The Evening Star SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1936. TWENTY YEARS AGO.

Evening Star, Issue 22448, 19 September 1936, Page 14

The Evening Star SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1936. TWENTY YEARS AGO.

It is twenty years ago this month since the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, as a division, fought in its first serious offensive on the Western Front during the Great War., September, 1916, therefore, was a month not without its significance in the history of the Dominion, and its anniversary must arouse proud, if sad, memories of some very gallant achievements. Civilians, most of them youthful, who only a few years previously had been living peacefully in the Empire’s far-flung dominion, concerned in their leisure moments, we may safely assume, with the fortunes of football, were plunged into an inferno of shrieking shells and the deadly spatter of machine guns. Some had already received their baptism of fire on Gallipoli, and most had experienced the trials of static trench warfare, spiced by raiding party risks, round about Armentieres. It was on the Somme, however, that the New Zealand Division, fighting alongside several crack divisions of the British Army, proved their mettle in one of the greatest battles of the war—one in which the attack was so fierce and •persistent that it came to be known on the German side as a “ blood bath.” The purpose of the advance on the Somme was threefold. It was intended to relieve the pressure on Verdun, where the increasing strain was approaching bursting point; to assist the Allies in other theatres of war by preventing further transfers of German troops from the Western Front; and to wear down the general strength of the enemy. The first New Zealand troops to move up from the peaceful lower valleys of the Somme, where the division had been recuperating after the work on the Lys, were the engineers and the Pioneer Battalion. They left on August 27 for the neighbourhood of Frioourt. On August 29 and 30 the artillery started concentrating at Bonnay, a quiet village to which the menace of modern warfare could be interpreted only by the booming of the guns by day and the additional evidence supplied at night by an almost unbroken line of flaming reflections. The infantry began to move up from their peaceful billets into the realities of war on September 2. It was on the morning of September 15—20 years ago last Tuesday —that the big attack, supported by a tremendous weight of artillery and the debut of the tanks, was made. An admirable description of the initial stages is given in the volume ‘ The New Zealand Division,’ by Colonel H. Stewart. He writes: “In the New Zealand trenches the infantry, trained to the last degree of physical fitness and with the fine edge of morale uhdulled by exposure to artillery fire, snatched a little sleep. The sentries on duty, without either excitement or the boyish insouciance of the English soldier, but in stern and serene elation of spirit, waited for the coming of the dawn and whatsoever fortune might bring them. By 6 a.m. they had breakfasted. A ghostly pallor was now creeping into the sky, and the Otago left could just faintly discern the silhouettes of the gaunt trees in High Wood, whose silence was unbroken by German shells. The watch crept slowly, and, as it were, reluctantly towards the appointed time. The weather held out every hope of a fine day. To the second our guns broke out into thunderous uproar, and to the second the leading waves of Auckland and Otago, with bayonets fixed and rifles sloped, clambered out of tbeir assembly trenches and advanced straight up over the hummocks and between the shell holes.”

It is impossible to set down in detail the full activities of the division in the subsequent fighting. It ia per-.

haps sufficient to say that all the objectives were taken with an eian which inspired . the Commander-in-Chief to send the following message to the New Zealand Government:— “ The New Zealand Division has fought with the greatest gallantry in the Somme battle for 23 consecutive days, carrying out with complete success every task set, and always doing more than was asked of it. The division has won universal confidence and admiration. No praise can he too high for such troops.” Early in October the division (less the artillery) was withdrawn, the gunners remaining to support numerous attacks made throughout October. Fifty-two consecutive days in battle was their lot.