Le Boyau des Cranes (Trench of Skulls) at Steenstraete/Het Sas

[Bob Drummond]

As described by Major Louis Tasnier in his 1928 book, "Notes d'un Combattant de la Campagne 1914-1918", in June 1916, the Belgian 5th Army Division relieved French Army troops along the Ypres-Yser canal from Steenstraete south to Het Sas (the Lock) and Boesinghe.  My wife's Belgian engineer grandfather suffered a bullet wound at Het Sas on 20 July 1916.  He survived this wound, returning to the front in January 1917.

In his chapter covering the relief of the French troops, Major Tasnier describes the Belgians digging new trenches and improving others in this area where Germans had been pushed back from the west side of the canal a year earlier during the 2nd Battle of Ypres.  According to Tasnier's account, the corpses remaining from that battle, on or just below ground level, were so many that one of the new or improved communication trenches was named, "Le Boyau des Crânes", the Trench of Skulls. 

I have seen trench maps from that time period or later showing trenches which could have been Tasnier's Boyau des Cranes but no maps that identify trenches as some Belgian maps name trenches north of Diksmuide/Dixmude.  I would be grateful for help identifying which trench was the Boyau des Crânes. 

Thank you.

Bob