How Pieter's Hill was Won.

Manawatu Herald, 8 March 1900, Page 3

How Pieter's Hill was Won.

Details have come to hand of the successful assault of Pieter's Hill by the British during the advance on Ladysmith. Boulders sheltered the Boer trenches at the nek leading to the hill. W>To dislodge the enemy, Sir Redvers '^Pfiler used ninety-five guns. i "Lyddite shells swept the entire range, and the havoc which they wrought was terrible. Wounded Boers who fell into the hands of the British were yellow from the fumes of the explosive. The British infantry, advancing in three simultaneous assaults, felt the effect of the fumes when they got at close quarters with the enemy. . Lieutenant-Colonel Kitchener, of the Second Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment, had command of the brigade of Major-General Wynne, who had been wounded earlier in the week, and this force bore the brent of the engagement. The Second Battalion of the Royal Lancaster Regiment, the First Battalion of the South Lancashire Regiment accompanying them, led the assault. The Boers doggedly stuck to their trenches in the nek until they were bayoneted. On the enemy's flanks the onslaught of the British was irresistible, and the Boers were for the most par; paralysed, though some continued to fiie wildly.

Those of the enemy who persisted in firing were bayoneted where they stood. Afier reaching the summit of the hill the Royal Lancasters, in their enthusiasm, surmounted their bayonet s with their helmets. The Second Battalion of the Royal West Surrey Regiment on the left, and Major-General Barton's force on the right, completed the victory.

Of the Boers one hundred prisoners were secured, 'be majority of them being Hollanders, who said they were glad to be taken. The British buried a hundred Boers who had been killed during the engagement. On the British side seven officers were killed and twenty-five wounded, including an Australian, Lieutenant H. B. G. Macartney, of '.the Royal Fusiliers. Our casualties in men totalled 170. Women were in the Boer trenches until three hours before the British Charged. Two women were afterwards found, one, aged seventy, dead, and another aged sixty, dying. The latter declared that her husband had kept her in the trench because she was a good shot. Several children were found in the Boer trenches on Pieter's Hill, one of them a baby wrapped in a blanket.