Figures related to construction of tunnels

Submitted by “American number One”

We have just over one thousand, four hundred yards of underground facilities dug out as of the beginning of October 1916. This does not include living quarters, storage spaces or above ground conditions such as trenches. They will be added to this document at a later point in order to complete the estimations of which I am compiling now.

First it must be said that the military unit(s) which are responsible for the current projects have done their utmost to maintain all existing structures while improving them to more acceptable levels for the kind of duties they have been tasked to do while attempting to keep up with an ever changing and aggressive set of new projects delivered to them. The men involved have been worked beyond their recommended levels in the face of little or no proper reinforcement of troops trained in our present tactics and tools. Despite weekly requests for this to change we have only received token troop additions who were largely wiped out or badly wounded in the great battle which took place only a short time ago. At present I believe we are at or below half strength in terms of expected man power and well below what we actually need to be an effective unit for our task while expected to maintain combat readiness for above ground operations  The fact we were issued Chinese laborers speaks a great deal to the facts I am going to present here for your to read, and if they are representative of their people I should like to you send me all of the Chinese you can as they are the hardest working people I've ever seen. Which is no discredit to the British troops, but most of them are not miners, and fewer still are soldiers by trade which makes them less than ideal for underground construction and soldiering.

It is my belief that we need one soldier in the trenches every five yards, replaced every eight hours. And underground I must have without fail a minimum of sixty men for sentry duties and listening posts, on every occasion we have been short men and supplies to do this and the German's have exploited it with an alarming degree of ability. On the occasions when we were fully manned and the German's attacked the battles were hard fought to a point of nearly mutual losses. The use of what you English call “unsanctioned or personal firearms” has always been the factor which tipped victory in the favor of our little outpost. But since these weapons are purchased by the soldier out of pocket and shipped at great expense from my home country ( the United States of America) it is extremely time consuming to gain additional supplies, parts or god forbid ammunition. Also the massive increase in the number of hand guns; now being issued to all men underground while on duty has played a critical role in keeping the Hun from breaking through when they had surprise and numbers in their favor. However the continual lack of reliable supplies for ammunition despite our purchasing American guns in English calibers has become an issue for those who are charged with holding at all costs; or blowing their tunnels with explosives. The demolition of a tunnel is a constant threat to us as they are slow and expensive to construct, once blown we have lost the initiative and there is a risk the Germans will exploit our lost ground and expand their operations in the area. We also cannot remove our own men from the tunnel once it is declared “over run”. No matter how this is seen in terms of man power loss the impact it has on the moral of men in the unit when they are ordered to blow up a passage way filled by Germans and their own friends in this unit has a profound impact upon their work in the weeks which follow. Recently we suffered several situations in which tunnels were required to be blown up, or where men charged into them hoping to hold back attackers, and only two of the men have survived each of these; myself being one.

I am constantly reminded whenever I submitted reports that this is a war, also I am informed that my requests seem overly generous in their quantities and materials for the tasks which our unit has been given to complete. This is a remarkable thing to be told, at no point have I observed what I would term a war. Not a proper war atleast, in America when we go to war each man is issued a weapon for his task and equipment to carry it out. When men decide to carry their own weapons it is seen as a sign of supreme capablity that he has given up the weapon issued to him in favor of one which he will have exceptional skills in using. This frees up the rifle he was isued for some other soul who did not own his own fire arms.

When an American carries his personal weapons he can walk into the Quarter Master's and show the weapon, then get the supplies he needs. There isn't any question about why some private carries a pistol and a shot gun, he has it because he needed it. If he asks for a shovel or a blanket no one feels the need to ask him to fill out paperwork for being without something he “might have been issued” at some point.

If a general in the United States were told to take and hold a position, he would look at the situation and then consult his under officer's. They would see who among their serving men were qualified to judge the situation locally and from there a plan is developed which will maximize the effectiveness of the troops at hand. The General would present the mission, the under officers would take up their tasks and local men are allowed to fight how / where on the field they are best able to do so.

In England's army: Someone ( I don't know who) forms a plan which works as follows,

1 Take less than half as many men as you might think are needed to do a job, prepare the enemy for days or months with repeated and formulaic attacks so identical as to render dates on orders completely needless.

2 Refuse to supply the troops at hand with any/all supplies they are screaming for on a daily basis and then tell them hours before hand it's their turn to climb over the walls.

3 Wait for the reports to come back of another failed series of attacks and countless thousands of good young lads killed for no reason at all.

Troops are sent over the wall regardless of their skill sets, cavalry units are deployed to trenches and engineers are ordered out of their positions to fill the holes in the infantry. The infantry are sent to make wave after wave of suicidal attacks. I have seen cooks and medics firing weapons picked up off of dead soldiers because there weren't enough trained men left to defend a position. I have seen Chinese men fend off Germany's best infantry units with nothing more than lengths of wood and hand tools. The cost to our man power is high and the loss of time is becoming very critical in nature, the materials lost are slow to be replaced on top of everything else.

If our mission is to be successful we need to be allowed to pursue the single task for which the unit was created and to which we are greatly desirous to complete. This unit needs to be removed from the roles of “Infantry” and seen as little more than extra troops to fill in the holes after another disaster takes the limited men present and throws them away.

We cannot remain effective while our forces are split between the task we have and serving as back up soldiers. We will not be able to complete the mission on time if we do not receive rapid replenishment of soldiers and laborers and qualified persons for mission specific skilled positions.

I have completed and submitted before lists of men I feel are very important to completing the projects with which we have been assigned, I will do it again for the sake of making a complete report of all things needed.

Now back to the reason we're all here, or why I'm here and what you can do to help me get out of this stinking hole while you declare victory or whatever it is you'll do when this is all over. These numbers I am about to give are absolute minimums we require. If less is provided it will result in delays or a complete shut down of projects. This mission cannot not be completed without required materials and timely deliveries, the team will not attempt to make do with insufficient or unacceptable substitutions as that would only cause tragic failures from which there would be no recovery.

I am providing a sample of existing material requirements per Ten Meter lengths, for the ease or the reader I am treating Meters / Yards as identical units of measure. However we know the difference actually and the exact figures are available in my office for MOD records after the war if they so desire.

20 8in x8in x10ft Beams (Primary supports)

36 2in x6in x10ft boards, ( the Roof )

36 2in x4in x10ft boards (cross braces )

These are the absolute min required to hold a tunnel up. Following are other materials which are essensial to maintaining our current project's viability and the unit's best possible progress.

33ft electrical wire for lights

2 light sockets

3 sections of 10ft long, 1in Outside diameter pipe. ( to pump clean air into tunnels)

3 sections of 10ft long, 1in Outside diameter pipe. ( to protect telephone and electric cables)

3 sections of 10ft long, 4in Outside diameter pipe. ( For removal of the water )

3 ( 55gal) steel drums, sunk into the floors to act as sumps for water removal.

300 square feet of “Chicken / pig / chain link” fencing to help keep sand bags upright on walls.

All of his weighs about one and a half tons, now to complete all our tunnels to acceptable levels multiply this by One Hundred and Forty Two times. According to common estimations I have from the work done and the regular work loads. This does not include the special project for which I will provide a separate document explaining it's requirements and time table.

The goods and materials which I have been given to use thus far are nearly spent in most cases and will require replacement in order to maintain our current pace of construction. It is also worth noting that while our detractors have claimed we do not “need” the quantities of materials we ask for it was those materials on hand which allowed us to replace all sections damaged by the German attack.

I am now at a stage where we can begin our glorious task, provided that I have the man power and the materials delivered regularly. It will not be enough to simply have more man power than I need, nor will an excess of materials and insufficient man power. I must have both in the required amounts on time or we are lost. If I have an excess of materials, they will be lost at the depot (stolen), or we will have no where to keep them safe and secure underground when they arrive. If I am required to leave them on he surface they become a target for German artillery, while the Kaiser's intelligence service will doubtless begin to piece together what it is I am trying to do here. And of course materials will go missing (more theft). If the German can see what is going on, he will reproduce it and attempt to beat us at our own games. For the record, the German is exceedingly good at this and if it were not for some good old “American Know how” I am sure this whole section would be another unfortunate page in military history.

While we are talking about the Americans, I have noticed there is an unofficial segratation among the officers, the none commissioned officers and the enlisted men which goes beyond the simple chain of command. There are units here from entire villages, counties and so on. When a military unit is wiped out you have lost dozens of men and boys from a single community, in addition to your decimation of localized youth it means that the units are extremely insular in nature. A new arrival is treated like someone who's wandered into the wrong apartment during a holiday, they are rarely welcomed by the old hands and are often given the worst possible positions that the unit has to take up.

These situations are extremely detramentle to the efficiency of units which are in mortal danger of extinction should they fail to gain and accept new members. Our own unit is now overwhelmingly non-English to a point that only the officers remain as the English born. Nearly all the enlisted men are either Americans or from distant colonies but lack their own leadership and as a result we have break downs in communication between officers born and raised to a cultural norm of military service which the non-English men frequently cannot understand and will be unable or unwilling to follow. It is not enough to simply tell men to throw away their lives “For King and Country”, most of these men have never seen the King, they do not benefit from the Grand Empire, and are here largely from the stories of adventure and glory or in some cases conscription. The idea that everyman is ready to die for the King and the Empire is entirely false, they want to live every single man. The idea you might need to die is one they resign themselves to, but do not seek or hope for.

When the officer's try to bolster them with stories of glorious death it only serves to cause men too closely acquainted with a situation's terrible truth to form discontent and resentment. Soon after will follow subversion or disregard for orders which they feel to be unreasonable and then outright mutiny. I have only met the French army a few times but many know they march to their certain deaths for no gain at all. If there was a way out, I know they ( individuals) will soon take it, if the French have defections, surrenders or mutiny the Colonial soldiers and finally the English farm boys will soon follow and that's all there is to it.

On the subject of man power, other than the sixty men per shift I'd need to staff the listening posts and serve as security in the tunnels ( a total of roughly one hundred and twenty men total). We will need about two hundred additional men for underground duties with a hope to have a total of three hundred infantry total. We will also need proportional increases in support persons and logistics which upto now have been handled almost entirely in an organic manor. If all of these units can be supplied within a fortnight I can have them working on the primary and secondary mission parameters by the the second week of their arrival. And will still possibly make the six months or less timeline. I cannot however stress enough the need for nearly complete autonomy and the need to maintain a steady stream of supplies throughout the course of our actions here.