The geophysics

As the trench systems at the Puits d'Herode site are not as clear as at Point 54, the geophysics team of John Gater, Chris Gaffney and Jimmy Adcock were kept busy surveying the surrounding fields.

'We mostly used the magnetometry on this site,' says Chris. 'The soil is so full of clay that it's not ideal for radar. We've also done some resistivity work and generally I'd say the results were pretty good. We could see where trenches were and also outline some areas that the digging team was particularly interested in, like bunkers.'

Chris was happy that the prospecting gear didn't risk setting off any unexploded munitions in the ground. 'The resistivity set-up does pass an electrical current through the soil, but it is very small,' he says. 'Our main concern was that the area would have been so plastered with shells that geophysical prospecting would have been pointless because of all the interference from the fragments. That wasn't the case.'