THE BIG PUSH.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 29 December 1916, Page 3

THE BIG PUSH.

AN AUSTRALIAN'S EXPERIENCE.

"I have been right through the thick of the Big Push on the Somme," writes Driver R. Mitchell to Mr. A. H. Miller, of Gilgandra, "and sensational experiences have not been few. Shells have time after time lobbed near enough for me to have a 'duck' like the rest. We were supplied with steel •helmets when on the Somme. On one occasion IB of our waggons were down in a valley adjacent to a battery of our 9.2 howitzers. 'Fritz' had evidently located us, and commenced dropping some of his high explosive big shells quite handy.' Everyone rushed to the bomb-proof dugouts. A chaplain was reading the burial service over a corpse when the first shell dropped. He scratched his head —had a look round, and saw everyone scurrying for shelter. No 2 shell decided him. He dived for cover, too. We could not leave our waggons and horses, so the officer in charge of the convoy gave instructions to gallop out. We put up a record gallop, which soon landed us out of this particular danger zone. "The shell fire was hellish, and it made the Huns quake. 1 had a yarn , with one of the many prisoners. He j spoke English fluently. He said the Allies did not know what it was to be ' bombarded; one -had to be in the Ge, ! ma n lines to. fully appreciate it. Th< | hundreds of guns we had at work • made a noise for hours at a stretch that made one's head rattle. "The heaviest thunderstorm I ever experienced sounded like a cracker compared with a cannon. The results

of German shell-fire were as nothing compared to the effects of the Allies'

fire in the 'Big Push.' I have seen village after village completely wiped off the face of the earth, not two bricks standing on each other: 'Fritz' reckons that our gas attacks are terrible. Understand, our gas is more deadly than the enemy's. What a creeping, crying, cringing cur he is; ho has quite forgotten the murdering, raping operations carried on by him.at the commencement of the war, against unarmed old men, women and. children. However, he never thought that we would be in a position to retaliate with his own coin, and 'I may state, with his own ammunition and guns, in lots of instances, as we captured a lot of his stuff, and I think he got verv little of ours."

In a postcard written about five days later, Driver Mitchell stated he was having a spell of four or five days in hospital through injuries received through his waggon falling down a shell-hole whilst driving along the .voad at night-time.