CENSORED WAR ITEM

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 142, 16 June 1923, Page 7

CENSORED WAR ITEM

HOW OVER 400 FRENCHMEN DIED

RUNAWAY TROOP TRAIN IN ALPS,

(UNITED TRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPYRIGHT.) (AUSTRALIAN - NBW ZEALAND CAULE ASSOCUIION.)

PARIS, 14th June. One of the most frightful tragedies of the war will be revealed by the unveiling next Sunday of a monument to 350 soldiers who perished in the villas* of St. Michael de Maunenne, in Savoy. on 11th December, 1917. The facts were censored aj, the time, and hava not hitherto been published.

Five hundred French soldiers were returning by train from Italy, where they had been aiding the Italians to resist the Austzo-German onslaught in the Piave area. When the train reached Modana, the driver protested that it was too heavily loaded to negotiate the gradients through the Savoy Alps, but he obeyed orders to continue the journey. The train entered the most dangerous section, where the line ran down-hill for a considerable distance on a narrow mountain ledge, with a deep gorge be-

Here, owing to its weight, the train got oeyond control, and raced to certain death. Carriage after carriage caught fire, and men who leaped 'out were crushed to death against the rocks bordering the line..

When a, curve was.reached the engine lelt the metals, and the carriages piled up over it and became a blazing furnace. Ui nearly three hundred men who were still imprisoned m tho cars" when they were wrecked, practically the whole were burned to ashes.

Less than 150 of the 500 were brought out or escaped alive, and the greater number of these were so seriously injured that many died.