GOING WELL !

Gisborne Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 4965, 4 September 1918, Page 5

GOING WELL !

“ENZEDS” GAIN FURTHER TRIUMPHS.

HUNS HAVE LEFT VERY LITTLE OF BAPAUME. FAIR TOLL OF ENEMY KILLED AND WOUNDED. (Special from the Official War Correspondent.) August 30 (afternoon). Another day lias gone well for us. All men I have seen who were in this morning’s attack speak well of the barrage. The Rifles, in advancing on Fremincourt, met with considerable machine gun fire and suffered some casualties therefrom. Bancourt, like its sister village, was stoutly defended, but the New Zealanders were not to be denied. Bavarian prisoners who were in tne attack told me they had orders to hold. °n there. Their defences, they said, were mainly outside the village. Four companies were disposed in front and the flanks of the village, eacli with four machine guns. They bad retired from Bapaume, where their strength, after six days’ fighting, bad been reduced, mainly from shell fire and sickness to thirty per company. The nervous strain was beginning to tell on them. Their food in the trenches was better than when they were behind the line. For some considerable time now they had been eating the flesh of horses killed in battle, hut they made no complaint on that score. Horseflesh made good soup, they said. There were civilians in Gambrai, but none on this side of it. Their men had heard from comrades of the German defeat on the Marne.

BAPAUME STILL BEING SHELLED BY ENEMY.

At one of our advanced dressing stations I found several prisoners and Red Cross men who had helped with the wounded. These were enjoying a meal of bread and butter and bully beef and seemed very surprised to get such good food. Bapaume is in very much the same condition as Ypres was about six months ago. The Germans have left little in the town, even the statue of Ilarbe, who defended it in 1870, has gone. At the railway station, however, the enemy left a large store of coal and a large quantity of metal and crashed stone. It seemed as if he had decided to settle down in this country and was about to build concrete pill-boxes for its defence. However, lie has had no time to, do that and the metal will come in useful for our roads. The town was still being shelled this morning. Some of the New Zealand walking wounded and four of our infantrymen bearing wounded comrades on their shoulders came down the main street as the shells were bursting. At the same moment there was a regular fusilade of fire from ‘-Archies' 5 and machine gpns as the Boc-he airmen daringly attacked one of our balloons. On parts of our attacking line this morning there was heavy macliine gun fire and scattered hut not very heavy shelling.

The tanks gave valuable aid. and one of them captured a field battery which it cut off. German machinegunners fought till our men were right on them and then “Kameraded.” Others with infantrymen ran before the barrage to the crest of the ridge where they proceeded to make a stand. From there they attempted to counter-attack, hut our artillery got on to them and they quickly faded away. CAPTURE OF ENEMY MACHINE GUNS. One of our machine gunners who had gone forward expecting to find one of our units in some trenches, found only Germans there and got a rifle bullet through his wrist. He. however, got back with a companion to our own lines. The New Zealand machine gunners got a lot of shoot-ing-at the retreating and defending enemy, not only with their own hut also with German machine guns. They found German machine guns in almost every shell-hole and befortlong every single man in our c-rews was firing a gun. There has been plenty of abandoned ammunition, and our men are becoming quite expert in the use of the German gun. Our toll of prisoners is daily mounting up. Wellington and Auckland men. who captured Banconrt to-day, added considerable to the number. The weather has again cleared. September 1. Our tireless troops are still pushing on. This morning, with brilliant dash, they captured the remainder or the ridge north of the BapaumeCambrai road near Fremicourt. It was a minor operation, but it relieved an awkward position for us. and, in addition to quite a fair toll of German killed and wounded, it gave us a haul of prisoners out of all proportion to the number of troops we employed. Before dawn our artillery barrage suddenly burst on the enemy’s position, and our advancing waves were quickly on the crest of it. It was Auckland and Wellington units rind Rifles that were engaged. Our casualties were mainly from machine gun fire. The crest of the hill once gained our men found no shelter there. It was quite open country and they proceeded to “dig in” in very hard ground. The enemy was equally without cover, and such as could get away from the barrage at once commenced to retreat according to orders. At these our gunners and infantry shot with good effect. As a wounded Aucklander put it, “A lot of them remained there for keeps.” Early in the morning _ I saw a hatch of over a hundred prisoners being marched down, but this did not In- anv means complete the toll. Their shoulder straps showed them to he a mixed lot from several regiments. One new division, a Prussian one, had come down from Flanders, and some of these were in the fighting. We captured Prussians. Saxons and Bavarians. As I write it sounds as if the enemy were exploding dumps a long way behind liis present line. _ If this is so it is probably a preliminary to a further retreat.