NEW ZEALANDERS IN FLANDERS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 72, 18 December 1917, Page 7

NEW ZEALANDERS IN FLANDERS

IN THE DIN OF BATTLE

ENEMY REELS BEFORE UNEX' PECTED ADVANCE.

;Froni Malcolm Ross, War Correspondent with the New Zealand Forces in tho Field.)

Belgium, October G. The woather, greatly to our dismay, jroko just on the eve of the battle. L'he sky, which for some du>s had held inly a brilliant sun, now banked up vith cloud, and on tho night of the 2ud-3rd ram fell. Our buck areas and ;he French and Belgian towns ami vilages had been a good deal bombed by :he German airmen under cover of the larkness, but tho change in tho weather now put a stop to these bombing •aids. The rain stopped early on tho morning of tho 3rd, and, after breakfast, tho sun came out, but the improvement was short-lived. Along this front, wlien wo took iver, there was no defined line of crenchos. It was hold practically by posts. The troops that went in to bold it for a "brief period preparatory to the advanco did some useful work. Their patrols went forward on occasions to investigate the immediate position. One night, shortly after ten p'clock, a fighting patrol went out to investigato the ruins at Otto Farm, Diio of tho first points at which our right might expect resistnnre in tho advance. Tho place was found to ho unoccupied, and there was no sign of the enemy.. Ths ground was waterlogged, and tho farm itself dcmolishsd by artillery fire. Another patrol went out to the farm on tho extreme right, and found it garrisoned hy six men, who, on, seeing tho advancing New Zealanders, promptly took to their heel and fled. Three of these were shot by the patrol. We expected to have our old friends, the Bavarians, whom we had fought at Messinee, opposite us in this battlo, but opportunely enough, one night some meii of a carrying party, scattering under ono of our practice barrages, wandered into our lines. They belonged to the 77th Infantry Regiment of tho 20th Division—a Prussian Division. They were Hanoverians, and had come down from the lliga front, whero they had been having the quietest of times, and the awakening tliey got on this front waa indeed a very rude ono.' We had known for some time of the declining morale of the Gorman troops on tho Western front, and now wo got further evidence of it. The "pillboxes," a creation of the new tactics, wero no doubt a concession in some degreo to tho declino in bravery of the German machine-gunners. Bub in addition to this there were other straws that showed how tho current was setting. Patrols and raids as far as possible were to he undertaken only volunteers, and thoso, after tho regiment was relieved,. were to hi , rewarded by a fortnight's holiday. But, as if this were not onough, a reward ot 25 marks was to ho given fnr every living prisoner brought in. ami 1C marks for tho regimental of the dead brought in by the raiders and tho patrols. For "bravo and clovot work" the. Iron Cross was dun.jlpd in front of the n.c.o.'s and tnen._ Could ib ho that these were the tactics now necessary to make tho "invincible German troops'! go forward to tho fightf Were such rewards needed if, instated in their communique, "the heroism ol the Germon troops in Flandr-s was t< ba outdone by nothing"? Small wonder that,we were confident that out troops would at the first attempt drive the enorav from the heights of the Grafenstafel Ridge. On tho night of tho 3rd-4th tho Now Zealanders took over an English Division, got safely to their point nf assembly, and were ready to attack a< dawn.' Their attack was to ,bo delivered on a front of about two thousand yards, and to a depth of tetwoei: seventeen hundred and eighteen hundred yards. The nature of the ground has been explained in the preceding article. On the right, co-operating in the general attack, wero Australian troops, and on their left were Britisn, Just behind was ono of our howitzer batteries that was shelling tho enemj lines, and was in turn itself being sholled. The Gorman shells were falling short of tho battery, and wri rlosc about our dug-out to be pleasant Tho dugrout was made from tho remains of an old cellar built of Irick, and as some head cover had beon addec it was safo from anything but a direct hit. Wβ had to wait for the commencement of tho bombardment that «as tc herald our infantry attack. A drizzling rain had set in, and a cold wind was blowing. At intervals we lookec at our watches, and presently on the otroko of' sis, ero it was yot dajlight the thunder of tho barrage was lei loose.

Immediately flie soone, alrovly absorbing, changed to 000 of thrilling interest. Tlio. line of 18-pouudfir field guns, which had been brought up in broad daylight with thojr teams, under the very eyes of tho enemy, to within a mile of the line—a daring bit of work—gavo tongue like <i pack of barking dogs. Their quick, flashings lit tho fine with spurts of flame, and showed clearly how it ran Mow the slope. Behind thorn 4.5 hold "hows" were baying from tlieir.wider throats. And behind them again thegniodi'im and heavy howitzers wero roaring and spurting rings of flame and s'liokc, theb short, thick barrels pointing skyward, and their shells going forward with a twittering whistlo aloug the. whole length of their great rainbow curve. Still farther back, twite a long way from where we watched, were the longer-barrelled, long-range guns, whose fast shells, with" a lower trajectory, cleft tho air with a shriller, more sustained whistle, searching for their victima far behind tho German front lines:—

"For behind and beyond and about us were the long black Dogs of \Var, With pigmies pulling their uils lor thorn, and making the monsters roar As they slithered back on their haunches, us they pub out their flaming tongues And spat a murderous message long leagues from their iron lungs." The scene was'lit with the flashings of tho guns in groups and in linos, and tho whole German torrain was whipped and scarred again with their ixploding shells. Someone in the dug-out asked if it whs daylight yet, ami ihs reply camo that it was daylight whero the guns were flashing! The weirdness ,of the distant scene was heightened by tho will-o'-the-wisp flares of the German s.o.s. that climbed through tho mist of rain aud battle smoko to burst brilliantly, bub all in vain. We lenrnt afterwards that it was tho intention of the enemy to attack an hour later! Now he was reeling before our unexpected advance, and tho troops that he hud gathered together in strong points and ruined farms and shell-holes wilted away before the punishing lines of our deep barrage. . . Hundreds of shells were ■vhistling overhead in tho direction tf the onemy lines, and some wcro coming back at us, but not nearly so -nany. Tho shells that were falling near us wero aimed at tho battery, but were falling short, which was good lor tho I battery, but not pleasant for us, but tho onomy had no observation, f>nd did not know whother to lengthen or shorten his range or leave it as it was. Presently, with a lucky shot, ho knocked out ono of tho guns, and, later, an-

other was damaged, but most of liir shells fell harmlessly into iho soft Flanders soil, which went skyward in black gcyscr-liko showers that fell harmlessly in and about the craters they had made. Tlio New Zealand soldier, oven when sheltering in an ordinary dug-out in the middle of » battle, and momentarily expecting a direct nit, is seldom a gloomy person. Hβ is at least n philosopher, and often a humourist. Occasionally he is a hit of each, liko our colonel, whoso never-failing good numour must bo a tonic' to his officers in tho most strenuous times. At_ least, on this morning we were, rjuito a cheery, though a strangely cosmopolitan, party. Tho Belgian Princo, who has for so long now been attached to the New Zealand Division, had fought as a "Tommy" at the beginning of the war. His sister lias for long .been a prisoner in solitary confinement in Germany. Ono of our' Belgian interpreters who was with him was wounded early in tho war. Tho other two members of our party wero French princes of an old reigning family, brothers of thi prosent Empress of Austria, and fighting in tho Belgian artillery.. Of Eoyalist blood, they could not jfiti tho, French Army. They were keenly interested in our artillery, and noted the doliberateness and tho sang froid with which the gunners went about their work in the open in tho midst of tho battle.

Ou such occasions, whatever subject if conversation is started, the talk gensrally comes buck to-war. The col>nel gave us a disquisition on "pill)oxes, stressing tho fact that they yore so strongly mado. Ono at "Galipoli"—a strong point already Inken ra this front—was, ho said, Bis feet ihick, and sg interlaced • with ron as to be almost undeitroyable. It was a stronghold that iad been taken and lost three or four ;iraes. Finally, he said, they got a. IBnch gun on to it, and shifted it from ts foundations through lobbing a shell ilinost underneath it. " "I'm damned f I know whotber it was a gun or a nine that did the trick," ho added Jubjously, "but, at any rate, there are ;wo lovely craters there." By 6.30 (it was still summer time vith us, though, the clocks in England ind France had already bocn put back) it was daylight, and the flashes )f the guns were not so lurid. The wrrage had lifted—one must not go into detail —and the bursting shells ivera splashing the brown soil well up the ridge. Someone, raising his voice to be heard above tno loud dissonance ]f the artillery, remarked tbat_ he was sorry for the poor Germans just arrived- ■ Tho battle thunder continued all this time with great , intensity, and now we could see also the smoko of the barrage where before wo saw only tho flashes of guns and shells, and the still more-brilliant lights of the flares. Through tho haze lqoraed weirdly tho buildings of the town of L'lisschendaole, tho big church prominent, and looking larger and much nearer than it aotually was. Ono could see no sign of tho actual infantry attack at such an hour on such a dull »rey morning unless oiie was almost in it. One has seen it on other occasions—tho troops moving slowly up in somewhat crooked lines behind the Imrrage, with from time to time certain ominious gaps in the "waves." It is all very different from tho pictures of f he'artists in tho illustrated paperß, drawn "from material supplied," and there is nothing of tho oldtime charge about it. As ofton as not tlio mpn arc merely blurred dots in tho rolling smoke and dust of battle.