THREE DAYS OF CONTINUOUS BOMBARDMENT

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 232, 29 September 1915, Page 5

THREE DAYS OF CONTINUOUS BOMBARDMENT

AWE-INSPIRING SPECTACLE ON BRITISH FRONT, GERMANS PACKED IN THEIR DEEPEST DUGOUTS. (Received 11.20 a.m.) •> LON'DOX, September 23. The "Westminster Gazette's" correspondent in North France, writing oa Thursday last, saye: "This ie the third day of continuous British bombardment. The German fire ie astonishingly light, suggesting that the enemy i 3 short of guns and ammunition on this front. Looking at the German lines one sees no sign of life; even trench periscopes are not hoisted. The German infantry are lying low, packed in the deepest dugout*. The ground immediately below the surface is chalk, and the trenches on both sides are clearly defined, the wavy lines of the parapets glaring white in the sunshine. The most prominent features of the country are the pithead erections, towering chimneys, and huge black heaps. Most of the mir.f chimneys have been brought down by shells because they were used for artillery observing stations, but the tall winding gear erections and metal lattice work have resisted the shells. "The spectacle along the British front is wonderful and a«f inspiring. Shells of the heaviest artillery resembling spouting geysers of flame, Kmok>\ and dust, arc playing upon the slag heaps of hens. I.yddite from the howitzers i» plunged into the firing and communication trenches, blowing down parapets, and shrapnel is pelted savagely into the masses of barbed-wire entanglements protecting the German lines. The amount of wire i» stupendous. Great thickets and hedges run in front of every trench, and the (icrmane are constantly adding reinforcement* to rusty wire with fresh tangles of bhiftinted heaps, through which only shrapnel can blast a path. It is necessary for the artillery to cut many more miles of entanglements than the actual attack requires, otherwise thn Germans would realise the selected spots. Tlio British bombardment blotted out whole stretches of the German line in a slow-moving curtain of smoko, through which one could see the orange flame of bursting shells. "Every heavy shell threw up an enormous column of dust, which drifted slowly down the wind along the German front. "The bellowjng thunder of the guns, the shrieks and prreams of the shells, and the crashes and growls of high explosives did not erase ail day long, and even the darkness was broken by continual gun flat lies telling of the giiiih' activity throughout the battle line. "The British have heard of the hammering of the Russians, the apparent lockfast at Gallipoli, the painfuiiy slow progress of Italy, and now feel lhat the fulcrum of the lever is back on the West front. The Germans have jeered at Kitchener's armies, but these feel now that they have a really good chance of showing their mettle alongside the remnant* of Sir John French's "contemptible little army.'"