FOUR LINES AT GRIPS.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 July 1917, Page 1

FOUR LINES AT GRIPS.

BRITISH CHECK IN FORTRESS WOOD. (From W. Beach Thomas.) France, May 4 As the moonlight gave place to the misty gloom before dawn British soldiers on a’front of some fifteen miles broke through, with many intentional gaps, especially towards the centre, against tlie German lines. , The impression we had gathered, looking day after day from the Vimy Ridge, that a continual liow of German reinforcements have been- moving over-the plain was no illusion. If a dozen or‘so of the enemy’s divisions have, been knocked out, as many well bolstered with.youug recruits of next year's class have flowed in, and their orders were, as it seems, to fight to the death and to recapture the lost positions. Hence a terrible battle was engaged this morning by British troops from many parts of the Empire.

, Some attacked one of the “Switch” lines south of Lens, where factory chimneys, to my amazement, were still pouring out smoke ; some strove to re-enter Oppy,'to speak of the place J know best by sight. Its wood had been quite- “ combed out ” by our shells, which had shattered the palisades in and under the trees, and the whole of the village nestling under the woods has become dust and ashes during the last two days. But in spite of all some wire was uncut and machine guns were left in action. The bitter .struggle was resumed over the reeking marshes and slopes along the valley of tlio Scarpe : and away to the south our troops, emerg-ing-from the old German defences, bombed along the loose end of the Hindenburg Line, where each back trench has a tunnel under it : while south again other soldiers frontally attacked with a fury that at once won its aim anil this part of the main Hindenburg Line, passing over bodies of enemies killed days ago when retreating over their own wire. TERRIFIC lIEFKXC'B. Certain news of the 1 course of this far-flung battle, whose tumult, nevertheless, can be vaguely seen from end to end at various points on the hills we have lately captured, cannot be given on the day of the battle. Airmen dived low to penetrate the haze, lights and rockets and stars shot up their towering messages from \ the midst of the German curtain fire, which was heavy ; but whole volumes of their messages added to the reports of observers in balloons or on vantage-spots give a slender tale when the enemy contests ground as to-day and pours in his men to the counter-attack.

To reach a place is nothing, to hold it is everything. Neither wounded nor prisoners know anything of , the issue. One man says a wood was fair alive with German guns. Another says, “ I did not know -which were onr shells and which*were German” ■ another said, “ The trouble was there were no regular trenches.” Yet another from the valley of the Scarpe said: “I could scarce hear the guns for the machine guns. There must have been hundreds.” And still another: “Weren’t the stretcherbearers just fine P ” T]ie only tiling all agreed upon was the toughness of the fighting and the intensity of the artillery. About this iio observer peeded information. The impression was that our artillery was fighting against the earth itself and winning. Its exploding shells tossed dost and rubble in a solid*" screen hundreds of feet high, and men could scarcely hear their own telephones for the noise and distraction.