FEEDING THE GUNS.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 March 1917, Page 4

FEEDING THE GUNS.

With the Munition Column. The Work Entailed. A letter from a member of a New Zealand battery dealing with air attacks gives the following details of what a desperate service is this feeding of the guns : It was work ali the time. Our wagon lines were some four or five miles from the gun?, over all sorts of roads, and a lot of the time over no roads at all. And the guns were firing for all they were worth ; sa that we had to keep going to supply them with ammunition.

The first day we arrived there we took the guns up, aud then a load of ammunition, getting to bed about midnight. At 1.30 a.m, we were up again with more of the necessary, not getting home till after daylight. In the afternoon we were out again, and that’s a fair Bam pis of what we were doing right through.

You can have no idea of wbat that country is like without eeeing it. The whole countryside is torn to pieces with shell-fire, and eoms of the villages are wiped off the face of the earth. Hillsides which once were grass fields are nothing but a mass cf hobs, with not a blade of grass in sight. Right up at the guns roads are simply tracks winding in and out of the big holes and going through anything under four feet in depth. 1 didn’t know driving could be such hard work until I got there. I have seen myself at times so tired that 1 could hardly climb off my horse aud. take tbo harness off, and then stand outside my dag-oat a couple of minutes before I could summon enough energy to take off my great-coat and crawl inside. Then it would be a case of bead-bit-the-pillow and lie like a dog until someone oame and roused me out. For two or three miles we would be driving through our own gnus, and while a stunt was on the noise was faitly deafening, aud the flashes almost blinding. Ail aizss of guns going at top all round us—at times wo would be within a few yards of a gun that was firing as hard bb it could.

Daring our advance we took our guns further forward than any other in that part of the sector. They were firing at top at 11 in the morning and at 3 in the afternoon they were in position alongside what had been Fritz’s first line trench. Not bad going ! But, by Jove, we had some work getting there. We had to go through a very heavy heavy barrage—shells were landing all round us, Bending the earth high up in the air—infantry going up ia open order and strings of prisoners and wonnded coming back.

We had several casualties. There was poor , be was as game as anyone in the show. He was driving in a team and went through the heaviest barrage that was ever on the road. They were the only teams that got through that day. He took it as calmly as if be were strolling np the street. I was with him one night when seven out of eight of our horses were ehot, Both of his got it—one of

them killed on the spot. He was quite cool, and got his harness on anotiier horse and drove away without gptiing a bit excited. The night he got hit I was not there, but they tdd mo

The wornt thiog we had to face vas when the weather br-ke, Ploughing through the rand and getting blocked on the road, the shells coming thick and fast. The roads got so bad at last that we left our waggons anu did all our work by packing. We, to;, left the road, taking short cuts across country wherever we uould get through the old trenches. The rain made it muoh safer, as the shells were very local in their effect in the mud. Shells would burst right alongside of us and cover ua in mud, but do no other damage.

***** We wei’6 very lncky getting all the gana up and the horses away without a single casualty while we met lots of others commg out with horses or drivers misiing. An Impetial offioer who saw us gomg in stopped one of onr N 0.0.’s acd asked who we were, and then said he had never seen a battery go into action under fire in better style. Aa he had been here since Mens we were very pleased v/ith ourselves.

From then oa we were nearly always under fire while bringiog ammunition up, but I was lucky enough to come through without a eoratch, though I twice had my horseß hit.

That day I saw the famous tanks waddling their weird way into action. They are like—well like nothing od this earth. But I’m jolly glad I didn’t first see them after a ohampagne supper or else I’d be running now.