BATTLE OF UNSURPASSED FURY

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 13, 16 July 1917, Page 7

BATTLE OF UNSURPASSED FURY

BRITISH TAKEN AT T-REMENDOUS ,■ DISADVANTAGE.

(AXIS. AND.N.Z. CABLE ASSN. AND REUTER.) LONDON, 13fch July

The United Press Headquarters correspondent says that nothing in the war has surpassed the fury of the fighting in the sand dunes. The British were taken at a tremendous disadvantage, but fought to the last man, scarcely any of the- survivors coming out unwound'ed. These escaped by swimming the Yser. The German bombardment began at 6 o'clock in the morning, upon the front line. It then lifted, and deluged the support trenches and reserve positions all day, and reached a great degree of intensity. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon droves of German aeroplanes came over, flying low, using machine guns and directing the fire of the artillery. Already the British had suffered heavily, but the remainder stuck to their posts, awaiting attack. The battlefield bad become a maelstrom of smoke, steel, and flying sand. The Germans barraged the front line in the evening, while the marinas charged. Hardly a British machinegun was workable, being choked with sand. There -ensued the bloodiest hand-to-hand battle, with revolvers, bayonets, and clubbed rifles, until practically none - survived of the English lads. A heroic wounded man swam back across the Yser with a rope, to enable wounded nonswimmers to pull'themselves across. The reserves counter-attacked southward of Lombaertzyde, and retook a section of the trenches.