NEW ZEALANDERS IN FLANDERS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 69, 14 December 1917, Page 8

NEW ZEALANDERS IN FLANDERS

SPELL BEHIND THE LINES

AND RETURN TO THE FRONT

(From Malcolm Ross, War Correspondent with tho N.Z. Forces iu tho Field.) Belgium, October 3. Tho country into which we came some weeks after tho battle of Messines and the fights at La Bassce Ville was ono of quiet restl'ulness and sylvan beauty. Looked at from any of the heights it seemed ono great garden. It was as peaceful as it was picturesque. The flat, waterlogged fields of Flanders gave place to rolling downs, with unharmed little villages nesting amid tho woods. On the upland stubblo partridges flew with a whirr from your feet, and in clear-run-ning waters tho speckled trout rose at the brown ephemerae slowly floating down stream. Only there were not so many fish now as thcro were, for war, apparently, takes its toll of fish as of men. In the words of the petit bourgeois—"Compris soldat! Grenade! Finish feeshl" Leaving the chateau in which we billeted one often wandered along' winding paths beneath tho shade of noble trees of elm and oak am] a glorious and stately copper beech with the first hint cf autumnal glory nlready in its leaves, and so across the shallow valley and up the slanting avenue that climbed the opposite ridge. The branches met above, leaving only a tracery of tho blue sky. There was an orchard in a,sunny, dimple of the vale, and an old man and his two little grandchildren fit work amongst his pomraes and his po'mmes de terre. The young men were all away—at Verdun, or on the Craonnc, or some other part of tho I battlefront.

Having climbed this slope, one came out upon a broad view of timbered downs, chess-boarded* with the green licet and the brown of stubble and fallow fields. The village had become ontirely enveloped in the bosom of the dark woods, from which only the slender church spire witch its Gallic girouctte escaped. One could see no soldiers. There was no transport visible, though its muffled rumble floated up from the depths below, mingled with an occasional cock-crow from the farms, or the beat of drum where unseen troops were marching. A train passed, bearing men and material to the front. _ It left a trail of steamy smoke behind, as the chu/fing of its ongino and the rumble of its wheels died away in the distance. Then silence, savo for the chirruping of its birds fell upon the wood, but only to be broken by an other reminder of war —tho hum of a donble-eiigined plane, with the firing of its engines momentarily synchronising in a heavier drone. The weathor was mostly fine, with a broeze tempering the warmth of tho clear sun, and the pale bluo above flecked with rolling masses of cumuli—tho fleecy shrapnel puffs loft after tho thunder of the artillery of the heavens, which, after all our progress in gunnery, puts to shame tho greatest efforts of the mundane war god. It was amidst such scenes that our force, less those of the Rifle Brigade that was burying cablo for our Australian frionds, passed somo weeks of training, for a forco can never bo too well trained for war. In this pleasant land there were quiet villages to visit, and pleasant homely people to talk to. And thero was neither poison gas nor bursting shells nor bombs—excopt those used for the fish! What mattered it, thorefore, that good beer was scarco and eggs wcro four shillings a dozen! The war was, for tho time being, a very long way off. In thoso quiet days many a man's thoughts must liavo wandered toward home,' and of tho thousands who delighted in tho peace of the bosky hills and dales many an one must have wondorcd if ever again ho would tread tho homeward path. As theso linos are being written, io the thunder of the guns in a now spliero of action,' tho question of somo has, alas, been already answered in' the negative.

The training was varied by trips in motor omnibuses to tno seaside for bathing, and it was no uncommon sight to see some of our men, including Uio Maoris, helping the women and the children and the old men with the ingathering of the lato hai'vest. However, the battlofront of Flanders had suddenly beconio volcanic again, and was calling for the troops of fclio farthest Dominions to take their places onco moro in tho firing-line beside the men from Mother England.

y Belgium Again,

The Australians were already in tho line, and soon they were at grips with the enemy. The New Zealanders followed, billeting by tho way in areas new to them, and at length they marched across the French border, and so into the rich flat Flanders lands, where French was spoken with a Flemish accent, and the signs on the village shops and on the village tombstones were written in a different language. It was new country to them. They had already been in Belgium, but, oxcept for the Brigade and tho Pioneers who went to dig for tho French, never so far north. Here the grain had all been garnered, the hops were being picked, and the potatoes dug, while on the brick walls of tho cottages the long tobacco leaves were browning in tho warm autumn sun. The sound of gunfire, to which for weeks we had become unused, grew again familiar. Day and nigh; we could hear the great bombardments in tbo hinterland beyond the ever-widen-ing Balient. Portion of the force billeted in tbo country near a great aerodrome, where, morning, noon, and night, the air vibrated with the bum of" many 'planes. They swam and gambolled in the air like fish in a pond, turning over, diving with a spin, and climbing rapidly far above tho fields. They performed the most marvellous antics in the air, but the phlegmatic, Flemish, quietly picking their, hop harvest, had become so blaso to all such sights and sounds of war that they scarcely over looked up to see what was happening, or what might happen. As wo nearcd tho area of our last halting-place wo found tho roads alive with a traffic that reminded one of the Somme in the days of the great attack. The march and counter-march of men went on from daylight till dark, bands at tho head of-the columns playing the old marching tunes, while pipers, after tho few preliminary drum beats, throw the stocs over their shoulders, and, with their tartan ribbons proudly fluttering in the breeze, set chanter and drone attune to their wilder Highland strains—"The Cock 0' tho North," "The Bonnets 0' Bonnie Dundee," and other lilts that for generations have carried their fighting men into the forefront of British battles tbo world over. The men marched well. The Pioneers in one (lav did a twenty-five mile march, and didn't growl about it. The Maori, who is a cheery optimist, stuck it out well, and at the end of the long dav was proud of the feat. All day long tho transport rumbled past—streams of motor lorries, divisional trains, and ammunition columns, light artillery, and many motor-ears, hurrying with red and blue-tabbed staff officers from armies, corps, divisions, tho envy of the foot-slogger, and even of the brigadiers on horseback. Marching through or with this throng of vehicles were companies, battalions, and brigades of men. Occasionally there were blocks in this amazing stream. At times your car got into a

backwater of opposing currents or crnwlcd along, inept, for all its power, in the sluggish current. But with it all thuro was the wonderful organisation that so impressed the beholder of tho great battles of the Somine over a year ago now. The traflic, the mastery of the air, and the ever-increasing mass of artillery remain the three wonders of tho war. After somo few days of this trekking we rested awhile in a solid and stolid Belgian village, and then headed towards tho famous salient whero litis so many thousand English, Canadian, and German dead. It is an everbroadening salient in theso days—so broad as almost to mako tho military term now a misnomer. But its great cemeteries will for all timo remain one of tho finest monuments of British courage and endurance that this world will ever seo.

On the morning that we arrived at our final camp the artillery was thundering as if all the seas of all the worlds in storm were beating on a rock-bound coast. In flights of five, and singly, and in two's and throe's the 'planes came and went tinon their ''aring and deadly missions. They did tho most amazing feats of turtle-turning and spinning nose-diving. But they'do much more than that behind the enemy lines. The German 'planes came too, photographing and observing from great altitudes in the daytime, and dropping bombs from lower heights at night on towns and billets and horse lines. They tried to smash our railways and hold up the traffic uuon our roads, and though they took their toll of victims, both civil and military, in this they never succeeded, iind always "wo had tho satisfaction of knowing that for every ten bombs the enemy, dropped oil us we gave him back perhaps a double portion. It is a very sad aight to seo men and horses and even women and children killed and mangled by bursting bombs. One night, just after they had come into Belgium, some of the New Zealand reinforcements suffered, and along one of the main roads some soldiers were hit. Two men in a motor-bicycle with side-car were killed. All this goes to .show that we need all the 'planes we can get at t.lio hatilefniiit. One morning two Boche 'planes that had crossed tho lines opposite Poperinghe, came up against, four of our 'planes. They turned and (led, but almost immediately they ran into some French planes and both were brought down. It was a thrilling sight tn see one of tho Frenchmen dive after his victim to got tho valued trophy of tho black crosses from the wings of tho Gorman 'plane. Ho dived so quickly that ho appeared to be crashing to em-til. When our people got up to the field where tho Gorman 'planes had crashed, there was tho Frenchman, his head bandaged with a field dressing, calmly cutting out the black crosses. Day after day tho weather continued fine—cool nights and calm, sunny days. It was an Indian summer, or as the French call it, tho Summer of Saint Martin—tho summer that comes late. It seemed as if at last Jujiiter Pluvius was on 1 our side, and anxious to make amends for his stoppage of tho initial offensive. The traffic went along the roads in clouds of dust, and thore was no anxiety about feeding the men or the still nioro hungry guns. Ammunition went up by the thousand tons, and poured in streams into the ragged German line, and all the hinterland. For every shell tho enemy shot at us wo seemed to bo sending him four or Eve. It was small wonder that tho morale of his officers as well as of l is men was on the downward grade. The morale of our troops was never higher. One night word came that our Second Brigade had to go into the lino Others we knew would soon follow. They wero going to take their part in the battle for another ridge. There was no man in all the Army that doubted that the enemy would bo driven off that, ridge.

GRAFENSTAFEL RIDGE MORALE OF THE ENEMY. October 6. Tho capture of tho Grafenstafel Ridge, of which I gavo a hint in my last" dispatch, is now an accomplished fact. No one doubled for one moment that tho ridge would fall before tho New Zealand attack, just as Mcssines and other stroilg positions had fallen before. The New Zcalanders in this battle followed in the wake of other British troops who had cleared tho wound for the attack 011 Grafenstafel. Hills 35 and 37 had fallen before their onslaughts. Tint in many places there, had been bitter struggles, and some .minor positions bad been lost and won again and again. The reinforced concreto emplacements and the so-ealled "nill-boxes" were obstacles that hindered the former advance, for they seem ed almost impervious to the heaviest gun-fire we could bring to bear upon them. Many of them were made of reinforced concrete throusrh which steel wire, rounded and as thick as a n»A little finger, was _ interlaced. This gavo them a certain resiliency that seemed to absorb, or counteract, tho shock of fairly heavy direct hits. In the larger emplacements tho concrete, five and six feet in thickness, was further strengthened by railway iron. But in suite of all this, several of the garrisons had succumbed to direct hits, and as many as twenty dead could be seen inside the supposed havens of refuge. Tbo "pill-boxes" were oblong in shape, with a slit in them that gave an angle of about 30 degrees for machinegun fire. They varied in height from four feet six to about six feet. There were somo in which a man could stand upright, others in which an averagesized man would have to maintain a stooping position. The lower half of the structure was in the ground, but there still remained sufficient height for the deadly machineguns to bit the advancing troops about the middle of the body. The best method of attack was for the infantry to endeavour to evade the machine-gun firo by dodging from crater to crater while advancing slantwise towards either flank. In this way they could get round to the back door, and onco there tho "pill-box" and all that it contained was theirs. At that stage the German gunners suddenly became aware of the fact that their fancied stronghold had in reality become a death-trap, and—well, tho subsequent proceedings soon interested them no more. Some of these emplacements were said to have stool doors, but on the part of tho battlefield over which I went I saw 110 such doors. There was onlv an open doorway through which tho gunners could be easily bombed once our men got round. Some were tilted 011 one side where a shell had lobbed just under them in the soft earth. Others had been hit, but the shell had bounced off, chipping, but not breaking them. If a nine-point-two shell hit them, even that might not smash them up, but the shticlc in most cases would be so severe as to kill the entire garrison. Still, a "pill-box" is not nn easy target even for a five-point-nine, and, generally, it would bo only a chance shot that knocked them out. Several of the enemy strongholds we afterwards turned to our own advantage. using his baulks of timber and sand-bags "to guard the back doors from shell-splinters.

Ridge Described,

In front of Hills 35 and 3" the ground dipped slightly to a shallow trough, whore once. rail tlio littlo H:\uobcek, now so pock-marked and torn with our terrible fire ns to he almost unrecognisable as_a stream. Tho trough was simply a piece of waterlogged ground, with a trickle running from shell-crater _ to shell-crater. ■Later, when tho rain camc the water increased in depth in these shell-holes, but the trough was never a very for-

midable obstacle in our path. The whole countryside hero had been whipped with such u hail of shells as to he absolutely unrecognisable as farm lands. The steadings themselves had been blotted out, as had also tho main road leading to Zonnebeke. The trees that remain rooted in tho earth were only skeletons of tlieir former selves. In places a low rubble of red brick marked the spot where, for generations, the simple Belgian peasant families had lived in peace and in comparative comfort. , The dominating feature of all this country is the long Passchendaele Itidge, almost a continuation of the Messines Ridge, running in a north-easterly direction, and rising to heights of up to 215 ft. above sea level. British and Australian troops had already taken some of the commanding heights on the ridgo farther south. But in this fight the New Zealanders were not concerned directly with the Passchendaele Ridge. Their objcctivo was the Grafenstafel Ridge, which, like a tapering peninsula, jutted out from higher Passchendaele, and rose in the plateau-like Abraham Heights to an altitude of 126 ft. above «en level. This is in itself no groat height, and when it is remembered that the place from which we attacked is 82ft. above the sea level there is loft only a height of some 44ft. to be climbed. And this point of attack was at such a distance as to make the vise a very gradual one. To a New Zealander, used to the mountains or even the foothills of the South Island ranges, this land would uot he called a ridge at all. It would he called a rolling plain. Even the Rnsschcndnelo would scarcely appeal to his imagination as a ridge worthy of a name. Rut in all countries heights, to the inhabitants, and to the map-makers thereof, are merely relative; and, in warfare, •it can never be forgotten that even such insignificant heights as these are of the greatest importance, and that onco taken and garrisoned they are not easily won back. I merely make the comparison to irivc the New Zealand reader some idea of the nature of the ground, and so that ho will not picture in his mind's eye our gallant troops storming' steep slopes and heights sueh as frowned down unon us at Gallipoli. Tho Orafenstafcl Ridge was p smaller edition of the Messines Ridge, with a still smaller villaie on its crest —a village that even before the attack had been reduced to a few heaps of building rubble, fit now only for a garden path. The region in which the Now Zealar.dcrs attacked is historic ground, andjtb«re are names on the map that are well remembered by survivors from the first battles in the Ypres region. There is valuable ground that we lost there in April, 1915. when French and British troops experienced the choking agony of the first cloud of German poison gas. It has fallen to the lot of Now Zealand to win hack sonic of that ground, won by the. Germans through methods that wo should never liaye thought of, much less have adopted. The taking of the Graftenstafel Ridge and Abraham Heights with other high ground along the line of attack, is, no doubt, a stepning-stone to other conquests, and the final conquest of the whole of the Passchendaele Ridge. If the enemy should he driven off this ridge we shall have the command of tho whole countryside that lie for so long lias onjoved in Belgium. It has given him a tremendous advantage in the past, and it still gives him n great advantage in tho struggle that is now going on. But pushed off it he will surely be if our armies mako tho attempt. On the other side there are only a few isolated heights, and beyond them the great plain of Flanders stretching away for many miles. It will be dreary ground for his ill-fed armies to winter in.