THE NEW ZEALANDERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 September 1918, Page 8

THE NEW ZEALANDERS.

IA'CCOUNT OF THEIR OPERATIONS. AT BANCOURT AND BAPAUME. (From Captain Malsolra. Ross, Official War Correspondent with the New Zealand Forces In the Field.) . Another day has gone well for us. All the men I have seen who were in this morning's attack speak well of the barrage. The Rifles advancing on Fremicourt met with considerable ma-chine-gun fire and suffered some casualties therefrom. Kancourt, like its Sister village, was stoutly defended, but the New Zealanders were not to be denied. Bavarian prisonera who were in the attack told me that they had orders to hold on there. Their defences, they said, were mainly outside the village, each with four machine-guns. They had retired from Bapaume, where their strength was six days fighting. It had been reduced mainly from shell-fire and sickness to 30 per company- The nervous strain was beginning to tell on them. Their food in the trenches was 'better than when they were behind the line for some considerable time. Now they had been eating the flesh of horses killed in battle, but they made no complaint on that score. The horseflesh made good soup. They said they were civilians in C'ambrai, but none this side of it. Their men had heard from comrades of the Gorman defeat on the Marne. At one of our advanced dressing stations I found several prisoners of the Red Cross, men who had helped with the wounded. These were enjoying a meal of bread and butter and bully hoof, and seemed very surprised to get such good foodBapaume is in very much the same condition as Ynres was about six months ago. The Germans have left very little in the town. Even the statue of Paid Harbe, who defended it in the ISTO war has gone. At the railway station, however, the enemy left a large store of coal and a large quantity of metal and crushed stone It seemed as if he had decided to settle down in this country and was about' to build concrete pill-boxes for its defence. However he iias had no time to do that, and the metal will conic in useful for our roads. This town was still 'being shelled this morning. New Zealand walking wounded, and four of our infantry men bearing a wounded comrade on their shoulders camo down the main street as shells were bursting. At the same moment there was a regular fusillade of fire from the "Archies" and machine-guns as Boehe airmen daringly attacked one of our balloons on part" of our attacking line. This morning there was heavy machine-gun fire an I scattAod, but not verv heavy shelling. j Tanks gave valuable aid, and one of them captured a field battery which it had cut off. The German machine gunners fought till our men were right on them, and then "Kameraded." Others, with infantrymen, ran before the barrage to the crest of a ridge, where they proceeded to make a standFrom there they attempted a counterattack, but our artillery got on to thorn, p.nd they quickly faded away. One of our maehine-Erunners who bad gone forward expecting to find one of our units in some trenches, found only Germans there, and got a rifle bullet through his wrist. He, however, got back, with a companion, to his own linos. New Zealand machine-gunners got a lot of shooting at the retreating and d?. p e'nding enemy, not only with their own, but also with German maeliineguns in almost every shell-hole, and before long every single man in our crews were firing a gun, There has been plenty of abandoned ammunition, l and our mon arc becoming quite expert I in th» usr of the German gunOur toll of prisoners is daily mount(ing up. Wellington and Auckland men, who captured Bancourt to-day, added I considerably to the number. The weather has again cleared. September 1

Our tireless troops are still pushing on this morning with a brilliant dash. They captured the remainder of the ridsre north of the Bapaumc-Cambrai road, near Fromicourt. It was a minor operation, but it relieved an awkward position for ns, and, in addition, to qivte a fair toll of German killed and wounded, it gave us a haul of prisoners out of all proportion to the number of troops we employed. Before dawn our artillery barrage suddenly burst on the enemy's position, and our advancing waves were quickly on the crest of the ridge. It was the Auckland and Wellington units and* rifles that were engaged. Our casualties were mainly from machine-gun fire. The crest of the hill once gained, our men found fio shelter there It was quite open country, and they proceeded to dig in in very hard ground The enemy was equally without cover, an such as could get away from the barrage at once commenced to retreat according to orders. Ac these our leads—gunners and infantry—shot with good effect. As a wounded Auekknder put it, "a lot of them remained there for keeps." Early in the morning T saw a batch of over 101) pris-' oners being marched clown, but this did not by any means complete the toil T''!> ; r shoulder-straps showed them to bo a mixed lot from several regiments. One new division, a Prussian one, had. come down from Flanders, and some of t-hwso were in the fight. We captured Prussians, Saxons, and "Bavarians. As I writ" it sounds as if the enemy were exploding dumps a.long wav behind his present line. If this is so, it is probably preliminary to a further retreat;