FAR-TRAVELLED FIGHTERS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 97, 17 January 1918, Page 5

FAR-TRAVELLED FIGHTERS

BRITISH ARMOURED-CAR MEN FROM RUSSIA. ■ Wild and romantic have been the adventures of the British armoured-car squadrons who have just returned to London after fighting, under Commander Oliver Lockor-Lampson, MJ , ., for over two years in Russia, Galicia, Persia, and Rumania. Some of them have been in the midst of desperate battles since early- in 1915, when they were rushed over from ■ Belgium and hurried to Russia with cars, stores, and ammunition. Winter held them in. tho White Sea, and after a wild passage in the stormy waters of the Polar Circle, where many of their cars were badly knocked about, they found them- ■ selves ice-locked upon an inland ocean, j After waiting many weeks for the wea-j ther to soften they smashed their way;; through the ice, reached, a northern j port clad in furs and icicles, and found i themselves the centre of clamorous en- , thusiasm. They were banqueted and feted in various Russian towne. Russian bands delighted them with the playing of "Rule Britannia," and the bitter struggles amid the pack-ice of Archangel were forgotten in the splendid heartiness of their greeting everywhere. Thoir first fighting journey was ncrose the mountains into Persia, ( where tho roads wore so bad and the dust so baffling that-little-or-no. er-' fectivo work could be accomplished. They returned to Tiflis and- trekked across the Crimea-to Odessa, where tho British colony" welcomed them, arriving eventually in Rumania. Ever on the move, and establishing freeh: bases wherever they went "fighting; feasting, and sometimes starving, they, at last reached the Galician front, to : find themselves in the maelstrom or! the great retreat. They were fighting: rearguard actions ull the time. They suffered astonishingly few casualties; they performed tremondous feats with thoir deadly little mobile guns. Their commander, still at the helm of his: battered car, was the last man to cross; tho border after the Russians had blown up all tho bridges. On a "retiring" line of 150 miles alone the frontier they were fighting, holding, and killing the enemy for five days. They killed many hundreds, while their owii casualty list in this wild, 6hort week was slight. , "Tho collapse of the Russian front here," said one of the officers, "was a, most sudden and astonishing thing. Wo were within two days of Lemberg andexpected to take it after a magnificent bombardment by the Russian artillery, from 800 guns on a five-mile front. Ihe collapse began with the capture of 20 000 Russians, who had taken a town but failed to hold it. They were surrounded and taktn prisoners; panic spread, and a headlong retreat followed, the soldiers throwing away everything in their attempt to escape. It was in this emergency that the British cars showed thoir mottle. J hey splen'didly covered the retreat, holding up great masses of the enemy and astonishing friend and foe alike. And now," said one of the petty, officers, "we are borne again for six weeks leave. We are going to make it six weeks of bliss. You cannot imagine the jov of being in London again, hearing English spoken, and eatmg Enehsli food. From what we heard out there we expected to find London starvnyrj But it seems to mo. just as wonderful and just as prosperous as ever it was.