HOW SPRINGBOKS FIGHT

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 160, 29 July 1916, Page 4

HOW SPRINGBOKS FIGHT

Like Raging Devils Convensations with some of the menbers of the first batches of Avounded from Ovillers, Bazentin, and Longueval, Avhere th e South Africans were in action, show that the storming of the second German line was characterised by exceptional fury. The men all kneAv that it was France's National Day. Some had been billeted with Frenchmen, with whom-they were on the chummiest tenms. As one officer said: They parly-A-ood like one o'clock. They rushed the treniches, yelling ''La Belle France!" "Vivant les Francais!" One of the Avounded officers aid that few of his men reached the line unAVOunded, but many who were hit struggled on with the rest Others turned over and over when they were hit, like boys doing cathenine wheels, but they went on advancing, and it was hard to check them.

'' There was never such a scrum/' went on this officer. "The men took no heed of the Boche bayonets. They were like raging devils. With their •'France for Ever!' they tackled the Boehes with bare hands. One section commander, like a terrier with a rat, grabbed a Boche by the slack of his pants and the collar of his coat and chucked him over a parapet yelling, •Fall in there!' "When the trench was finished the men cleaned out the dugouts with German bombs."