WESTERN.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 6301, 30 September 1915, Page 3

WESTERN.

CONTINUOUS BRITISH BOMBARDMENT.

Huns Probably Short of Guns

and Ammunition. Rec Sept 29,10 25 pm

London, Sept 28

The Westminster Gazette's correspondent in Northern France, writing on the 23rd inst, gays this is the third day'of the continuous British bombardment. The German fire has been astonishingly light, suggesting that the enemy is short of guns and ammunition ou this front. Looking towards the German lines there is no sign of life and even the trench periscopes are not hoisted. The German infantry is lying low, packed in dugouts -The ground immediately below the surfaco consists of chalk trenches, both sides clearly defiued by wavy lines. The parapets arc glaring white in the sunshine The most prominent cature of the ccuutry is tho enemy's towering chimneys at the pitheads and huge black slag heaps. Most of the mine chimneys have been shelled down because they were used for artillery observation statious, but the tall winding gear erections of metal lattice work resisted the shells. Wonderful and Awe-inspiring Spectacle. Ihe spectacle on the British front is wonderful aud awe-inspiring. The shells from the heaviest artillery resemble spouting llarae—smoke aud dust playing upon the slag heaps at Lens. y LydJite from the Howitzers was plunged into the tiring and communication tronche3, blowing d^wn the parapets.

The shrapnel pelted savagely the masses of barbed wire entanglements protecting the Germ.m lines.

; ;The amount of wire used was stupendous. Great thickets and hedges run iv front of every trench. The Germans wore constantly pddiug reinforcements of rusty wire, through which only shrapnel can blast a path. It was necessary for tho artillery to cut many more miles of entanglements than the actual attack required ; otherwise the Germans would realis* the spots selected for assault. Huns' Lines Blotted Out. The British bombardment blotted out whole stretches of German . Hue** in a slow moving curtain smoke, through which could be s3eii tho orange ilame of bursting shells. Every heavy shell threw up an euorwotu columu of-d-ust, which drifted Blowly down with the wind along the Uerniau front. Thunder of the Artillery. The bellowing and thunder of tho guvs, the shrieks and screams of shells, the crashes and groans of high explosives iucreased all day long. Even darkness was broken by continual flashes, telling of the activity of the guvs throughout the battle line, Fulcrum of Lever Back in West Tho British have heard of the hamMeriug the Russiaus have undergone, tue apparent luck-fast at Gailipoli, aud tho painfully slow progress of Italy, and now feel the fulcrum of the wrer is back on the west front. The liave. jeered at Kitchener's armies, but these feel they now have a real good chance of showing their Jjcttlo alongside tho remnants of General Sir J. French's "couteuiptible Mtle army,!