NEW ZEALAND DIVISION.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 September 1918, Page 8

NEW ZEALAND DIVISION.

GOOD SERVICE AT TRESCAULT. THE ASSAULT ON THE RIDGE DESCRIBED. (From Captain Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent with the New Zealand Forces in the Field.) By Cable, September 15. The long spell of strenuous fighting, in which the New Zealanders have taken Such a conspicuous and continuous part, rcßched its culminating point in the assault on the Trescault Ridge, east of the Havrincourt Wood. During the past few days this fighting became somewhat, confused, and more determined than ever. The ridge constitutes one of the buttresses in the front defences of the Hindenburg line, and a certain well-known trench was the key to the position—the main defence line of the enemy in this sector. It was defended by stout divisions, who were ordered to hold it to the la3t. Prisonevs said that all attacks upon it were to be resisted to enable the Hindenburg line to be further strengthened, and that the final withdrawal would be to that line, which would be held at all costs. At dawn on the 12th the New Zealandp.rs attacked in conjunction with the troops on the flank of the division, and, following a splendid barrage, the Rifles had no difficulty in attaining their first objective. Further progress, however, M'as difficult, owing to the intense rifle and machine-gun fire that came from a trench held by the enemy in considerable force. Except for a few posts we pushed out, our line remained for the ivhole day on the first objective. Frequent bombing attempts by the enemy to win back positions we had gained achieved no result. ENEMY'S DETERMINATION. In the south the battle fluctuated, owing 'to strong enemy counter-attacks One which was delivered at G a.m. drove our thin line back for some distance, and a second was delivered at 2 p.m. along sunken roads with covering machine-gun fire from an adjacent trench. Heavy fighting ensued for the possession of the captured trench, and as the enemy succeeded in outflanking us from the south we had to withdraw from almost all of the trench we had captured except one portion that we continued to hold in strength. At 7 p.m. a further attack under a barrage was made by tos, to endeavor to attain the final objective. At first our men met with stubborn resistance, but by 7.30 their line was well advanced. The determined Jaeger assault troops counter-attacked again at 10.30 p.m., advancing down the trenches, and we had to make further slight withdrawals after stiff fighting. We captured 43 unwounded and 57 wounded prisoners, and our line was still left in advance of the original position. The English troops gallantly fighting on our left captured the villages of Trescault and Havrincourt, but on our right no progress could be made. The enemy had fought stubbornly along the whole front, and his maphine-gun fire had been intense and well-aimed. On the following day local fighting continued for two sectors of trench by both sides, the enemy showing dogged determination to hold the remainder of the ridge still in his possession. At 2 p.m. we again attacked, and drove the enemy out of part of a trench he was holding. Remnants of one German company, realising the position, fled across the open, and the New Zealanders shot at them as they ran. Eleven unwounded prisoners of the Jaeger machinfe-gun companies remained with us. It is noteworthy that these Jaegers have more machine-guns than most of the other division's, and that they use them with determination and skill. During the afternoon and evening the enemy renewed his counter-attacks, and forced us to withdraw a little, and at 1.45 a.m. he came at the New Zealanders with bombs and liquid file, forcing one of our posts to withdraw. The enemy shelled us with guns of various calibres throughout, and also used much gas. In addition to the large number of prisoners captured, we inflicted very heavy casualties on the enemy. One of his companies was reduced in a day from sixty to twenty-three, but was lucky in getting reinforcements up a communication trench during a rainstorm. The men of the Rifles were the principal actors in this strenuous fighting, but at the finish Wellington troops also had a hand in it. GALLANT DEEDS BY "THE DIGGERS." Most extraordinary were some of the daring adventures upon which small parties, and even individuals, embarked. The men themselves say little about these, and often one only hears of them by cha,nce. One of the finest traits in j the character of the "diggers" is their modesty in regard to their own gallant deeds. About the last day of this fighting a sergeant of the Rifle Brigade, with ten men, went forward to exploit a success already gained, and in a sunken road came unexpectedly upon a whole company of the enemy, Our small baW might have been pardoned had they taken to flight, but they stood their ground and fought, and any German who did not put up his| hands was killed. A Jaeger officer who rushed out of a dugout to rally hit men was promptly shot. The others in the immediate vicinity then surrendered. By this time there were only some six New Zealanders left unwounded, but they proceeded to .collect other Germans from the shellholes till eventually tlie half-dozen marched back to our line with forty prisoners. GREAT WORK IN TH3 AIR. So much for events on land. Almost every night now we witness thrilling scenes in the air. The other evening we watched a German aeroplane being held in the beams of over a dozen searchlights, while the "Archies" and machine' guns were firing continuously at him. Presently the bright silver of his wings in the searchlights turned to flame, and he began to make an awful descent for thousands of feet in one streak of yellow flame, the red and blue of his signalling flares shooting out from the column and adding to the pyrotechnic display. Finally the tree-fringed crest of a low ridge behind which he fell was silhouetted against- the glow of his burning petrol tank as it crashed to earth. Later another aeroplane was brought down in the same manner, and a third, shot in a vital part, landed in our linei Two of its occupants had got away in the strong wind in parachutes, but the pilot, a fine, strapping young fellow, was captured by the New Zealanders, and wub very crestfallen at his bad luck. To-night the clear moonlit vault is a buzzing hive of aeroplanes, and at intervals comes the imeyen droning bass of a Germau machine, the dull crash of hii