THROUGH THE CAMBRAI FRONT.

Taihape Daily Times, 25 March 1918, Page 6

THROUGH THE CAMBRAI FRONT.

A CRITICAL MOMENT.

Australian "War Correspondent,

C. E. W. Bean.

BRITISH HEADUARTERS, France, Dece

They were mostly men of the Royal Australian Artillery with some Australian Garrison Artillery embodied since the beginning of the war. We found them sitting disconsolate at a sieze park—a sort of camping ground for heavy howitzers of all sorts and sizes. Guns in various stages of dismemberment were standing along the roadside —guns which had evidently some of them just emerged from a rough and tumble —some of them witn out breechblocks, others in pieces just as they had been ,extricated from some tight corner. And there it was that sitting about in little groups on the football field yarning over the last few days' experiences we found the Australian gunners. They had been twenty-two continuous months in the line. They were j the first Australians into • a fight in 1 France at Vimy in May, 1916. They were behind a British division at the start of the Somme battle, and then when the Australians came down to I it they 'went in to support them. They were the heavier guns which pounded up the O.G. lines before August 4, and they were then turned on to Moquet Farm and the Courcelletee sugar factory. They were at Nieuport in the summer, and then moved' down to Ypres to prepare for the tremendous battle which started on July 31. They moved gradually up with the fight—at one stage these monsters were actually firing for the first time in their existence direct over I their open sights at a position which ' they could see staring in their faces— They used to watch their own shells burst on the target. They were I bombed and shelled in a way that never happened to guns before that

battle. After a few days in a fairly quiet sector they were shifted suddenly and silently up to a position where it would normally be thought impossible for heavy guns to go. They could not show a head by day, nor were they allowed to strike a match at night. When the commanding officer was trying to fix his centre line, and it was too dark to see Ms instruments, he turned on a torch several times. Each time a burst of machinegun fire followed the light exhibited. One of the gunners was sniped by a bullet at his work. But the weather favoured them exceedingly well. It was dry and liar. for moving, and at the same time so dull that the Germans could not use fully send out their aeroplanes. When at dawn on November 20 the great moment came, the tanks and infantry broke through on almost completely unexpectant German guns firing at targets miles beyond the horizon, actually found that our trench mortars were firing over their heads. four hours the enthusiastic rus : > oi that brilliant morning's work had carried the battle out of their range. Later two of the guns were moved up I to a position where they could still

reach the requisite distance behind i the German lines. It was on the 10th morning after this when the gunners were preparing for the normal routine for the day that an infantry staff of- I ficcr suddenly took a score of them and set them with rifles to defend a I ridge not .more than fifty yards ahead of the guns. There were men moving about on the horizon on the crest of j the hills which had been in our lines; but at that range it was hard to know , whether they were British or German, j Infantry was clearly being driven back j from ahead, and batteries of field j artillery passed and took up a posi- f 'tion just behind. A message came through on the telephone from the ar- I tillery headquarters in the rear to ! stand by ready to blow up the guns j if the Germans approached any closer; ; and then the telephone line was cut!' and not another word came through. ! The Germans who had broken thronr-h the: thinly held lin<\, further (south,.

were in possession of the place where that headquarters had been. Machine-gun bullets began to whistle round —first distant shots, then gradually coming nearer and more full of purpose. Bullets sang past from the front, then from each flank, then from the right rear. Then a field-gun opened from a position almost between them and German shells came whining down from their rear. The Germans must have rushed their guns through with their infantry, probably thinking that the effect of field guns firing from behind their flank would cause our line northward to them to crumble.

When German shots 'began to reaeh them from a few hundred yards away the position of the guns was clearly critically dangerous. The only thing to be done was to make sure of destroying them before the Germans came any closer. This was done. Within an hour or two the British counter-attack had definitely stopped the Germans advance, and the guns have been recovered'. Little harm has suffered through the adventure. For the British infantry which went through so keenly and held their position so tenaciously for days, and for those who supported them, the affair was a bitter disappointment, but probably nothing worse