New Zealanders in Action.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 19, 23 July 1920, Page 3

New Zealanders in Action.

(Extract from N.Z.E.F. "Chronicle,"

SOME YPRES MEMORIES. FURTHER, DETAILS OF GSAVENSTAFEL.

November 14, 1917.) November 5th., 1917. He gives a short description of the attack on the right sector, which stretches between the heaps of broken brickwork that once was the little village of Gravenstafel on the left and the Abraham Heights on the right; the 38-metre contour there being the highest point, The ground gently sloping up here was the usual mass of shell-holes, scattered over with pillboxes and here and there ruined farmhouses. .Beyond the little slightly roun-ded plateau the ground sloped to strong points at Berlin and Berlin Wood. In the advance the men kept well in line behind the barrage going up to the crest of the ridge, except at Yan Meulen, where they were held for a while by machine-gun fire.

Ihe Otago and Wellington troops took the first objective, Wellington helping their South Island comrades in the capture, after which the former went on to the last objective. There was no great difficulty with Abraham Heights. Except for some machine-gun casualties, our men went straight over without much opposition. At Gravenstafel, farther on and - more to the left, some Otagos in their keeness went- forward very close to the edge of the barrage. They were very successful, capturing almost a hundred prisoners. Further opposition was encountered at Berlin and Berlin Wood, Wellington men capturing one position and Canterbury men the other. The light trench mortars were brought to bsar on one strong point, after which it was successfully rushed. At Waterloo, on the left of the line and slightly down the slope leading to a deciivity in front of Passachendaele was another strong point, which had evidently been a battalion headquarters, and soon its captors were absorbing German sodawater and smoking German cigars. The unusually large numbers of prisoners which fell to our troops was probably due to the fact that the ruined farmhouses in our line of advance were very fully occupisd by the enemy, presumably in preparation for their attack, timed for an hour later than our own. November 6. Captain Malcolm Ross describes the scene of the battle on the following morning — a spectacle of tremendous energy struggling in the midst of a vast desolation. "Censidering," he says, "the strength \of the enemy position, it was marvellous that we ever moved him, but tlre morale of the German troops, composed, too, to a great extent of young bpys and older men, was incapable of withstanding the determincd and courageous onslaught of tlie attacking forces." He tells of the difficulties of transport over the shattered roads and the sodden country, and of the splendid work of the Labour Battalions and the Engineers in construction and repair. Millions of feet of baulk timber were at hand to prevent the lorries and limhered waggons and mule trains from becoming one inextricaole tangi c irr-places where the metal had been blown away. Along thes« roads went the great streams of lumbering lorries to the farthest limit where the plank: road ended for the time being, and the stream narrowed to a line of limhered waggons and mule trains splashing through the mud, in places knee deep. A light tramway already ran well forward. Enemy r aeroplanes overhead directed artillery upon the transport, but the work was unhindered. The road-makers and road-menders were busy all aloirg the way, but were frequently interrupted by the trafiic rolling by. Limhered waggons with their painted shells rattling in their wooden boxes ploughed through the mud. Mules, each with eight eighteen-pounder shells, four on each side, splashed mud over passersby. Engineer stores, food and water and blankets, and a dozen other things were all going up. A good deal of it reached its destination on the b'acks of men. Along this road the TEngineers and the Maori Pioneer Battalion were doing good work. On both sides was a wilderness of shell hol^, almost all of them full to the brim. On the slope on the right His Majesty's Tank "Foam, F 47" lay pathetically derelict, a reminder of a former conflict. The Maoris were carrying on their broad shoulders great fassbjes that other of their fellow tribesmen had cut in Freneh,

forests many miles behind the line. "You having the good time up here?" I remarked to one sturdy warrior with the name P. B. Te Pohatu printed with an indelible pencil on his gas respirator. "No fear," he replied, and when I asked hirn. the reason he did not mince his words. "Too much plurry Boche shell," he said, with a grin that revealed a set of teeth which would make light work of breaking up even an army biscuit. "Along the line of route, raen from the Signal Company were still looking to the communications. In a battle, when things go wrong, signallers particularly are cursed. And in a battle things generally do .go wrong with signals, so that at times human tlesh and blood have to do the work of the wires. That is often the case in the forward positions. The running of lines from cable head to Brigade forward stations is no sinecure, and the maintaining of lines, once they have been laid, is not easy when a fierce battle is raging. In one section in this battle thr.ee hundred yards of line was broken in thirty places, and men worked sixteen hours out of twenty-four endeavouring to maintain the conn&ct-ion. One lance-corporal was, in this battle, blown up by shell fire for the fourth time. On the first occasion he escaped with the loss of his shirt ; the second time he was blown out of a trench and suffered slightly from shock ; while his thlrd experience left him with some slight wounds." Pushing mule tracks under shell fire was an enlivening occupation. Reconnai sauces had to be made for the forward mule and infantry tracks across the wilderness of the shell-holes, and material was carried up under the enemy barrages. Along these roads and tracks the D.A.C. did splendid work. One watches them a«dmiringly in daylight and darkness splashirtg along. Sometimes exploding shells would blow men and mules off the tracks altogether. Pathetic little groups lay huddled in strange shap&s — men and animals that had died in the strenuous work of feeding the guns and the troops. There was not time as yet to trouble about burying them — the living and not the dead were the chief concern. Captain Ross tells of the fine action of a transport corporal who stopped a team which had bolted along a road full of transport and troops. Returning, he soon had the team clear, alt^ough one horse had been killed and the driver wounded. Wounded himself at this stage, he carried on, attending first to the driver and then contmuing his work with Ihe eolumn. THE TERRIBLE CONDITIONS IN THE LA6T BATTLE. The capture of the ridges beyond the Ypres salient was the natural corollary to the taking of the Messines Ridge. Aftex a considerable advance had been made in the battle of the Ridges by troops from the Motherland, the New Zealanders on October 4th entered the fight, with trSops from the Old Country on their left, and Australian troops on their right. The New Zealanders Avere snccessful in capturing the GravensRifel Ridge, Ahraham Heights, and positions imrnediately beyond. Ihe "pill-box" proiblem had been grappled with, and found not to he insoluble. The dead that lay just behind our front showed how hard the fighting had heen in the storming of these strong points. But storm ed thev were.

The weather had been going from bad to worse, and frequently the whole battlefi,eld was shrouded in mist and rain. Bringing up ammunition and the working of the guns became more and more di/ficult. Vast quantities of material were being [ gathered at railheads and dumps, and fev. erish activity reigned everywhere. In clear glimpses between rain-storms and fogs, the enemy shelled and bombed from aeroplanes. Sometimes he got liis target, but failed to hinder the great war machine. The artill&ry struggled forward with their pieces, overcoming almost superhumau difficulties. \Storms of gunfire swept the German positions, ploughed the lauds and roads, and interfered with their communications. j On the night of the 11th of October the I New Zealanders were ready once more at their starting place, Australians again on their right, British, as before, on their left. DuTing the night a cold rain fell, and dawn came through mist and drizzle. The divisions previously holding this ground had made little hoadway, for rain and mad were ' heavy odds against them. Our jumping-off place was consequently only a short distance beyond our former outposts. It ran from a point near Adler House, past Peter Pan, and on through Marsh Bottom to the Ravebeek — a front of aboufc 1,600 yards. Away on the right, on the crest of the ridge a little less than 2000

yards off, loomed the ruined buildings of Passchendaele. First to be attacked, with nest of pillboxes and machine-guns, were the Cemetery, Wolf Farm, Wolf Copse, and Bellevue. Thick across the whole of Bellevue Spur was uncut wire of the low picket pattern, 2 feet 6 inches high, and varying from 20 to 40 yards in deplh. It had been part of the damaged wire in the Staden-Zonnebeke defences, but, having been repaired, it was again formidable. The ground between Wolf Farm and Wolf Copse and about Marsh Bottom, faxther on the right, was very marshy. Before our men lay the most adverse conditions for an attack — greasy mud, waterlcgged shell-holes, concrete redoubts fronted with wire and crammed full with machine- guns. The greatest impediment to success was the inefficiency of the artillery. It had been impossible to bring many guns up, and accurate shooting was considerably hindered by the constant slipping of the gun traiJs. The sum total of this was that the infantry had not the splendid barrage essential for the thorough cutting of the wire and the shocking of the pill-boxes. Following the thin barrage, the advancing waves of infantry found themselves raked with machine-gun fire, sniped with rifles, and even shot at by machinegunners perched on little platforms in the almost branchless trees. «•:•••• In the early morning, when I viewed the attack from Hill 37, there was not the usual intensity of fire, and progress was clearly slow. Later in the morning, ihe mists lifting, the Passchendaele Ridge revealed itself above the shell and bulletswept slope. In one hollow away on the left there was an inferno of shell-fire, and the black smoke of the German crurfrps rose at intervals along the line and farther back. The whole line was being held up by masses of barbed wire and with a withering machine-gun fire, against- which further advance, without increased artillery preparation, was impossible. In spite of this, wave after wave went forward. Nnmbers were shot down, hut still they persevered. Of individual heroism there were many examples, but dozens and scores of brave deeds must pass imrecorded. In the afternoon the attack was broken off. The walking wounded were struggling back. Mud-stained and blood-stained, some smiling and cheerful, others t-hought-ful and with wan faces, often leaning on a comrade's shoulder or a-rm, the little stream came trickling down. Hot food and drink bucked them up wonderfully. The Medical Corps and a host of stretcher-bearers toiled all day and night. The infantry fought till they were exhausted, and the stretcher-bearers toiled until they were in the last stages of fatigue. For two days and two nights, under fire, through sodden, shell-torn ground and vicious weather, they carried ihe wounded. There was mud on the battlefield often four feet deep. The weariness of the work was beyond description. The ground was almost impassable. By day they were under observation of the enemy ; by night they trusted to their luck in the darkness. Infantry, Artillerymen and Army Service Corps men assisted in this work, a.nd by 10.30 a.m. on the 14th the whole of the New Zealand seetor was ciear of wounded. Captain Ross describes ihe splendid

work of a signalling sergeant who, when the colonel of a Canterbury Battalion was killed, had a long and arduous time finding the next senior officer to command. One after another he founct them casualties, but eventually found the Lieutonant whom the succession of casualties had made O.C. In doing so he passed over considerable distances of the fire-swept desolation, and went to headquarters twice before he finally ron his man to earth. There were two nasty "pill-boxes" close to the little Ravebeek stream, and an Otago platoon, swinging round to fi 11 a gap, found itself under their fire. It also suffered from rifle fire which came from a trench near the "pill-boxes." The officer in chai'ge imrnediately led his men forward and eaptured it. The "pill-boxes," however, continued to liold out, for t-he Germans were now fighting well. Holding the garrisoji with a frontal attack by a Lewis gun and working round the fianks, some of them eventually suceeeded in capturing both "pill-boxes" and about 30 •prisoners. By this time the platoon was reduced to two — the officer and his batman. He constituted himself tlie garrison. of the "pill-boxes," and remained in one while his batman was sent to report to battalion headquarters. The batman was killed before he had gone far. Some Australians then appeared on the scene, and the New Zealander took them into the "pill-box." He repeatedly endeavoured to get messages back, and had no fewer than five runners shot in the atte-mpt. He lield on till evening, ancl then in com-

pliance with instructions, rejoined his company, of which he was by this time the commander. He reorganised his men under shell fire, consolidated the position chosei., and established part of a new line. Captain Ross records many other fine deeds, but, alas, there is not the space in these pages for them. They were mostly performed in splendid attempts to force passages in the uncut wire and reorganising shattered units, and in consolidating some sort of a line. In one dark, wet night the depleted brigades worked strenuously, attempting to form a respectable line hi the morass of mud and shell noles. The following excellent description of the terrible conditions under which our fellows attacked on the 12th are given in the "Bystander" of October 24th: — ". . . . Such areas as are not actual lagoon are a standing marsh of deep craters, separated only by narrow, shelving banks of mud, and it is across such land that our men went to the attack af ter days of storm and bitter cold, where heavy rain had added to the floods, and they t-hem-selves were soaked and chill and weary. . "They went in the grey of dawn and in the teeth of machine-gun and rifle fire. . . The men waded ankle-deep and knee-deep, they went up to their waists in shell-holes a-nd struggled through or they sank to their necks and were helped out by comrades. . . . But they kept on unflinchingly, through one great cratei* after another, and the stretcher-bearers (especially picked out by the German snipers) went forward and back over the battlefield without a thought of their own fatigue "As for the wonnded, who lay for hoprs, days, hidden in deep craters, who had to be carried from two to thr.ee miles through the morass, ' and sometimes were so compietely embedded in the mud that the baarers had to dig them out (in the case oi the seriously wounded a long and delicate operation)." Ah, well! as the eye-witnesses say, perhaps it were better not to paint too plain a picture of the lurid scene of war.