 60 men that are down there making noise well and every man that's down there that's not being quiet or not that's making noise in a place where they don't need to and not making noise in a place they don't like in the disversionary tunnel that's that's more chance that the Germans are going to figure out where they are and so it's a sound military argument to make is let's reduce the number of men that are down here let's reduce the efforts let's make it and there's he's constantly having to check these these explosives and he's looking at them constantly in their embass explosives are covered in condensation and in water well after they get these pumps working if you notice very suddenly the walls are dry everything's dry in this tunnel from from the time they get the pumps working one and that's what's

1:08:28frustrating and that's what's angering to the the kernel is to him the efforts of these these sappers these lowly diggers are are inconsequential to him because he doesn't care let them work and you know and he doesn't want to do something different he doesn't want to try something different he wants to do the same thing that they've always done and that's the feature of these stayed upper class you know backwards-minded lettl through it British officers you know millets these these these professional soldiers often are portrayed in these movies as behind the times and unwilling to unbending and unwilling to to think outside the box and it's been killed you know ultimately right this is what happens he yeah Jim Jim comes out he's his son who's always on duty with him he went off to get some tea for him uh and so Jim comes out of his listening post to tell woodward he hears to germans he hears them and you know this is a valid thing to happen

1:09:33and instead the carnal says you're out you you've you've left your duty post without relief that is you know it's a violation of military discipline not you're doing you know he's he's is there they're about to blow the tunnel on this little and instead he sends him off to his death yeah again it's commentary on you know traditions right yeah a little fashioned way getting men killed all right i'm going to combine these two paragraphs for the sake of time the the german sergeant that we've met before he tells his commander that the tunnels they've been listening to are merely diversionary tunnels they they realize he realizes that the the australian guys are not trying to or whoever it is he doesn't know their australians but uh whoever's down there is not making any effort to disguise their noise they're not trying to be quiet so he realizes that the main mine it's got to be directly under hill 60 beneath them and so the commander orders him to dig a shaft to find out if this is correct so they're gonna go germans are gonna dig straight down

1:10:37and try to hit the main mine meanwhile sergeant phrasier discovers this he finds out that the germans are digging a shaft but woodward who's now ill he gets sick for a while he doesn't believe him there there's a rare exception where woodward actually makes a mistake another example of your supervisor doesn't believe you but the germans keep digging the shaft and there's an interesting conversation one german miner suggested the sergeant that they simply move their lines back he says why don't we just move them back a hundred meters and this will make the allied mining effort all for not but the sergeant has an interesting quote he says two years we've been here every inch of this place is soaked with german blood you really think our commanders would give ground you know nothing about war do you so again that's just another common theme almost a trope of how the commanders don't know what they're doing and the enlisted men are the really the smart ones if you just listen to them things would be so much better right shot yeah and and actually

1:11:40in history after the war you learn we allies learned that the chief of staff of the commander of the army group had recommended that the whole salient around messinines ridge including you'll 60 be abandoned and that they move back their lines because it was vulnerable it could be attacked from three three sides the defenses were on forward slopes they could you know they were they were vulnerable to attack and they proposed that they were they were tired to a secondary line for their back and it was rejected uh yeah and the interesting thing is we'll watch a movie later this later on uh called nineteen seventeen and this is precisely what the germans did later in nineteen seventeen is as early or nineteen seventeen this is precisely what they did is they withdrew to a more fortified line uh you know pretty much all along the line of the of combat from you know the entire western front they move back to better positions to more fortified positions inviting

1:12:43the allies to attack them so uh yeah it's it's it's it's interesting that this this common soldier is the words are put in his mouth that actually officers senior officers did propose and did did it yeah there was a change in doctrine among the germans uh because the first two commanders the the first two supreme German commanders were Eric von Moltke and uh helmet von Moltke I'm sorry Eric von Falkenheim and they their idea was once you take ground you never give it up forget it you don't give up an inch but then later uh uh Hindenburg Hindenburg Hindenburg I have a mixing up their names but Hindenburg and Ludendorf were took over and Hindenburg was more of a figurehead Ludendorf was the one really making the plans and calling the shots but they they realized that wasn't wise and so they did as you mentioned they did start giving up ground when when it was deemed necessary to do so yeah and that's yeah these guys are kind of for seeing that but anyway I'm

1:13:45gonna go ahead and take it on to the end of this scene yeah sake of time and and see what you have to say about that so now we come to the climax of the movie the general orders woodward and McBride to detonate their minds in 36 hours they tell them that all 21 minds are gonna be detonated and woodward is gonna be in charge of firing the final two the the kernel or the general one of the two tells them it's very important that you fire yours at the exact right time it's all timed out so woodward company they begin preparing the exploters and it's it's not just a little plunger that you push down this time it's a big elaborate assembly and tiffin tells woodward meanwhile that he's heard regular squeaks at the burlin sap he thinks it's just rats that are appropriating but woodward says well I don't know about that and so he goes down there and he listens and he realizes the Germans really are digging a shaft he realite Fraser was right after all and he tells the general that the Germans are doing this and that they'll be in the mine probably in about nine hours so to stop

1:14:46the Germans from reaching the main mine he tells his men to dig an attack tunnel near the main mine to stop the Germans sergeant Fraser doesn't like this idea he says it's suicidal but woodward says do it anyway and he goes down into the tunnel to listen it finds out that the Germans are almost on top of them so he orders Fraser to go four feet forward and set the charge they do this they blow it and the Germans shaft is destroyed and then we're getting down to four minutes before the big explosion is set to happen and just four minutes just four minutes before the the whole thing is going to go up and smoke part of the British mine collapses and when I say British it's British slash Australian it's the British are in charge with the Australians as we've been saying are actually manning it at this time but anyway the mine part of the mine collapses and it traps Tiffin inside the men are trying to dig him out but they just can't get him out so Tiffin says leave me and the other men leave and that's another common war war movie trope

1:15:48right Sean where it's like leave me no yeah yeah leave me somebody's trapped or wounded they can't get out but he convinces the other men to leave and they run off but Fraser runs to woodward and he tells him he says Tiffin's still in the mine he's trying to get woodward to stop he says we get him out in just a few minutes but the Colonel orders woodward to fire and he pauses and then finally he throws the switch and boom the German position is blown to bits and I'll add just from a historical standpoint in this huge explosion these this million pounds of explosives 21 total mines about 10 that the movie doesn't tell you this but I'll just tell you because I find it interesting about 10,000 German soldiers were killed right away on the spot and another 7,000 were taken prisoner and thousands of others were stunned and the British did take possession of a group of craters some of them up to six feet deep but the British only penetrated a mile or so into German territory and some scholars believe the British missed an opportunity to push further

1:16:54this is another one of those great what-ifs but eventually the Germans are gonna retake the position as so often happens in World War I it just goes back and forth what do you think about that last part of what were your thoughts and the entitled say that it was the force of the explosion was felt as far away as London and Dublin right and it is considered to be the largest explosion one of the largest explosion that's not a nuclear explosion so but yeah it's it is pretty fascinating the the interesting thing is that six of the mines were not used uh four weren't needed because they took the ridge uh and then another one was abandoned because the tunnel collapsed and then the sixth was is actually still there um it was lost when the Germans mounted a counter mining attack they never used it uh and it's it's still there it's still underneath a farm in Holland oh by yeah i would yeah and then i don't know if they got all the explosives out but yeah so

1:17:58you know the thing about it is you got to remember um you know there are parts of France and Belgium that are still uh you can't go into they are still there's so much unexploded ordinance that uh yeah it's taken over a century uh but they've they've they're still working on trying to you know some of they can't even get to because it's so deep in the underground but yeah very interesting uh the yeah it's it's just like you know this like the the battle of the crater uh during the Americans of work right uh the force of the destruction was so great that in the British you know the the attackers didn't necessarily act as quickly as they should have you know and that's the thing is that's ironic about this and shocking is the level of work that they will put into building this mine uh you know they wanted this this mine to go off and to just punch a big hole in the German mines they actually had some of the early tanks there uh and they should have should have done it but they could they didn't do it yeah i think the

1:19:00attackers get shocked to just as much as the defenders right um then we come to the final part this is kind of the dino ma it's uh it just gives you a little bit more about uh woodwords personal life and what happens after the war so he goes home and this takes place in 1920 after the he's preparing for his wedding to marjorie he's strapping on his dress uniform but he's thinking about tiffin and and then we see at the wedding many of the surviving men of the company are at the wedding and the closing i'll go on through the ancheon and i'll let you have the final words the closing title says this i thought i'm going to quote it in full or almost in full because i think it's pretty interesting it says the 19 mines that went off on the 7th of june 1917 produced the largest man made explosion in the world had ever known and this is what you said shana minnego the blast was felt as far away as london and dublin machine ridge was one of the most successful battles of the allied campaign but in a matter of months the germans had retaken hill 60

1:20:06it goes on to say all of her woodward returned to australia 1919 for his services to the first australian tuddling company he was awarded the military cross with two bars one of only four australians to receive that honor that's the end of the quote and then i'll just add one of the thing i'll read later woodward and marjorie married in 1920 and they remained married until his death in 1966 so a happy 46 year marriage yeah they had a family he rose to be at an executive a mining executive in australia so i was a um noted uh war hero did a lot of effort during second world war in terms of raising money for uh and be a popular popular service you know in in in the in the country um the if you notice one of the men uh you can definitely tell is still suffering from shell shot uh clearly step suffering from shell shot uh he has to be held

1:21:07up by his base mate uh on the is on the left side of the of the picture this is one of the guys that was early in the film was joking and always laughing and he's yeah effectively shattered uh in his in his his life and his in his ability to even maintain himself just for a simple photo so um you know the the he'll 60 actually was reduced in height because of the rid the battles and then bearish mine activities and trenches and artillery shells that it was originally 18 meters high now it is only four meters high so um the battle of uh messengers ridge in the destruction of hill 60 are considered the really the highlight of the tunnel warfare as we sat in 1917 Germans withdrew their positions to uh more firmly fortified and heavily fortified positions and then from you know pretty much 1917 the end of 1917 into 1918 the war became a lot more fluid and more mobile and so don't know I needed as much uh there wasn't as much pro long periods

1:22:12of trench trench warfare uh there was you know there was time they they would dig in uh but it wasn't as much as it was from 1915 and 1916 and into the early part of 1917 middle 1970 well uh so what do you think I think it's a I really love the the move really good for me yeah when you think of Australians in world war one you automatically think of Gallipoli you think of the light horse things like this but this shows another contribution a very important contribution that Australians made and it's not the only one of course but but in the shows aside of the war that as you mentioned in the intro that people don't ever think about the tunneling yeah and the Canadians are represented as well through uh Captain North uh the crazy crazy guy that started the the tunnel right but yeah I think it's it's a it's a good movie you really people should really should watch it give it a chance um it moves pretty quickly it's not a very long movie at all uh but very good very excellent movie I highly recommend it yeah we're recording this in December of 2020

1:23:15and as of right now you can watch this for free on amazon prime and hopefully that'll stay the case for a while I imagine this episode will be released probably early in 2021 so definitely check it out folks you will not be disappointed and you'll learn a lot you may have to watch it a couple times but it's definitely worth it all right what do you think Elshan oh all right well we will be back again uh in the future near future with another of the best world war one movies but for now we'll sign off for Sean McIar this is James early thank you for listing and we'll see you the next time we look at a world war one movie thank you for listening to today's episode key battles of american history is a proud member of the parthenon podcast network which includes several other podcasts including history unplugged by scott rank history the papacy and beyond the big screen by steve gwera this american president by Richard limb i witnessed history by

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