ARTILLERY BOMBARDMENT

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2660, 4 January 1916, Page 5

ARTILLERY BOMBARDMENT

HORRORS ARE INDESCRIBABLE

VIVID ACCOUNT BY A GERMAN

Tho war correspondent of tho "Berliner .Tageblatt," Hen; Bernhard Kellermaun, reproduces a vivid description by: a Gorman artillery officer of tho fighting near the La l'olie farm on September 2o and 26. The officer said:— - Hell had already been let loose there for eight or ten days. It was no fun. I was in tho foremost trench as observer. For a week there was a raging fire. We had ten to sixteen hours of fire every day without interval. Looking out from one of the trenches you could see'tho French digging. In front of their trenches they burrowed, while to the left and right earth flow. They were pushing forward saps, r.nd they dug one sap beside tho other, and one morning the sap heads were connected and a new trench was .'•ere.■ Thoy- had approached within storming distance. ; -We had known for a long time whit ' was to happen. On September 21 the firing inoreased in violence. It was indescribable. We were stupefied. So great was the mental torture that one said to oneself, "Better dead than suffer this torture any longor." Still the men lived. On September 24 1 was re- • lieved, and the next day my successor disappeared. Dead or captured, .'who knows? Our trenches were all holes. One had to crawl over them. In one trench there was hardly a soul to be seen. The communication trenoh is ■ shot -into a shapeless' mass. Already the French machine-guns begin to tap, and bullets fly about one's ears. There is almost no more cover there. With burning-head one crawls, stumbles back, saying, at every stop, "Now all is up with me." But ono goes forward and is astonished. "Tap, tap, tap," the machine-guns clatter; but one lives and escapes without knowing how.' • ' A few hours of rest. Then again observation post. As soon , as the incessant fire reopens, nothing can be distinguished for five minutes. Smoke and dirt Hy through the air. It _ thunders. \ The heavy shells go shrieking overhead so terribly that the noise alone is quite sufficient to shatter one's nerves. -But one consoles oneself. Our shells are doing the same to our enemies. The telephone rings—tho French! Nothing, can be heard. A man da.shes into the dug-out. "The French are over there," one calls out to him. "Did you see them?" "No!" "Then hold your tongue." The smoke cloud rises. The French appear in our periscope. What is going on? - Is nobody there?: Where is the infantry? No shot is fired. Beads ot perspiration stand on our foreheads. They succeeded in penetrating through a piece of trench, wnich was completely flattened out under the protection ot the smoke/ The wire 'to the .'battery has been shot down. Nothing, can be done. They approach in; dense masses, .. rifle under the ( arm. They look, they stumble forward ; they do not know what to do. 'Tbeyilook as if drunk. Hardly a shot! Silencer In the periscope they grow' to tho size of a thumb. So. close | they) are, hardly 300 yards. The att-'l jutant comes. "You are. still here? But ' now. hurry upl" One cannot. mount a bayonet on a periscope. ' Dismantled, and back to.the battery. Night comes. The night of-25th ,to 26th September. In the valley down below- before La Folie "everything! is'quiet. The French cannot bring it under fire. They do not'know how far their own men are nor where they are. We, too, do not know it.. We havo no communication. Silence down below, and darkness. No."fireballs go up, nothing, darkness and silence , simply horrible. It is rumoured that the battery with the-gunners lias already, been taken'. 'AlLwires are destroyed. ~ One lieutenant conies up. "Are you still there ?" "Yes, but wo have'no ammunition!" "Then go and fetch some!" . Down to the depot; And back with four cars of ammunition. The road is closed by a curtain of fire.. Shell after shell. One would believe it was hardly possible to come through. But it must be, and therefore it succeeds. The will has done it. But it is a miracle that one, comes safely over the holes made ; by the shells. One almost- suffocates under the gases of the shells. Dead horses are lying on the road, our horses tremble and refuse to move forward. And shell after shell whistles overhead. The French are shooting with incendiary shells on Vimy., Glaring red, a magnificent sight, the flame rises half a .house high after the shell -has exploded. You can see through it, and behind you can observe a yellowish wall of gases, then smoke and fire, which in the darkness climbs and trickles. One .observes that in spite of all. I The French artillery on that day fired what it could. One incendiary shell

after tho other, then stinking bombs, one on every twenty yards of ground like a chain of pearls, a Hundred yards behind a second cliain;up to a depth of some miles. A. curtain of fjre on the roads, shell after shell against the communication trenches. It was a fire worth seeing. Now the battery again has munitions 1 Off! We fired till tho barrels became red-hot. . This is not exaggeration. Without thick gloves wo could not touch them. The guuners' hands were blistered all over. Now it is day, and tho French send one storming column after tho other. Quick firo against, the first storming column, then on the second, and the third. Again the telcphoiio wiro lvrts been shot down. But the enemy goes for the battery, (••iddenly wc receive flanking tire. Flunking lire ? Where from ? It comes from the direction of Loos. Some gunners fall, others are unconscious troin the fumes. Suddenly a heavy shall whistles overhead and throws me down, I was not hurt, but my wrist watch was broken. The shell has hit a guu and has tftrown it down the embankment. Two severely and some slightly wounded. It 5s hardly credible. A short time afterwards two more guns go to the devil. The damage is unimportant, only a few splinters disarranged the mechanismWe are . firing with only one gun. It is rumcured that the French lm> Broken through. They are reported c.'osc to our position. Wo are loading our gun with shrapnel. They were in the little wood some dozen steps from, our battery? Why did they not comeP God knows! : , It is night again, the night of the. 26th. _ It rains cats and dogo. The nest, morning reserves come up and throw the French down ilie,hill. We fire.' Suddenly we are relieved. We did not look back. Now we are at rest and are quiet again. But sometimes we suddenly remember those days and nights, ftnd the sweat again-stands on our fore- 1 i heatlS.