Google Earth can be a great research tool for writers. You
can use it to get a clear visual sense of the places you’re writing about.
Let’s take a look at some of the methods to accomplish this (you can download
the free program here: http://www.google.com/earth/index.html).
The Task At Hand
For the purposes of this post, the terrain we’ll explore is Flanders,
Belgium, the site of some of the heaviest fighting between German and Allied
forces during World War I. Specifically, we’ll be trying to find, and define, a
line of nineteen huge mines dug by the British Army, which they filled with
hundreds of thousands of pounds of high explosives, and simultaneously
detonated under German positions on June 7, 1917.
General Geographic
Overview: Let’s start by getting a sense of Flanders, the Dutch-speaking
region of Northern Belgium.
Typing “Flanders” into the Google Earth search box is not
productive—it starts to zoom in on a hotel in Brugge. We know from our textual
research that the British placed their mines in an eight-mile arc a few miles
south of the Flemish market town of Iper (known as Ypres during the Great War). So, type “Iper” into the Earth search
box and click go.
When the map stops moving, zoom out manually to an altitude of
about 170 miles (“eye altitude” is shown in the bottom right corner). At this
point the image you’re viewing is just plain terrain, revealing few geographic
features. We can fix that. On the left hand side of the screen is a menu box.
Go down toward the bottom, where it says “Layers,” and tick “Borders and
Labels,” “Photos,” and “Roads.” When these items appear you’ll have a clearer
contextual picture of the region. You’ll see Brussels off to the east and
Dunkirk to the northwest. On the far left, across the English Channel, you
might be able to see the White Cliffs of Dover in Southeast England. This,
then, is an overview of the area
we’re focusing on.
Zoom In on the Action
Our textual research turned up a list of the British mines
and a crude hand drawn map of their locations (see the complete list at the end
of the post). At the top of the arc the first two, were designated Hill 60 #1
and #2. Google Earth is so smart (well, sometimes at least) . . . if you search
for “Hill 60 Belgium” the map will find a location it knows as “Battle of Hill
60.” Zoom in a little more and start looking for a pair of dark blobs that are
incongruent with the otherwise verdant, park-like setting. A number of little
blue-brown square box icons also appear.
User Photos
These icons indicate a photograph that has been added by
some diligent Google Earth user. Sometimes a site will have dozens of photos,
which are very helpful for visualizing what a place actually looks like.
Clicking on those squares clustering around Hill 60 reveals several images of
what appear to be pleasant little ponds. They are, in fact, the craters left by
the British mines when they were detonated that warm June morning nearly a
century ago.
Setting A Placemark
Now that we’ve found these craters, we should mark their
locations. Cursor up to the Earth menu bar and click on the yellow pin icon. This
brings up the “Placemark” menu. Pick a color (yellow is good), and a size (1.1 is
good). This action brings up a pin in a flashing box. Move the pin over to one
of the craters. Under “Name” type in something like “Hill 60 #1,” then click
OK. That will fix the pin’s placement. Repeat the process for the second crater.
Cross-Country
Searching
Our list of mines shows that the next one is near the
village of St Eloi. An Earth search turned up a bunch of “Rues St Eloi,” but
not a town, so a manual cross-country search is in order. Cursoring around the
fields south of Iper you should stumble across “Sint-Elooi.” That’s probably our
place. So zoom in and look for a crater. Yikes, there are two. Which is the
right one? Helpfully, there’s another one of those photograph icons next to one
of them. A click on that reveals our krater.
So drop a pin.
A trio of mines is next on the list: “Hollandsches Farm.” An
Earth word search shows nothing. So it’s back to the cursor. Start moving
cross-country (keeping in mind the mine line was an arc) looking for farms with
three ponds. Any number of them have one or two, but they lack the circularity
of a mine crater. There are no photo icons to check. Damn.
Back in the first post I mentioned PPI – Patience, Perseverance, Imagination. If you’re set on finding the Hollandsches site your
search will require all three. But here’s a cheat: find the town of Wytschaete
and follow the northwest road about one mile. See the three ponds clustered
around the farm buildings? Pin and label these. While you’re there you can count
the cows in the fields.
Now the arc of mines takes a slight inward jag. But the pair
of craters called “Petit Bois #1 and #2,” are so large they stand out pretty
clearly. “Maedelstede Farm” will be a little harder to find – it’s smaller.
When you do find it note that the farm road, which was straight before WWI, now
has a kink to go around the crater. The next mine, “Peckham,” is larger, and
thus easier to find.
Which brings us to the eleventh, called “Spanbroekmolen.”
At this location the British Army dug a 1,700 foot tunnel
under a heavily fortified German bunker, and at the end of it they stacked the
equivalent of 200,000 sticks of dynamite. The blast obliterated the fort,
creating a crater 250 wide and nearly 80 feet deep. Today the huge hole in the
ground is a war memorial, surrounded by thick bands of mature trees and known
as the “Pool of Peace.” Notice that there’s also a kink in the road here.
Let’s move on to a pair of mines called Kruisstraat #1 and
#2 (there was a #3, but it was filled in years ago).
While you were visiting Spanbroekmolen you may have noticed
that it fronts on Kruisstraat Road. So if you follow the pavement for a ways
you’ll find the craters (which their owner now stocks with fish).
If you click on the photo icon at the bottom of the second
crater you’ll see this image of old shells. The shifting sands of Flanders are
still regurgitating these even now.
What does Kruisstraat look like at ground level?
Putting Google Earth Street View Through Its Paces
As you probably know, these sets of images derive from a
series of photos made from moving automobiles fitted out with 360°-worth of
cameras (currently fifteen), and recorded on hard drives. Many locations around
the world are covered, but by no means all, so this feature may be unavailable
for the places you’re researching.
To get into Street
View, move over to the far right, under the compass. There you’ll find an
icon of an orange person. Click and drag it to the Kruisstraat craters. You’ll
notice as you’re dragging that certain roads become outlined in blue. These
indicate where Street View works. No
blue, no view. Release the mouse on the road and all of a sudden you’re
actually there.
Tip: If you don’t
drop the icon on a blue road the “Ground View” mode will activate. This shows a
2D ground-level representation of the aerial map image and, frankly, is not
particularly useful for researchers.
Left click to pan or tilt View, and use the mouse wheel to move forward or backward along the
road (no off-roading, yet). The two mine craters are clearly visible along the
side of the road.
A 360° pan will help you visualize the area’s topography.
With the compass almost due east, on a small rise you’ll see a church steeple.
This is the town of Messines, for which the great battle of June 1917 was
named. Pan left across the ridge and almost due west you’ll see a tall hill.
That’s Mount Kemmel, which was a key observation point for the British Army.
Notice how green everything is. A century ago this entire
area was like a moonscape—pounded into a treeless, muddy hell by years of
bombardment (just in the week-long run-up to the 1917 battle the British fired
nearly three million shells at the Germans emplaced along Messines Ridge).
Continue driving up the road toward the town, but watch out
for the cyclist!
If you’re feeling peckish, View-drive into Messines. In the central Markt square you can grab a virtual lunch at the Café a Centre (the yellow building on
the right). The digital waterzooi is
reputed to be excellent.
Here’s a Quick
Summary of Finding Stuff Using Google Earth as a Research Tool – Part Two
• Creating a General
Overview of a Region.
• Using User Photos
to see what places actually look like.
• Pinning a Placemark.
• Driving around
locations using Street View.
Next time we’ll finish up plotting the mine line with Google
Earth, when we cover measuring distances, marking pathways, determining altitudes
(and hence, topographic features), and locating places using latitude and
longitude. Thanks for tuning in.
If this post was
helpful or interesting to you, please let me know. I’m always looking for ways
to improve the site.
List of British
Mines, Battle of Messines, June 7, 1917
Hill 60 #1 Hill
60 #2 St Eloi Hollandsches #1
Hollandsches #2 Hollandsches
#3 Petit Bois #1 Petit Bois #2
Maedelstede Farm Peckham Spanbroekmolen Kruisstraat #1
Kruisstraat #2 Kruisstraat
#3 Ontario Farm Trench 127 #1
Trench 127 #2 Factory
Farm #1 Factory Farm #2
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