A FRENCH VICTORY

Taihape Daily Times, 5 November 1917, Page 5

A FRENCH VICTORY

Important positions captured

the germans retreating e

ITALIAN SITUATION IMPROVING

Narrow Escape of Disastrous Rout

Minor Naval Engagements in Ik North Sea

C, BATTLE SIDELIGHTS ••" AUSTRALIANS AT YFBES -,The Australian units are still enduring cheerfully the mud and hardships, ,-writes Mr. Gilmour from headquarters, heir only thought is to heat the enemy whatever, the weather's vagaries. War weariness and lack of ardour, will not hinder-progress. An instance of their doggedness was shown when an officer with a signaller met an Australian with a Lewis gun. The gunner was scarcely able to drag his feet, and the officer suggested that the signaller should relieve him of the burden. The gunner declined, saying: "I carried the blinking, thing in and I will carry the blighter.out again." The Australians had tough work in Dairy Wood and Daisy Wood, southeast of Zonnebeck, of which only tree stumps remain. Each woo<Twas defended by pillboxes. It was a ticklish job stalking the pillboxes through the mud, ' and could hot be done quickly, as the earlier attacks required patience. But the work was done nicely, and the officers ' unstintedly' praise the v men for '* their'discipline and 'endurance. No "''finer work jJOssibhr than that of. T,:? the'*; carrying ; ' parties in running the gauntlet o ! f the barrages in order, to « supply their comrades. 'advanced on the Ypres-Roulers railway, which the Germans commanded with machine guns, in dugouts on a cutting near the crest of the ridge. There were many casualties before the ! nest of machine guns was cleared up. A Syd- ' -ney sergeant of Scottish parents ad'vahced'with" two others and bombed a rK 'machine • guns out of: action. hiS e'omfades "were sniped' and wounded from a shell-hole*. A German advanced with the bayonet against the sergeant, who caught the bayonet with one hand and knocked the German down with his fist. The German showing no signs of surrender, the sergeant shot him. As illustrating the lowered morale of the Germans, an officer mentions a case in which one Australian with only , a shovel on his shoulder, approached a • pillbox, wherepuon 15 dazed GGermans emerged with their hands -up, crying* "kamerad." One of the most remarkable incidents in this section occurred in Decoy Wood, which was part of the Australian objective south of the railway. An unknown number of Germans were sheltering there. Calling a corporal to follow him, one officer, armed with a revolver and a bomb, entered the

wood, clearing up the trenches and the enemy on the run. The /"corporal was kept busy handing the officer clips of cartridges. Soon there were no Germans in the entire wood. COLLISION IN THE AIR. A falling aeroplane crashed into another over the Thames near Purfleet, and both machines fell into the river. .The pilot of the first, Lieutenant Doyne, R.F.C. was killed, but the pilot of the other machine, Lieutenant Timmis, had a remarkable escape. "If seemed as if Lieutenant Doynes' machine failed somehow,' said an eyewitness. "He was flying at a fair height, and the other machine was a little below -him. He swooped down suddenly towards the other aeroplane and the wings met. It was all so sudden that one really did not notice exactly what happened. The next thing we knew was that one machine had gone right down in deep water and the other had dropped into the muddy shallows between the training ship CorWall and, the Essex shore. The tjilot had out of his seat and Jprambledv' iWto the tail of his maair. He was rescued by a boat from the shore, though one one of the Cornwall boys swam across to help." .

GENERAL CABLES

BUYING FRENCH PAPERS. ACCOMPLICE ADMITS GUILT. Received 10.40. Paris November 4. Schoeller, the Swiss IffSuSwialist, admits that his £400,000 for the~"pur-. chase of Le Journal, "KlTs" German money^ The new French war loan is limited to ten thousand million of France's new money.