NEW ZEALANDERS CROSS THE SELL&

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 246, 15 October 1918, Page 5

NEW ZEALANDERS CROSS THE SELL&

SAPPERS BRIDGE STREAM UNDER HEAVY FIRE. MACBXtTE-GTIN FORTRESSES ASTD VILLAGES CAPTTTREIX (Received 10.40 a.m.) LONDON, October 14." Mr. Philip Gibbs, describing the brilliant feat of the New Zealanderß in crossing the River Selle, says: —In order to cover the retreat and prevent Haig coming on too fast along the crowded roads the German command ordered the rearguard to hold out to the death on the River Selle. Our men for two days had been trying to force passages, and, after stubborn and heroic efforts, astonishing as the storming of the Sheldt Canal, they achieved their purpose. We have now crossed the river. It is a strong defensive position, because the banks cut very sharply down to the stream twenty feet wide, and winds round several villages, each having machine-gun fortresses. The Germans held the line in strength, and we had to attack down a glacis swept by their fire. The feat was done by Yorkshire, Lancashire, Scotch, and New Zealand units, assisted by cavalry. Tbere were three tree trunks by the river. Some of our men got across by creeping on the logs among the floating brushwood. Others waded up to their necks in water, but all had to come back owing to the German machine-guns. Finally the sappers made bridges under very heavy irre during the night. We cut a way into the German trenches, and the New Zealanders fought their way to Biastre, on the river bankj though the enemy was able to see every movement from the high ground. The New Zealanders had already been fighting for days, since the marvellous capture of Welsh Ridge and La Vacquerie, on October 2 and 3, and the capture of Lesdain and Esnes on the 6th, where the New Zealand Rifles and the Canterbury Battalion fired their Lewis guns from their hips, capturing many prisoners, and repulsing counter-attacks, which the enemy made with a tank captured from the British. It was a battle of tanks. A British tank charged the Germans, the British tank outflanked it, and poured in a broadside which blew it to bits. The New Zealanders went on to the villages of Veauvois, Fontaine, and Viesy, capturing Baistre, on the Selle, on the 11th. On the 12th they forced the river, and forced a way up to the heights of Bellevue, where they are fighting now. — (A. and N.Z. Cable.)