A Forbidden Zone with a Life of Its Own
In the chaos of World War I, No Man’s Land became more than just the contested terrain between front lines. Amid the craters and barbed wire, stories emerged of something else entirely—of soldiers who refused to return, vanished from their units, and lived underground.
Reports described deserters from British, French, German, Austrian, Australian, Canadian, and Italian forces carving out hidden existences beneath the abandoned trenches of the Western Front.
Disappearance on the Somme
One of the earliest printed versions appeared in Ardern Arthur Hulme Beaman’s 1920 memoir The Squadron, recounting events from 1918. While stationed near the marshes of the Somme, Beaman claimed to witness German prisoners vanish into the ground.
He was told by another officer not to investigate, because the area was reportedly occupied by armed deserters who lived underground, emerging at night to scavenge supplies. Gunfire and screams were said to echo from beneath the battlefield.
Fiction Echoing Wartime Reports
The story reappeared in literary accounts, such as Walter Frederick Morris’s 1930 novel Behind the Lines, where deserters formed pairs and scrounged food from the dead.
Sir Osbert Sitwell’s 1948 autobiography described similar tales of men from various nations forming underground communities. Sitwell wrote that British troops believed these groups were ultimately dealt with using poison gas.
Stories Resurfacing Across Decades
In later decades, the same legend appeared in both novels and journalism. Reginald Hill’s 1985 book No Man’s Land described armed groups of deserters appearing from underground to attack military police.
A 2006 article by journalist James Carroll described the deserters not as predators but as survival-driven figures hiding in caverns, evading war. Though told in many forms, the story remained rooted in real testimonies and literary reports, tied to one of the most brutal theaters of modern warfare.
During World War I, No Man’s Land wasn’t just a battlefield—it became the center of a chilling legend.
Stories told of deserters from multiple armies vanishing into the trenches, surviving underground, scavenging by night, and never returning to their units…🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/ZdOnWLTFBP
— Detective Tiger's Stories (@TigerDetective) July 29, 2025