THE NEW ZEALANDERS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16310, 6 September 1918, Page 7

THE NEW ZEALANDERS.

OUR MEN STILL FIGHTING WELL. (Special—From th© Official War Cor- J respondent.) I August 31. i Yesterday ended with two moro villages in our hands —Bancourt and Fremincourt. As you already know, they fell to the North Islanders ana tho Ilifi° Brigade. Through tho day the New Zealanders fought extremely well. Indeed, tho moro ono sees of their work and of the battlefield they had to fight over, tho greater one's becomes —their determination and initiative are 6imply superb. They are advancing over a wide front and penetrating deeply, killing .many Germans, making many prisoners, anil capturing innumerable machine-guns and some artillery. They do all this in faco of stern" opposition, for there is no denying the fact that the enemy in thjs sector has all along been lighting his rearguard action remarkably well. His machine-gunners are stout fellows, who fight till we are on top of them. But the Gorman Higher Command is ruthlessly sacrificing them in order to save his artillery. S> OPEN WARFARE. Yesterday tho New Zen-landers on tho right had very hard fighting, as [Reincourt to the south of them was fctili* held by the enemy. They wont gallantly forward to their objectivo in spite of the difficulties that confronted them. It was typically opon warfare. The men worked as though on a field day, sections rushing forward under fire, then firing on hostile machinegunners and allowing other sections on their flanks to move forward. On their left tho Rifles were counter-at-tacked. and their posts driven slightly bacik, t>ut the troops on the left cmformed to the line, and the enemy made no great progress. Casualties were caused by machine-gun fire from Reincourt, from huts to tho north-east of Villers-au-Flos, and sunken roads m tho fiamo locality, one of our best officers being killed. Another was wounded early in the morning, but carried on all day. In two days wo had made an advance of 6000 yards in spite of strong opposition. Notwithstanding this speedy advance, tho ' battalion had managed to get the food right up to tho front line posts, and all mien had their meals, except some on the extreme left flank. Our artillery, taking great risk, have also pushed forward to extreme limits. To-day I saw cookere and artillery side by side, and one officer laughingly remarked that the enemy was being chased home by eighteen-pounders and cookers. RIFLES' FINE WORK. The Rifles also did splendid work yesterday. Late at night orders came for an .attack at 5 a.m. For this troops wore told off who had done two attacks at Puißieux. The order waß to take Fremicourt These troops, who had been bivouacking away north of Bapaume, moved forward at 3 a.m. for a march of two miles, at a hurried pace, and arrived at the assembly point just at tho time the barrage was due to commence. They waited ten minutes, as if to get their second wind, and advanced to the attack practically without halt. They then fought their way for 2500 yards. The enemy was taken by surprise, and many were killed and captured in and about their billets on the Bapaume-Cambrai road. During the day some 250 prisoners were taken. Late in tho day our riflemen, going into dug-outs to look for resting-places for the night, came upon sheltering Ger.mans and captured them in twos and threes. One man found six German officers in ono of the dug-outs in an hour and a half. Our men are on a portion of a ridge five hundred yards /beyond Fremicourt. Tho troops on the left had meantime been held up in the trench, system near Beugny, across the Cambrai road. Our riflemen at the close of tha day found themselves on a ridge with the enemy on the same ridge to tho right and" left of them. The company commander sat there till nearly two o'clock in the afternoon, with the enemy on both flanks. When the enemy came at him again, he fell back reluctantly, but only for a short distance. COMPARATIVELY FEW CASUALTIES. Owing to the precautions adopted by our troops and their skill in taking advantage of tho ground, the total casualties for the' day were only about fifty. Against this was the ton of German dead and wounded, and the big haul of prisoners. Some of our troops had to force their way through a big railway siding, in which- there were ten lines and stacks of -timber, ammunition, engineers' stores and huts. Here the enemy had made a stand with one company, many of whom had been put out of action." But. he still held the position, obstinately all day, and remained there at night. We had no barrage on this part of tho front, so a .small party of rifles was told to rush the place at dawn without barrage. This they did, surprising the enemy, killing eighteen ana taking the rest prisoners. They wero greatly delighted with their adventure. Ahead, the enemy still held the high ground, and ho was sniping from there during the whole afternoon. o*ur men dared not raise a finger. We did not shell the village, but shelled the area indiscriminately. By this time, however, our men had dug in, and were very scattered, so our casualties wero not heavy. ENEMY COUNTER-ATTACK. This morning, before dawn, the enemy commenced a heavy bombardment of our newly-acquired positions, and about six o'clock his infantry counter-attack-ed, with the assistance of tanks. Some of these tanks got through our line of posts in the drizzling grey of * early morning, and infantry followed in their wake. In tho semi-darkness several of these Germans remained unnoticed. As the light improved our men iaw them, but mistook them for Tommies. They, however, did not answer to name, so our men took alarm, and the moment they found that they wero Boches they began_ to shoot. In all, between fifty and sixty prisoners remained in our hands as a result of this counter-attack. The tanks seem to have made a semicircular sweep and got back to their own lines. CAPTURED GERMAN GUN USED. About midday I came across some of our artillery cleaning up the oreach of a captured German seventy-seven, which they wore going to use on m.tij' other German tanks that might have the courage to come over the rise. I asked them what tlicv were going to do about sights for tlie gun, and they smilingly replied that they had somo they had taken from other guns in previous fighting as souvenirs. Yesterday the Maori pioneers had a go with this same gun. They knew moro about pick and shovel than about sights and range finding, but thoy got somo tips from a passing gunner, and fired Boche ammunition back at +he ridgo the enemy wa s holding. At battalion headquarters, where w© had to keep out of sight for fear of enemy observation, we found our riflemen cleaning up two of the great anti-tank German rifles, which take two men to fire them, and kick like an ermy mule. There was supply of the big cartridges with tneir armour-piercing bullets ready at hand. Tho troops on the right had also had experience of German counter-attack. Six tanks penetrated their line about five hundred yards, causing their posts to fall back a short distance. At a later hour I heard that they had reestablished their line and had takm some prisoners. GERMAN PRISONERS. Among tho prisoners captured recently was a very swagger cavalry officer and his servant. This officer was presumably on a visit, to friends at <>ho front, not knowing how insecure it was. He was most disconsolate, but still haughty. In one of the recent battles two prisoners wero captured under strange circumstances. Ona of our

runners who was wounded was sent back witli a verbal message, but, missing his way, arrived in the> Boclie lines, ana was taken prisoner. Next day, to his surprise, two of our tanks appeared out of tho bluo, so ho promptly took his own captors prisoners, and, wounded as he was, proudly mached them back to our own lines. * CLOSE VIEW "OF THE FIGHTING. This morning from high ground in front of Freniicourt wo got a close view of the enemy position, and watched the shelling of both armies along tho front line. A battery of artillery was trotting into action within sight of the enemy, who immediately began pouring shells on to tile road, but the battery got safely down into the little valley, unlimbered, and a few minutes later we saw the drivers trotting back by another road, whilo tho Germans were still shelling tho road they had come, but tho guns wero in position very close up for a further infantry advance. IN MEMORY OF. THE FALLEN. Going back, wo passed through a eemctory where stands a monument in honour ,of those who fell horo in th© tattles of 1870. In it the Gormans nad uried the French soldiers whom they killed hero in 1914, as well as their own men. At oach gravo there was a headboard giving tho names and regiments of both French and Gormans. In this same French cemetory the Germans had since their recent occupation erected a white stone monument to tho memory of their own dead in this war. Both monumonts wore chipped by shell-fire, and at tho foot of a Gorman one, almost touching it, lay, with blackoned faco and outstretched limbs, still in his field grey, a dead German soldier.