The Bluff

[stevew]

I am off to the salient soon, and one of the places I want to explore is The Bluff. I have been there before, but saw very little although I did enjoy a nice walk in the woods and got as far as the tea room.

My question is were are the good bits to see??

[ArmyOfficer]

Steve: If you walk down from the restaurant and south along the canal there's a huge collapsed bunker that'll be on your left after about 300-400m. If you climb up the hill side to stand beside it you can see that the bank is literally covered in shell holes and (i think) collapsed entrances to dug outs.

Mind that my last time there was February and we didn't have a lot of leaves on the trees so the view was better.

[Bert Heyvaert]

If i AM NOT MISTAKEN? THAN YOU CAN SEE THE REMAINS OF THE A-crater, blown in early 1916 on the east side of the canal bank. I am not 100% sure about this, but I think it was within this crater that the Germans blew two other mines in februari 1916. I am currently working on an artcile about mining warfare around the Bluff. I think in total there were more than 12 mines blown here very close to each other during 1916. This was mostly a purely miners-war, with no infantry attacks involved. Using GIS we also managed to trace back most of the pools you can see littered around the fields in the Bluff-area to 1917 and 1918 shell holes.

If you go to the tourist office of Ypres, I think they have a guide book of the Palingbeek area for sale that also covers WW1 at the Bluff. There is a larger article which you can come have a look at at the IFF documentation center, preferably on wednesday, other weekdays after appointment (stedelijke.musea@ieper.be).

regards,

Bert

[Bert Heyvaert]

tOMORROW THERE IS A GUIDED WALK AROUND THE Bluff, starts around 14h at the parking.

[Simon Jones]

The car park is in the German rear and as you walk to the right in a north-westerly direction you are approaching the British lines.

Take the upper path, not the canal path, and walk along the top of the embankment with the canal to your left (it will be out of sight). Pass a clearing on the left. Continue along the path and look for a concrete bunker just left of the path which marks the German lines.

Then take a path to the left which leads to a spur between A & B Craters, which you will see clearly on either side of you. In this spur were three submarine periscopes used by Heavy Artillery Forward Observation Officers for the Messines battle.

Another interesting place is the old lock gates which you reach on the canal path, which still show shell damage. It was from this point that the Canadian Tunnellers used the Whittaker tunnel boring machine in a failed attempt to get under the Damstrasse.

Happy hunting!

Regards

Simon

[stevew]

Army, Bert and Simon

Thanks for those replies, I think I wasn't going far enough into the woods. What I want to see is the lock gates................But I am also looking forward to seeing everything else there!

Steve

[Simon Jones]

Here is Lock No 8. There is too much growth to see the shell damage in the second pic.

Regards

Simon