THE SUPER-SNIPERS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3085, 16 May 1917, Page 5

THE SUPER-SNIPERS

DEADLY MAN-KILLERS ON THE BRITISH FRONT

MASTER CRAFTSMEN , t

He may carry himself a little loosely, for ho is not always a regular soldier, and his special duties call for much stooping and lying in- unnatural positions- he will possibly appear i verging on middle age, though ho is sure to he muoh younger than ho looks; but the most striking characteristic about him is certainly his great "depth" of eye. Ths casual obsprver might not notice this, and even if ho did it is hardly ■likely that he would search for, far less deduce, the cause; but an expert in reading character from the human face, sensing something of the remarkable personality of his subject, would certainly pauso to mako a mental, or a vocal inquiry as to what the man was. A sniper officer could enlighten-, him—the signs of a master-craftsman are plain to the members of his craft, and to the snipor brotherhood; the tokens of tlio super-sniper are as manifest. : , , "What the essential-qualities of the super-sniper aro it is not-easy to determine. ' Strange to say, skill, on the Tiflc range.is not tho most important. It is necessary, but something more is needed. There must he nerve and quickness to take advantage of targets • which Bisloy marksmen never dreamt of, and in addition an intelligence and, courage, a tireless patience and carefulness,' beyond the reach of ordinary men. Possessed of such qualifications a marksman will go far as" a sniper, but master-rank in bis craft will'never be attained without the highly developed hunting,, killing instinct, which enables a" sniper _to pursue his calling with tho equanimity _ of a gamekeeper stamping out obnoxious pests on his game preserves. •■■••" •■.'-■_ This does not imply that the sniper must be callous or delight in killing for killing's sako. Far from it!._ Ho is often a man of the-greatest kindliness and charm of character plucked straight from civilian life, or taken direct from the depot to act as a sniper .You-have only to see his tender care of the, wounded, his respect for the' bodies, of the .dead,' his grief as he stands at ■ the onen 'grave of a comrade, to acquit him of the charge of brutality.' . - - ■ A Dual Personality. One sniper who towered above his fellows bad -been-a gamekeeper on a Highland estate, and. on account of his professional skill he was immediately drafted but to France to fill a vacancy in the sniping section of the line battalion of his regiment.- Ho was a quiet, -pleasant-mannered man, a'nproaching forty years of age, and the respectful fatherly manner with which he treated his officer was reminiscent of the attitude of the well-train-ed gamekeeper, in dealing , with the younger members of a shooting party. He was never so. happy as when attending to the wants of an infantin his -rest-billet, and in such a situation he displayed all the little touches characteristic of a. good husband happy in his home circle. Yct_- at one' time his reputation •showed him to be the most dangerous sniper in the whole Ypres'salient.

■ The type is'a fairly common one in the British Armv to-day. In every sniping section there is one man' at ]east in comparisoii with whom the other .snipers are ' so many hacks. Sometimes there are morn than one, and happy is the sniper officer so situated. The reputation of his section .will travel far beyond their own sector, and other sniping sections will not be above seeking their advice and assist-

In the;first year of the war, when sll sniping sections had not attained the general level of proficiency ( common at the present time, the Germans Sot the upper hand of - the snipers of a , battalion occupying trenches running through a wood. Owing to the dominating position of their trenches the Germans were able to make one length of our trenches impassable during the daytime, and not a day passed without casualties. A battalion of a "chum" regiment whose sniping section-, owing to the presence in it of two or three' extraordinary efficient snipers, had achieved a great reputation • happened to take over the trenches in question : on their next tour of duty, and the snipers got tho opportunity they wanted. The carelessness begotten of. over-confidence, so often noticeable in the case of German snipers again proved their undoing. Without losing a man, and in a space of time reckonablc'not in days, but in hours, the British snipers drove, them from the open to their customarily heavily protected posts in the trenches themselves. ■

Such men are tho mainstay of their section, and.set a standard, for the ■ other snipers to aspire to, which has had a great effect in speeding-up general efficiency. Any special undertaking calling for rare skill and nervo to ensure its' success, is allotted to one cf them as a matter of course, and whether it is a delicate piece of shooting at long range from behind a wellprotected -post, or a quick sbot at short range over the parapet under the very nose of a German sniper, their steadiness and judgment generally results in the accomplishment of the desired object, and at the same time secures ' i them an. immunity from disaster so 1 continuous as to be almost uncanny. Quick Nerve.. Several months ago, at a certain part cf'-our line, a bdmbiug post ran out some distance in front of our trencnes to the lip of a crater. The Germans built a counter-post, barely thirty yards away, and, in addition, a sniping post which so commanded our position that casualties among the bombers were constantly occurring. After some time the Germans evidently imagined that our post was not occupied by ' day any longer, for they proceeded to build an advance trench containing machine-gun ' emplacements, which ran out from their front lines about two hundred yards on the right of our bombing post. From the post our men were able to look right into the hack entrance of the endmost emplacement, and though a low parapet, and the upper half of a' waterproof sheet screened the interior from view, Germans could often be seen passing in and out. For nearly a week our observers lay in tbo bombing pest and used this unique opportunity to gather much valuable information about the Germans opposite, but the day before tho battalion was duo to bo relieved, the sniper officer and the host ■sniper of the section went iuto the bombing post. Great cure had to ho exercised, for the German sniper on - tho other sido of the crater had his loophole open. Through his periscope the officer saw a German officer inspecting the emplacement, and at his word the sniper flung his rifle over the Tiarapot, shot tho German, and dodged down out of sight before a retaliatory shot could be fired. It is incidents such as these that mark out the super-sniper from the ordinary snipers, and it was his power to perform such deeds that broke the early strength of tho German, and has since held him in check.