'Elephant dug out' - came across this term in a PRO Diary (56 Division, Asst Dir, Medical Services) to describe the construction of an ADS near the front line. Can anyone provide a description of an Elephant dug out?

Essentially it was an arch of corrugated iron, buried and covered with logs, sandbags, railway sleepers and whatever came to hand to render it bomb-proof. Corrugated iron was often called "elephant iron."

Tom

Elephant dug outs were normally built using a specially curved (rolled) heavy gauge corrugated iron sheet which when bolted together formed a large curved roof shelter. Grey, when viewed from a distance they did not look unlike elephants and were often assembled above ground in rear areas before being dropped into holes or pushed up against banks and covered over to form dressing station or other larger shelters. A typical example could hold maybe twenty men but they could be bolted together to form much longer "tunnells". Most seem to have been about twelve feet long. They seem to have appeared on the Western Front from about 1916 onwards. Hope this helps

Tobin