Damien Finlayson

A definitive history of the men who faced darkness, danger, and the constant threat of being buried alive. Far below the trenches of the Western Front, where darkness pressed against timber and clay and every sound carried the threat of death, Australian tunnellers waged a war few have heard, and even fewer can imagine. Working in suffocating heat, stale air,...

Beneath the Western Front, a tiny Australian unit kept the underground war alive. Fewer than 300 men served in the Australian Electrical and Mechanical Mining and Boring Company. Few outside the battlefield knew their name. Yet across the British sector, from Flanders to the Somme, the work of this remarkable AIF unit was indispensable. Known as Alphabet Company, they operated...