At GHQ Griffiths, Harvey and Fowke, the Chief Engineer, discussed the use and organisation of the units. They rejected an initial idea of forming sections that would be attached to the existing Field Companies and instead proposed complete units of five officers and 269 men. This strength was calculated on the basis of working 12 galleries continuously, each of which had three working faces.¹ They wished to form eight such companies, using a mixture of skilled men transferred from units already in France and men specially enlisted from the United Kingdom. The units were to be known as Tunnelling Companies, and the men called tunnellers rather than the existing term miner, presumably because the men recruited were not trained sappers, in which there had previously been the trade of miner, but were specially enlisted civilians. Norton Griffiths persisted in referring to the troops and units as ‘Moles’; he said for security purposes. On 17th Norton Griffiths reported back to Kitchener at the War Office:

…laying before him what I thought was possible, and saying that the position was more than serious for the poor devils doing the dirty work in the trenches, for you could not expect Tommy to be shot at from the surface, boofed at from above and blown to hell from below.
(Sir John Norton Griffiths MP)²

He wired his manager, James Leeming, to bring down to London the next day the first batch of clay-kickers, who were engaged on a major sewerage contract in Manchester. Eighteen were passed fit for service, including Norton Griffiths’s foreman Richard Miles, who was made a Sergeant, attested into the Army and sent to the Royal Engineers depot at Chatham. On 19th the War Office approved the GHQ proposal for the formation of Tunnelling Companies and Norton Griffiths and the 18 men crossed to France.

On 17 February British sappers blew a small mine taken over from the French south of Ypres at Hill 60, but without great effect. The Germans retaliated with a small mine nearby at Zwarteleen, but were driven out of the British positions. On 21st, however, they blew a large mine nearby killing forty-seven men and ten officers of the 16th Lancers (the attack referred to by Norton Griffiths). In mid-March the Germans blew another large mine at Zwarteleen, creating a 30ft deep crater but damaging their own lines in the process.³ In April Hill 60 was to be the scene of the first British mining success of the war. The position was formed from railway cutting spoil and named after its height in metres. It was an important observation point in the southern part of the Ypres Salient and was destined to be severely contested both above and below ground. The British took over a French rameau de combat (M3 on illustration), which had been used for a few blows, and began two new tunnels. The work was carried out by Territorials of the 1st Northumberland Field Company, RE, and the 1st and 3rd Monmouthshire Regiment. Before the Tunnelling Companies were in operation and for many months afterwards, mining in the British sectors was carried out by Brigade Mining Sections and ad hoc units formed from miners and mining engineers in units already at the front. Two important sources of experienced miners were available for these units. The first was the British Army Reserve. Officers on the Reserve included civil engineers, who were to be given command of some Tunnelling Companies later in 1915. In early 1915 men in the ranks who had served in the British Army and remained on the Reserve, but who had subsequently taken up mining, were a source of miner-soldiers. The second source was the part-time Territorial Force units that recruited in mining areas, such as those at Hill 60, which provided officers and men with important experience and skills. The Territorials at Hill 60 were under the command of a regular Sapper officer and were joined latterly by the first men of the newly formed 171 Tunnelling Company. They charged six mines beneath and immediately in front of the German front line, which they blew on 17 April as part of a coordinated attack on the Hill. The larger pair of charges (M1 and M2) were 2,700lbs and the total of the five mines was 9,900lbs. Norton Griffiths, visiting one week before the blow, advised the Engineer-in-Chief that the mines should be blown at the same time that the infantry advanced to assault the hill:

This will prove the biggest mine yet exploded. If advantage is taken of the dust! (Bricks, mortar & G.’s) by sending forward attacking party the same time the button is pressed. Not waiting for air to clear it should give ample cover for attacking party. Wiser to get a few men hit with falling bricks or G’s than to get a larger number hit by Machine Guns.⁵