THREE YEARS AGO.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 October 1920, Page 4

THREE YEARS AGO.

L ( NEW ZfAJUANBERS IN FLANDERS. ' To-day is the third anniversary of the entry of New Zealand troops into the : Inlanders operations of 1917, which bef came known as the Battle of Passchen- £ claeie. • a thick drizzle and tlio first light of e 11 nlw day, the Ist and 4th Brigades r of the New Zealand Division, with Aust tralians and British troops, left their muddy shell-holes/ and .swept forward to I gain all their objectives with completo success. Amongst other points, Gra- £ venstafel and Abraham Heights were quickly captured by the New Zealanders, ivho included the three Wellington battalions, no that there were many Taranaki men in that day's lighting. For half-an-hour that morning the New Zealanders crouched under a terrific enemy bombardment, and there were many casualties before the advance commenced, and then, later, it became known that the Germans had also massed for an attack that morning, and it was their barrage that had added to •the day's perils. But the enemy's hour for an attack was 7 a.m.—by'half-an-hour the New Zealanders had won. ; Writing of this day, Sir Philip Gibbs said: "It has been a strange and terrible battle—terrible, I mean, in its great conflict of guns and men—and the enemy, if all goes well with uk, may have to remember it as a turning point in this history of this war, the point that has turned against him with a sharp and deadly edge." The second assault by New Zealanders in this area occurred on October 12, [ when the terrors of battle were added I to by shocking weather, making the ( battlefield a sea of mud. It was on October 20 that the New Zealanders . were withdrawn from the Passeliendaele ' sector, though they came to know its , perils again at the end of the year, find in 1018.