SIDELIGHTS ON THE BATTLE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 284, 20 August 1918, Page 5

SIDELIGHTS ON THE BATTLE

AUSTRALIANS KEEN FOR MORE FIGHTING A NEW SOUTH WALES f CHAMPION London, August IS. Mr. Keith Murdoch, writing from Australian Headquarters, refers to tiio keenness of the troops for further fighting. . Their confidence' has roused all their latent desire to meet i.'.id drive tho enomy headlong. He describes a champion of a New South AVales unit, a man of Herculean type, who astonished tho Germans during tho fighting at Breton- 1 ncux by breaking an officer's neck with : his fingers, tfo got well ahead of his : company, and -reached a German field ; battery from which the onony appeared 1 to have fled. Suddenly ho was attacked 1 from a dugout behind the battery. Rush- J ing forward with his bayonet fixed, he killed nine of tho Btphes, who wero quivering there and showing.litHe fight- ! ing spirit. Thus he captured the bat- 1 terr—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. ' 1 •: _____ i PAPER SHIRTS AND RUBBERLESS i BICYCLE TYRES | London, August 18. ' Mr. Gordon Gilniour, writing from tho , Australian Headquarters, states that the ( Germans abandoned, vast stores of food- ] f.tuiis at LihoiiS, and large quantities of j wine, spirits, and sugar. A field hos- ( pital furnished further evidence of the ; shortage of cotton stuffs. U Nightshirts, j bandages, and stiring were found, all made of paper. The Australians wero much < amused by tho nightshirts, which were ' sewn with black thread and had a '"dinky" paper bow at the neck. They i-aptui'ed several bicycles with scores of 'ittle springs under an outer motal tyre, instead of rubber tyres.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable , Assn. i ' TRIBUTE TO AUSTRALIAN VALOUR > London, August 18. Mr. W. M. Hughes, addressing Australian hospital patients, said that in the recent fighting tho Australians had the honour of reaching the farthest point attained. They had cleared the enemy from a hundred squnre miles of territory, and captured over ten thousand f prisoners and 120 guns. Their total casualties were a little over two thousand. ( Ono of the "best tributes to'tho Austra- i lians was a captured map, which show- a ed that,whenever Australians were known ! to hold sectors the Germans labelled tlieso "storm, troops."—Aus.-NX Cablo Assn.