NEW ZEALANDERS ON THE SOMME

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3065, 28 April 1917, Page 3

NEW ZEALANDERS ON THE SOMME

WITH THE GUNNERS

MANY PLUCKY DEEDS

(From Capt. 'Malcolm Ross, AVnr Correspondent with the New Zealand ] • Forces in the Field.) 1 In battles such as the Sonime, the J first essential to successful attack is -j careful audi elaborate artillery -prepaTa- 1 tion, and the fire to be effective must \ be both accurate and intense! There < must also be co-operation as nearly j perfect as can be arranged with the ] infantry in the attack itself. In all ( these matters the British have made £ great strides since the beginning of 1 the war. Our artillery is not perhaps ] so brilliant as that of the French, but j the French have a genius for gunnery, ' and they have bad a lonj* start of us. ' The Germans have been classed as sec- ! ond only to the French. It says _ a great deal, therefore, for the British ' that ou the Somme they were able to _ obtain a mastery over the Germanß. ' The great majority of our gunners and gunnery officers had to be trained since the beginning of the war. The guns ' and the ammunition had to be made ' in a very limited time. Praise by the tttfantru. In the big attack <rf September 15 I saw them shooting, at comparatively close range, from the slopes of a valley that ran almost" parallel with , the line between Bernafsy and Caterpillar Woods, and as the waves of our. i infantry rolled on in the successful at- : tack they got their teams up and rush- : ed the- guns to forward positions behindl the crest of the ridge. between , the battered Delville 'Wood and the equally shattered High Wood, in which for so long tho Germans had offered stubborn resistance. Still later, at the beginning of October, most of tho guns were pushed forward to more ; exposed positions in the vicinity of ] the village of Flors, about which for i ; days tho Now Zealand infantry fougb* , heroically. Tho artillery was arranged . in groups, so" that not all our guns j were in support of our own line. We 1 had the assistance, of English guns, , and an English division had the assist- i anoo of some of our guns. ] -I'have in former articles dealing \ with the fighting described as far as ] permissible the nature of the barrages ] in oonneotion with the infantry attack, ] and so there is no more to be said ip the moantimo. Our men were loud in ] their' praises of both the stationary ] and the creeping barrages," and when 1 infantry praise their own. artillery no : further attestation of its efficiency is ] required. One interesting point that < may bo noted is that in the initial at- i tack for the first time in the war, gaps i had to be loft in tho barrage to enable ] our new engines of warfare, the i '4)anks," to proceed. This fact alone '. will give some idea of the arrange- i nients that had to be made, and the ] acouracy of fire that had to be main- i tained. ' Tho Divisional Ammunition. Column i did magnificent work. Only one who ' saw tho state of the roads in late Sep- ' toniber and the nature of tho shelling could form an idea of the difficulties that had to bo overcome. But day and . niffht our men toiled at their almost i super-human task, arid—they got through. ' So long as tho guns remained South of Lougueval tho " limbered t wagons did their work. Ono saw them occasionally, bogged and broken by the wayside,' but always others got through, and _the greedy guns—as the Germans ; know to their cost—never had to re- , main idle for lack- of shells. The pighteon-rpounders' arid the.field-howit-zers rained shells in the German terrain, tho siege howitzers heaved their bigger shells in advance of the barrage, ■ while still other big guns were busy with their counter-battery work: When the guns moved up -to Flers it was impossible to get the wheeledtransport through the soft clay. Then tho shells were sent.forward on pack animals. Wc had already done this on Gallipoli. Ave had oven manhandled tho shells to tho guns along .the main saps for the August offensive. Now tho men took tho baskets from the limbered wagons, and in these, strapped • to tho pack-saddles, the eightoon-pounder shells were sent forward. For the 4.5's the men made carriers of canvas, slung on each side of the transport animals. Brave Deeds. Many plucky deeds were done by officers, non-commissioned officers, and men during the days and nights of the Somme fighting. As soon as the Switch Trench was captured by the Second Brigade three artillery officers went forward with the signallers to obtain observation from this trench. One of the lieutenants got separated from his party and waß wounded early in the day. His sergeant spent five hours under heavy fira searching for him. Eventually he found him and went for stretcher-bearers. Carrying the wounded i officer to tho dressing station one of the bearers was killed. Tho sergeant, though himself slightly wounded, took tho place of tho dead stretcher-bearer, and the wounded officer was got 6afely in to the dressing station; but he subsequently 'died of his wounds, and the New Zealand Artillery lost one of its most promising officers. Our artillery generally inflicted terrible punishment on tho enemy, and for some time his artillery was so demoralised that we came to the conclusion that he was shifting back to a shorter line. He had as a matter of fact to take some of his guns further back, but early in October his fire improved, and naturally wo had some losses. A direct hit on ono gun destroyed the gun and killed the whole detachment. On the same day an Bin'. shell killed Lieutenant Watson and four men. Some ammunition exploded, blew in one of the gun-pits, and set fire to the charges stored alongside the gun. There were six men in the gun-pit at the time, and immediately they proceeded to got out as quickly as they could. When they were only a few yards away cries wero heard coming from inside the pit. A sergeant and a bombardier who had made good their escape at once returned and tried to enter the pit from the back_ through the blazing ammunition. Finding it hopeless to do so, they went to. the front of tho pit, and gained an entrance. Inside they now found a gunner pinned down by fallon beams and debris. 'With the burning ammunition quite close to them, the sergeant and the bombardier worked at tho wreckage, and, after a few minutes'_ strenuous effort, succeeded in reaching the gunner and getting him out in safety. The name of the bombardier is Syme, and he has since received the D.C.M. for his action. Sergeant Salmon, who was the leader of this rescue, was killed in action a day or two later. The Fallen. The New Zealand Artillery had the misforttino to lose some of their best officers in the Somme fighting. Among these, as will have been noted from the casualty lists, was Captain Danicll, who left Now Zealand with the Main Expeditionary Force on October 16, lfll'l, as oqptain of the 2nd Battery. In August, 1915, I well remember liini in nimmaiicl of n bntlery. nf 18-pound-fi-s that was specially formed to supporfc '-he i aitsck on Chunuk' Bnir against the strong Turkish positions. For his work on that occasion he was i awarded the Military Cross, a&i was

mentioned in dispatches. He served throughout the whole of the Gallipoli campaign, going at one stage to Egypt to tako over command of a C-inch howitzer battery, which he brought to tho Gallipoli Peninsula and commanded till tho evacuation. Ho came with this battery to France, and was killed in action near High "Wood on the night of October 3, by an explosion of ammunition in one of the gun-pits. At tho same time 2nd Lieutenant Brooks and four other ranks were killed. The gun was blown to bits. Another battery commander whose loss was greatly deplored by all who know him was Captain H. A. Davies.. At the beginningof tho war he was in Knglaud undergoing training with tho R.F.A. He served in France with an R.F.A. unit from September, 1914, to January, 1915. He then left to join the Now' Zealand Expeditionary Force in Egypt, where he was appointed to command a howitzer battery. Ho served throughout the Gallipoli campaign, and came on to France in command of a battery which, took part in all operations with which the New Zealand Force was concerned, including the Somme. He was killed on the night of September 15. _ The records show that during the time the New Zealand guns were on the Somme they fired close upon half a million shells.