UNDER FIRE AT FRONT

Hokitika Guardian, 19 April 1930, Page 3

UNDER FIRE AT FRONT

MR RAMSAY MACDONALD,

TRENCH RAID NEAR YPRES

How Mr Ramsay MacDonald, now Prime Minister of Britain, jumped into a battle near Yprcs. and how General Botha, afterward Prime Minister of South Africa, jumped away from .sudden death at the hands of General “Jack” Seely, are two of the thrilling stories that fill General Seely’s hook, “Adventure,’’ recently published. General Seely was Secretary bn War, after Lord Haldane, until a few months before the war begaln. He. was in the retreat from Moiis. He re-took and held a ridge that helped to save Amiens in 1918.

One night, at St. Omar, then General Headquarters, General French told General Seely that “some idiot had arrested Mr II am say MacDonald at Dunkirk, and he sent General Seely to Dunkirk to release the future Prime Minister and express regrets. General Seely then escorted Mr Ramsay MacDonald to a hospital, tun by the Quakers, between .Ypres and Dixmude. They drove along the Yser Canal road from Ypres toward Dixmude, and suddenly came under severe rifle and machine-gun fire. General Seely writes: — “The (bonnet, windscreen and mudguards were hit, but the car kept going, and by groat good fortune neither of us wa.s touched. ... At

that moment. a number of French seventy-fives opened a tremendous rapid 'fire on the German trenches. Simultaneously the French infantry rose and ran forward. “Everyone hates being left alone in a fight, so I shouted to Ramsay .MacDonald to follow me, ran across the -bridge with him, and jumped breathlessly - into a support full of' French ..soldiers. . . . The ■French occupied the German trench-

es, killing and. capturing .many of.,the enemy, while .Ramsay, MacDonald and I were sitting in tlie support trench.!’ It was during . the South African war that General Seely nearly shot General Botha.,.lt was one' of, The many occasions, when, the Boers Tve-re “surrounded.”:

General Seely, with a small ~- out post, was lying at "night, on top,.of ;

hill distinguished by a solitary tree Suddenly a mist bleared a little am he saw a man Piv a horse • just'”'Dr front of him, advancing. A corporal was so excited that he shouted. “Shoot, sir!” and as the .horseman turned and galloped away Seely, who had snatched a rifle, fired, reloaded, and fired again. Both shots miss© The general comments:“I make’ this one confident ••lain 1.0 distinction—that 1 made the luck iest. bad shot for the British Empire that any man has made!” When the war was over General ;Botha, dining with General Seely at the House of Commons, mentioned the incident, and when General r>eol\ told him that he fired the shots Botha grasped Seely’s hand and said, I'Oitune saved me; now We shall do much together.”