ANZACS' DARING DEEDS.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 December 1916, Page 5

ANZACS' DARING DEEDS.

SKUOfCX.AT KILLS WHOLE GU* CHEW. ',| Tlic following Ims been received frotf Percivnl Phillips, Daily Graphic'Bpasiil correspondent Hi the front:— ?? 'J'lie experience of a battalion in redraft' I operations illustrates the necessity tot J caution. The battalion advanced (A ,] night, under order to reach a certain ■> point. It became completely lost, and never tump back—as a batitaliofi. oig 4 men found they were, far beyond thetl!,\ rcntli'zvoxiK; taking refuge in shell holea, .' tin.' remained for hours under heavy I fire, and afterwards made their way iiaek m best they could. Yet their* seemed a simple operation on tiie loap,' * The routine, undrnniatic work of 1 straightening a bit of line between two J battles,'.fields many incidents of great 5 heroism, although the task involved My 5 be worth no more than a paragraph, 1 heard to-day of some of the experiences ' of New Zealand troops engaged, among others, in smoothing out the kinks from a new stretch of ground. They were #ll ' in the day's round, yet greater devotion to duty could not havo been shows in' it the most important attack. '. One Canterbury man, a sfcrgcant, Ut| t , his bombers against a strip of German trench during night lighting. He bayon< t' eled all the members of a machine-gun crew himself, turned the gun on tha < other Germans, and when he had cleared thm out or killed them carried the (an Iwick to the British lino. s A private from Auckland, working _ j with a bombing squad in one of th^'' Flora group of trenches, saw some Can* ierbtiry comrades hard pressed by the. s enemy, He collected his party, jumped, 011 the parapet, and ran. along, bombing ' the intruders. He saved the flank of } the position and repulsed a determined counter-attack.

Some Otago men had to dig a trench • a in the open as part of the new British J position They wore beset by snipert ■ -j' until one of their number, himself * track shot, crawled among the crater* -i with his rifle and silenced them.

On two occasions nan-commissioned ''n officers took command of detachments j when all the cfficets lied been killed. j A sergeant of the Otagos showed «I» w ceptional coolness- as ho Jed the men in j a counter-attack. A private rallied Home a bombers during heavy night flghting --i when a trench had been taken and lost jj scl eral times, and it was due to his ini< 'J tiative that a sap was captured, which '*! enabled the position to be .Anally heldt a Another private formed one of a garrh s»:i of an outpost on the right Sank of t new position which became isolated. The sit! others retired; he held on until hia oh '! munition was exhausted, when he, too^ fell back, having killed many Germaksj: v