Tunnelling Companies of The Royal Engineers - World War I Formation - Kitchener Responds

Kitchener Responds

Following further attacks, it was evident by January 1915 that the Germans were mining to a planned system. As the British had failed to develop suitable counter-tactics or listening devices, Sir John French, commander of the British Expeditionary Force, wrote to the Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, describing the seriousness of the German mining situation.

Norton-Griffiths received a telegram on 12 February 1915, instructing him to report to the War Office. On his arrival, he was shown into Kitchener's private offices, where he (Kitchener), showed him French's letter. Kitchener then asked Norton-Griffiths for his advice, to which using a coal shovel from the room's fire grate, he sat on the floor and gave a demonstration of "clay-kicking."

Impressed but sceptical, Kitchener asked Norton-Griffiths to travel that day to France to communicate his method to the commanders there, and confirm the suitability of the Flanders soil. If positive, he would then raise a suitable battalion of "moles", as Norton-Griffiths had named his new teams, the same name as their civil engineering counterparts.

Arriving with two of his employees at the GHQ Saint-Omer office of the Engineer-in-Chief (E-in-C), Brigadier George Henry Fowke, on 13 February, Norton-Griffiths gave another demonstration of "clay-kicking." A sceptical Fowke instructed his assistant, Colonel Harvey, to take Norton-Griffiths and his employees to Army and Corps headquarters on 14 February, to see what the Corps of Royal Engineers thought of the idea.

In an early public relations exercise, on 14 February, Norton-Griffiths got Colonel Harvey to stop at four headquarters – Army, Corps, Division and Brigade. At each briefing, Norton-Griffiths repeated his demonstration. On arrival at the front line, (a mile from where the first German mine had exploded the previous December), they confirmed the excellent conditions of the clay-based soil and returned to St Omer via the four headquarters to communicate their findings.

The following day, the team held further meetings in St Omer, concluding with a meeting between Norton-Griffiths, Fowke and Sir John French, the C-in-C, for a personal explanation. Fowke gave his agreement to a trial to which French agreed, and the three set out a structure for what were to be called tunnelling companies, rather than Norton-Griffiths' preference for 'moles': a symbol which many of the tunnelling companies would later adopt as their unit sign.

In a meeting with Lord Kitchener on 17 February, he reported on his visit to France and the agreement of Collins and Fowke to form trial tunnelling companies. Norton-Griffiths pointed out that to deploy the units at the speed which Lord Kitchener had suggested, would require the recruitment of civilians, who could not undergo basic military training to enable their immediate deployment to the front line. Kitchener's staff were highly sceptical of the proposal, but using his carte-blanche skill to cull such skilled men from regular infantry units, Norton-Griffiths won his argument.