LA BASSE VILLE FIGHT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1735, 27 September 1917, Page 3

LA BASSE VILLE FIGHT.

WORK OF NEW ZEALANDERS. FIFTY MINUTES’ GRIM EFFORT. The work of the New Zealanders in the great British advance at Ypres, which began on July 31st, was to form the southern flank of the advancing line. Correspondents at British headquarters state that they had only a very slight advance to make to keep step with the rest of the line, and they did it punctually. At some points there was sharp fighting, as at La Basse Ville, which the New Zealanders found honeycombed with cellar's and dug-outs full of Germans, with the usual machine-gun defences. After the place was captured, the enemy counter-attacked three times.in the course of the day. Once he gained a foothold, only to be immediately thrown out, and the other attacks were broken by our guns and the New Zealand rifles. The enemy casualties hero were very heavy, and the dug-outs simply full of German dead. In the Basse Ville area the fields are divided by hedges, and through those hedges the Germans had strung barbed-wire, besides digging machine-gun pits or using shellholes concealed with wire-netting. In spite of wire and machine-guns, the New Zealanders cleaned out the whole 'region, and one battalion which got home with its bayonets afterwards buried over 100 German dead among the hedges and shellholes. Below here the Australians had a point of local importance to take in a ruined windmill on a slight but commanding knoll. It was taken by them, retaken in a counter-attack, taken again, and remains in their hands. The whole of this southern part of the attack, while the advance was not of any great depth, was extremely cleanly and thoroughly executed, and with casualties which were very gratifyingly slight. Another despatch stated that the Now Zealanders found stout foes at La Basse Ville. The ruins had been taken before the battle, but a strong counter-attack had brought them again within the enemy lines. The New Zealanders drove into the village on the first wave of the battle, and found it full of good German troops. The Germans had many machine-guns in strong positions, and even Avhen the attackers sAvarmcd in among them the gunners and bombers tried to hold their ground. There were 50 minutes of grim effort by the Ncav Zealanders before La Basse Ville Avas Avholly theirs, and before the remnants of the garrison Avhich had escaped Averc retreating in the direction of Warncton. As at Ilollebeke, collars full of Germans who Avould not come out Averc blown in, and the Ncav Zealanders sent Avord back after the capture that they could not use these underground refuges at the moment because they were filled Avith bodies. Nothing is left of La Basse Ville. The German defences beyond it, too, Avere demolished by our artillery.