BATTLEFIELDS VISITED

Evening Star, Issue 18714, 16 August 1924, Page 5

BATTLEFIELDS VISITED

GRAVES OF NEW ZEALANDERS. A vivid account of a journey across certain of tho battlefields of Europe, serving to recall some of tho horrors of the Great War, is contained in a letter received by Mr William Elliot, of Auckland, from bis brother, 6if George Elliot, chairman of directors of the Bank of New Zealand. Sir George writes:— l . “Towards tho end of. June we journeyed to Ypres, where we spent two days full of interest. It is not generally known that in this neighborhood the British lost one-fourth of all the men who fell in all tho theatres of tho Great War. The British held, at terrific cost, n. big salient on low-lying ground, while the Germans, nearly surrounding them, had all tho high land. They felt, it is supposed, that they would lose prestige had they retired out of Belgian territory altogether to the high ground on the French which they could have defended at a minimum cost of life, and without being up to the middle in mud all tho time. “We have seen all over the Ypres salient, every inch of which is drenched with British blood. Tho German machine gun posts (pill boxes) are still standing, and from trenches wo got British, French, and German bayonets, rifles, tin hats, etc. They are busy cleaning up the ground everywhere, and m a few years there will bo little trace of the terrible upheaval.

“In some places about, Passchendaele and Hill 60 (No Man’s Land) the, ground and trenches are just as they were loft at the close of the fighting, shell holes, broken rifles, entrenching tools, tanks, and the gaping wounds of mines and counter-mines are everywhere. “The cemeteries arc kept in beautiful order. Each one—-and there aro dozens of them—is looked after by British exArmy men, and they aro full of lovely flowers. In Tyne Cot Cemetery, Gravenstafel, where 15,500 British soldiers are buried, of whom only 3,000 are individualised, 10,500 tombstones have each the inscription: ‘ Hero lies a British soldier known only unto God.’

“It js fearfully sad. One cannot realise what war is until one stands at a cross-road just a few yards behind the old British front line trenches, known as ‘Hell-fire Corner,’ where shells fell continuously day and night. All the traffic had to pass this corner, and tho enemy had tho distance to a yard. Every day this corner was blocked by overturned guns, waggons, dead and dying men, and horses. Nothing could ho done to clean it up until the night came, for the German, having tho liich ground, could see nearly everything that was going on. “Being anxious to visit the grave o r a young Now Zealand friend who fell in the war and was interred in the Longueval Cemetery, we travelled by a motor from Ypres, a. distance of ICO miles, and saw a great pa it of the Sommo battle front. All the towns and villages we passed through were famous, and especially so to New Zealanders, for it was (icrc and at Ypres where most of tho gallant young soldiers from the dominion lost their lives in defending the Empire. We went through Popperingc, Beaumont, Pozziere, Lens, Arras, Albert, Delville Wood, Vimy, and along tho ridge. Every here and there were cemeteries in which thousands of promising youths from New Zealand sleep their last sleep.”