CROWN OF A YEAR'S WORK

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 137, 9 June 1917, Page 7

CROWN OF A YEAR'S WORK

CAPTURE OF MESSINES RIDGE

GREATEST SPECTACLE OF THE WAR

NEW ZEALANDERS' SPLENDID WORK

(ATJSTBALIAN-NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.)

LONDON, Bth June.

Mi\ Philip Gibbs writes : "The Australians [?] and New Zealanders captured Messines ip an hour and forty minutes, in the face of a desperate German defence, killing many of the enemy. The Irishmen captured Wytschaete, while the English took Battle Wood, south of Zillebeke. The Germans are now massing troops towards Warneton for a counter-attack. The Ypres salient has been wiped out.

"The Battle 'of Messines, which began at dawn to-day, was more audacious than the Battle of Vimy and Arras, because of the vast strength of the enemy's positions, and the massed gunfire was of greater intensity than in any of the, previous battles. -Our troops are now fighting forward through the smoke and the mist, English, New Zealanders, and Irish Protestants and Catholics, fighting shoulder to shoulder, made good progress up the slopes to Wytschaete and Messines. Prisoners are already telling how the British swept over and beyond the German positions, and the day goes well. ' "Messines ridge for two and a-half years has been the curse of,our men who were holding the Ypres salient. The Germans here had stacked up guns Vand every kind of explosive against us. The battle only started after the most complete preparations known to military science. A year ago miners commenced the tunnels for laying down the tremendous explosive 'ammonal,' which at a touch to-day blew up tie hillsides, altering the very geographical face of France. Sir Herbert Plumer had been preparing for this attack for a year, and was ready a week "ago with guns, 'tanks,' and every kind of explosive which modern science had designed for killing men in great masses. The terrible bombardment commenced a week ago, and increased in violence, -working up to a supreme fury as the dawn broke. For five days the Germans had been pinned to their tunnels, and had no way of getting out of- these zones of death. Begiments which attempted to come up last night were shattered by oux- heavy guns, which laid down belts of shell-fire, devastating and impenetrable.

' "Our gunners also smothered the German batteries whenever the airmen revealed them. Our aviators have been wonderful. They have brought down forty-four of the enemy's machines in five days. Flocks of aeroplanes went up this morning, in order to blind the enemy and report on the progress of the battle. . ' . ' "' ' ' "The men knew they were going to attack a Gibraltar, and expected that the enemy would fight his hardest for the Messines ridge. The final outburst of the guns was a most terribly beautiful thing, the-most diabolical splendour yet seen in the war. Out of the dark ridges of Messines and Wytschaete and the ill-famed Hill 60 there gushed an enormous volume 'of flame from the exploding mines. A New Zealand boy who came back wounded said he felt like being in an open boat in a rough sea. The ground rocked .up and down. v Thousands of Anzacs. [New Zealariders] and British soldiers were thus rocked before they scrambled up and dashed forward to the German lines, assisted by a tornado of shells, which crashed over the enemy's ground. White, red, and, green distress rockets rose from the German lines, telling the gunners that the British were upon them. Soon these distress signals appeared no more— instead, were the British signals. ' •■■<'' "The German prisoners began to come back-in batches. They described the eagerness of the attackers as so great that they sometimes seemed to be in advance of the barrage. The Germans, who did not expect the attack for another two days, made a desperate effort at night to relieve their exhausted troops, but the new divisions lost heavily in coming up to the firing line. The story of this great victory cannot yet be told, but the reports show tha-t our ■men everywhere succeeded in gaining their objectives with astonishing rapidity. Sir Douglas Haig's plan of battle was carried out on the field almost to the letter and the time-table.. x "Irish Nationalists and TJlstermen, vying with each other in courage and self-sacrifice, stormed their way up to "Wytschaete, and, after a desperate resistance, captured all that was left of the famous White Chateau. By midday our men were well down the further slopes of the ridge, while the fielcl batteries were rushed up the ridge and took their new positions. The English, further north along the shoulder of the Ypres salient, captured the greater part of Battle Wood, south of Zillebeke."-