Awful Havcc on Troop Trains."

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2705, 26 February 1916, Page 3

Awful Havcc on Troop Trains."

' "We got in some awful .havoc recently on German troop trains. We were ordered to attack three huge trains which were bringing reinforcements to Ghent. Just outside of Ghent there is a magnificent bridge, which about three months, ago one of our fellows, regardless of instructions, bombed, just To see if the blasters we carry were any good against masonry. Orders were imperative that tho trains were to be destroyed, if possible, before reaching ■ihat bridge. It was 2.30 p.m. on a perfect Sunday afternoon when we sighted the trains. • All three wero visible, running about five miles apart, and big trains they were. "Muffling the _ engines, we hid in a bank of_ cloud till the first train'was about six miles from the forbidden bridge. Then the mufflers were removed,- and wo swooped, at, 95 miles an hour. The noise of those eight engines must have sounded like . tho sough and the swing of the mighty wing of the Angel of Death. The fool who was driving saw us, and, think of It, put on speed. He had no hope. Fie was making fpr an anti-aircraft gun station, ignorant of the fact that our

armour could turn all- the projectiles of : those puny popguns Siside. We sailed over him serenely, keeping pace with ]bim, and the register showed 76.6 miles per hour. We dropped the first bomb fairly between the engine tender and the first carriage. The engine leaped forward, and, deprived of its weight ' behind, stood up on end and somersaulted. Into the hole made by the explosion the first carriage crashed, tore through, and, vomiting corpses, ploughed on the track, while over it heaped and piled and telescoped the body of the train. Deadly Arrow showers. Men were scrambling out like ants, and then a second bomb crashed down on the wreckage, and smoke shot up, followed by ugly little spirals which told the wreckage had caught firo. A great hole gap?d in the middle of tha piled-up cars, and a horrible noise camo up to us which made our hair stiffen and our. blood' run cold. The third bomb crashed down, and then we shot skyward 1200 feet, and looked tor the second train. It was three miles away at a block station, and the soldiers were pouring out of it and scattering in groups. "We swooped, and they met us with massed rifle fire.' We bombed tbe train, wrecked it, and smashed v'f tho permanent way, and then cabling round flung those French arroi/i by the boxful. • Soaring up 2000 {net we lit the fuses and flung the boxes. At 1200 feet the box charges exploded, and sent tho arrows out in scattered showers —1000 in each box. They ran for shelter, they swarmed into the goods shed, under a viaduct and a cul,vert —anywhere from the awful rain of steel darts. Wo dropped small bombs on the imildings, and as they lushed out we. scattered more arrows. And the rattle of their useless rifle firs filled us with a mad frenzy. "Fortunately. someone roared

through the tumult: 'What about the other blankcrs, sir? 1 And then we soared up once more and saw that the third train was rushing for safety. Two miles away was a vast building, a cov-orod-in railway station, with sandbags on the roof—quite a common sight in Germany and Belgium now. "He was pushing his train before him, and when he saw that we were coming he stopped dead, and in two minutes there was not a man near the train. They scattered far and near. Tliero was a, hurried consultation, and then we flow past and drew never a bomb, and dropped never an arrow. Wo sailed on over the loveliest country. in the world, • and then turned southward, as if making for Franco. We hoped they would think we had exhausted our bombs, and apparently Vi\oy did. Tho Ruse Succeeds. ,r \Ve entered a gray mist. It was a bank of cloud, and once more muffled down and zig-zagged back and forwards behind that bank of cloud. Flying in a circle, we ventured to the edge of it, and saw the train was making for Ghent. Off went tho mufflers, and we shot westward, and downward. The pull of those great propellers and the mighty dVag of tho earth—and '.he distance between us and the train melted away. Up high you have no idea of speed; it is' only when stationary objects reel past you get any idea of sTieed. The train stopped once more, a'nd men were leaping from the cari iages. "Too late. We were on them. Bullets clanged against our armour as with engines shut off we slowed i'c.r a moment over them, delivered two bombs, and then swooping down to within 200 feet of earth, suddenly soared upward. Round once more, rising ns we flew, and back again over them, letting loose showers of arrows. Whole crowds of men suddenly fell prone, and from these groups those who were uninjured ran away wildly. But tile wireless was speaking, and the order had come to return. So, dropping a thermite bomb on the wreckage, and hurling out a farewell box of arrows, we' coared up 8000 feet, and then dived for our station at -r — '

"Yes, this is the arm that is going to end the war with a sudden crash. When- we have 1000 of these we will attack Essen and rain 16in. bombs and thermite sheila on it for 40 days, working in shifts. And what men are left alive in Essen's munition shops and Krupp'a foundries, when we have finished will be imbeciles. If we cannot destroy Essen—for the Germans know what is coming, and are roofing in their great foundries with concrete | structures and sandbags, then we will .blockade it. Every tram that leaves it will be destroyed. And the great German military machine will be hamstrung. But we will destroy it all ripdit. _ ■ Anyhow, wo will destroy- everybody in it. Britain has woke up, and is _ meeting poison gas with the same thing, and if we cannot bomb Essen out of existence we will smother-it in gas. Note the date —the end of January or beginning of February." A GERMAN LIEUTENANT'S DIARY ■* BITTER THOUGHTS. In the "Temps" a correspondent gives some extracts from the diary of a German lieutenant:— | August 25, 1915. —We moved into the ! front line in brilliant sunshine. . A very quiet posititin. Lieutenant S looks weird and very frightened. There's a good deal of talk about our bases. I went to base 8. What idiots they are! If they were seriously attacked they would be lost v S won't leave his shelter. The rumours of a 1 French offensive make him very sad. At base 8 I find I am thrown into the 9th Company. Bad impression! ' Digging and shifting oarth. Is one a lieutenant at 310 marks pay to superintend earthworks? All this is very rotten. . . . A war between us, IVance. and England ought to have beon impossible. Besides, what is the war for? Suppose a country like Russia threatened us Germans, the country which certainly disposed of the most numerous ways of human evolution; suppose these possibilities of evolution were menaced; then the war is a good thing, since there are no other means. Iniagine a German cavalryman who has watered his: horse in the rivers of France and Belgium.-and thou in the Vistula. I can see him leaning on his horse, stroking its crupper, and thinking : "Where is this war going to lead to? Shall I have to go to see the Egyptian sun ?, Where shall I be buried? In England, Egypt, or Italy? When will death come, if to come it is ? Curious, this sort of life!"

October 1-I.—A wounded soldier lving in a shell-crater exclaimed to his comrade, who was bandaging ;.him: "Bury me straight away.. Can't you see I am done for?" A chasseur.'relieving us. said, "Now, let us begin to dig our own tomb."

Our commandant said to us this morning; "As tilings are now. nobody can hope to come out of this , war alive." ....'/

' The Bavarians have behaved in Alsace Lorraino like savages. There aro plenty of inhabitants who can bear witness to this.