The Western Front Today - Sunken Lane
As with the Hawthorn Crater, the Sunken Lane is famous for being captured on film by Geoffrey Malins for the official war film The Battle of the Somme. Malins filmed men of the 1st Lancashire Fusiliers gathered in the lane south of the copse forming the Hawthorn Crater (land which formed the German front line), actually in No Man's Land, ready to go over the top at 07.30, ten minutes after the mine was blown.
At the head of the Sunken Lane is a memorial on a slight hill to the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders.
In the right bank of the Sunken Lane were many underground tunnels and dugouts. Even today, when the Sunken Land remains much as it was on 1 July 1916, points where these tunnels and dugouts have been filled in are visible if one looks closely enough.
Film Footage of the Sunken Lane
References:
Before Endeavours Fade, Rose E.B. Coombs, After the Battle 1994
Major & Mrs Holt's Battlefield Guide - Somme, Leo Cooper 2000
In preparation for the Battle of the Somme, the British launched a seven-day artillery bombardment in which 1,500 guns fired 1.6 million rounds.
- Did you know?
