ANZACS-SWEPT ON.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 218, 12 September 1916, Page 9

ANZACS-SWEPT ON.

WAVE AFTER WAVE OVER J HUN LINES. •5T08.Y OF THE CAPTURE OF FOZIERES. GERMANS DID NOT WAIT FOR :; THE BAYONET. ;* ■ (By PIHI/LIP GIBBS.) ■sVith British Army in the Field. July-23. Via London. July ii. ■Heavy fighting bpgan in the "early hours of t'.iis morning along all the lines from Pozieres to" Delville Worn! and-southward from ..Troiies Wood in the direction <»i Guill.- ,- •niont. Many battalions took part in this assault, belonging to--English. Scottish, Australian, nn.l New Zealand regiments, a"i foug'.it witli the finest courage, "W ! '.J that courage which, through all these three weeks of battle, has been shown by all our troops, who have gone forward or held on—most of all held on —with, supreme - devotion and selfsacrifice. ' They were Australians who mad.- , the attack upon Pozieres, with English boys ' up on their le£t. For several days and nights they had been in this ■ -neighbourhood iin®r"' T l( shell fire thaj never ceased in daylight or darkness, our shell fire passing over their heads, and the Germans" shell fire searching for £heir bodies. : EVERY NERVE A LIVE WIRE. "The strain on the nerves was bad." Said.an Australian soklbr. who looked es though he had no nerves. •■Tine heavy German crumps came thundering about us, and after a time 1 found myself •'trembling in a queer way. One slept a ..•bit. but always woki l Ho the scream of f shells passing overhead and the crash of :: some damnable thing near Ivy and the / ; tioise of the guns" every-where. But it ""*as -worse just befor> the attack last '■night—an hour or two before. Every . serve in one's body was a live wire." There was ; i distance of something like 530 yaTds between the Australians' line and the front-.tiH'iK-hes of the German network of trenches across the ja Bapaume roaJ. which runs diagonally ■ a through Pozieres._,.yjl]a i g_e. . Our men lay _;-. erouciied behind the earthworks ready :<-for. the sprint acro.-:s that ground, bracr ■ jng their spirits to -it, and tor two hours i- every gun from our batteries behind them and about th.'in fired as hard as the gunners could get their shells into the breach. The sky was,blazing with £ shell bursts and rockets, and the earth v> trembled. SHELLS BORE LIQUID FIRE. It was midnight wheirth:- Australian? "•* fcent forward witlwthf.-other "troops in ;• the darkness, and the only liphts given to the battle wets the rVare of rocket.-., the signal of the frightened Germans .500 yards away. It gleamed white upon the iriuns of the shell rrntrrs in No -Man's Land. The men fell intu the>e holes ami scrambled out of them, aiid fell into . . others. ; .";• It Tyasv imposeivle to run or walk upright. The enemy, aware of their coming, at once opened on. them with a very fierce barage of shrapnel. At any rate, itjwas mostly shrapnel for the Australians, but on the left, where the English lads were running forward, the line had been drawn through the darkness, and _ Sigh explosives began. Other kinds of-shells were boini fired at our men. Many of them hurst high, and then came down like rlamiii2 torches, ■with trailing feathers of flame. They Were liquid fire shells, to burn up the todies of the men. ■ They frighten.- 1 -hb -<tir -fiiv-t." said a territorial. "It was as though the stars had suddenly dropped, all on fire, but they did not do 115 inudiJiarm. and after the first scare we did not mind them." . 2)ID NOT WAIT FOR THE STEEL. ...Other shells, dropping "in a queer way." came with a singing note though they .tad -whistles tied to them and burst "•without much no:-e. but*with a hiss like a '"dud" shell. These were of the puNon variety, and some of them made the men near them "very *irtc. nut they did Eot act in a deadly way because the , men were quick to get beyond the reach ' '01 the fumes. The first German trench was lightly iheld. The only men who stayed thorn .J .were machine gunner*, who fired at the infantry, and some parties of grenadiers, who tiling their bombs. The 'Australians sprang>at them with -Bied bayonets, but the Germans di.l not ftvait until the steel reached them. Some £an .bar-k to the - ecu.ii' I line: others thing: Uf_their hands. It was bard to give them mercy, bei-aiise they had waited too long to ask,for is..but the Australians made them prisoner.- and sent them tack. .JHARDEST THE JOI'RNKY. The most difficult part of the way n> ; $,»• come. The 6PCoud line of defen.-e was ~iii-.light railway nor -tramway, and this ivas more strongly held with many machine guns and the usual deep dugbuts. But the Australians were com in 1; j 'up in waves, and while some remained behind in the first line a.- consolidating parties, others jjrggeed on and went straight toward the machine gun lire and the German riflemen. Not even the German machine gunfcers could keep 'lack this line of keen, ardent men. t'.ie-e clean-shaven batchetifaced lads who brought a new type of Manhood to Kran.-e.arid' without such heavy casualties as might have been ex-t-pected they t<><.k territory and fought •■down the line of H : ngmrb--r ' .......There had been two more lines of trenches in front of them, and again *. Seaving pome of their number to make EUTe of the ground Imliiiid. they went on ■again, and carrie.l their objective with Bn irre-sifctible rush. T'ln-y drove straight along the Bapaume road, which cuts the Village in half and conies out on the ! other side, when they called ii halt and 1 established a defensive position after this J Astonishing assault. OUTFLANKfNC; THE GERMAN?. The village of Pozieres is divided in halves, the enemy still holding the north-weetern side, with the usual weapons nf defence, machine guns toncealed in the ruins of houses and in specially-made emplacements. But this was not a very happy position for them, because of the work of the Territorial boys, who came up on the left *> f - the Australians. They, too, had fought forward rapidly - Under heavy fire'from "every kind of gun ■ 6nd grenade. In spite of. casualties, they taire not checked, and by the time the Australians had gained- the lower half j W the village, the English soldiers were ! on the left above the village and tontflaakiDg it.

There is only one more objective which must be gained before Pozieres is captured, surrounded and held. It is the old windmill immediately to the north of the village and midway between the Australians and English troops, which has been made into a strong fort guarded by sandbags and earthworks, from which German machine gunners can maintain a dangerous fire. The Australians deserve all the praise that can be given to them, and the men with whom I spoke to-day, men who had the ill-luck to be -wounded, but the great luck to be wounded lightly, made little fuss about the pain, because they had done to well. 'iPRISOXERf? GLAD TO BE PRISONERS. *'"V\ c got there, - ' said one of them who canie down carrying a spiked bludgeon and other souvenirs of the enemy. "It waa-a hard tight, and I got a' bullet through my leg. but we beat Brother Boschc. That's all that matters." The prisoners they took were glad to be out of the battle—all except an officer, who gave way to despair because or the hurt to his pride, and tried to open the. little vein in his wrist so that he should not remain alive in our hand*. 1 can only give a glimpse of other attacks further to the right, where High Wood and Delville Wood and Gnillemont. to the .south, were scenes of very fierce a-ssaults. Here we gained ground. Lut not those woods, which utill hold men of the most stubborn courage, and the enemy's artillery fire is intense and violent, some officers of the Hoyal Scots described to mc to-day the conditions of fighting here, at Longueval and Delville Wood. I met remnants of the South Africans and Scottish, who. with their battalions, suffered in a heroic and tragic way in this forest of ill-fame. One day the story must be told in full, a<. it was'told to mV> to-day by the men who ldet most of their comrades. There is one colonel who.stayed in the wood with his battalion for two days longer than any other man.