THE GERMAN SNIPERS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 96, 15 October 1915, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE GERMAN SNIPERS.

MAN-STALKING WITH A RIFLE. In each dispatch, in private letters and diaries, our officers and men deplore the sniper's depredations. Leaders are picked off, gallant lads struck down at their chum s side, with never a foe to be seen and apparently no war in progress at all. The whole countryside cracks here and there with mysterious death. That shot came from the window of a ruined cottage! Another from behind our lines where the slim sniper lay hid all night, clothed in khaki from our own dead. Shots appear to come from the wounded far out on the stricken field; from leafy trees, and windmills and ruined barns. It is horribly perplexing. THE PRUSSIAN'S TEACHER. Now it's 6afe to say that 6niping was not part of the Prussian's training for war. It's too loose a plan, too individual, this free-lance roaming with a gun and little else beyond a fine 6tore of ready wit and uncanny skill in disguise. But the German learned it from us. just as we learned it from the Boers —those splendid independent marksmen and born guerilla troops. And the German improved upon his instruction till he became a real terror, calling for counter-sniping on a large and deliberate scale. The old " woman" refugee who brought water to our foremost works turned out to be a Prussian non-com., who, before he died, gave up a book accounting for fifty British officers, cruelly picked off. Head-money 16 given for these, it seems, after official investigation of each claim. Day and night these picked shots are at work with extraordinary daring. Even machine-gun snipers have been found in our own lines, and that at enfilading centres whence in a few seconds these desperadoes work frightful havoc. They lie low in the maze of ditches. They let our advance sweep by, and then coolly kill our men from the rear.

The fact that they wear our uniforms and speak fluent—even slangey—English ("Got a fag about yer, matey?") makes it very difficult to detect these deadly pests, especially in the excitement of preparing for a new advance. Here is a typical instance. A casual crack as from a distant whip. A zip. putt—t—t! and one of our fellowj.fafls mortally injured. The 6niper shoots to kill, being an enthusiastic professional armed with a match rifle, tine glasses, and telescopic sights. THE GLEAM IN THE TWILIGHT.

Each sniping crack means a serious casualty, and the shots seem to come out of the sky. No flash is 6een, thanks to bright sun and smokeless powder. The day wears on: losses are suffered in grim silence, and dusk 6teals over a seamed and thunderous land. . . . " That tree!" murmurs the best shot in the regiment. . . Thought I saw a gleam that time amid the leaves." It's darker now, you see; rifle-flashes 6how faintly—if you know where to look for them. Another crack! Ay, there's a sniper in that lofty branch. "Out with him! "Nine hundred yards," our marksman murmurs, weighing the problem calmly. "Gimme them glasses, Joe." "Why, theres' a fella below him too, passin" up the cartridges. I'll take him first. Wait—he's behind. Now he shows! You take the flash in the tree, Tom." Two careful shots whip out. Two more —half a dozen—a whole volley! The snipers are sniped at last. The man high up in the leaves swings to and fro inert and dead, securely roped to hi 6 perch. His companion fell over in the very act of filling a new clip and dropping it into a bag which the marksman hauled up by a 6tring. Night-roaming &nipers fire upon duration and water parties. Upon trench postmen, too even doctors and stretcher-bearers are not safe. Death flies everywhere in this wildering maze to the dread music of great guns, near and far, of all calibres and kinds, from the trench mortar to the howitzer that throws a giant shell. The sniper is indeed the very eye of the siege warfare now in progress. To show head or limb above the parapet is fatal, or at any rate invites a wound. Keen watchers stand in enemy trenches with rifles fixed and sights aligned over ranges known to a yard. Our men tease these sharpshooters with dummies, and signal hit or miss with all the zeal of

Bisley recorders on an international dav.

THE INDIAN SNIPERS

The German sniper aimed specially at our officers, and that with such success that now our subalterns carry packs and rifles, so as to be indistinguishable from the private soldier. In our own lines counter-sniping has been brought to an uncanny pitch of perfection, especially by the Indian marksmen—Pathans and Sikhs and Garhwalis, who can hit a 6-in. German loophole at 200 yards five times out of six. lurbanned figures stand like statues- in sinister patience, to be rewarded sooner or later by an incautious victim. Some regiments make it a point of honour to repay each sniper casualty with at least three against the enemy. Here our officers take a hand, for the sword is an outworn weapon, and the rifle, when all is said the king of the whole armament. Trench sniping is confined to selected shots; an able and watchful man can do great damage in the long summer's day. But the wandering free-lance—the daring sniper at large is much more to be reared. He has no regard whatever tor his own safety, and quite alone will turn an attic in a ruined cottage into a tort, with water, provisions and ammunition for a week—perhaps also a wire to a senior officer, that he may act as spy as well as sniper and add valuable military information to wholesale killing, undiscovered and unsuspected by our men. THE MYSTERY OF IT.

It is the mystery which is found so demoralising—faint cracks from nowhere, and chums dropping in the twilight of a village street commonly thought quite secure. Or sudden death !? u °? rrow dit «h at dusk when the star-shells soar and light the rugged spaces with ghastly radiance. One's pal behind falls headlong suddenly \Yho can have shot him? No one in front—someone behind there, one of those cursed snipers who follow persistent as flies upon our flood! We tear off our friend's pack—it's dark down here now, and eager hands touch a dreadful patch at last, all warm and wet and sticky. We shudder instinctively to a wave of wild unreasoning fear. Will our turn come next moment? And a sudden roar of guns gives a dreadful reply. So the successful sniper is a demoralising influence. At any cost he must be located and shot down—no easy matter, seeing that all German cunning goes to this work, all German genius; for deceit and treacherous dealing. The English captain of a Pathan regiment was 6orely troubled in this way, and bade his Moslem sergeant keep a sharp look-out. ''Sir," said the sepoy at length, "the foe is there."

"Where? I see nothing but a hay6tack."

"In that hay." To reach it unsuspected, the officer made a detour of three miles, then crawled to the base of the stack through long grass, and remained motionless as his Pathans, a party of whom had followed close behind. Crack! A faint explosive lash, a barely perceptible movement in the apparently solid wall of hay. Swiftly, though without a sound, the officer rose and put a magazine pistol at the tell-tale place. When he'd emptied it his men rushed up and tore away the nay, revealing a regular chamber, loop, holed and aired, with a store of water, provisions, and 900 rounds of ball cartridge.

In this snug hiding-place a young German officer sat collapsed with six bullet holes in his head. "It's high time," the avenger 6aid, recalling days of inexplicable loss and grave anxiety. THE GREATEST GAME. So to snipe the sniper is now the greatest game in the British lines, onecalling for peculiar gifts of mind as well as trained marksmanship. "I cleared out a whole nest," an Essex man reported. "Mind you, it's a cold-blooded, far from pleasant job, this long-distance shooting, but our whole safety and comfort depend on it. First of all I spotted a Bavarian officer at 950 yards by means of the telescopic sight and my observer. His men were filling sandbags and building a regular sniper's paradise for our benefit. '• Well, I killed him. I killed the two men who ran out to haul his body in, and I brought down a fourth fellow who was making loopholes in the parapet. Then we had peace. We could strength our legs and lift our heads for a bit—to say nothing of starting a snip ing campaign of our own that inspired real respect. We must be top dog with these Germans. That's why we trot out our crack shots and 6how the foe fresh sniping feats each day."—W. G Fitz-Gerald.