PALESTINE.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 April 1918, Page 6

PALESTINE.

DASHING RAID BY ANZACS. MARCH OVER WILD, HJLLY COUNTRY. London, April I. Mr. Massey, writing from Palestine headquarters 011 Sunday, says: ''By a dashing raid the Anzae mounted men and the Imperial Camel Corps blew up a portion of the Iledjaz railway north and soutii of Amrnaa, after the infantry had taken the town of Es Salt-, 2G miles east' of the Jordan. The infantry and cavalry in these operations captured over 700 prisoners, many of them Germans, with four guns and t number of machine-guns and much ammunition.

When the Jordan was bridged tie number of troops put across so surprised tile enemy that ho did not put up mueli of a fight before Es Salt, but lie was strongly reinforced at Amman and fought, stoutly behind trenches. The cavalry and camel corps made a great holding attack on Amman, shelling the station with made-up trains in the sidings. Airmen dropped bombs, causing ranch destruction, while Anzae engineers moving on the other flank blew up two arcli bridges north of the town, destroyed several culverts to the south, and completely ruined a. live-wiles' section of the line.

In the march from the Jordan valley the cavalry were 011 either flank of the infantry, who used tile road to Es Salt. The Anzaes went over the mountains, using steep goat and sheep trajks nearly all the way. The troopers had to dismount and pull their horses behind them for miles. They heeded not the barriers nature liad erected, nor the hardships entailed by the country, in which transport must be precarious and scanty. Towards the end of the journey the country was so terribly rough that some Anazcs had to leave their "horses three miles behind them.

Campaigning in this wild hilly country is a terribly arduous business- The accomplishment of the raid on the railway is n noteworthy military feat.

The weather is very bad. The Jordan rose S feet in oiie day. Rain and mist in the lulls added enormously to the difficulties.