The Messines Ridge mines explosion was approximately 500 tons of high explosive -- a massive and terrifying blast, indeed. The Halifax Explosion of December 6, 1917, when the ammunition ship Mont Blanc caught fire and detonated, is generally considered to be the largest explosion prior to the invention of atomic warfare (pace Tunguska, Siberia). It was thought to be equivalent to 2.9 kilotonnes (3,200 tons) of high explosive and it totally devastated Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Fun fact: Not all of the mines exploded. One of the biggest was planted under a ruined farm called La Petite Douve. It was lost when the Germans mounted a counter-mining attack, and never used. After the war, La Petite Douve was rebuilt by its owners, the Mahieu family, and later renamed La Basse Cour. The mine is beneath a barn, next to the farmhouse. It is possible, that a lightning strike near the bomb might trigger it, since something similar happened to another mine in 1955.

My great great uncle fought and died in WW1 during the battle of Passchendaele in 1917. He fought in the British army. His body was never recovered as it sank under the mud. Respect to the brave men who tunneled under the enemy lines as well as the men who fought in the trenches. Lest we forget

Both my grandfathers were in the battle of Passchendaele. One was seriously wounded, and both were captured by the Germans. Both were later released in prisoner exchanges. My father's father was wounded by shell fragments on the whole of his left side by a shell that landed less than six feet from him. He lost an ear and an eye and a couple of tendons. His best friend who was helping him out of the trench was blown to small pieces, but saved granddad's life. He suffered partial deafness and blindness and trouble from all the metal that stuck in him.

My grandfather fought in WW1 and WW2 and in WW2 He served as a mole and he survived till 2008 3 days after the 25th of December and it was the last picture we got of him ☹ He may rest in peace in the West Midlands

My grandfather was a sapper in the Royal Engineers in WW1. It is hard to believe he did work like that.

The part that shocked me the most, is that i‘ve learned more about the first world war, by just watching this video, than i‘ve actually learned about it in school… Thank you for making history interesting!

My grandfather was there when the Messines Ridge mine was detonated. To my knowledge, he never spoke about it, or precious little of his other extraordinary experiences on the front line . It seems such incredible stories from war veterans stirred little interest at all after they returned. It was also said that many WW1 vets knew no one could possibly believe them in any case, so they - so many millions of them - just, so psychologically unhealthily, bottled these things up. I can't imagine this in an age when we 'moan when our arses are on fire'.

I'm a certified welder who once worked in Boston with "tunnel rats" for a brief time and I can tell you they would have had no need for basic training & would probably would have been in better shape, even at their age, than most soldiers.

The flamethrower was actually the terrifying “Liven’s Projector” and the explosive used wasn’t TNT, it was actually a compound called Amonal, which was a lifting explosive. It’s worth mentioning that William Hacket was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross, the highest British award for bravery . Otherwise quite a good précis about the tunnelling war

Under mining is a tactic that dates all the way back to the medieval era. You mine under the walls of a Castle causing it to collapse They later changed the way castles where built to stop avoid this weakness.

I used to build tunnels all over the country as an explosive expert. My first job was near Bakersfield California in the Tehachapi Mountains for the California Aqueduct. As a Miner, our site was half way up the mountain where we drilled in horizontal with 2 side by side water tunnels. My job at the time was to drive the diesel rig up to the top of the mtn where our powder magazines were and get explosives for the round that was about to be finished. The powderman and I loaded 3,000 pounds of powder on the rig and I talked him into coming down the mtn with me because I saw the lightning meter act up. No sooner than we reached the portal, the top of the mtn blew up as it got hit by a lightning strike and all three magazines blew up with 45,000 lbs of 95% TNT. We watched in awe as car sized boulders flew up into the sky towards the Grapevine vineyards. Man, those farmers were pissed. The guys in the tunnel thought an earthquake struck. The seismographs read over 3.0 all the way to LA. If you want to have an experience, be in a 30' diameter tunnel and from 400' away the concussion of 3 to 4,000 lbs going off will blow you over, like being in a cannon barrel; I did that for 30 years. Now imagine what happened to those German soldiers with 500 tons, beyond comprehension. Look up what a ship berthed at Texas City, Texas did when 24,000 tons plus of Ammonia Nitrate blew up and destroyed the whole port and did for miles around.

Virtually all of the commonwealth countries employed tunnelling units during the First World War. A small town near us in NZ has a memorial to their tunnelling company, made up of gold miners from local mines, other mining communities have similar reminders. Once in the chalk country these miners came into their own and there are extensive tunnel systems still under the French fields with road signs reflecting the Kiwi tunnellers origins. Huge numbers of men waited in these caverns before receiving the order to break out of the ground, right in front of the German trenches and attack.

Those brave men, may they Rest in Peace..😪

The Ripple Rock explosion was 1,300 tons of tnt that blew off the top of a dangerous navigational hazard in Seymour Narrows on the coast of British Columbia. It was a tunnel from land under the water and up to the near top of the underwater hill.

We were staying in Ypress 2014 for the 100 anniversary of the Christmas Truce and decided in some downtime to locate one of these creators near an old rail line along the Mesine Ridge - we looked at the map and walked about thinking we might have got it wrong area when we suddenly realized we were actually in the creator it was truly massive - far bigger than any football field - no wonder thousands died. Ypress at Christmas is wonderful

One of the most amazing stories about WWI I've heard about is when the allies on the western front made a large tunnel and then used it to build a super flamethrower

Imagine being a German miner mining and suddenly seeing a enemy that would be really awkward

It wasn't mentioned but the Germans retook the ridge 2 weeks later. Some of the colour photos used were from an Australian movie called Beneath Hill 60 which is about the "Diggers" experience digging the mines. Well worth a watch if you found this document interesting. Another sad part is that the groups digging were often from the same community (as were soldiers from Australia) so a collapsed mine could wipe out a generation (or two) of miners from small communities much the same as artillery could do with soldiers.

Man! The way things went is impossible to fake! These miners were heroes! Sometimes the truth is stranger then fiction!

Thanks for the history lesson. My grandfather and his father were miners it’s nice to hear praises for miners!!!

The battle of Messines wasn’t actually the largest explosion of the First World War, the Halifax explosion was, even though Messines happened before Halifax. If we were to measure both blasts by kiloton, Messines was half a kiloton, while the Halifax explosion was 2.9 kilotons, a small nuclear blast

My great uncle from Scotland, a miner, joined up and was eventually in the Royal Engineers digging in Belgium. He never made it home

What shocked me most is how long it took to tell this story.

I think this is probably the best video you've done so far. Well researched and very informative. 👍

9:10 William hackett's group should been called the giga Chad's after him for staying and supporting his mate until the end

Also, the Halifax explosion of 1917 was also said to be the biggest.

This was not the first time mining had been used. It had been a common action in siege warfare for thousands of years.

The biggest part of this story that shocked me the most was how long it took to tell the biggest part of the story

The explosion in Halifax Canada was bigger than the messines but it didn’t kill as many people

I read a book many years ago title “war underground” and I believe it was by Alexander Barrie, it covered pretty much all of the allied mining efforts. At least two were lost when the access tunnels collapsed. I believe one exploded in 1976 during a thunderstorm. The precise location of the other is still unknown. Truly horrific in both conditions and savagery.

The Halifax explosive of Dec. 6, 1917 was larger. Parts of the ship Mont Blanc, which carried the explosives, were found 5 km from the coast.

RAF Fauld was a very large explosion in a munitions storage facility. between 3,500 and 4,400 tons of ordnance exploded on 7th November 1944. About 70 people died in the explosion and subsequent flood from a destroyed reservoir. The crater is about 100 ft deep. About 20 years ago i helped dedicate a memorial bench at the site on Workers' Memorial Day (28th April)

Such and amazing story and yet I've never heard of it before. Thank you, The narration and animation were excellent

It is interesting that the term "mine", as in Landmine, comes from the actual process of digging tunnels and mining something.

The Halifax Harbour explosion after two munition ships collided…is also right up there! In fact: “Halifax historian Jay White in 1994 concluded: "Halifax Harbour remains unchallenged in overall magnitude as long as five criteria are considered together: number of casualties, force of blast, radius of devastation, quantity of explosive material, and total value of property destroyed."

Just imagine being a German soldier and hearing a sudden silence on the battlefield…

I saw a film about this a few years ago its crazy what was done in ww1 it was the biggest man made explosion at the time .

The halifax explosion occured 6 months after this event. Halifax explosion is still the largest accidental non-nuclear explosion ever. The beirut explosion a couple years ago was half the yield, and twice that of this video.

Actually, the largest non nuclear explosion ever was near the end of ww2 was the RAF Fauld explosion, Staffordshire, England. 3,500 to 4,000 tons of high explosives in underground storage. Stored in old gypsum mineworking, part of the excavation and the explosives remain unconnected and un-exploded to this day. Today the site is a secure area, maintained by the MOD. It was manned by Italian prisoners of war. There was near 200 fatalities. The US Navy and its 'Operation Sailor's hat' was a man made explosion in the South Pacific where thousands of tons of high explosives, stacked by hand on a small island that was surrounded by retired US Navy vessels. On ignition, the response and condition from the blast, to the vessels was monitored closely. All to simulate the response of ships at such a distance from the explosive effects of a nuclear weapon, but without the radioactive elements. The amount of TNT used in Sailors hat was comparable to that of RAF Fauld. The difference being, there was less to be learned from Fauld, it being an accident.

The Germans also dug these tunnels to blow up trenches. It was recorded that they both dug tunnels so near to each other, they could each other through the ground.

The 1917 Halifax Explosion during the Great War was actually the largest in overall magnitude prior to the Manhattan Project bombs.

I learned about clay kickers decades ago and I'm glad they haven't been forgotten. Thanks for the video!

My grandfather served in the Australian Expeditionary Force as a miner and sapper in WW1. As both sides of my family came from the eastern and north-eastern goldfields of Western Australian, I've often wondered if it was his background that got him into such a dangerous posting. He was a carpenter by trade, but his hands were burnt with mustard gas in France or Belgium and he never worked in his trade again.

“Beaneath Hill 60” was a pretty good movie about this explosion I believe or inspired by this event. I am not 100 percent sure on that but the tunneling aspect of WWI is incredible to see.

for comparison: 500 tons of TNT is about equivalent to the beirut blast (there was supposed to be much more ammonium nitrate there, but either somehow most of it didn't detonate, or most of it had already been sold off illegally by hezbollah).

your videos are getting better with time. nice art, narration, photos and thanks for including the universal metric units.

This was really interesting! I know very little about WWI and had never even heard of this. Fascinating, quality content. Well done!

The explosion shocked me the most.

This is an amazing video. I really like History and being British this is really interesting! Thank you so much :)

I am so claustrophobic that just watching this made my flesh crawl. Chapeau to those brave, mad souls that undertook this insane mission!

The largest man-made explosion was over Novaya Zemlya island in the Arctic Ocean on October 30, 1961, it was the Tsar Bomb. This hydrogen bomb actually had a calculated explosive power of 100 megatons of TNT but was reduced to 50 megatons because the Russians themselves considered 100 to be too dangerous. The most important lesson from this explosion was that it makes little sense to build bigger and bigger bombs because at a certain point the effect fizzles out into the atmosphere and eventually into space. The blast wave circled the earth 2.5 times and the bomb triggered earthquakes of magnitude 5.8.

What a pain these guys went through

Thanks very much for this. Very informative and well done!

My great grand father was 46 years old when he died in France. He was a miner who was conscripted to dig these tunnels. The story is he died of friendly fire for failing to give the right pass word when somewhere at the front. I always wondered why a 46 year old was fighting at the front till I found out about being conscripted for mining. edit, perhaps he volunteered?. and he got shot because he didn't understand how serious regular soldiers enforced correct password rules. being poorly trained. this vid has shed light on a puzzle I had concerning his death and why it happened. Thank you. RIP Edward Titterington.

Proud to be Sapper. The Corps of Engineers first to go in battle last to come out always everytime.

I am British and study history and this is very accurate!Great video!

There's still about 6 of these unexploded. It didn't help that a lot of the ground they had taken got recaptured a few days later. Lightning detonated one a few years back

My understanding is that the largest conventional *non-nuclear) explosion occurred when the British Army tried to blow up Heligoland straight after the war. It did not destroy the whole island, as planned, but punched a huge valley which exists to this day.

My grandfather fought in ww1. He was wounded and gased. He spent a couple of years in the hospital recovering

This is not even the largest explosion in human history💀

The thing that surprised me the most is that this was happening. I've never heard of this before. I remember seeing a video of one such mine that was found under a farm in France or Belgium, but I didn't know that this was a regular thing until I watched this video.

My grandfather described to me as instantly every one he knew was raining from above. It rained blood the next day. He made it so the blood that now covered his helmet was preserved so that they would never be forgotten. He lost 10,000 friends in an instant.

There's a 2021 film about this called "The War Below" Those Clay Kicker's were a special breed.Very strong,hardworking,extremely loyal,brave men.

Lets pause and give a salute to all who fallen in WW1 and WW2

This was wildly impressive to us, totally unheard before. Thank you so much! Great story and SO well done! 👍👍

Well done. Once again, the battle turns on seemingly "ordinary" people doing their jobs well. Thank you!

The Union Army attempted this in the Civil War. However after the explosion, the Union Soldiers charged the Southerners by running down the Crater, however they were trapped in the crater. It was a slaughter.

Great video. I was told that the craters could still be seen today - would be cool if you could add something about that.

One of these mines detonated many years later, and I believe there is another that to this date has not exploded.

Great to hear a good, clear and well paced narration. 😊

I had absolutely no idea about this method of war!!! MANY thanks for sharing and your time to present this.

Actually, the Halifax explosion was significantly larger than this one.

👍How to learn and recall history in a relaxed atmosphere 👏

Fact check: ever heard of the Tsar Bomba? This nuclear device was detonated in the early 60s by The USSR. The blast had 50 mega tons of power. That's the equivalent of 50 MILLION tons of tnt.

Love your show been watching for a year now.. Simple concise and well narrated ty keep up great work

this is a wonderful story, thank you for sharing it

I never knew that tunneling under the trenches existed great job

I'm pretty certain the Halifax Explosion was the biggest man made explosion until Trinity - the first atomic bomb test. It happened when a ship carrying high explosives collided with another ship and subsequently blew up. It's estimated that the blast was equivalent to 2.9 kilotons of tnt.

I suspect the Halifax explosion in 1917 might have been bigger. The ammunition ship blew right in the narrowest part of the port. The whole end of the city was destroyed. The anchor of the ship was found in a lake over one and a half away from the port. The blast was felt fifty miles away and recorded as an earthquake in Boston.

I was kinda hoping there were some actual killer star-nosed moles working for the army. Idk how much damage they could actually do but it would've been pretty neat to find out lol 😜

Moles, used a technique called clay-kicking to dig through the terrain. The digger would sit at a 45 degree angle with his back against a wooden frame and his feet facing the digging surface. Using a grafting tool that was a kind of combination pogo stick/spade/posthole digger, he would drive the tool into the soil by pushing with his feet on its crossbar, then pass it over his head to a “bagger” who would put the spoil in sandbags so a third worker could get it out on a little hand-cranked trolley. On his way back, the trolley handler would bring in more timber to shore up the tunnel. This process was fast and it was quiet. The Germans were using pickaxes to dig their tunnels, not exactly the best tools for clay removal and by their very nature percussively loud.

This channel two voices and content are real gems for viewers and listeners

I studied WW1 in high school and I went on a trip to the battlefields and we visited the Lochnagar Crater, an explosion caused by a massive artillery shell that could be felt as far away as London, the crater was huge, and was mostly filled with water.

alright new be amazed video

i love your videos

I've been inside a few, Hawthorn and Lochnager are massive. You won't believe how big they are until you see them.

I really like history. It's so fun to hear new stuff. I had to finish one semester of history to graduate high school and I loved it. It's one of the reasons I like living in Utah.

Your videos are the best

Can humans be Moles?

Some more information. Some of those mine craters still exist, are full of water, and have fish in them. There are also 5 unexploded mines in that area and they contain 156,000 pounds of explosives (70, 760kg). Additionally there are uncounted numbers of smaller mines and camouflets there with an undetermined amount of explosives in them. Online you can find images of the still existing craters.

Little is known about the Canadian "Beaver" who frequently whistled off-key while he was busy digging. He accidentally set off the demolitions causing a cave-in, and became A Flat Minor.

The fact that he finds good scripts to say everytime tho

I love your videos! And thank you for saying nuclear right... I have no idea how people think nuclear is pronounced "New-cue-ler", but thank you so much!

My Great Grandfather fought in WW1, but was lucky enough to be sent home. Minus an arm, an eye, and a back full of shrapnel. He was promoted to Sergeant on the battlefield due his NCO being killed.

It was a very large and powerful explosion for sure. The largest military explosion ever recorded was the Czar Bomba. A nuclear bomb tested in 1961. The largest non-nuclear non-military explosion took place in 2020 in Bierut when a cargo ship loaded with ammonium nitrate exploded.

Now This Is Why We Need To Nerf The Miner

Wasn't even a fart compared to the power of nuclear.

Mining like this was also used during the American Civil War. In Petersburg, Virginia the Battle of the Crater was initiated by a mine blowing up. It was in some movie also. Burnside was the Union general who really messed up the plan. Black Union troops had trained up to do the attack after the mine explosion, but Burnside was afraid to use the black troops because it would not look good in his eyes. He changed it to a white unit that had no idea about how to exploit the mine. It turned into a huge defeat with the Union losing 4,000 soldiers and the Confederates losing "only" about 1500.

What part of this story shocked was the lack of you talking about what these men dealt with after the war. I can't even imagine the PTSD they had. I know you talked about alcohol, but the mental and emotional toll that this took on them in the trenches would also befall people after the trenches also.