Discovery Channel - Finding the Fallen (2005) Part 3 Loos 1915 The Underground War
At the end of the Great War, nearly two million soldiers were missing, presumed dead. Almost 90 years later, the bloody battlegrounds of France and Belgium are surrendering their secrets. Beneath the farmlands lie the unknown and the unclaimed dead… This series follows the dedicated team of archaeologists, forensic experts and historians known as No Man's Land as they seek to find, recover and identify the fallen of the Great War. Each episode in this complete five-part Discovery Channel series focuses in riveting detail on one archaeological dig at the site of a single significant battle of the Great War. From the Belgian town of Ypres - where the team discover evidence of the very first trenches of the conflict - to the infamous German stronghold at Serre in Northern France, join the fascinating search using the latest battlefield archaeology and forensic techniques to recover and piece together the identity of those lost in the maelstrom of a long ago war. Other battlefields visited are Loos, the site of a hellish underground battle in 1915, Beaumont Hamel on the Somme and Passchendaele, where in 1917 the battlefield was transformed into a vast sea of liquid mud that swallowed up so many lives… A team of archaeologists, historians and forensic experts is working to identify unknown soldiers and finally lay them to rest. Finding The Fallen is a documentary series that follows the work of this team as they move through time and across the battlefields of France and Belgium, releasing the fallen and their stories of courage and sacrifice from the mud of the First World War battles in which they fought and died.
Part 3: Loos 1915 - the Underground War
Tunnels and craters in the heart of a French coalfield hide horrors from the First World War. More than 50,000 British soldiers were killed or wounded here in a hellish battle that moved underground. Our team of archaeologists, historians, and forensic experts is here to excavate the lip of a gigantic crater that was created by a massive underground explosion. They discover a mass grave and, within the burial site, clues to one of the fallen soldiers, a German from Bavaria. A simple uniform button, a regiment number on an epaulette, and a postcard inside a music book, lead to the identity of this soldier: a gifted violinist named Leopold Rotharmel turned warrior in the German unit that would later be called the Storm Troopers.