THE BRITISH ATTACK ON LENS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3175, 28 August 1917, Page 5

THE BRITISH ATTACK ON LENS

DESCRIPTIVE STORY OF BATTLE

OF JUNE 3

TERRIFIC BURST OF . ARTILLEttY

The British, grip cm Ismh was perceptibly tightened iu. lb jrcat attack which was delivered o;. , J : «ne 29, and since then has beeoldeVdopi-il at various points till at present tk Ml of the city may be expected at.any-.Uwe. Writing of tho battle of June- $, Mr. Beach Thomas, the British vutr correspondent, gives a vivid picture tf fc artillery attack:— I saw the battle, (!'.;■ ■lipultancous lightning of miles of suir.. followed by the dash of the infantry, ;nd many hours later I went to ask »; cp chief hub of information whether ail jw-1 gone as well as it seemed. "13ver.yt.iing- went hko clockwork," was the mtvrar. And this is the outstanding f*at, of the war at present, that each os' cur attacks goes moro like clookworl vkau its predcessor. Now for the buulo itself, as it looked and as it was. Hugh after soven, half an hour in adv.-itKo of a violent thunderstorm and T-aUrerouts of rain, tho fioklo serenity ■>!■'-. <"» panorama as spacious as any in !:'.w.i,v was split in two by tho simulto H'«!v outburst of several miles of guns " ■il miles deep. I have never eoen so :u)ar a battle. I could Bee the qo: lightning of field guns burst from m.-«res of dark holes and corners, and a few eeconds later there were their shells bursting in groups as close together as the flashes of tho guns. A mile or two behind these a vast howitzer, punctual and steady as the field guns were quick and lively, thundered its ponderons hate. J reckoned that I myeelf could see the Hashes and they woro continuous, of 200 and moro guns, and, what is a rarer sight, X could see many of'these shells burst on their target. 'Tho impression was that tho earth had let out imprisoned fires through numberless fissures. Germans Bolt. Immediately the storm burst a crowd of S.O.S. signals shot up from the toman trenches; it was a satisfactory sign of nerves. One of our observers laughed alond, as you might laugh at a ludicrously frightened clown on the stage, and some of the ■ Germans were very frightened. Opposito a Midland regiment in which I had a personal interest two or three platoons leapt from a trench instantly and ran for their liv.es. They know what an intense bombardment meant, and were oft even before the first waves of our infantry went O, W - 6 found a brand-new machine-gun, beautifully set up and aligned, but never fired, and one of the wounded prisoner*, I ingenuously pleased to be taken, ex- ' plained how his one hope had been for a quiet place in the line. His men talked of casualties and retirement, and at home, where he had just been on leave, they talked of food. It was not an agreealle world. He had been m the line only twenty-four hours. Such an example from on* part of the field does not mean that the battle was a walk-over, or that the enemy did not fight and fire well. In places theUerman barrage was heavy. I could see their shells bursting all along in trout of the great road-from Axros to Lens. Two shells in front of me hit the.Souchez River, and set m> straight, narrow columns of water to an immense height, so that thoy seemed to stay suspended in the air as long as a smoke column. Tuts bridges over the river had been already destroyed by their engineers. An other bevy of ehells settled like angry lwiw on a spot where possibly the cmemythought he had located a, battery; » score or so broke in a minute or two within a narrow circle. Airmen Up in a Storm. Towards the north-west of Lens we released a heavy smoke screen, and each smoke shell as it burst let fall a cascade of golden rain, soon drowned in its own fumes. Such a, spectacle was too immense to last long. Half an hour aft"' the moment of the first concentrated flash ami thunder of the whorls and eddies ot dust and smoke ran into one another •anil melted into one solid fog that slowly swallowed up Len3 and Lievin and Jlill 65 nnd Avion and Oppy and, sweeping nearer, enveloped our own guns eo that their flashes seemed now to emerge no longer from tho solid ground but from various layers of the. air. And then the real thundc-r began, 1 though it was still dwarfed by the guns and even by the rattle of shells in the air. Waterspouts of rain came down and roadways and lanes became streams through which platoons'.nioving up lashed forward while tho rain spouted off their tin hats and mackintosh capes. Our aeroplanes were thick in the air np to tho very crack of doom. Some, as they shot homewaAi, dropped brilliant starlights, and one 'plane seemed to have a peculiar affection for ono gun; it kept returning to its friend. Onco it tumbled down head over heels anyhow, almost on to the top iif its friend; once it coasted smoothly down, whispering into its ear congratulations on its work. But the bulk of our planes, which were almost unopposed, were unnoticed unless they were in vast groups or engaged in some unusual tactics. The battle had three distinct divisions. Some of the heaviest fighting was north of the city, closo to Loos, held by a very stout Prussian regiment. Wo wero raiding, not attacking. Our men entered a trench at the first intention, and thero engaged in a really hot struggle, proV ably the hottest of the day. The cuemy was out for no-surrender, and rushed out of dug-outs with a good store of bombs, but ho was at 6ome disadvantage, and our men, getting the better of tho bomb fight, drove somo back into tho dug-outs and killed them thero ajid occupied tho trench for iui hour or two. During this time tho Prussians continually counter-attacked, and our soldieis exhausted great stores of small-arms ammunition on advancing bodios. Throughout this area the enemy's losses in dead, not in 'prisoners, were very heavy indeed. Midlanders and Canadians. Tho centre of tho battlo was on both banks of tho Souchez River, where Midland and other English troops fought alongsido Canadians. The English troops reached tho trenches they desired almost without loss, and held them without being countered. All the ouomy fled to tho shelter of ruined houses or behind the very strong lino that etill defends Lens itself. Fighting among patrols in front of this line still continues. The Canadians had a harder task; they met very heavy machine-gu.n fire from two slag-heaps known as Fosse -1 and + bis, but, in spito of this trouble, forcod their way half through Avion village and occupied tactical points for which they had'set out. It was a determined and skilful picco of infantry worli. Further south, again, English troops rushed a stion? German line about the odgo of Oppy Wood' and village. Tho sth Bavarians, who look what they are, very stout fellows, fouglit well, bint Iho Uarrago was good and the infantry very miick on its heels. Wo look here some 250 prisoners and inflicted heavy losses, but it is chiefly in the centre of the battle, south of Souchez, where the (•round is moet obviously cumbered with German dead. The battle brinpfs out extreme variations in the German troops. Whereas tho Prussians on tho north and the Bavarians in tho south proved fino 6oldiers in physique and courage, the troops in the centre wore weak. Of theso latter one division had been reduced to onesoventh of its fnrce in recent fighting and had passed on to their successors a most wholesome fear of tho British guns, and tho infantry expressed a special fear of tho Canadians, who ha<l raided them continuously. Just beforo this battlo they had been moved more north because they would not face tho Canadians, whom they regarded as a superman. Perhap3 the boiling oil which was again used by us at one place in this battle (V.A not encourage their moral.

The town of Lens is a wreck. Wo fan now distinctly seo how each house lias Ijcon. systematically destroyed by the fiTiomy, just as ho destroyed Peronno mid Bajmuinc, (