TO THE DEATH.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1735, 27 September 1917, Page 4

TO THE DEATH.

A TALE OF HEROISM. BRITISH DEFENCE AT NIEUPOKT. In-a message to the Daily Chronicle, Mr Philip Gibbs says:— The Germans have claimed a victory near Ldinbartzydo, and it is true that Jjy great gnu-lire they have driven us from our defences in a wedge-shaped tract of sand dunes between the sea and the Yser Canal. This reverse of ours is not a great defeat. It is only a tragic episode of human suffering such as one must expect in war. But what is great—great in spiritual value and heroic memory- —is the way in which our men fought against overwhelming odds and under annihilating lire, and did not. try to escape nor talk of surrender, but held this ground until there was no ground, but only a zone of bloody wreckage, and still fought until most of them were dead or'disabled. The men who did that were the King’s Royal Rifles and Northampton*. _ LADS FROM LONDON. Among the King's Royal Rilles there were many London lads from the old city which we used to think over-civilised and soft. Well, it was men like that who have shed I heir blood upon the sand dunes, so that this tract by the sea is consecrated by one of the most noble and most tragic episodes in the history of this war. It began suddenly early on the morning of July 10th,.when the enemy concentrated a great power of artillery on our trenches and breastworks in the sands of the east side of the Yser Canal, north of Nieuport, with their left on the seashore. It was on this seashore, when a high wind ruffled the waters on the morning of July 10th, that the enemy began his attack with a deadly lire. His position was in a network of trenches, tunnels, concrete emplacements, and breastworks of thick sandbag walls built down from the coast to the south of Lombartzyde. Facing him were other trenches and breastworks which we had recently taken over from the French. Behind them was the Yser Canal, with pontoon bridges crossing to Nieuport-les-Bains. Without these bridges there was no way back or round for the men holding the lines in (he dunes. The enemy began early in the morning by putting a barrage down on our front line system of defences from a large number of batteries of heavy howitzers. COPYING BRITISH METHODS. Most of his shells were at least as large as s.o’s, and for one long hour they swept up and down our front, smashing breastworks and emplacements, and Hinging up storms of sand. After that hour the enemy altered his line of tire. There was a live minutes’ pause, live minutes of breathing space for men still left alive among many dead, and then the wall of shells crossed the canal and stayed there for another hour, churning up the sand with a tornado of steel.

The guns then drifted to the front line again, and for another hour continued their work of destruction, pausing for one of those short silences which gave some hope that the bombardment had ceased. If had not ceased. It travelled again to the support line, and stayed smashing there for (50 miuules, then across the canal again, thou back all over

again. Two shells came into his battalion headquarters, killing and wounding some of the officers and men crowded in this sandbag shelter and dug-out in the dunes. He took the survivors into a tunnel bored by the miners along the seashore. and here for a lime they were able tro carry on. HEROIC EPISODES.

There arc many details of this action which may never be known. No man saw it J'i'oni other ground, and those who were across that bank of the Yser could see very little beyond their own neighbourhood of bursting shells. But a sergeant of the fsorthants who had an astounding escape saw the first three waves of German marines advance with bombing parlies. That was shortly after seven o’clock in the evening. They were in heavy numbers againsl a few scattered groups of English soldiers still left alive after

a day of agony and blood. They ettme forward bombing in a crescent formation, one horn of the crescent trying to work round behind the Hank of the rilles on the seashore as the other' fried to oulllank the Nortlumts on the right. A party of machijie-gunner* crept along the edge of the sands, taking advantage of the low tide, and enHladcd'the support lino, now a more mash of sand, in which some wounded men held out, and swept them with bullets. Another party of the iparines made straight for the tunnel, which was now the battalion headquarters of the Sixtieth, and poured liquid tire down it. Then they passed on, hut, as if uncertain of having completed their work, came hack after a time and bombed it. Even then there was at least one man not killed in that tunnel. He stayed there among the dead till night, and then crept out and' swam across the canal. Two platoons of riflemen fought to the last, refusing to surrender. One little group of five lay behind a bank of sand and tired with rifles and bombs until they were destroyed.