THE NEW ZEALANDERS.

Taihape Daily Times, 23 September 1918, Page 6

THE NEW ZEALANDERS.

STUBBORN FIGHTING- ON } NEW ZEALAND FRONT. gallant advance east op i .hayrincourt wood. ENEMY FORCED OUT OF STRONG TRENCH LINE. (Special from the New Zealand Official War Correspondent.) FRANCE September 15. The long spell of strenuous fighting in which New Zealanders have taken such a conspicuous and continuous part reached its culminating point in an assault on Trescault Ridge, east of Eavrincourt Wood. During the past few days this fighting became somewhat confused and more determined than ever. The ridge constitutes one of the buttresses in front of the defences of the Hindenburg line. A certain well-known trench was the key to the position of the St. Quentin defence line of the enemy in this sector and it was defended by stout divisions who jvere ordered to hold it to the last. Prisoners we captured said all attacks upon it were to be resisted to enable the Hindenburg line to be further strengthened and that final withdrawal would be.to that line, which would ■be held at all costs. FIRST OBJECTIVES ATTAINED WITHOUT DIFFICULTY

At dawn on the 12th the New Zealanders attacked in conjunction with troops on the flank of the division, and, following a splendid barrage the New Zealand Eifles had no difficulty in attaining their first objective. Further progress, however, was difficult owing to intense rifle and machine-gun fire that came from a trench held by the enemy in considerable force. Except for a few posts we pushed out our line, and remained for the whole day on the first objective. Frequent bombing attempts by the enemy to win back the positions we had gained achieved no res,ult. To the south the battle. 1 fluctuated owing to strong enemy counter-attacks. One attack delivered at 6 a.m., drove our thin .line back for some distance, a second was delivered at 2 p.m, along sunken roads covering machine-gun fire from an adjacent trench. Heavy fighting ensued for possession of the captured trench. As the enemy succeeded in outflanking us from the south we had to withdraw from almost all of the captured trench, except one portion that we continued to hold in strength. A 7 p.m. a further attack under barrage was made by us to endeavour to attain our final objective. At first o ; ur men met with stubborn resistance but by 7.30 pm. their line was well advanced.

Following up the determined nature of the assault, enemy troops counterattacked again at 10.30 p.m. advancing down the trenches, and we had to make further slight withdrawals. - After stiff fighting we captured fortytwo unwounded and fifty seven wounded prisoners, and our line was still left in , advance of its original position. English troops gallnatly fighting on our left captured the villages of Trescault and Havrincourt, but on our right no progress could be made. The enemy had fought stubbornly along the whole front, and his machine-gun, fire was intense and well aimed. * \ • 'fierce fighting for REMAINDER OF RIDGE On the following day local fighting continued for two sectors of the trench by both sides, the enemy showing dogged determination to hold the possession, At 2 p.m. we again atremainder of the ridge still in his tacked, and brought the enemy out of part of a trench ho was holding. The remnants of one German company, realising its position, fled across open, and the New Zealanders got at them as they ran. Eleven unwounded prisoners of Jaegers machine gun companies remained with us, It is 'iio'lewOrthy that these Jaegers have more machine gutis than most other German divisions and they use them bitter determination, and skill. During the afternoon and evening the enemy renewed their counter attacks and forced us to withdraw a little, and at 1.45 a.m. he came at the New Zealanders w T ith bombs and liquid fire, forcing one of our posts to withdraw. The enemy shelled our troops with guns of various calibres throughout, and also used much gas. In addition to a large number of prisoners, we • inflicted very heavy casualties on the enemy. One of his companies war, reduced in a day from sixty to twenty three, but was lucky in getting reinforcements up a communication trench -during a rainstorm. The men of the iEiflea were the principal -actors in’ this strenuous (fighting but at- the finish the Wellington troops also had a hand in it. DARING ADVENTURES AMID THE ENEMY. Most extraordinary were some of the daring adventures upon which small parties and even individuals'embarked. The men themselves say little about these, and often one only hears -of them by chance. One of the finest I traits in the character of * ‘ the dig-

gcrs” is their modesty in regard to their own most gallant deeds. About the last day of their fighting a sergeant of the Rifles Brigade with ten men went forward to exploit a success already gained and in a sunken road came unexpectedly upon a whole company of the enemy. Our small band might have been pardoned had they taken to fight but they stood their ground and fought. Any German who did not put up his hands was killed. A Jaeger officer who rushed out of a dug-out to rally his men was promptly shot, and others in the immediate vicinity then surrendered. By this time there were only some six New Zealanders left unwounded but they proceeded to collect other Germans from shell-holes till eventually the half-dozen marched back to o,ur line with forty prisoners.

THRILLING SCENES IN THE AIR. So much for events on land. Almost every night we witness thrilling scenes in the air. The other evening we watched a German ’plane being held in the beams of over a dozen searchlights while “Archies” and machine guns were firing continuously at him. Presently the bright silver of his wings in the searchlights turned to flame, and he began to make an awful descent from thousands of feet in one streak of yellow flame, the red and blue of his signalling flares shooting out from the column and adding to the pyrotechnic display. Finally the tree-fringed crest of a low ridge, behind which he fell, was silhoutted against the glow of his burning petrol tank as it crashed to earth. Later another ’plane was brought down in the came manner, and a third, shot in

vital part, landed in our lines. Two of its occupants got away in a strong wind in parachutes. The pilot, a fine strapping young fellow, was captured by the New Zealanders, and' was very crestfallen with his bad luck. To-night the clear moonlit vault is a buzzing hive of ’planes, and at intervals comes the uneven droning bass of the German machines, The dull crush of his exploding bombs, the rattle "of machine guns and staccato banging of “Archies” all bent on his destruction. While writing this message loud cheering outside my flimsy hut announced the flaming fall of another machine. The “Diggers,” scorning cover, were all on the watch. Nothing pleases them more than to see a Boche bomber descending in flames.