John Angus MacNeil and WWI
Many Nova Scotian miners served their country during the World Wars working as tunnellers on the front lines. Inverness’ John Angus MacNeil was one of them.
The static trench warfare in World War One caused tunnelling companies to be formed by both sides to dig below enemy positions. Explosives placed in tunnels underneath the enemy were triggered, killing many soldiers and destroying defences.
For example, in December 1914, the Germans detonated 500 kilograms of explosive under British lines and followed on with a successful infantry assault. By February 1915, British men experienced in tunnelling and mining set off their first mine under the Germans.
By 1916, the Canadian Army had raised the 1st Canadian Tunnelling Company, C.E. from eastern Canadian recruits. The 2nd Canadian Tunnelling Company, C.E., was recruited in British Columbia and Alberta. The 3rd Canadian Tunnelling Company was formed from mining sections initially created within the 1st and 2nd Canadian Divisions in France.
In addition to the role tunnelling played in the fighting, tunnelling companies also dug subways, cable trenches, saps, and underground chambers for signal or medical services. Extensive networks of tunnels were dug behind Allied front lines, allowing for movement of men and supplies into the front trenches without enemy detection.
Although precise figures are not known, as many as 1,100 men may have served in the Canadian tunnelling companies during WWI. Approximately 200 were from Cape Breton, according to the Beaton institute. Miners had the unique skills and knowledge needed to tunnel in such difficult and dangerous conditions – quickly, in cramped spaces, and to do so quietly to ensure the enemy did not hear the tunnellers.
John Angus MacNeil was born on June 5, 1883, in Inverness, Cape Breton, where he lived all his life other than during WWI. He worked in the Inverness coal mine, which today is the site of the world-famous Cabot Links golf course, an example of how reclaimed mines and quarries can contribute to communities other ways after extraction is done.
MacNeil enlisted in 1915 and joined the 64th Overseas Battalion. He sailed out of Halifax on March 31, 1916, aboard the SS Adriatic for Europe. He served in France and Belgium and was eventually promoted to sergeant. He spent much of the war with the 2nd Canadian Tunnelling Company.
In an interview published in Cape Breton’s Magazine, he later said, “The only thing that I know, that the majority of us knew, was that we were so proud of the Maple Leaf. The Maple Leaf was on our crest, that was our motto. That’s the only thing that we were so proud of, that we were fighting for the Maple Leaf.”
However, the reality of war was a shock: “There’s nobody in the God Almighty world – I’m telling you God’s truth - that can understand the idea of seeing a poor soul dying...It’s the saddest and the horriblest thing that ever you see in your life. Oh, many other times, you know, I’d be in the trenches, a shell would come, I’d be lucky enough to escape it. Somebody else would get it. I’d have to go to work and try and do my best to comfort him, knowing that he was dying.”
Asked about having to kill others, MacNeil said, “Listen, darling, do you think that I intended to kill anybody? Never. Never. But I was fighting for John Angus, yeah, I was going to save myself. There was Hill 70. It was bayonet fighting – we had 15 minutes of it. Now, you’d ask me, was I there? I was in it. You’d ask me, did you kill anybody? I wouldn’t know. I was there, as a daze. I was just helping John Angus, saving his life. Who I did, who I didn’t, I don’t know. And I don’t think anybody else would know, if he told the honest truth. Because, when you were in that, you just lost control of yourself and your memory and everything else. If I hurt anybody, I don ‘t know. God forgive me if I did. See, I didn’t intend to. I didn’t want to kill anybody. I never intended to kill anybody.”
The interviewer asked why he enlisted: “About a year before the war broke out, work was very scarce in the mine – and there was a bunch went to Aldershot, on the training camp, for two weeks. Militia. For the boys that wanted to go, there were two weeks of good times. So we all signed up for two weeks. We actually signed for three years, you know, but we didn’t know it. See, if anything would happen, they could call us. So all right, the war broke out. Word came from Halifax to the town hall, to get all these fellows that were in the militia to report.”
MacNeil said, “But when the three years were up, I was into it anyway, so what the hell.” He continued fighting until the war was over.
MacNeil explained how the war-time tunnels were dug: “And you couldn’t use a pick. The Germans were listening. When you’d loosen the dirt, you were using the bayonet. You’d push the bayonet in, push it down, and that dropped. And you had a canvas bag underneath it so it wouldn’t make any noise. And that’s the way you advanced in…And listening, you’d have to - when there was no mining going on, you’d have to be listening, you had earphones, you could hear the Germans working. The Germans were tunneling, too. And sometimes you could hear them talking, plain.”
MacNeil described what happened when explosives in a tunnel under Hill 60 at Ypres, Belgium, were triggered as German shifts were being changed: “That morning that they were doing the changing, the button was pushed. And 60 went up in the air, with all those Germans with it – the fellows that were relieving, and the ones that were there before them. We were in the trenches to the left, towards the ocean. And when the bomb went up, the ground went like that, you know – just like waves. What we used to have as a hill, it was a big shellhole. We could look down it. That finished 60.”
John Angus MacNeil. Photo credit: Cape Breton's Magazine, 1983.
Cabot Links, site of the reclaimed Inverness coal mine.
Cabot Links, site of the reclaimed Inverness coal mine.
