FEROCIOUS STRUGGLF.

Hokitika Guardian, 9 November 1918, Page 4

FEROCIOUS STRUGGLF.

awful fight*”] for no yon The recapture of Noyon by the French was characterised by most furious fighting. In narrating the operations the special correspondent of the “Morning Post” says the struggle can only be described as awful? He writes:— The work of storming the city was entrusted to one of the most famous divisions of the French Army, whose three flags are adorned with the Cross of the Legion of Honour. This division fought in 1915 in Champagne, figured no fewer than eight times, and everywhere with added glory, in the tremendous struggles tor Verdun, was all through the battleofthe Somme, and the 12 months’ long battle which tore the Chemin des Dames out of German hands. It was this incomparable division which started at nightfall to reduce the outlying suburbs of the city, the plan being, first, to capture the suburbs and then to surround Noyon itself. With the Zouaves on each wing and African troops in the centre, the division passed the night in position along the railway just on the outskirts of the city. When day broke, after a terrific bombardment lasting half an hour, the eager French troops dashed forward at° half-past five o’clock to the assault. The Germans had constructed a large number of bastions filled with machine-guns and small cannon, and many of these were still intact, so that it was not till half an hour later that the Zouaves were able to penetrate the streets of the outlying suburbs. The struggle which ensued was perhaps the fiercest the war has seen. The Germans had received orders to fight to the last man, and they obeyed devotedly. They fought behind each stone and troni each doorway and window. No quarter was asked and none given on either side. Most of the fighting was with the bayonet and rifle butt, and the men continued j to struggle ferociously alter being brought down with the bayonet, j until they were overcome with the heavier end of the rifle. Where j there was no room to use the : bayonet the antagonists threw away . their rifles and fought with bare hands, their feet, and their teeth. I Every house was the scene of a furious struggle, where men wrestled in pools ot their own blood and yielded only when death compelled them. The few prisoners who were secured went to the rear, still trembling in every limb from the frightful ordeal they had passed through. All agreed in describing the struggle as simply infernal in its mad ferocity. In less than a quarter of an hour the Zouaves had the upper hand and the suburbs were ours. By a series of simultaneous assaults the city was completely surrounded, and all that remained was to gather up the prisoners remaining in the captured town.

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