Set during World War I, the film Beneath Hill 60 tells the story of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company’s effort to mine beneath a German bunker and create a massive explosion to aid the advance of British troops.
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A band of Australian soldiers is setting off across no-man's-land to take out an enemy bunker. One of them who has had more experience of this sort of night attack gives the following advice:
If an enemy flare goes off in the night sky, lighting up the ground for a few seconds, the soldiers should 'freeze' in place and not dive to the ground since the enemy machine gunners would react only to movement. This counter intuitive advice requires considerable courage because diving for cover is the instinctive reaction. It also demands great trust in your fellow soldiers since it would only need one of the band to dive and the remaining standing soldiers would be cut down by the machine gun fire.
Secondly, when the flare goes off they should close one eye so that when the light of the flare has died they would be able to see in the night with the other eye, and not be temporarily blinded in both.
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