ANOTHER GOOD DAY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 297, 4 September 1918, Page 5

ANOTHER GOOD DAY

WITH THE NEW ZEALANDERS IN THE ADVANCE BAPAUME AND BEYOND (Special Dispatch from the Now Zealand Official War. Correspondent.)

August 30, afternoon. Another day has gone well for i'fi. Men who were in this morning s attack speak well of the barrage. The Rifles, advancing on Fremicourt, mot with considerable machine-gun fire, and suffered some casualties. Baiicourt, like its sister village, was stoutly defended, but tho New Zealanders wore not to be denied. Bavarian prisoners who were in the attack state that they had orders to hold on there. Their defences, they said, wero mainly outside the village. Four companies were disposed in front and on the flanks of the village, each nith four macV'ine-cnns. They had retired from Bapaume. where ■ their strength, in six days' fighting, had been reduced, mainly from shellfire and' sickness, to 30 per cent. The nervous strain was beginning to tell on them. Their food in the tronches was better than when they were behind the lines. For some considerable timo now they had been eating the flesh of horses killed in battle, but they made no complaint on that score. Horseflesh made good soup, they said. There; were civilians in Cambrai, but none on this side of it. Their men had heard from their comrades of the German defeat on the Marne. At one of our advanced dressing stations I found several prisoners,' Bed Cross men, who-had helped with the wounded. These were enjoying a meal of bread and butter and bully beef, and seemed very surprised to get such good food.

In Shell-torn Bapaumo. Bapatime is in very much the same condition as Ypros was .about' six months ago/ The Germans have left little in the town. Even the statue ot Harbe, who defended it in the war ot ]870, has gone. At the railway station, however, the enemy left a. large store of coal and a large quantity of metal and crushed atone. It seemed as jf he had decided to settle down in this country, and was about to huild «■ crete pill-boxes for its defence. However, he has liad no time to do that, and the metal will come in useful for our roads. The town was still being shelled this morning. Some of toe New Zealand "walking wounded , and four of our infantrymen, bearing a wounded comrade on their shoulders, camo down the main street as the shells were bursting. At the .same moment there was a regular fusillade of-nre from our "Archies." and machine-guns as a. Boche airman daringly attacked one of our balloons. On parts of our attacking line this morning there was heavy machine-gun fire, and scattered but not very heavy shelling.

/Tank Canturos a Battery. The tanks gave valuable aid, and one of them captured a field, battery which it had cut off. The German machineeuunere fought till our men were right on them, and then "Kameraded. Others with the infantrymen ran beforo tho barrage to the crest of the ridge, where they proceeded to make a stand. From there they attempted a counter-attack, but our artillery got on to them, and they quickly faded away. One of our machine-gunners, who* had gone forward expecting to find one of our units in some trenches, found only Germans there, and got a rifle bullet through his wrist. _ He, however, gotback with a companion to our lines. The New Zealand machine-gun-ners got a lot of shooting at the retreating and defending enemy, not only with their own, but also with German machine-guns. They found German machine-guns in almost every shellhole, and before long every nvngle_man in our crews was firing a gun. There has been plenty of abandoned ammunition, and our men are becoming quite expert in the' use of the German gun. Our toll of prisoners is daily mounting up The Wellington «nd Auckland men who captured Bancourt to-day added a considerable number. The weatffer has again cleared.

A BRILLIANT DASH i September 1. Our tireless troops are still pushing on. This morning, with a-brilliant dash, they captured the remainder of the ridge north of the Bapauine-Cambrai road, near Fremicourt. It was a minor operation, but it relieved an awkward position for us, and in addition to qmto if fair toll of German killed and wounded it gave us a haul of prisoners out of all proportion to the number or troops we employed. Before dawn our artillery barrage suddenly burst on the enemy's position, and out advancing ,waveß were quickly on the crest ot the rid*e. The Auckland and Wellington units and the Rifles were engaged Our casualties were mainly from machine. cr U n fire. The crest of the hill once gained, our won found no shelter there. It was quite open country, and they proceeded to dig in in very hard ground. The enemy was equally without cover, and such as could get away from the barrage at once commenced to retreat according to orders. At these our eunners and infantry shot with good effect. As a wounded Aucklender put it: "A lot of them remained there ior keeps." Another Bag. Early in the morning I saw a, batch of over a hundred prisoners being marched down, but this did not by any means complete the toll; Thoir shoulderstraps showed them to bo a mixed lot from several regiments. One new division, a Prussian one, had come down from Flanders, and some of these were in the fight. We wlptured Prussians, Saxons, nnd Bavarians. As I write it sounds as if the enemy were exploding dumps a long vay behind his present line. If this is so it is probably a preliminary to a further retreat,