The enormous mine crater of Hill 60.
The WW1 battle area known as Hill 60 was so called on British military maps because the contoured height of the ground was marked at 60 metres above sea level. This high ground was man-made in the 1850s, having been created by the spoil from the cutting for the railway line between Ypres and Comines. It is a site which was the scene of desperate fighting in April and May 1915 between the British and German armies. The launch of a British attack on 17th April 1915 began with the explosion of three mines which literally blew the top off the hill. Tunneling and mining operations were carried out here by French, British, Australian and German soldiers. If tunnels caved in or were blown in by the enemy the soldiers who died underground were usually left where they died because of the difficulty of retrieving them. The remains of many soldiers, therefore, still rest in this site.