Engineers’ War

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 305, 27 December 1939, Page 7

Engineers’ War

SAPPERS IN PRANCE LONDON, Dec. 5. The Royal Engineers are doing a bigger job of work than any of the King’s soldiers now on French soil, writes a correspondent from the Western Front. With enthusiastic engineer officers I waded knee-deep in the sodden clay of a potato field in order to see how their material was being used. They showed me strong-points, sec-tion-x>o3ts, trenches, dugouts, billets, roads, draining systems, lighting arrangements, and transport lines—all of which could not have been brought into being without these engineers, who have been slaving day and night for the past two months without a murmur. Concrete Pillboxes. Indeed, all were smiling to-day as they worked boring machines, whose wells will supply the Army with sweet water from the unpolluted depths below mud and clay, and mixed concrete for tho bewildering number of pillboxes they are erecting along tho front, support, and reserve lines. Each pillbox requires skilful factory layout. Gravel and sand must be mixed, trucked to the pillbox, hoisted up a staging of iron pipes, and emptied into tho great wooden framework within which iron rods skeleton the finished form, and large steel plates mark the firing apertures. Upon the excellence of these pillboxes depends far more than tho fate of the peasant lands in which they are situated, for if the Germans broke through here the whole campaign might well be theirs, and so all France. Trap-ditches for Tanks. Through water-logged fields I accompanied officers to watch machines excavating anti-tank ditches. As the clay was eaten away, gumbooted toilers rushed in with 2iron joists and steel mesh in order to make the ditch permanent. Excavators on caterpillar tracks moved forward, leaving a deep trap etched into tho endless potato field. The honours must go to the sappers, who are creating a whole series of works which will allow tho infantry j to hurl tho Germans back if ever they attempt to storm the British Army's position. In the meantime, they are making life for the troops tolerable and possible bj' building baths. The whole British sector should fairly bristle with pillboxes before spring. They are being built in great groups. Like true craftsmen, the engineers take a genuine prido in their work, and are almost reluctant to halt for the mid-day meal of stew and tea, which is brought up in vacuum containers from the kitchens in the reserve lines.