OUR ARTILLERY AT THE GALLOP

Hokitika Guardian, 25 August 1917, Page 4

OUR ARTILLERY AT THE GALLOP

ARMY QF G$ As" ?ACES.

100 HUN GUNS- SMASHED

(From W. Beach Thomas.)

War HbaoQCAuter 3 ?. France, June 20,

A brigadier, tired but indefatigable, sat,under an elm tree with maps aud papers. A little farther on. 'past a. wood still delicately scented with German gas from yesterday’s shelling, a battalion commander lay in a sort of Robin Hood bower. Farther on again, in a favourite playground of the enemy’s shells, the sergeant, with his tunic off, proudly polished one of two machine guns he had taken in Wytschaete, and there just beyond was the wood itself where the chief battle was fought. The men oi this ; company and that sat or lay with their boots off talking of the miraculous battle of the day before. At all these points and others I beard the human side of the battle. The whole of the Second Army is gay with the certainty that it ha s won the most thorough, the most scientific, and the least costly battle of the whole war. Every single unit reached its objective pat to the moment fixed on the time-table ; water and food went forward ; the fighters calmly as in rest billets j taken trenches were wired and strong posts marie at proper points within an hour. The Anzacs beat all records in digging successive linos of trenches six feet deep during tt e morning of the attack. At the same hour our guns, even heavy guns, were rattling forward amid cheers over lines licdd by the Germans a few hours earlier. The battalion commander’s eyes shone with satisfaction as he recalled this soCne and I think most of the infantry speak with more zeal and zest of the artillery performance than of their own. GLOO.MV ['RUSSIANS. We had losses, losses that, v ill be pei'sonally felt by the nation as well as by families, but every soldier in the fighting felt that the cost was miraculously light and the fi ain heavv, Even a stiff-necked Prussian officer said :< “ We are done.”

I spent most of the morning with the South Irish, who took Wytschaete Wood and Village. They fought side by side with the Ulsters. An officer whose loss they regretted was taken away from the battle in an Ulster ambulance, and the man who told me of the incident quite clearly felt it to be a sort of sign or symbol of a sacrifice that would soon make all things right in Ireland.

Now for the battle itself and its human incidents, especially at its centre opposite Wytschaete. Nearest to our line was the Petit Bois salient, held by a full company of Germans. Probably well over a hundred were in garrison at the time, and here exploded one of the most thorough of mines. The,,whole of the place quite vanished, and it is thought that two badly wounded men are the only survivors. The explosion broke timbers even in our own dug-outs, and rubble rattled on the tin hats of some of our soldiers. The last clod had not fallen before our men were over the top, and one of the few casualties was a stuff officer who had begged and prayed to be allowed to go bock to his battalion for this fight. The men went over with competitive zeal and met no very terrible opposition till they penetrated Wytschaete Wood, wbi,h is half a mile square. Among the wired trunks in the centre was a machine gun and a sniper’s fortress, and up a tree, as was afterwards learnt, was a German N.C.0., signalling back to his guns. The mines and the barrage had increased the natural darkness of the hour by filling the place with smoke. These Irishmen couhl hear the bullets snipping and snapping this way and that, even from hebind. One machine'gtin group well behind our line began to send up continued S.O.S. signals by moans of red and white stars. CIRCULAR FORTRESS. A splendid fighting sergeant, three times wounded ip earlier battles and wearing several distinguished medals, told mo that he himself wondered when he saw their signals if he had not quite lost direction, but our own barrage was so regular that it helped to give a line, and the sergeant’s men. with the help of native wit and dash, found the danger spot encircled* They, fired salvoes of rifle grenades and killed almost, all the garrison, who fought heroically. It was one of the very few of good fighting by the enemy. The whole.of the Wytscha6te had been organised by the enemy as a circular fortress facing all ways, but in the whole of it only two or three i§9latad groups of snipers and machine gunners gave trouble.

•A- . *¥*£*'* %|This first attack of the morning reached the desired point pat to. the moment in spite of such delays. A little later other battalions went on to conquer more lauds. These, men had the most amazing experience of the. war. As a company officer, 1 well known outside military affairs, saidj “We did nothing. My men did uot • firo a shot.” When they reached their bourne they sat down and ■watched patrols, some tanks, and some corps cavalry go forward into ■ the-German land. All resistance was knocked out. of the enemy for the day. Later- “ I have heard that the Irish were , great fighters,” said a German officer, “ but I never expected to see anyone advauce like that.” And while the 1 Germans ran the Irish made new hymns of victory, one of which contains a pretty compliment to. the artillery. It tuds, if I remember right, thus :

And if perchance we d° advance to Wytschaete and Messines, They’ll know the. gups that strafed the Huns were wearing o’ the green.

The battlefield is sprinkled with shrapnel bullets as thick as flint stones over- a Hertfordshire stubble ' field. You could pick up hundreds in a few minutes. It is also dotted with, bigger trophies. As far as I know we have not taken a large number of German unwounded guns, but . fragments of guns are one of the commonest features of the east side of the Messines Eidge. Never in the history of war has artillery so hammered artillery. Whole batteries were knocked out by direct hits, and others, in which several had been already lost., were dragged off at full speed. As I have said, the German had little fight, left in him, but there were individual exceptions. The man who climbed a tree m Wytschaete Wood and continued to signal to his gnns till late in the battle was tbe best of all, and several snipers held out till our men were within a, yard or two. One of them used a very spacious Red Cross dressing station in ft corner of Wytschaete as his base, but this is the one only Huunish incident I have heard of except some dubious rumours about poisoned wells in Messines. GUNNERS CLEAVE THE WAY'.

One of the German gunners was chained to his gun, but the marvel of the whole action is that we suffered hardly at all from guu fire. In some places even the German artillery fire was worse before the battle than after it, though certain spots were heavily “crumped” (with big shells). In short, our gunners gave our infantry the whole German front, and with the exception of certain blind places provided them with a walk-over. The quick-courage of our men took this fortune at. the flood. Our gunners blotted oat. villages, woods, dug-outs, mine shafts, and trenches, and they smothered the enemy’s gnus so that the crews could not fire even if the ammunition and the gun were not knocked out. The complicated arrangement of barrages was as skilful a piece of mathematical warfare as. ever was designed and carried through accord ing to a formula. Not least the gallop forward of tho field guns and tho persistent crawl of the heavies during the day of tho fight was a striking example of sturdy faith justified in its own courage, And what, of the l’osults of the battle ? The fighting seems to be I ovex*, except for little affairs. These were encountered near Battle Wood, in the Ypres neighborhood, and this morning Australians in the south took a little bit of trench that had held firm. We have relieved Ypres, which ceases to be a salient j we have taken Messines Eidge, which overlooked us as Vi my Eidge did ; and last, but not least, we have once again, this time flagrantly, beaten the German. Though there is little fighting, the prisoners increase, and the total should reach at least 6,000. The enemy must haye lost many killed and a hundred or so of guns must be knocked ont.