The salient was held by about30 men - no warning was given, or seen, of any mine & the first thing the men knew of it was a terrific explosion which destroyed a large bit of the trench and buried about 20 men, killing & wounding others. Immediately after the explosion some Germans were seen advancing towards our trenches but on being fired on retired: it seems that something went wrong with the mine, either the Germans became aware of our mining operations which were quite close & hurried the explosion of theirs, or they were under the impression they were mining the whole salient - it