LIFE FULL OF ADVENTURE.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 8 May 1917, Page 4

LIFE FULL OF ADVENTURE.

“FRITZ AFRAID OF TANKS.”

MELBOURNE, April 25,

“This is a most congenial life; 1 really love it,” writes Lieutenant Harrison to his relatives in St. Kilda, in describing the beginning of the great British advance. “It is full of adventure and uncertainties, but what’s that to one who does not regard life as everything?

“I would be satisfied to go under any time in some of our wild charges; one does not seem to mind a scrap when there is anything doing. One has no thought here whatsoever for his safety. Just go into it like a beast and do your damnedst. It’s glorious, and especially so now that we are tasteing the fruits of victory. We have Mr Fritz well beaten now, and well he knows it. Some little time ago he put up a notice board on his parapet, “When is your offensive going to begin?” It has begun, and I bet my bottom dollar that he wishes to God that it would end. He is getting a little of his own back now, and naturally he squeals. “I suppose you have read of the mysterious ‘tank’ the British have evolved. It is a wonderful engine of destruction, and you ought to see the Boche fleeing for his life from it. We fairly roar with laughter. The infantry just follow the infernal machine up. It demolishes everything in its way. Buildings it fairly eats up. Trees it just loves. Shell-holes and craters are nothing to it. It just plods along, breaking every obstruction in its path. It roils the barbed wire down climbs the parapet, and crawls over without the slightest trouble. Rifle lire, bombs, or machine-gun fire can’t hurt it. It just advances towards the machine-guns, crushes them, and shoots the gunners. Fritz surrenders on all sides.

“One prisoner exclaimed when he saw it closely, ‘Gott in Himmel, how can they expect us to fight against such monsters?’ These tanks carry machine-guns and light artillery inside, and the only thing to hurt them would be a direct hit from a big shell.

One of them tcok a village on its own,, and waited for the miany;y to jiome along. It just sat down, so to speak, in the middle of the street, and no one dared go near it. “Our brigade is different from the one which left Australia, but we have had very heavy casualties. Still, matters so long as the result is a glorious victory to our arms, and that would be an impossibility without a. big sacrifice of men and money.

“We are advancing, but trench life is a terror, and I sincerely trust that we will not have to settle down to it again. It is only a matter of a very short time now when we will have Fritz pushed back into open country, and then the cavalry will also be able to operate, and the fun will begin. We have been two months on end in the line, so have had a fair taste of war now, but in a few days we are being: relieved for a spell in England. Our leave is altogether too short, though —only ten days.”