NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 15938, 27 June 1917, Page 7

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE MOVE ON LENS. To-day's cables report the United Tress correspondent at British Headquarters, as saying that "tho British made another move towards Lens last night (Sunday), taking 400 yards of tlu front lino eastward of the Riaumoni Wood." The message indicates ynh too clearly how slowly, despite occasional brilliantly successful dashes li«o that at Mcssincs, thl> task of pushing back the enemy goes on, for ten weeks we were practically fighting over the ground that lies just behind that over which the latest advance is being made. Lens, now our objective, then seemed within our grasp, thanks to our striking success in the battle of Arras and the splendid capture of tlio Yimy Ridge, overlooking the town, by the Canadians. In four or five days' lighting up to April 14th, wo had captured many thousands of prisoners aud Uit3 guns, many of which had been turned on the retreating enemy. On the llth luctt British pairois had penetrated into the streets of the outskirts »i Lens, and Mj" Philip Gibbs, Ironi :» neighbouring hillside, looked down 011 the explosions with which the enemy, while hurriedly retreating, was destroying the machinery of the mines that make Lens the centre of the French northern coalfields. "Every hour," he wrote, 'thero are big explosions, showiug that the Gorman pioneers arc still busy destroying all tlio wealth of machinery in the city and blowing up the roads before leaving. New prisoners describe all this frankly enough. Down one mineshaft they flung 20,000 hand grenades. They have enormous stores of explosive's of every kind for this purpose, beeauso this mining district was crammed with German stores. Tiu\ v had to leave Licvin in such haste thit they could neither carry away this ammunition nor destroy all of it, .i«d vast quantities of bombs, trench mortars, and shells liavo fallen into our hands."

A WELL-DEFENDED TOWN. In tho same despatch Mr Gibbs wrote: —"I saw a body oi' our men working forward to get into the heart of tho citv. They attacked the little wooded hill cnllcd the Bois do lliaumont, just to tho south 01 tho city, and with great cunning, and courage l *»>" circled its lower slopes, and niauu their way into tho street of houses behind tho lino of trees which is tho southern way into Lens." Tho Bois do lliiuimont is, of course, tho Riuumont Wood mentioned in to-day's cables. Our troops are now just about a quarter ol a mile beyond the position they capturcd in tho middle of April. Lous is ft curious place, and was then certainly, and probably is to-day, 11 welldefended one. Mr Gibbs describes it as a city of mineshafts and pitheads, electrical power stations, and a great hive of mining activity, where n population of something like 40,000 peoji.e lived in rows of red-brick cottages, under a forest of high chimneys nml mountainous slagheaps. Each group or collection of streets in the square blocks, which miiko separate township* of its suburbs, is called a cite. In the northern part of Lens there nro Cite St. Dourard, Cito St. Laurent. Cite Ste. Auguste, and Cito «!'■. Elizabeth. Westward there are v.lte Jeanne d'Arc and Cito St. Theodore. South there aro Cite dn Moulin and Cite do Riaumont. Each one of those placcs had its own separate def euros of barbed-wire and sandbag barricades, and each a nest of machine-gun*, manned by troops lfift to cover the retreat of tho main body and to delav Ine I British advance. And they did it. By evening tho Germans, recovering from tho panic into which our furious advance had thrown them, had stnyed their retreat and sent back into L'»r> supporting troops to hold the trenche* rvul machine-gun forts. Since then Lens has been the head of a salient whirl) has no doubt embarrassed ty. British movements on that rwrt- of tii« line. It looks Mow as though it wore roing to be straightened out. Our troops will then bo within about nine miles of Lille. It is slow, work, but it is sure, and what we gain we hold.

ADMIRAL SIMS. It is n uniquo distinction that the Admiralty has conferred on RearAdmiral W T illiam Sowdcn Sims, commanding tho destroyer flotilla of the American Atlantic Fleet, now in British waters, in giving him temporarily the Irish naval command. Yet though the cable rightly refers to him as an American Admiral, lie is really of British blood, for he w a Canadian by birth, though lie has long boon an American citizen, for ho graduated front Annapolis, tho naval collrgo of the United States, 37 years ago. There was, therefore, something particularly fitting in sending him across to Work under the supervision nnd control of Sir David Beatty. commanding tho Grand Fleet, and an additional fitness in tho fact that as noted hy one who knows both moil, the two havo much in common. Admiral Sims iR a man of striking presence. tall, erect, and alert, and carrying his 09 years well. Ho llas been nn aggressive and fearless admirer of Groat. Uritain during the war. Ilis report to the American Nary Department on the Bnttlo of Jutland was so hearty in its praise of tho tactics and strategy of tho British Fleet, nnd so outspoken in it« criticism of the German failure, thflt Mr Daniels, tho United States Secretary to the Admiralty, is said to have hesitated about publishing it. There was not much in common between him and tho Admiral, and on one occasion at least ninee tho outbreak df war tho political head of tho American Navy, who is an amiable noodle, saw fit to rebuke the Admiral for his too outspoken support of tho British cauec. At heart there lias never been much morr of the neutral about Admiral Sims than there has been nbo lit Colonel Roosevelt.