A FINE PERFORMANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 October 1917, Page 8

A FINE PERFORMANCE.

BY AUSTRALIAN ARTILLERY. The story of a very fine performance on the part of Australian artillery in the first phase of the Ypres battle is given in a recent dispatch from Mr. C. •IS. W. Bean. The guns were ordered to advance at a siaced time in accordance with plan, he writes. In most parts where the battle went as planned this advance was carried out smoothly and punctually. One portion of the Australian guns was in action in its new position within less than an hour after it ceased firing from the, old one. !• It so happened, however, that a couple ofother brigades were behind the portion of the line where the chief trouble was met with. When the guns were due ta advance the infantry was still held up by formidable opposition not far beyond the German front line system, but so far as the artillery knew the battle was proceeding according to programme here as elsewhere. The teams came up,' and at the exact moment batteries '■■■"■•"—■' ■'- "nd filed off at a walk, men and horses looking magnificent as they came down the slope passing other batteries drawn up, and waiting to join the column. As they advanced they cams into view of some ot the enemy's positions at a considerable distance. Spattered shells began to drop round the teams without doing any harm. But when the leading Batteries began to come over the ridge immediately behind their new positions they came suddenly under the observation of the enemy, who was still holding portions of the heights beyond. Almost immediately shells began to drop more thickly. As the news got round amongst the group of German batteries covering that part of the line, one after another turned their fire on to the crest over which our batteries were filing. Then, for the first time, the column broke into a trot, coming with perfect steadiness through a tornado of she,, fire. The leading batteries made their way through a maze of shell-holes to their new positions, the gunners flogging and almost lifting their horses by immense effort through the deeply pitted ground. At that moment the tail column was blocked by a gun sagging into a shell-hole. A 5.9 shell plungo fair into the midst of one of the waiting teams, killing or wounding every horse Xot for a minute did the work falter. Those batteries which had already downed trails continued steadily to pick up their task exactly where arranged. Machine gun fire was hissing on to them in constant bursts from guns they could not see. Limbers had just been moved oil' and the guns gov into position when, whirr! overhead a German aeroplane, flying under low clouds, wheeled over them. They could see the pilot in his seat and the bombs as he dropped them one after another over the batteries. But his journey was too hurried for aiming. Every bomb fell wide. He then turned to his machine gun. Six times during the day German machines, amongst the whirling collection which circled low overhead, fired on these gun crews with machine guns. The Australians rigged up a Lewis gun which they found in a ■crater and a Vickers gun left in a trench. These (with hatmen, signallers and spare men using rifles) were turned on to attack the planes whilst the battery continued its work. Through a/,this, and under heavier shell fire as the day went on. the Australian batteries carried out every. order which reached them through a long day. exactly as if on a practice ground. ''l had rather have lived those first six hours," said a gunner, "than any other day of my life."