WAR NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 June 1917, Page 10

WAR NOTES.

HEAVY BOMBAKDMBNT. A British correspondent has a note concerning the work of tlie artillery that is of special interest, in view of the heavy bombardment that is now in .progress. "The difference between the bombardment with which the offensive began last Monday and that with which the British inaugurated the battles of the Sominc last July was so /great that it is difficult to realise they came from the same army," he says. "At the time set for the Somme bombardment to begin some of the British artilleryofficers were seeing large shells fired from their guns for the , first time. When the battle of. Arras began the Britisli officers and gun crews handled the weapons like veterans, not on'ly within the, schools, but actually in the field with the German positions as practice targets. All winter long the British guns have roared in order that when the offensive began every artilleryman would have a thorough knowledge of and familiarity with the various phases of the modern school of gunnery. The rapidity and precision, with ■which the bombardment was carried out has been one of the distinct features of the new surcess. The small losses suffered were duo largely to the co-opera-tion and cell'ctive work of the artillery. Every step now made forward limls guns of all calibres merely waiting for the word to place' a destructive lire or a protective barrage wherever the infantry desires." .