HINDENBURG LINE BROKEN.

Taihape Daily Times, 29 October 1918, Page 3

HINDENBURG LINE BROKEN.

HOW THE TUNNEL WAS WON.

WORK OF THE AUSTRALIANS. The British and Australians are meeting heavy fighting in progressing on a broad front of several miles each side of the old Roman road of Le Gateau. which stretches like a white, straight ribbon towards historic battlefields. Last night saw us held up in front of the large village of Beaurcvoir, which straggles for a mile on top of a bare hillside.

The Queenslanders during the day had entered the northern sector of the village and established posts along the ridge taking in two red-tiled farms surrounded by trees. The men, tired after their hard fighting through the Beaurevoir system, suddenly realised that their right flank was exposed, and sent across two tanks, with Australian machine gunners. These found the New South Wales battalions had been delayed, and were sternly engaged in the Beaurevoir trenches by several hundred die-hard Germans in a strong nest of concrete machine gun posts across the road. Both tanks were struck by shells, killing the drivers, but the officers and machine gunners escaped alive. This nest took heavy bomb-fighting before it was finally cleared up, 200 Germans, with two trench mortars and many machine guns being captured. Here the Queenslanders withdrew from the Beaurevoir foremost positions in conformity with the situation, whereupon the Germans in the massed village counter attacked, compelling a further withdrawal. Heavy fighting of this nature recurred throughout the day. HILLS ALIVE WITH GERMANS.

The Queenslanders, Westralians, and South Australians, in irregular lines of shellholes, repelled four counter attacks, while our artillery broke frequently into great battle barrages, spraying Bea'urevoir and the neighbouring hills with lead, with a view to breaking up the enemy formation. The hills seemed alive with Germans, hundreds of them could be seen walking and running hither and thither, apparently not knowing whether to run ..or stay. They are thick enough in these parts, and many of them are trying to do their duty. Four hundred of their dead can be counted on the Westralian sector alone. We are well through the f:al line of trenches, an : have reduced their defences to mere shellhole and machine gun positions. The Fifth Divisional Pioneers have a proud story to tell concerning St. Quentin Canal tunnel which now, with its grisly chamber of horrors, is daily visited by a great number of soldiers. The Pioneers worked their way along the tunnel on Tuesday, discovering no fewer than 27 exits into the trenches. Reaching the northern mouth they established a machine gun post actually under territory occupied by the Boche guarding the entrance for 37 hours till the British fought their way through Yensuille and reached .the tunnel. BRAVEST MEN FORWARD, Some of the small sectors are almost deserted. One sees the English or Australian advance guards in a sunken road or a few shellholes, signalling the aeroplanes. No shells approach them; all is deserted and lonely. The nearest visible Germans are the few scurrying forms thousands of yards away. One wonders why we do not advance until suddenly,, as a Tommy bending down, runs across the open, a fierce rattle of enemy machine guns hursts out, showing that some game Germans are holding an obscure post on the line of advance. Another side of the picture is that typified by scenes of wreckage along the Le Gateau Read, outside Estrees. Here the German dead are strewn amidst five shattered tanks. Broad belts of broken brown wire, smashed trenches, and deep concrete shelters tell eloquently of the intense combat of brave English and Australian troops with as equally brave Germans meeting, each body probably 500 strong. German machine gunners lie beside their guns; a rifleman lies beside his anti-tank rifle with 60 emptied cartridges, which must have been fired with tanks literally upon him. The German army fights with its bravest men forward, while the others are running away, and thus we drive our way through with all the old difficulties and anguish of the cost of battle. It will not be surprising if the winter falls with the enemy holding an irregular and jumbled line, from which he will be able to shout peace while he is preparing a shorter water-fronted line, perhaps along the Meuse, to which he will retreat with spring. The Victorians again advanced behind a barrage at dawn to-day, capturing Montrehain, a village of 200 houses, and 200 prisoners. They released all civilians, including a French man in a cellar, who had been harboring the Germans.

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