Book Review - Crumps and Camouflets: Australian Tunnelling Companies on the Western Front

Crumps and Camouflets: Australian Tunnelling Companies on the Western Front, 

Written by: Damien Finlayson, 

Big Sky Publishing, Newport, 2010,

ISBN 9780980658255, 480 pp

Reviewed by: Michael Molkentin

In Australia during the two decades following the Great War, publication of ‘unit’ or ‘regimental’ histories was prolific. Typically written by battalion associations or ex-unit members possessing a literary flair, the genre was encouraged by funding from the Australian National Defence League and the Australian War Memorial, and unfettered public access to the Australian Imperial Force’s official records. The result was a broad and at times thoroughly researched body of unitlevel histories of the war, but one that was by no means complete. Many units missed out—among them, the three Australian Tunnelling Companies.

In Crumps and Camouflets, Damien Finlayson is the first to attempt to redress this gap in the AIF’s historiography. Finlayson writes very much within the unit history genre. He begins with the formation of the Australian Mining Corps in early 1916 and then follows the unit to the Western Front. There, because it didn’t conform to British organisation, the Corps split into three separate companies and a support unit dubbed ‘Alphabet Company’. These units remained under AIF administration but for much of the war operated in British army corps. Finlayson therefore departs from the familiar AIF narrative. Much of the book is set in sectors not mentioned in the battle honours of Australian divisions such as Arras, Loos, Nieuport and Cambrai.

A flaw inherent in many unit histories is their narrow focus. Their authors often get mired in tactical level detail while neglecting the wider operational and strategic setting. Finlayson avoids this trap, however, by weaving an elaborate setting around the Australian tunnelling companies. He spends a lengthy first chapter, for example, explaining the place tunnelling had in the war and how it developed from an ad hoc remedy to stalemate in 1914 to a specialist offensive and defensive tactic by the time the AIF deployed to the Western Front in May 1916. Finlayson’s understanding of the war on the Western Front is extensive, reaching well beyond the galleries and dugouts of his primary subject.

According to the endnotes, the British and Australian official histories and the tunnelling companies’ operational records informed the backbone of Finlayson’s narrative. He uses private records and memoirs to effectively illustrate personal experience and weave the stories of a handful of ‘characters’ into the narrative.

Rather than write an impressionistic narrative that uses specific examples to illustrate broader principles, Finlayson chronicles the story down to the minutiae. He details each movement, leadership change and the majority of the casualties. This makes for comprehensive history but it does at times weigh the narrative down and make for some occasionally tedious reading.

In an era when publishers seem to invest a bare minimum in production, Big Sky Publishing (in association with the Army History Unit) is to be commended for this book’s robust binding and attractive presentation. Some fifty maps and diagrams will help Australian readers around those unfamiliar sectors and complicated underground mine systems. There are also over 100 photographs embedded in the text—many donated to the author by families of tunnellers. Appendices list the Australian Tunnelling Companies’ Roll of Honour, honours and awards, and award citations.

Those wanting a short introduction or an impressionistic account of Australia’s role in the underground war on the Western Front should hire Beneath Hill 60 on DVD or read Will Davies’ comparatively lightweight companion volume. Serious students of the AIF should read Crumps and Camouflets. It not only comprehensively tells the story of a neglected part of the AIF, but it introduces Australian readers to important campaigns and sectors more familiar to our Canadian and British colleagues.