GERMAN SNIPERS

Evening Star, Issue 15910, 16 September 1915, Page 3

GERMAN SNIPERS

A CONTEST OF WITS. In the following letter an officer in the Ist Battalion Manchester Regiment givesa detailed-account of the conditions of the trench warfare in Flanders. Particularly interesting is his description of the methods of the German sniper : I think I’d better begin by telling you exactly what life an the trenches is like on u normal quiet day. As soon as it begins to go dusk all available men “stand to arms,” ready to attack or to repulse an attack at a moment’s notice- It tho Huns are restless and troublesome we “ stand to” all night, but if they are very quiet we “stand down” after a couple of hours and post night sentries. Every night we have a small party of men out between our trench and the Germans in order to give us due warning it there is anything doing. Of course, the Huns send out a patrol too, and when ours and theirs meet we have a jolly evening, usually finishing up a few helmets to the good. When dawn comes we “stand to” again, for dawn is a favorable time for an. attack, but much more often than not nothing happens excepting, machine gun activity and perhaps a few shells. Whenever a shell comes dangerously near, one of the Tommies invariably shouts: “Now, then, silly, be careful; you’ll be hurting somebody!” b . —The Effect of One Shell.— After, standing down and posting sentries the Tommies “Billy up,” in other words, light fires and make tea. All is bustle, and in less than 10 minutes there is a tea party in every traverse—oh, and you should hear the tales that go round! Oming the morning every man’s rifle is inspected, and also the smoke helmets he carries in case of an attempt on the part of the Huns to “gas” us. During the morning we generally see some fine aeroplane work, and derive much amusement from the German attempts to bring down, our airmen, by shell fire. Usually we, too, come in for a good deal of shell fire, hut our trenches are in . better condition than formerly, and it is only occasionally that we have casualties. When we do, it usually means that we lose more than one man, for the effect of a shell is terrible. 1 have known one shell to knock out 15 people, eight killed and seven wounded, so you see they are not to be ..too lightly treated. 6 J

Whenever a man is hit, word is quickly passed along tho ‘ line “ Stretcher-bearers,” and in very quick time the man is being bandaged up by skilled orderlies. In most of our trenches we have connections with the rear by which a man can be carried m daylight to a field hospital somewhere botuna the line, but sometimes, where the slope of the ground makes this impossible, tho poor feilow has to lie all dav with no mare than amateur attendance. "if we attempted to carry him off, the Huns would nre on the stretcher-bearers and. kill or wound them to. This is not mere surmise —it has been done.

Well, say we have had no casualties. Aoon arrives, and Tommy is hungry. Up come the fires again, tea is brewed", toast maae, out come parcels which have been sent by relations and friends, and biscuits, jam, jellies, cakes, sardines, cheese, potted bloater, and every edible commodity which tTfU C T emently be sent b T Post appear shrSf h r g 7 7 CS ° f the . offic er, who Vill shortly be feeding voraciously on bullybeet, pickles, am 3 bread, washed dovvn with ration tea. Dinner time fa usually quiet as regards shells and rifle fire, but our fellows and the Germans call out to each other, at first jokingly, but eventually most insultingly. At this juncure X stuff my ears with cotton wool and retire to my dug-out for grab.

—■“ Sausage !” , 1 11 the midst of dinner we -will hear a >;oom, someone -hill shout “Sausage!” and every man will dive into his dug-out in about one-eaxty-ninth of a second. Then comes a Joud report, the earth trembles, and then we crawl out again, to see what damage is done. It was a trench bomb Known as" Sausage” because of its shape! Fortunately these things can be seen hurtling through the air, and therefore we get a little notice before they burst. Ii they get anywhere near tho trench they usually displace a sandbag or two ; u one gets in tho trench it disfigures a man or two.

—Snipers’ Tricks.—

In. the afternoon we usually see some more aeroplane work on the part of our aviators—we very seldom see one of theirs —and in the afternoons the Hunnish supers usually get busy. You will walk behind your parapet, and when you reach a certain spot a bullet will whiz past your napper. Where it came from goodness only Knows, for or. looking round you can't see any possible point in the German line from which the bullet might have come. You eee> perhaps a belt” of trees or a ruined cottage in the distance, and you have to draw your otVu conclusion s. This, roughly, is how the snipers work. The firing line is never straight for more than 200 yds or so, bub zigzags in remarkable fashion. The sniper selects a position .in a tree or house, hidden from the people directly in front of him in the British trench. The snipers are cute, and never fire directly in front of them. In fact, we in fronts of them cannot see them because of the tree or wall which hides them. They fire fairly long distances to fhe right or to the left, and drop their bullets into our trenches. In some instances, as in the case of sriper number four, we are fired at apparently from behind our own trenches. Anyhow, there is always a, danger. I simply dare not tell you what a Tommy says when he is sniped at! In the evening we get “evening hate” —-more shells and. machine-gun. fire, and the Huns begin to register on our parapet. This isi done as follows:—They firs explosive bullets at our parapet, and observe the small flashes where the bullets burst. When they get one to just graze the top of the parapet the gun is clamped on a. rest and left until dark, in tho hope that some eilly blighter of ours will put his head in that particular spot. Needless to say, we mark all their registered points and studiously avoid them. During the night there aro hundreds of jobs .to do, such as repairing' barbedwire in front of the trench, rebuilding the parapet where it has been damaged by shell fire, cutting grass in’front of trenches where it has grown so long as to obstruct the view, burying dead, taking wounded back to hospital, digging communication trenches, making new loop-hole© to replace those which have been “spotted,” baling water out of the trenches which have become waterlogged, digging pits for rubbish—oh, endless little jobs which a civilian would never dream of.