BELLVUE SPUR.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 234, 4 October 1927, Page 5

BELLVUE SPUR.

MEMORY OF BITTER FIGHT.

GALLANT NEW ZifiALANDERS.

Each recurring October since 1917 reminds New Zealand of the gallantry of her troops during the bitter fighting, round Ypres. For the greater part of that month the men of the splendid Nen, Zealand Division were struggling against the enemy and the elements. They went into the front line on the second of the month, brilliantly captured the Crown Prince Farm a few days later, and then on the twelfth attacked the Bellvue Spur, in which action they lost heavily, owing to the insuperable odds against which they had to face.

Just before the action at Crown Prince Farm the weather turned from fine to something abominable. The rain transformed the area into a sea of mud, which upset all the calculations and greatly hampered the transport and the guns. All the troops in that sector suffered terribly, and the 49th Yorkshire and 66th Lancashire Divisions wore so badly cut up in the fighting during the early part of the month that at one stage most of the New Zealand Division had to be employed as stretcher-bearers. The odds against the New Z&landers when they attacked Bellvue Spur on the 12th, made the task hopeless from the start, but the men did all that human beings could do, and covered themselves with glory. The wire of the enemv was impenetrable, their gunfire was devastating. and the mud put a number of the New Zealand batteries out of action, and the men from overseas made no impression on the tremendously strong position. The Division's casualties were heart-"breaking, and the day will never be forgotten in hundreds of New Zealand homes.