"A COMPLETE ROTTER."

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 13 November 1916, Page 6

"A COMPLETE ROTTER."

ANZAC VIEWS OF THE BOCHE. Among the officers who have just arrived in* England from the Somme battlefield. a lieutenant-colonel, whose left arm was carried in a sling, as a result of shrapnel wounds, paid a notable tribute to the Australian troops at Pozicres. - “They are too good to stand in any need of recommendation ,and as a matter of fact I have met some of them whose modesty has been sorely tried by the adulation lavished upon the Anzacs. “There is a singular uniformity about their opinion of the Boche —that is, about all of them I have talked with. They all have a strong contempt for the Hun. They all say his machine may be efficient, but the individual Boche is a complete rotter. As a man, and in man-to-man fighting* they hold the Boche to be vastly inferior to and even less civilised'than the Turk, though he has such a magnificent 'organisation behind him.” Here are a few notes of the remarks •f wounded Australians who have just landed at Southampton from the fighting line in France: — A DINGO EVERY TIME. Lance-Corporal E , Australian Infantry: “I was in the first landing at Gallipoli and in the taking of the Pozieres village. The Somme show is much hotter stuff than Gallipoli. There ! is no rest, and mighty little decent cover. As soon as you dig the earth falls in. But the Boche is not a good fighter. No, when it comes to close work, and you can get right up against him, ho is a dingo every time, is your Prussian Guardsman. It’s hands up and “Oh kamerade!” every time. My mate and I bagged 17 and an officer in one dug-out. Our officers thought the Boche had all cleared out, but I noticed a dug-out with two entrances, and sent ray mate to one while I went in at the other. Directly we got in we saw there was a crowd inside, and up went their hands like lightning, without any invitation. Their officer handed me his revolver and they went out as quiet as lambs. “ ‘Glad to be a prisoner.?’ I said to the officer. ‘No/ he says, ‘I like to go on fighting.’ But'he’d got a mighty queer way of showing it, I thought, for an officer, too.” \