(Main articles: Battle of Albert (1916) and Mines on the first day of the Somme) The Lochnagar mine was dug before the 1916 Battle of the Somme, of the First World War. The mine was dug by the Tunnelling Companies of the Royal Engineers under a German field fortification known as Schwabenhöhe (Swabian Height), in the front line, south of the village of La Boisselle in the Somme département of France. The mine was named after Lochnagar Street, the British trench from which the gallery was driven. It was one of eight large and eleven small mines that were placed beneath the German lines on the British section of the Somme front. The Lochnagar mine was sprung at 7:28 a.m. on 1 July 1916, the First day on the Somme. The crater was captured and held by British troops but the attack on either fl