VISIT TO HILL 60.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 September 1915, Page 12

VISIT TO HILL 60.

FAMOUS SPOT DESCRIBED. SCENE OF WILD CONFUSION. The following description of Hill 60 was given by Reuter's correspondent in a message from British headquarters, dwated July 25: "In a recent despatch Sir John French reported that Hill 60, after having been successfully mined and captured on April 17.. was re-taken by the Germans by means of poisonous gas on May 5. The present position at this point is peculiar and of great interest. "The hill, which is of low elevatidn, rising only some 30ft or 40ft above the surrounding country, is really nothing but a knoll of gently-rising ground, that forms the end of the Klein Zillebeke ridge. The German trenches run in a double tier along the crest and the upper slope, while our trenches form an i regular line along the edge of the lower slope. The enemy is at the top of the hill and we are a little way the side of it. '

"The whole face of the hill presents a picture of the wildest confusion. Everywhere are huge craters, the result of the mine explosions on the night of the British attaclc, torn and gaping sandbags are scattered in profusion, broken rifles, British and German, odds and ends of equipment of all kinds, smashed barbed wire, and a mass of other debris lie in bewildering variety down the hillside —the whole half-hidden in the long grass that has sprung up between the trenches. The latter twist and wind in an extraordinary manner. "At one spot I reached a point but oyds. from the enemy. There is an old communication trench running between us and the enemy, and down this two barricades have been erected, one on our side and one on the German side. Between the two stretches a short patch of ground, shut in on either side by the crumbling walls of the old trench.

"The Hill 00 trenches are full of interest, but, for obvious reasons, no precise details can be given. At one spot a railway bridge spans our position, and in the cutting beneath it a large pool of stagnant water has collected. Beyond it stretches the railway line, the rails torn and twisted, and partly covered with weeds growing between the sleepers. The line is under the direct fire of the enemy, and to cross it in the open Is to court certain death from a sniper in :the enemy's trench, but a short 40yds away. In the pool below the bridge are a number of ghastly relics, the exact [nature of which is best left to the imagI ination. It is enough to say that dead men have been lying there for some months, and no man dares approach to k?uig out for burial"