BULLECOURT RUINS WON

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 29 May 1917, Page 7

BULLECOURT RUINS WON

ENEMY'S TERRIBLE LOSSES.

WORK OF AUSTRALIANS,

LONDON, May Id

The correspondent of the Morning Post says the enemy is still fighting hard for the lost Hindenburg trenches. The Third Prussian Guards made two counter-attacks this morning, but again failed. The Germans marched into the smoke, and when the guns lifted they found themselves in the terrible embrace of our curtain of fire, which rent the earth about them. The Australians welcomed the intruders warmly, bombing them with great accuracy. Many new corpses overlie the victims of the previous futile efforts. A picked division suffered severely in repeated struggles for a few craters. The history of the recent fighting, the correspondent adds, is unpleasant reading for the German Emperor, who boasted recently of his ‘ ‘invincible Guards." The enemy does not slacken his efforts to destroy Lens ,which is empty and desolute, and slowly vanishing into ruins. Describing the attack on Saturday, which resulted in the capture of the ruins of Bullecourt, the correspondent says it has been slow and weary work, with all the grim horrors of war. Our men toiled and fought in Sunday’s oppressive heat, and continued throughout the night. There was 'not a breath of fresh air—not a moment’s peace in this unwholesome dust-heap of unseen dangers and little glory. The battle was merely a dogged tussle for a portion of a stable and a few feet of trench. “A FEW DAYS’ GRACE.’’ The sun and the shells beat down unceasingly on the rubble heap which was once Bullecourt There was no shade or refuge save the cellars. The British bombers pushed forward in a tangle of debris in the village streets, stepping over the bodies of the foe. Many Prussian Guardsmen have fallen at Bui lecourt. They are fine, well-knit men, and good, courageous fighters—as the British and Australians willingly testify. Their stubborn resistance makes our triumph greater. Yet the stubborn Prussians admit that they have no liking for such fighting. Prisoners said they had merely been flung forward to furnish a few days’ grace for the trench-diggers in the rear. Prussian Guardsmen carpet the earth around the upper fringe of Bullecourt. Their bodies chok e the ditches and link up the village with the Hindenburg lines. By successive piles of dead yon, can trnce each phase of the fruitless counter-attacks. Mutilated bodies lie

thick where the barrage first caught the infantry in waves. More dead lie within the range of the machine-guns, and the final remnants of the counterattacks lie in small groups in the village ruins. These were slain by our bombers. In addition to massed attacks there were many bombing sullies from the Hindonburg trenches west and north of the village. The Australians on the eastern side kept the enemy quiet. Elsewhere the enemy worried our men night, and day with groat persistence and daring wherever opportunity for bombers offered. The thirst of the men was almost unendurable at Bullocouit.

ATTACK FROM NORTH AND SOUTH. The correspondent of the Paris Journal saps the assault was launched four o’clock on Saturday morning. The English attacked the north-cast and the Australians the south-east. It was a daring and perilous manoeuvre, the attackers risking shooting each other in the fury of the struggle and the uncertain light. The English met with desperate resistance, the Germans bring

ing out flying machinc-gun sections, which temporarily broke the force of the first waves. The assault was resumed, and one by one the advanced posts were enveloped and reduced. The enemy fought with the fury of despair. The melee was long and murderous, proof of which wms provided by the fact that every German in. this sector died on the spot. South-westward the “Australian man hunters,” as they call themselves, attacked with hand grenades. Advancing with great, kangaroo-like bounds, they smashed magnificently through the front line of machine gunners, and, running to the communication trenches, drove the enemy from the innermost recesses. The assault was so swift and spirited that almost the first rush reached the open space where there -were two sunken roadways leading to the village. There they met an entire German company emerging from a communication trench, where they had been massed for a counter-attack. There was a fresh, terrifying cloud burst of grenades, and 80 men lay dead. The remainder —ls B—surrendered without striking a blow. The Anzac onrush was the decisive point of the attack. At eight o’clock the entire village was in the hands of the British, who, once in possession of the r’uincd houses and redoubts, extended their gains to the first plateau, and established themselves along an arc fronting the second Hindenburg lino at a distance of 110 yards from the enemy. Two feeble counter-attacks at night demonstrated the extreme exhaustion of the enemy.

Mr. Percival Phillips describes the ruins of Bullecourt village as a char-nel-house, where Germans lie dead in heaps, where corpses are pulverised, and where a life passes every second.