NOT SO QUIET

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 30, 19 January 1940, Page 3

NOT SO QUIET

Reports to hand from American papers report that all is not as quiet on the Western Front as the official communiqués would have us_ believe. Here are some extracts from one correspondent’s story, gathered while he was with Moroccan troops in the Vosges Mountains. It took this man _half-an-hour to cover two miles, zig-zagging through wire entanglements, passages, and trenches to the top of a hill. The officer in charge told him as they looked out over the smaller hills and valleys: "After dark this area becomes a sort of no man’s land, with patrols on both sides operating through the valleys. The Germans operate in groups of 40, preceded by highly trained dogs which come to a silent ‘point’ when they Scent a man. The German patrols are usually armed only with grenades, pistols, and knives. They want prisoners. They also want us to fire with automatic arms in order to get our position. They haven’t succeeded in taking a single prisoner. When my men discover the approach of a patrol party, they withhold action until they hear the marauders encounter our barbed wire." Back in a dugout they heard the sound of bursting grenades. "An anguished cry rang out, followed by convulsive moans, After-a few seconds the moaning was cut off as though a hand had been. clapped over the mouth of the sufferer. Some 30-odd more grenades went off." During one patrol the French captured Kurt Stopel, a German cyclist. One of the party who captured him was Robert Oubron, a French cyclist. They had often competed in international events.