FRENCH DUG-OUT CROPS.

Hokitika Guardian, 29 September 1917, Page 1

FRENCH DUG-OUT CROPS.

70 MILES OF SHELL-PROOF SHELTERS. FriFAca Ailmy, July 10. A twelvemonth ago a special French corps was formal to make dug-outs. It. has dug within a year 70 miles of subterranean galleries, all so deep as to be beyond the reach of all but the heaviest guns. It'has provided underground living accommodation f.-r a huge force, arid shelter in case of need for double as many. For iti this matter the number of men that can be sheltered is of cardinal importance. At ordinary times the underground gallery, shelters merely the men holding the line. When an attack is in preparation twice the number can be assembled within it, sate against the enemy’s bombardment until the moment for the assault.

1 lately visited two of these shelters which were approaching completion. One. which is long, is intended to provide living and sleeping accommodation. Kncli half-section (one-eighth of a company) has a dormitory, with bunks after the fashion of ship’s cabins, to itself, and a special exit to itself. The other, which is three times the length of the one, has accommodation for a correspondingly larger number of men. Every dormitory is ventilated by a pipe to the open air, and every shelter has its owu first-aid station, with bods ami all accommodation recessary for a. considerable number of wounded. The first aid-stations have their own exits and are in every way independent of the men living in the other parts of the shelter. All this digging is done by 24 companies of elderly Territoria ls with the assistance of excavating machines. Working in ordinary earth, four men with two wheelbarrows and a machine driven by a dynamo can shift from 25 to :35 tons a day. 111 a month, a shelter with sleeping accommodation for 500 men can be dug 'by a single company. •

The elderly diggers often lead a very dangerous life. Last year some of them had to dig at Verdun under a reign of German shells : this year othors are digging at various parts of the active front. It is work which ages a man perceptibly in a few months.