ON THE SOMME.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 January 1917, Page 7

ON THE SOMME.

THE NEW ZEALANDERS' SHARE. LAST DAYS OF THE FIGHTING. A TERRIFIC BOMBARDMENT. FURTHER GERMAN POSITIONS STORMED. (From Capt. Malcolm Ross, War Corrcs■pondent with the N.Z. Forces in the Field). France, Nov. 20. By the snd of September yon could fret very near the crest of 'tht High vVood-Dolvilie Kidge in a motor-car. "it is true you ran the risk of being jolted into the air or tipped into a shell crater. Once the blast of one of our own guns almost blew us from the road. The gunners seemed to take a fiendish de-

light in 'loosing off,' as they termed it, whenever a car came along. Whether it was a junior staff officet or a general that was occupying the car did not seem in the least to matter. The higher the grade the greater their mirth. A threestar man was scarcly worthy of notice. The baton and erossed-sword on a shoulderstrap seemed to induce their maximum effort! The alternative to the car was the horse, and on .horseback you could, in places, go across country True, you might get a few yards of battery telephone wire twisted about your horse's hocks. And there was always the added excitement ot the risk of treading on nn unoxploded bomb. One horseman

had already done this, and there has been difficulty in gathering up the fragments. But in any ease, if you came back, you were spattered with nuid from head to foot, and your groom and your batman would be kept busy for the rest of the afternoon. On the whole, the ear—unless you got jambed in i lie streams of trtffie—was the quickest and the cleanest mode of progression. After jou had been Trumped and jolW to a jelly over the last mile or two of alleged rond, the best way of getting to the battle-front was to walk. That walk i was always interesting. As often as not it was exciting as well. The country you had to cross near Delville Wood was pitted with shell craters that joined one another, and often overlapped. Thi.« ground needed only a covering of sn»w to make it the replica of a glacier ar. a point where the v ice-stream, bending roifhd a valley, is-converted into a maze ot hummocks and hollows and crevasses. The old trenchcß, now abandoned to the * dead and all the litter of war. would dc very well for the crevasses. The ■ c'oak of snow would hav* served also another purpose. It wonid have made beautiful that which was now sordid, hideous, repulsive.

WHERE THE BATTERIES BARKED

Through' this crater-pitted, trenchcrevassed country we made our way between the batteries and guns that used in those days to cough and bark behind the crest. Care was necessary if one did not want one's head blown off. The gunners up there were no more respecters of persons than'were our friends'beside the road in the valley. There, were times when the guns were all busy, doing good work.., You raw men toiling at •squat shells,-behind which the propelling charge went in, grecn-pßinted cylinders. At ofjliei butteries the gunners were lightly handling the more slim Rnd graceful eighteen-pounders. the charge in the neatly-turned brass ease, the fuse almost & work of art. The tiermans knew there were batteries here, and

frequently shelled the ground. One saw it was not a safe place for an afternoon stroll, but it is always interesting to see a gun'= team at work in ''the real thing." Sometimes a gun was hit. sometimes a man was killed. But this madf. no difference—the gun would he replaced, and the men would be replaced The terrible rain of went on. One gun more or less did not matter. One had been in' that cirque of batteries when the Boclie sliells were falling in amongst them and had marvelled at the unconcern of the gunners. They sat talking on the limbers I saw a shell burst near a battery, and noted that a man eating a slice of bread and jam did not treuble to look where the shell fell. Out of a cloud of black German smoke a gunner emerged, coolly lighting his pipe. Talkabout morale! There is still enough of it, and to spare, in the British Army. As with the gunners, so with the infantry. The enthusiasm of the colonial iruops on more than ono occasion carried them "into their own barrage. There was a German prisoner who said that the French bombarded for an hour and came over behind the barrage. The English, he said, bombarded in the same way and came along behind the barrage. But tlii colonials! They bombarded for an hour and came over with the barrage —Sie kommen mit!

• THE WONDER OF THE AIR. More wonderful oven that all this terliitndons artillery fire was tkc activity in the air. Coming back from the front one fine afternoon, I counted no fewer t!ian thirty-one kite balloons swaying in a gentle breeze against the blue. I think they were nearly all ours—there may have been a few French near where the lines joined—but never during all oin st'iy on the Somme battlefield did I j see niori than eight German balloons ! 11]!, As for planes, the air seemed alive ' with them. Singly, and in pairs, and \ in flights like migrating geese they caine and went across the German lines. We ■ knew them for British by their shape, ' •mil the broad painted circles under their wing?. Seldom did the tauben, with their more sinister black crosses for sign marks, come our way. When they did they were chased back and hunted down by our superb bjittalions of the air. They were in such a minority that one felt rather sorry for them, for the Gt.rman fliers are. many of them, brave fellows, and the corps as a whole is imliuod with that sporting spirit that is so dominant a characteristic of our own people, but which seems foreign to the German army -as a whole. 'Our own nlanes did not, of course, escape scath!ess. The remains of one lay on the •rest of the ridge just beyond Montauban. Others we had seen coming down through engine or other trouble in our own lines. Occasionally you watched i thrilling combat high in the air. On* - -neli I saw in these last days from the 'ome German planes, flying high, were, helled slopes beyond Delville Wood. ient over to see what was doing behind our lines. In an instant several of ov_ cvn were after them, like falcons swoop--1 inc oa tljeir ..prey, Presently we couM

tear the stutter of the machine-guns high above us. A Taube was hit. Like a shut bird, it seemed to h'esitate in its flight a moment, swerve slightly, and then eame tearing downwards through the air. It crashed to earth behind the trendies, where the German infantry •.vauld no doubt soon be extricating a dead pilot and a dead observer from'the wreckage of their battered machine. And next day you would road in the cold communique of the N-itish Armies in the Field that "N.K. of Flers, an enemy plane was brought down." The communique has no space fur periphrase. As for the bravery of our own ail men, it is simply Early in the war the work ftof flying men was regarded as being safer than that of most others who were in the real fighting. It [", not so now. When on< sees the sky flecked with puffs of smoke from German shells bursting about our aeroplanes one appreciates the risks that these brave young Englishmen take every day of their lives. They take all the risks, uncomplainingly, even cheerfully. Hovering low over the desolate zone of the shell-torn earth, they are a target for the enemy's anti-aircraft guns, even for his field howitzers; yet they never waver in their set purpose At times (here is a veritable Mrrage in ths air, and tliis they cross and recress. as if nothing'was happening. The Germans 77's and Ilea's burst about them as they swerve and" rise ami fall. A long trail of floating puffs, gradually thinning as the fleecy balls are 'left further behind, mrirks their course. Yet, undeterred, they go and return with valuable information for the gunners and the commanders. Sometimes they do not eomc back, and then you read another laconic announcement that one of ours has b k eon brought 'down. But for every one brought :l»wn another is ready to take hi« place, and so, God and the Air Board willing, it will be to the'end.

THE OFFENSIVE RESUMED. On September 30 theenemy was busy shelling our line. I watched the great cvump-s, especially about Flers and Factory Corner. By this time there was lit:tie or ntthing of the village left. But every now and then a big shell would come crunching amongst . the mounds of broken brick that once were, -iiises, and a cloud of red dust would mingle •'■'tli tho black smoke 'of German high explosives. On one day when I went with the general and a staff officer to a forward brigade headquarters this shellnig made a spectacle that one watched, fascinated. We went through a, winding trench that in parts had been recently battered, and wading through the liquid clay and almost crawling beneath some head cover., we came at length to the brigadier s dug-out. That morning down in the depths there had been n 'landslide that had partly overwhelmed his lied Luckily he had just left it. On regaining the light of day we found that some men were clearing the parapet nl debris beside us had been spotted, and presently the enemy began to snip'! at us with cannon. A couple of shells whizzed over our heads and burst just beyond the trench, The.earth rose in showr? and fragments fell on us, but neither lh<? general nar the brigadier ducked 1 Tl(ey went on with their conversation as if nothing had happened

A TERRIFIC BOMBARDMENT. On October 1 it was evident that' something was due to happen from our side of the fence. There had been prepantions. Ammunition had been comirig up,' to. the guns. Day and night horses ami mules were straining at the weight of the limbers as they ploughed or plunged' axle-deep in mud. Some nf the guns had registered on'new targets. There had also been a change in the disposition of /certain of our troops. And there had been other preparations of a sinister kind. In conjunction with an English troop on our left we were to capture a series of trenches "from a point on the Gird Line westward to/a strong point knuwn as "The Circus." We were t» attack on a .somewhat limited front. The operation was a little difficult and somewhat complicated, because the line on which our men .'were formed up .was cm-vert, and the barrage could not be a straight one.

In company with a staff . office:', I motored as far as was possible on an almost impossible road, over which no sane driver in pea/e time would attempt to take a car. We ran the gauntlet of some ugly shelling on the. way. But the shells Were just shert or jiM over us. and nothing happened beyond an extra jolting and some increase of spepd over that particulai bit-of "alleged roadway. Leaving Hie car on a riiifd. we crossed about half a mile of shell-torn earth, and picked our way 'through a cirque ~f firin° .suns towards a communication trench. The Germans wire shelling these batteries, and as we nr.ared Che trench we could see clouds of earth rising just in front of us along Hip path 'we had to take The enemy had spotted a forward observation post, and wgrc trying to blot it out. We 'had not gone far when we met the stretcherbearer* carrying in the wounded from Unit particular shelling. Among them were two German prisoners wUo had been caught by their own artillery as they were coming along the communication- trench. One lucky shell had got six oi seven men. Three were wounded. We had to walk over the bodies of the olhers—blackened with the powder and aUmembcred with the shook Df • the broken iron. On the face of one, halfbnred in the debris of broken parapet, there was no'ti'iye of fear or pain. I 'path had -omc to him with a merciful suddenness in that winding tivnch. •'Well, if we have to pass out," sicid my companion, "that is the way to go." We squeezed into the side of 'the damp, clayey trench to let another pair of stretcher-bearers with theit burden pass. On, past the Switch trench, with Us st'll uuhuried enemy dead, to a point from which we could get a clear view ef the bombardment. By this time the fire of our artillery had not altered much in volume, but on the tick of 3.15 p.iii. the guns along the whole line broke out in one continuous roar. The sudcliitiness and the fierce intensity of it were appalling. The field guns and howitzers of three Divisions were playing on one section of the German tienehes, while the heavies farther back wove chipping in with a tune and nurpose of their own. "'- • Tn addition, there was a heavy bomLiniment all along the line. The great curve of the German position became on wonderful curtain of ascending smoke and dust. It was a beautiful afternoon, windless,? yet with a nip of autumn in the air, and a clear sun dipping low to the crest of the ridge. As the long columns of smoke rose in the clear, still air, the clouds of lighter saiokc from biiistiiig shrapnel mingled witk them, till there was formed a screen of thin grey. Through this screen, as through a veil of gossamer, we could see the distant village of Gaudecourt and the green woods of the enemy hinterland. On the German line in front of the Xew Zcalanders there fell a pitile.ss nail of ' bursting shell. Behind this, under the protection of a moving barrng?, our in-

fantry advanced slowly, with heads erect rifles at the sl«pe. There is no wild charge nowa<lays-<-ifc is a'steady march forward—for an infantryman must have all his hreath and the best that is in him when 'he hops over the parapet into the enemy's trench for the final business.

As we watched, the bombardment seemed to grow in intensity, if that were possible. Craning our heads above the. trench, in comparative safety except for a chance shell, wo watched the flashing flame low down on the ground, and the ever-rising columns of black and grey that rose to thicken the screen, tiil slowly, but surely, the hinterland was smudged, from view. Never before nad I 'been witness of such a bombardment. So enthralling was the spectacle teat throwing discretion behind the parapet of chance we climbed out intc the open for better view. Tn our own terrain the enemy wa. 'now throwing hit h.gh explosives and a barrage of bursting shrapnel mingled with tea': gas shells to break or stay the advance/ But (his effort—though it. too, took its toll 1 of dead and wounded—was futile. One got spattered with the spray of dirt from shells that burst near by, hut so loud was the din of battle that often we did net note where the shell had burst. The noise of its explosion was merged in the continuous roll of this devil's itattoo that made the air tremble and pulsae. Later, as we walked along one part of the tieneh we heard the swish of shrapnel and the stutter of a machine-gun fired

hijih above us from the air. A chunk' of ragged iron flew past my companions head and hit the side of the trench w!th a dull thud. We stopped and looked round, but could not see from whence, it had come. I picked it up and dropped it suddenly, for it was quite hct. Jt war, only possible to carry it by changing it hurriedly from hand to hand. Round a bend a subaltern was leaning against the side of the trench observing. I pressed the hot iron against !'iio back of his hiyul, and he jumped in surprise, and chased me laughing along the trench.

Crouching on the rim of a shell crater in the open, we watched the long line of battle. Over our position far on, tho right some clouds of grey-green smoke appeared, spreading and rolling, beautiful in form and color. They were /the bursts from some particular kindl of Oirman shell. Slowly, very slowly, they lost, form and mingled with the screen of grey that now hid the distant village altogether from view, During the past few days, several of our batteries had moved forward, and nwny mi the right between Fle~c and Los Bocufs we saw at intervals the orange flame of bat.eries daringly flash-

ing in the open. They had moved we'll into the devastated fields far beyond tlie crest of the ridge we had won on tho memorable 15th. ,Men, too. were walking

fibfiut there without any trench protection Whether they were reserves going up towards the line or men sou-venir-hunting, or a, burial party, we eould not decide. i The interesting thing wan the unc'oncern with which they seemed to be wandering in the open during the fulness of the fight. The Gorman gunners thought it strange, too, and opened on them with high explosive, followed by shrapnel. But still the men took no heed. Nearer and nearer the shells fell, and presently we saw the Ken scatter for a shelter that did not exist. Black smoke and cionds of dirt blotted them out of the landscape. When the smoke cleared away there were not so many -men. Behind us on the ridge over which we had come, bearer;, carrying shoulder high their folded stretchers, were silhouettes against the western sky. They

rame boldly across the open, scorning tho shelter of the long winding communication trench, no doubt because the 'cute was quicker and theii mission urgent. They, too. were snipec'. at witri

cannon, but, walking singly an* is pairs,

liipy seemed to bear a clmrmed life. .'\;l this time the din was terrific, Wo had to shout to make each other heard.

The air was alive with travelling shell

They chrioked and whittled overhead. At times there was the ominous swish of shrapnel, and almost involuntarily one looked overhead instead of forward. Big crumps ivero bursting in Flers. fhe rod brick dust was still flying there in c'ouds, but the few men we had in what had been the village could seek safety in a deep. German dug-out that lmd withstood botli our own and the c.n.'lny'-i shelling To the left of the battered village was one of the "tanks" in a shell crater And near it lay a lonely pathetic figure in bine dungarees. He had been lyjng tlfcro now for days—unburied ■"

Turning my gaze back to the front line, a burst of flame seemed to spread along the trench, and almost at the same instant rings of black smoke rose high above thr line. They rose, curling like the rings blown from the mouth of a smoker. For a lea" time the/ hung tlins above the battlefield like an evil amen. But their presence there gave one a strange feeling of sativiarthui. THE INFANTRY ATTACK.

''Llirougli the grey veil of smo'ce <n our left front we could now see dimly th.i advancing waves of our brave. :n----i'lintry There seemed to he four waves of lhem. The second wave jo'nel tip first be.fore reaching the objective. The birbtd-wire entanglements in front of (he position had previously been cut by a bombardment of our trench mortar.-:. Under cover of our own barrage the men from Canterbury and Otago went forward eaimly and steadily, rifles at the slope. The Boche. knowing that oil this intense bombardment heralded an attack, was on the look-out foi them. As each wave left the parapet it came under heavy fire—rifle, machine gun, and artillery. The left companies of fhe Oiagos had to move across a slight hollow in the ground, and suffered less than the other two companies, who had to take higher ground on the right. Tli*. latter had a difficult manoeuvre to carry out, for that advancing to their front for some two hundred yards they had to change direction to the right. Despite heavy enemy machine-gun fire from the direction of the Gird Trench, this movement was carried out in splendid style. The Canterburys on the right had a "difficult piece of ground to take, and while advancing across the open they suffered from rifle and machine-gun fiie'. The German guns were also on to them as they approached the enemy trenches. Revere fighting ensued there, but the splendid physicpie and determination of the New Zealanders won the da;, and those of the enemy who were not killed or wounded were driven on:.

At one point the objective was. so obliterated by our intense artillery bombardment as to be unrecognisable :is a position to be attacked, and some meij of the Otagos overran their objective for a considerable distance, and were followed by a considerable number of Taivinnki men in one of the supporting waves. The second wave of one section of the attack coming upon a section of the German trench, found it full of Germans, dead and alive. About forty of those who were still aiiva were collected

and sent back with an escort, and stepa were at .once taken to eonsolidat- the position captured. Meantime the men who had marched past their objectivo !iP(! in the keenness of their advance got right into our own aheil-lire, and were gradually withdrawn. One by one they cnmi back to the thin line that was holding tlie trench behind them—a welcome addition to that little band, tfo tine was now lost in sending men right and left to feel for the companies on. the flanks of the Wellingtons. The captain in. command could see the Gird Trench, but for a considerable time he could not get in toucli with their left. Eventually, however, the necessary toucli was established. Lewis guns and two' captured enemy machine guns were used to strengthen the position. In the advance on "The Circus," which was undistinguishable, the Otago men again overshot .the mark. A captain of the Rushines coming up with some of his in' 11 also had great difficulty in finding anything on the ground that MftembM "The Circus." But the Otago:. were occupying a line ahead of "their."objective,' and the officers present, on their own initiative,. decided to , join forces' anjl to hold that line. Eventually the troops on our left linked upj with the Mew Zcalanders. The attack had been successful. Darkness fell, with the stretcher-bearers still succouring the wounded! -ind the tired living making the. position safe against counter-attack. A 11 p.m. the en'etay" comniTneed a. half hearted bombing attack, but it was < becked without difficulty by the Canterbury men who were holding Oird Trench, There .followed occasional exchanges of bombs, but the sorely stricken Germans had had enough for one day, and did not'again that night make a .further, attack on our line.