BISHOP CLEARY.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 October 1917, Page 7

BISHOP CLEARY.

RETURNS FROM THE FRONT. Bishop Cleary, who has just arrived from the front, explained recently to a Times representative that, under medical orders, he could not be interviewed, or give public addresses as he had been requested to do. In the course of a very brief conversation, however, he made one or two interesting remarks about the war. The Allies had, he said, a preponderance in men, guns, and, above all, moral. The guns outnumbered* those of the enemy.by about five to one, and the domination of the British air service had been of immense advantage. A British advance now meant an expenditure of a million shells a day in the. bombardment of a sector. The worst 'German projectiles were the Mihenwerfer and the 5.9 shell, which latter had a moro extended angle of explosion than the others. During his period ot service, said the Bishop, there had been three changes in the bayonet syllabus, and in the last, the "guard" had been J abolished, on the assumption that the German will not stand up to our men. He could tell an interesting story of a little fellow of five-foot-six who bayoneted two very large Prussian?, and was making for a third, when he was hit through the right shoulder. Asked if he did not find constant work amongst the wounded and dying depressing, the Bishop gave an emphatic negative. No one could help being cheerful, he said, when he saw the soldiers' indomitable spirit. Bishop Cleary had many narrow shaves in the fighting line, and is suffering at present from an injury to the ear. Asked his opinion on the duration of the war, the Bishop said he believed the end of the next northern summer would see the thing through, but many military officers of high rank wore not sanguine of a finish under another two years.