WAR NOTES

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 22 June 1917, Page 7

WAR NOTES

BEATING THE GERMANS. BATTLE BY TIME-TABLE. LEAST COSTLY OF THE WAR. LONDON, June 9. Describing the capture of the Messines Ridge, Mr. W. Beach Thomas, correspondent of the Daily Mail, says the enemy has massed troops, specially equipped with light machine-guns and bombs loaded with deadly gas. He had penetrated the hills, and his forts, tunnels, and caves cloaked a thousand guns behind the ridges, where he had held the master position for two and a-half years, practically daring us to attack him, and knowing that never in history had an army of equal strength presumed to attack an enemy ensconced in an indestructible fortress. Yet this we dared, and with a new civilian army. The German had the advantages of all the ridges, his trenches making a delta, miles deep, of innumerable channels, A 200 yards' advance meant crossing half-a dozen trenches and behind the ridges lay hidden more guns than the enemy had ever before collected.

The enemy dropped gas shells and high-velocity shells into the valley till the bombardment began, when, instead, up went his S.O.S. signals, rocket lights, and sky-high shrapnel, pursuing our airmen, who raced across the enemy lines, each showing a tiny light winking across the black sky. Our balloons went up in twos and threes, adding their quota to the nightmare by emitting curious red-fire signals, giving the impression that the balloons wcrp afire. Once I heard machineguns aloft, and tlien the tinkle of gas alarms, Below us inflammatory shells burnt red, twisting into fantastic shapes, like red dragons. Some of the some preferred a clear field. The Germans protected their guns by smoke screens. Soon the valley was filled to the brim with smoke and mist until- the explosive shcllfire was the only thing visible. The whole of the second army is gay with the certainty that it has won the most thorough, most scientific, and least costly battle of the whole war. Every single unit reached its objective pat to the moment fixed to time-table. Water and food were forwarded to the fighters as calmly as in billets. Captured trenches wore wired, and strong posts made at proper points within an hour. At the same hour guns, even the heaviest, were rattling forward amid cheers over the lines which had been held by tho Germans a few hours earlier. Most of the infantry speak with more zeal and zest of the artillery's performance than of their own. We have had losses that will be personally felt by the nation as well as by families, but the cost was. miraculously light, and the gain heavy. Even n stiff-necked Prussian officer said: "We are are done."