WHAT A BATTLEFIELD IS LIKE.

Taihape Daily Times, 9 January 1918, Page 3

WHAT A BATTLEFIELD IS LIKE.

THE WORK OF THE Y.M.C.A. Giving His experiences of a recent visit to the battle front, Colonel W_ R. Ludlow, writing from “Somewhere in France,” to a Birmingham paper, makes a spirited appeal on behalf of the funds of the Y.M.C.A. His letter is as follows: “It may interest your readers if I try to draw a pen picture o“ a battlefield in France. The scene is a range of hills somewhat like Coleskill, overlooking the Tame and Blythe Valleys, for a space of six miles long and one to two miles wide, in one vast sea of black shell holes and craters, m an area of 30,000 acres not a tree, shrub, town, village, or building is to be seen, not a blade of grass even—one scene of blank desolation, only comparable to a Black Country pit mound, every feature being destroyed and flattened out by our artillery “The battle is proceeding, the infantry having gained the hill and pushed into the valley Below, where their last line of skirmishes is following the retreating Hun. Colonel X and I leave our horses at the foot of the hill and pick our way through the mass of wires and shellholes to the top. Our guns behind keep up the constant roar from their advanced lines. Shells whistle anc shriek overhead, here little clouds of smoke and there small volcanoes of earth when they strike the ground. The heat is Here and there is a dead German, a mass of litter and debris in the shape of equipment and rifles, both friends and foe, dead horses and mules lie in ditches by the roadsides, and the air is polluted by the stench of dead men buried under the ruins of the once prosperous country towns and villages. “On reaching the crest we see the flash of the German guns on a frosn position, but the shells become too frequent to be pleasant, and we retrace our steps for over a mile. During that time we have seen only two men searching the battlefield, but when we get to the foot of the hill wc come upon the working parties preparing to make roads and lay waterpipes and tramways fo the advanced, positions of the guns. “Here the shells keep dropping over the crest. We are dripping with perspiration and wet Our tongues are figuratively hanging out. arid we would give anything for a drink.

“The shelling here is much worse than on the crest, as the Hun has found out batteries in the valley. Just as w r e turn down toward a road, which we have to rush along to get beyond the batteries, in a small shell hole, with a couple of sheets of iron on two poles, is a Y.M.C.A. Post. There are some 20 men gathered round it, some slightly wounded, others from the working parties drinking hot cocoa, with biscuits and cake provided by this magnificent society. We jump off our horses, and having been assured there was plenty, we had the most delicious mug of hot cocoa it was ever my lot to drink. While drinking it a shell struck the ground twenty yards away, making the tin roof rattle and the cup almost jumped out of my hand.

I spoke to the attendant, who said he had been all through the Somme ad/ance, and told me this splendid work could be multiplied tenfold if funds wore available In my area last week a Y.M.C.A. hut and canteen was totally destroyed by shell fire, entailing a loss of £6OO.

“I do appeal most earnestly to my fellow-citizens in Birmingham of every degree, to subscribe to the C.A. to the fullest extent in their power. Now is the time to do it. and notwithstanding the many calls I venture to hope that my appeal win result m another £IOOO being sent to the society within the next week or so.”