MUNSTERS AT EPEHY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 290, 27 August 1918, Page 6

MUNSTERS AT EPEHY

STORY OF A GALLANT STAND IN THE FATEFUL DAYS OF MARCH (By Lieutenant J. P. Lloyd.) Tho world perhaps will never know the full story of tho gallant stand of those heroic divisions of tho Fifth Army, when, on March 21, 1918, tho flood of tho enemy came up'against them out of the mist. But the work! does know Hint never in all their glorious history havo British soldiers faced greater odds, or faced them with more of that unflinching courage which i 6 their peculiar heritage. , Against tho divisions of the Fifth Army, strung, nut along a grent front of forty miles from Barisis, south of the Oise, to Gouzeiiucourt, south-west of Cnmurai, in the north, came forty German divisions, picked troops, confident that they would brush the British aside, like flies, from their path. They never made ii greater mistake. -This is the talo of how an Irish battalion held put through all that long day in front of Epohy, a village set on a hill, due south of Gouzeauoourt. North-east-wards ironi Epchy runs the narrow tongue of land wiiieh the' English had christened Lark Spur, while to the south-eiist t.he high ground rises gently towards tli3 village of Leinpire, some two miles away. Tho 2nd Munster Fusiliers, of tho lGth Division, were entrenched on the forward slope of this ridgo, with their right near. Malassise Farm, nfcout throe-quarters of a mile south-east of Spehy, and their left in tho neighbourhood of 'Petard, Wood, in front of the village. Before them tho. ground sloped gradually down to Catclet Valley, a mile to the eastward. Behind them a railway swept through deep cuttings in a great curve round Epoliy. For six hours their trenches were lashed with a pitiless hail of shells. At 8 a.m., when the guns had done their work, the German infantry advanced through the mist. But it was no demoralised enemy that confronted them. Dazed men manned) their broken parapets, and mowed down wave after wave of thp attackers as they swarmed over No Man's Land. Strange tales filtered back. through the fog, of bombers who hurled their bombs amongst the advancing Germane to the end; of infantrymen who charged with the bayonet when their last round had gone;' of madiivegunners iv'.io fought until they fell dead across theif smoking guns.

. Weight of numbers told in the end, and the Germans entered our trenches. Hero and there strong points held .out with obstinate gallantry, even when they were surrounded. The defenders of IJalassise Farm clung to their ruins, and the survivors only surrendered when the enemy had worked through a copse on their right and taken them in rear. At 10.30 the colonel wns hit, and a major, his second in command, took over. The situation was indeed desperate. He could not tell what was happening to A and D companies. No runner came back through the fog with news of them, and none could reach them. All along the ridge from Malassise Farm to Tetard Wood the continuous rattle of rifle and machine-gun fire told that the two remaining companies ' were being hard pressed.

And the German Dead Lay Thick, All that morning the Germans strove to scale .the ridge, and their dead lay thick upon tho base elopes. At last they set foot in Eoom Trench, on the left of Maiassiso Farm, but the defenders of ono post stayed on there until n<ion, when they withdrew to Ridge Reservo, further up the hill. Away to the left, in Tetard Wood, an officer and a. few men were putting up a groat fight against a cloud of enemies. They contested bitterly every shallow trench and every shell hole in that narrow strip of splintered trees and tangled undergrowth, and w;hen they were, at last driven out they manned a trench at the head of Catelet Valley, and took heavy toll of the Germans as. they strove to emerge from the wood. Meanwhile, the messages that i reached battalion headquarters from Ridge Reserve were reassuring. Tho trench was being enfiladed from Malassise Farm, and tho Germans were still attacking vigorously, but tho garrison could hold out, they thought, as long as their ammunition lasted. In ,the afternoon, when the mist cleared somewhat, they were confronted with a new terror. Gorman airmen found them, and, flying low overhead, swept the trench from end to end with their machine-guns. But they suffered for s their daring. Ono fell a victim to a Lewis gun, and a man of C Company, taking careful aim at another as it swooped down upon him, killed the pilot with a- single shot from his rifle, and brought down the machine in a chaos of wreckage to tho ground. The Irishmen, too, had thl'ir Toward when the mist cleared. Down in Catelet Valley they could see hundreds ot Germans massing for the attack, and away on tho right some h'eld guns wore climbing the hill road to Malosslse harm. Machine-guns and rifles were soon busy in Ridge Reserve. The Gormans in the valley were scattered to the four winds, and denthA stalked amongst their gunners on the road to Makssise larm. It was not until the late afternoon that tho Germans reached tho railway. It had been in the major's lmml to make his last stand in Bpehy itself. But he was not destined to be with his men to the end. The battalion that had been sent up in support of the Munsters was not vet in touch' with them, and on their right was a long gap in the line. ■U G p.m., when it was already growing dusk, the Germans poured through this gap, and tho Munsters were almost surrounded. The major was in the dugout which '.was battalion headquarters giving some final instructions to his adjutant, when lie was startled by a warning cry from a sentry outside. He led tho way out, and, glancing round when ho reached the duck-boards, saw several Germans standing on tho top of (he dugout. A German officer covered him with a revolver, but the major dodged, and 'ran down the trench. It wns only putting off the inevitable. The tm'cn, whichever way ho turned, was mil ot Germans, and'the major wns captured. The Germans drove the Munsters bnctf slowlv through the ruins of Lpehy that night". But they did not capture the whole of the village until next day., A. small handful of Irishmen, led by the same officer who had fought so gallantly in Tetard Wood, hold their ground in the village, and only surrendered when they had fired their last round ard thrown their last bomb.

The next day a German communique informed the world that "The heights of Epehy have been captured after a hard struggle, in which the British were surrounded." That short sentence is high tribute to the remnant of that brave battalion that battled on, with the enemy pouring through on their flank, with death roiirins down upon them out. of the sky. "A hard struggle!"- Yes, those Germans who ciime into Epehy and looked back next niornin» on the slopes that were carpeted with their dead, the .battalions that were gathering in Cntclet Valley when the ftorm broke upon them, the drivers who flowed their maddened horses into the helT of flying bullets on the Malassise Ttoad, all those men know what a him! struggle it was. That, communique is a worthy epitaph to those fiwlcss Irishmen who in front of Epehy died for the great cause. ,