STRUGGLE FOR HILL 60.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 290, 17 May 1915, Page 7

STRUGGLE FOR HILL 60.

DOMINATING POSITION. EMINENCE ON A PLAIN. Major He Martens told a reporter something about the famous Hill "00." The major who is well past middle age, volunteered for service at the outbreak of the war but was not accepted on account of his age. He has now been •recalled to take bis old rank in the new Belgian Army. Major Do Martens said Hill "60" was of only about throe such eminences in Belgium. The country is a plain, with a very gentle slope towards the sea. From the midst of this plainas though it had been laid out on :v billiard table—rises Hill "00." That pa.-t of the country is highly cultivated, the farms being often of one or two acres each, surrounded by stiff hedges, just too high to see over. Hill "00'' is set in a square of canals and drains which form natural moats and defences, and combined with the hedges make operations of attack very difficult. From the south-east, the direction of the British at Ypres, and from the north-east where the Germans are at Zonnebeeke, the s'opes of the hill are gentle, but on the other two sides thev are percipitous. The hill is about 100 ft. to (iOOft. high, and on the top is a plateau of about 000 acres, every inch of which is, in times of peace, utilised for'what the Belgians call a "manure farm," that is, a farm which is highly manured and cultivated for the growth of that most exhausting of crops, flax. To bring down the flax the farmers have deep furrows in the hill, down which the bundles are slid. These afford trenches for both sides, and as the rock of the hill itself is well covered with rich earth, there is also facility for constructing trenches, though the soil would be very dangerous for wounds. The plateaux at the top, of 000 acres, is absolutely flat. Big guns, once securely mounted on this plateau, would dominate the whole country for 15 miles or so around, and would make it impossible for the invaders to remain in that part of Flanders, hence the desperate struggles for the hill. Major l)e Martins pointed out that recent cables show that ' the Belgian army and the French on the left of the British have gained two miles towards Loos, taking the ancient chateau of Clarency, which is clone to Loos. Thus they are working round the German right, and this will materially assist the British not only to get the hill, but to interpose a sufficient body of men and country between it and the German position to prevent rushing tactics. Once the British batteries can get up there in safety from surprise the German hour i:i I Western Flanders will have passed.