NEW ZEALANDERS ON THE SOMME

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3037, 26 March 1917, Page 6

NEW ZEALANDERS ON THE SOMME

PIONEERS IN ACTION DIGGING UNDER FIRE AND GAS

(From Captain Malcolm Boss, War Correspondent with-the Netv Zea- , land forces in the Field.)

'.•"■■..'■' ■'.'-.. ' January 14, 1917. The New Zealand Pioneers have left their marlc —and ft deeply dug mark it is^-pn'the battlefield of the Somme. During the few weeks they were em- , ployed there they dug 13,163 yards of ' trenches. A great deal of this work was deep and wide, for communications, and practically the whole of it was done under fire, often heavy; and at times under the added disabilities of bursting tear and gas shells. Their splendid, performance is probably easily a record.for any part of.the Somme battlefield; One says that, considering all the circumstances, and not in any boastful'spirit. The Battalion say very little about it. The infantry who saw it done, and who benefited greatly, by it, /will; however, tell you that'it was work worthy of unstinted praise; It mtist be remembered that the British Army at the start of the war had up Pioneer,. Battalions. Tho Indian Army had them, and, of coiirse, the Germans. Was there anything j\hat this ."peaceful" nation did not have :ready:to its hand for war?

The-New Zealand Pioneer Battalion was formed in- in March, 1916. , It consists of Maoris, '. pakehas, and Rarotongans. There are about two hundred more Maoris than jwkehas, and there are not many Rarotongans., Both officers and men were trained as .-infantry,, and they are armed ,as infantry. A proper Pioneer Battalion should, of course, have'picked men of different trades and occupations} What the New Zealand Pioneers lack in this' respect they, however, make lip in initiative The Maori is ft handy man. For generations he has done everything for himself—felled his trees for the long canoes by the slow process of fire; fashioned hisfrail craft with adzes of stone • laboriously carved out" of the hardest jade his ornaments and implements of war, and made his fishhooks from bene. Sβ now, on the Somme or in Flanders, far away from his ancestral home, he digs a trench or buiids a hoiise with the best of them. The pakeha Pioneers wero Otago Mounted Rifles. They, too, some of the best the country breeds, lijive learnt.:their lesson in the hard school of experience. There, is little that comes amiss _to;them. • They .are men-of initiative, and daring.. It: was hard oa them to leave their horses in Egypt; harder still tb.be turned from infantry into Pioneers. The' glory of the fighting ' is not for them. They, are shot at, but they have little chance, of shooting back. They-are still hoping jtliat some day they may be in. tho th'ick of it, that the Germans will come right-on and give them their but up'to the present all their hopes have been blighted. There was one night, away forward of Flers, when they hugged their-rifles in the hope that the Bocha would .come on. ' The infantry just in front of them were expecting a- coun-ter-attack. Several times it threatened, and the Pioneers dropped their spades and took up their rifles. Three or four times they stopped work to' look for I fight. .. The digging that night was a good deal interfered with, but all the alarms were false alarms, and at dawn the Pioneers went back to their bivouacs disappointed. , ' /

1 Shrapnel, Gas, and Flamenwerfer. The New Zealand Pioneers came into the Sbmme battle towards the end of August, and their first task iwas the digging.of trenches in Delville Wood. Unfortunately the guides -supplied to them lost/their way in the darkness. In consequence they wandered about for the .greater part ef. the night, and only reached' the scene of operations at 3.30 a.m. They worked for half an hour, and then, as dawn was approaching .they had to return. They came back to' this work again and finished it satisfactorily. There was a lot of German 1 shelling, but -the shells were bursting about 100 yds; away, and the Pioneers did not happen to be there. The work was completed with only two casualties. . - ' . • ...

About the beginning of-. September the.' New. Zealanders■ took over some work on the. Bazentin Ridge. About this .time there was a great deal of shelling, and on one occasion the enemy put a gas barrage between them and their bivouacs as. they were returning from work. It was their first, experience of gas.

Early'iii September when the Pioneers were working in front bf the' German trenches on the slope of the Bazentin Ridge, they witnessed at close range an attack by British troops in which our flamenwerfer was used. Great flames about a hundred feet long, but lasting, only about three minutes, ehot forward. The flames leapt as high, as the tree tops, and made a ■gorgeous spectacle. It was something like a bush fire in New Zealand. The attack was made at noon, the German■; trench being only some ten yards in front of the British front line. During this attack the Pioneers had to cease their work and go back some distance so. as not to. interfere: with the lines of communication to the. front trenches. They returned next day' and continued their work. After,this job was finished they worked on the roads about Montauban, and then began to dig the long" communication trench. At-this they did magnificent work, never ceasing to carry the trench on .from day to day as the infantry advanced. The first section of. trenches enabled, our men to get safe communication up to the front line for the hig attack on the loth. The Pioneers were told that they must have,these finished ■in time- for this attack. They were conipleifid !>y the evening of the 14th, though four or five times the men had to v be taken off the work for twentyfour hours~at a stretch owing to the heavy German shelling. The trenches were, of course, not carried so far without loss, for the Germans still had a. good deal of high ground that served them well as observation post. On .the night of the 14th Kohere, one of the finest Maori officers, was killed, and there were other casualties. Kohere, with his dying breath, made his will in the Maori fashion. He sent for another "Rangatira," or chief, and told him that he wished this left to so-and-so, and that left to somebody else. Ho gave instructions also regarding the payments of certain liabilities. A-nd all the time he was uneasy in his mind as to who would take command of the members of his tribo in tho company or platoon he commanded. He wished that his mantle should fall on -—-, another member of the tribe, and when they gave a promise that that would he done young Kohero smiled the pleasant Maori smile and passed away contentedly.

Forward with the Infantry. In addition to 36ing all this trenchdigging, the Pioneers made splinterproof headquarters for brigadiers and two dressing .stations. They made a deep dug-out, fifteen feet down, for brigade headquarters.'All this time they wero under shell lire. Night and day they worked, one gang working -well forward at night, and the' others finishing in the daytime the part of the trench already dug under cover of darkness, As the infantry advanced, so the Pioneers advance. The infantry never got more than twelve hours ahead., (fh? Pioneers jj> .theuj

I aim and ambition that the infantry would never get clean away from them. Once there was a great bit of work done. There ,were, two platoons of Maoris and two platoons of pakehas and the Rarotongans in that adventure. Each was pitted against the others, and the commander walked up and down the line, cursing, praising, and admonishing, till brown and white, sweating at their task, performed prodigious feats. The Germans in front woke up next/morning to find that under their very noses a trench had, mushroom-like, sprung up in a night. Borne prisoners that we captured next day were very sore about that little performance, so apparently it was notalone the C.O. of the Pioneers that used profane words. For our part, we felt sure that tho Recording Angel had left our 0.0. with a good credij balance on .the'sum total of the night's work.

The hottest time the Pioneere had was on the day of the advance. As they went- forward the enemy shells were bursting over their heads, and the shells continued to come in salvos for 24 hours.; Sometimes the salvos would come at intervals of two minutes. On Other occasions they would come at longer intervals. Once when the Maoris were digging the Germans endeavoured to barrage the trench when they were working, but tho tfitells were falling a hundred yards wide on one side. The Maoris worked all day watching this close shelling. At' i o'clock in the afternoon they left the-trench with only six casualties. A company ; working- on a higher bit of ground on i the left lost heavily. One officer died i of wounds and another was wounded, j but the others had miraculous escapes. ! They had equipment shot off and their j clothes' torn and pierced with sLrap|'nei and 'bits of high explosive. Out j of that company in this bombardment 12 were killed and 40 wounded. The company was then withdrawn. The work was blown to bits. That night another company from the Pioneers went out and completed the work! ' Usually the German trenches were so battered in. by our own artillery thatit was scarcely worth while trying to repair them.. Some that our men attempted to reorganise contained holes from our shelling that went 14ft. down. Rather than endeavour to cope with such a stato of things it was often better, to dig entirely new trenches, on new, firm ground. ■■■•■' The, Pioneers; like the-rest of our men at the Sorhme, had to put up with a .good deal.of diecomfort, especially I after the cold rain started, and deep, ! sticky, mild became the order of the I day. • They made, holes for themselves to bivouao in..: Sometimes they crawled into Boche holes. After .the 15th the 'travelling cookers came up, and proved a godsend.' The' battalion chanced the smoke'froni them.. The enemy did not spot the.smoke, and the cookers were unmolested.

Both white men and Maoris, though it was not their work, often carried in wounded when the day's . or night's work was finished. They carried in both English and Germans, but they always waited till they got all their own men in before they did this. Amongst those thus rescued was a Middlesex colonel.

During their work after the 15th the Pioneers,dug up.two machine-guns and four trench mortars that were partly buried by our" shelling, and that the infantry.had overrun in their forward sweep. One particular piece of trench, dug at-night under" the very nose of the enemy easily gave the lie to all the most optimistic ■' figures in the books. It was 4ft. 9in. deep! 3ft. wide, and 452 Jrards long. It was dug by 200 men in five hours,;andnot a single man was hit..-The Boche was so annoyed when he saw it, next morning that he proceeded to blow it to' smithereens.