GAS ATTACK THAT FAILED.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 169, 28 April 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

GAS ATTACK THAT FAILED.

SYDNEY DOCTOR'S THRILLING EXPERIENCE.

Lieutenant Eustace T. Pinhey, of the Royal Aimy Medical Corps, somewhere in Fraa e, who before going on active service was on the staff of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, writing to a friend, gives a graphic account of a German gas attack on the British lines.

" I was in a gas attack," he says, "which played with a, lot of us, in spite of without which we should have been dead in ten minutes. For five hours, begininng at 5 in the .morning, we were in a filthy atmosphere of poison. "Sleeping on the floor of a dug-out, water dripping from the roof and streaming sides, I was awakened by coughing, and at once recognised chlorine. I'll never forget it. Putting on pants and boots quickly, I then raised the alarm, noticing as I ran along the bank of the canal the clouds ot gas as it slowly but surely drifted towards us. It was then a pale dawn, for the sun did not : risc till about 7.

"The crackle of rifle fire and machine-guns from the trenches was the only sound—the big guns hadn't started. I had my own helmet at iny bedside etery night, and left it when I ran out l.a!f-dressed, alongside the caudle, thinking I'd only he a minute awn'nrd tjien come back. However, there was not much time to think anyway. I net men, tearing along in their shirts and bare legs, looking for their helmets, and they begged me to hold my ■torch whilst they hunted for their satchels containing them. I stood it as long as I could, and, half-choked,'l got. back and pulled my own helmet on. I fe't bed. You could not separate the same men from their helmets now, and we're miles back from the firing line—at rest.

" Then all the big guns started to fire, and the Germans shelled every possible spot. I couldn't attempt to describe tlie inferno. Communication between batteries was cut early in the game — dug-outs wcfc blown i.i, and of course, men suffered sadly, and I wa<s wanted everywhere at once. The men fought their r.un.s like Briton l ;, and although it was the first gas attack there was no suggestion of a panic. We knew the Germans had hundreds of heavy m'.r.s

opposite to us, ami in spite of all they could do they were mowed down as fast as they came out of their trenches, and their attack failed, with heavy casualties on both sides —but it failed. There seemed no end to it, and 1 had no rest for days and nights. I'll say nothing, or very little, about hairbreadth escape-, but I've got the mud on me from high explosives as they hit tin l ground, and the pieces have whistled past to plunk into a tree or a house. In the time I speak of it is reckoned that 20,000 shells fell in the town."