GERMAN SNIPERS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 211, 22 September 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

GERMAN SNIPERS.

FOUGHT TO THE BITTER END. The details of the captures or surrenders all along certain parts of the British front are incredible (says Beach Thomas in the "Daily Mail.") A soldier or two in the Mametz fighting wheedled over twenty Bodies out of one dug-out, and I am told that seventy were captured in another corridor of continuous dug-outs. Personally 1 came upon perhaps the strangest scene of all while pushing up into Montauban to watch the further progress of our attack through the wood that runs eastwards of the village . When our men charged down the trenches they left behind them one deep and isolated dug-out containing several bolt-holes. In tlrs a handful of German snipers remained hidden, and as soon as the charge passed they began sniping in all directions. They lit eight men before the fire was precise! v localised. Then a small group of our soldiers took it on themselves to deal with this snipers' nest. Fust the inmates refused to surrender, and as all cries if '*<Kamerad" and ether : dioms were altogether ineffective, bombs , were thrown down the stairways. But the ;men hid in niches, and very soon shots were again fired as before this drastic treatment. So strong measures became necessary. The next step was to dig a holo in "the top, into which a strong charge of amine! was inserted, and detonated, with apparently satisfactory results.