page_title: Dugout (shelter)
section_title: World War I
hierarchical_section_title: Dugout (shelter) / Europe / World War I
caption_attribution_description: English: Model of the Zonnebeke Church Dugout at the "Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917" in Zonnebeke, Belgium
context_page_description: A dugout or dug-out, also known as a pit-house or earth lodge, is a shelter for humans or domesticated animals and livestock based on a hole or depression dug into the ground. Dugouts can be fully recessed into the earth, with a flat roof covered by ground, or dug into a hillside. They can also be semi-recessed, with a constructed wood or sod roof standing out.
  These structures are one of the most ancient types of human housing known to archaeologists, and the same methods have evolved into modern "earth shelter" technology.
  Dugouts may also be temporary shelters constructed as an aid to specific activities, e.g., concealment and protection during warfare or shelter while hunting.
context_section_description: Dugouts were used extensively as protection from shelling during World War I in the Western Front. They were an important part of the trench warfare as they were used as an area to rest and carry out other activities such as eating. They would usually range in size from dugouts that could hold several men to dugouts that could hold thousands of soldiers. Some sophisticated dugouts, such as the Vampire dugout, were placed more than 10 metres (33 ft) underground, lined with concrete, wood and steel to withstand the shock of artillery, accessed via a set of wooden stairs.
  About 180 dugout sites have been located in the Ypres Salient and in the 1990s some of them were entered, at least in part. The level of activity can be gauged by the fact that during 1917 and 1918, more people lived underground in the Ypres area than reside in the town today.
caption: Zonnebeke church dugout constructed by 171st Tunnelling Company in 1918 (model)
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