MONITORS IN ACTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 158, 10 December 1914, Page 6

MONITORS IN ACTION.

SHELLING THE GERMANS. RAPID, ACCURATE FIRE. ENEMY'S HEAVY LOSSES. '•■•,• * Renter's special correspondent at Dover gives the following account of the bombardment of the German positions between Xieuport and Middlckerko by a combined British and French squadron on Trafalgar day. The vessels were iu continuous action for twelve hours. The action began at G in the morning on Trafalgar Day, when the squadron, steaming some two miles oif tile shore, shelled the enemy's trenches, situated three miles inland. The sailors remained at their posts until six in the evening. The lire was rapid and incessant, one British vessel firing no less than 11)00 lyddite and shrapnel shells.

The fire of the squadron caused the greatest execution in the German trenches and batteries among the dunes and between them the allies' vessels destroyed a German battery of field ar-. tillery, dispersed a German bridging train collected to force the passage of the Yser, blew up an ammunition column, killed General von Tripp and the whole of his stall' to the west of Westwide, and by tlie fierceness of their fire, compelled the enemy to evacuate its position before Xieuport. Some of the guns discharged fourteen shots a minute. The damage done to the enemy was clearly discernible from tlie vessels.

An attempt on the part of the enemy to get their range by sending up an aeroplane, which Cropped smoked balls, \va:i inell'ective. At the end of the day the whole coast for a distance of four miles, was a dense mass of black smoke and flame. It was afterwards reported that in the action the Germans lost at least !(MK) killed and wounded.

The crew of one of the monitors watched the Germans bring up one of their big guns. They allowed them to get into position, to take the range, and even to put the she'd into the breach, when one of their sixinch guns "let drive." The first shot told, and a further five shots hit every time. The gun and the. men were smashed to pieces.

BAPTISM OF FIRE. In a letter to his mother, Lieut nantComniauder l\V. A. Gelby, of IOI.S. Mersey, one of the monitors engaged oH' the Belgian coast, wrote: —"We were actually under fire from 10.15 a.m. to 15.43 p.m., mostly shrapnel. We had three men hit —none badly. Up the mast we were lucky, as one shell burst just above, and the bits were living all around us. We silenced their guns and then hurried to shell their troops, and, I think, did them no good. We fired away most of tlie afternoon, directed from shore by wireless. We now have had three (lays of strapping, and have covered ourselves with glory. We managed to silence the German guns on four occasions, and in tlie afternoon, the Belgians signalled to tell us that the German troops were massing at . "We opened fire and the Belgians say we did so much damage that we accounted for lfiO!) Hermans killed and wounded in lialf-an-iiour. flood wcri; We also wiped out a battery of si.x German guns, killing all the crews and smashing two guns to bits.

GERMAN* SH'OOTIXG WILD. ".Inst after lunch,' the Germans had another go at us, but their lire was very wild and they never hit —some shots passing 1000 yds. oyer and some 500 yds. short, but not a single hit. Three of us and five destroyers opened fire on them with every available gun. It was a, line sight, and the. noise absolutely dreadful, but I think wc must have blown them to smithereens. I am nearly deaf for the moment. "I\S.—Later: Just heard that we destroyed a whole supply train and 20 ammunition waggons of the Germans. We thought we had set a house on fire, but it must have been the waggons.

How desperate was the lighting along the Yser is revealed in a few vivid sentences which a German officer spoke to a Dutch journalist:—"Seven times we crossed the "iser," he said, "and seven times wc were beaten back with terrible losses, so that at last our dead formed bridges over which we again tried to cross, only to be repulsed once more."

All the German prisoners were thoi oughtly worn-out, and they related stor ies of "terrible privations. ,