LOOTING THE DEAD
A STORY FROM THE BELGIAN FRONT. A Belgian official telegram from Havre announces for the first time an incident that occurred on the Belgian front some time ago, which illustrates in n striking fashion the close solidarity and the friendly feelings existing among' the soldiers of the Allied armies, says Renter. One afternoon the Belgian soldiers witnessed from the trenches along the Nieuport-Dixinude railway a tragic aerial fight, during which a British aeroplane, surrounded by five Germans, was brought down in No Man's Land. Tt fell about 150 yards from the Belgian and German lines, cast of Ramseapelle, and the enemy opened fire on it as soon as it reached the ground. With the hope of bringing help to their Allies, a few Belgian soldiers, \ei by Sergeant Bcrnimolin, volunteered to leave their trenches, under a very violent fire. Crawling in the mud, they succeeded, *.i reaching the 'plane, only to find the British airmen already dead, and brought back the body of one of them. Some hours later, as soon as the enemy's fire relaxed, the Belgians went back to the machine and found a party of Germans engaged in despoiling the corpse of the second airman. They put the enemy to flight, and, in spits of a. violent fire directed against them by the Germans, who were furious at being deprived of their loot, carried the body back to their lines. A few hours later a third party went back in order to set fire to the wrecked, machine, so that no fragment of it should fall into German hands.
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Taranaki Daily News, 20 December 1917, Page 3
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265LOOTING THE DEAD Taranaki Daily News, 20 December 1917, Page 3
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