THE HINDENBURG LINE.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 June 1917, Page 6

THE HINDENBURG LINE.

! FIRST BiLOW SUCCEEDS. ADVANCE AGAINST UNOUT WIRE, Commonwealth Official. British Headquarters, April 11. Jt 19 four o'clock in the morning. To the north-west the guns are continually rolling and. drumming, .with flashes like summer lightning over the horizon. The battle of Arras, which started tho day before yesterday, is blazing over there. Straight before us there rise continually white flares fired by the garrison of the Hindenburg line. One hour from now. at dawn, tho Australian Division will attack that fortress, of which the Germans have spoken and written so much. We know it is a tremendous task. The Germans are holding the Hindenburg line with a normal garrison, and the wire in front of the line is something that has never yet been seen in modern fortification—German prisoners boiisted of it> months ago. and their generals are boasting of it still.

There is the chance of a great success by breaking the Hindenburg line at once. Many things may spoil that chance, but it has been decided to attempt it. To do this there is no time to break the wire down with bombardment. An attempt is to be made to break it down with tanks. If the tanks get through, the Australian Infantry is to follow.

FLARE FROM BULLECOURT. '4.30 a.m.—Our guns have started to fire very much faster. 4.35 a.m.—A green flare has just come up from the German trenches at Bullecourt—a village on our left, around which the German trenches run. That is a call to their gung to protect them. 4.40 a.m.—Green flares and gold flares have been going up in pairs from Bullecourt and from the left. White flares are going up in sheafs all along the line—«s thick as wo ever saw them at Pozieres. Four great, bursTs (l 3 of an explosion have just broken out towards Lagnicourt on our right. 4.45 a.m. —Those slow explosions still occurring—l2 or 15 of them by now, always two at a time—must be shell-bursts. I have never seen the like of them before.

5.20 a.m.—Our supports are going up over the snow in'extended order. A party of cavalry has passed. 6 a.m.—Just now, across the snow in front of Riencourt, we saw the figures of men moving. They are still there-half-a-dozen of tliem—walking calmly across the snow. Some of them seem to be picking their way carefully through a dark belt which runs there across the hillside. That belt is the Hindenburg wire. The men cannot be Germans; they must be Australians. And they arc through the Hindenburg wire. No sign of a tank—perhaps the tanks are over the top of the far rise beyond. TANK GOES INTO ACTION. {1.5:0 a.m.—Just now, close up by the wire we caught sight of a black oblong shape—a tank. It shifts gradually up through the wire and then stands there hesitating with its nose in the air. There is a party of a dozen infantrymen which started to go forward and then hesitated as if uncertain about its direction, and then came back towards the tank. The infantry starts to walk forward, extending as they go to intervals ot a few paces and in a most perfect line. The tank edges on again just behind their flank, and then from the front oi the tank there has burst a brilliant stabbing flame. She has fired her gun. The tank moves on, firing at intervals, sliding along the ground like a slug, nose in air. tail dragging through the snow. Presently the bend of the hill beyond the Hindenburg line hides her from im ioo. There is infantry moving through the German trenches on the left now, nearer i to Bullecourt. , All along the line of the German wire you can see at interval* men coming or going. Those comm;,' i'vom the trench puzzled me at first till [ noticed that some of them v:en> 3treteher-bcarers carrying wounded. The other figures are. without rifles. .Sometimes they are limping, sometimes walking, lometimes, over certain distance, running for all they were worth. They are the wounded. A stream of them, ones, twos, threes, is beginning to reach u? also. S a.m.—The tank which we saw in tin: depression is moving back from some voyage out into the green country. Eevond there is moving a second tank. Suddenly there is a spurt of grey black smoke 30yds behind it. Fifteen seconds later another shell bursts in the ground as far in front of it. The tank zigvaga to avoid the bursts, but they arc beginning to rain round her, about one every 10 seconds. The sixth was just under Iter chest —then two at once beyond her. She lias stooped. Suddenly a-, if by a miracle a number of men appear around her—a dozen men in khaki overcoats—and trot from her sides, and stand calmly looking on. The tank is there motionless, shell alter shell still bursting around her. EXTRAORDINARY SUCCESS. We moved up at about ten o'clock- to headquarters, where we should hear what had happened. And it was almo.it past belief. As far as they knew, the infantry had reached the line before the tanks, and had broken, through it somehow —found the gaps, or struggled through the scanty shell-holes; they had got well behind Bullecourt; tliey had reached every point they had been told to roach. And a message had just come in from one officer that all was well, and the line could hold it 1 , provided it had the necessary stream of supplies. They had suffered in breaking through, but tliey were in grand heart. It began to dawn on one that this infantry had done something extraordinarily magnificent—the groat chance seemed to be realising itself. Infantry seemed to have done for itself what nobody even purposed that it should lo—to have got through without a bombardment. and without the tanks first I breaking the .wire. That was certainly 'what had happened nearly all along the line, though there was some evidence that one or two tanks had given great help at one part. The youngsters commanding the tanks were extraordinarily game, straining to go anywhere and do anything. But most of them were foiled by the fall of snow, which was the last thin" to be expected aij this acasoii. One of the most wonderful fights that was ever fought had been won. And, victory or defeat, iD has achieved one invaluable re?ult—it has broken the fame of the Hindenburg line at a single blow.