A fitting story for Veterans/Remembrance Days. I wish the Canadian government would find a way to preserve this! I'm very happy that at least one person is going to do what he can. There is a pic at the link of a piece of art and a short video of the site.

ARRAS, France — Pte. Alfred McMillan died in August 1917, several months after the battle of Vimy Ridge. His remains were never found, so his name is now inscribed in the marble walls of the soaring Vimy memorial, along with 11,000 other Canadian soldiers of the First World War with no known grave.

Five months before he was killed, however, McMillan, an infantryman from Collingwood, Ont., carved his own name into another wall — an underground cavern in northern France, where he and hundreds of troops took shelter from mud and rain and shellfire in the winter before the famous Vimy offensive.

“Pte. A. McMillan. 15th Canadian Battalion . . . 12.3.17,â€

This is quite amazing. I hope it is preserved and documented thoroughly.

There was a lot of tunneling going on from not just the allies' side but from the German lines as well. Both sides would tunnel over to their enemy's side and fill huge caverns underneath with explosives. Canada built nineteen of them and set them off all at once over a line approximate thirty miles long. The resulting explosions heaved the earth some four thousand feet in the air and destroyed the German lines, allowing the Canadians to advance for the first time in over two years. In the process of doing this tunneling, they had men with listening devices to track the German positions underground. There would be hand to hand battles in the pitch blackness of the tunnels from both sides accidentally "colliding" with each other as they dug.

I just saw a documentary about this called "For King and Empire". If you ever get the chance, it's really worth the watch.

For King and Empire ~ YouTube