TREMENDOUS SHELL FIRE

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 21 May 1915, Page 3

TREMENDOUS SHELL FIRE

DESTRUCTIVE EFFECTS OF THE

FRENCH ARTILLERY

With regard to the effect of the Frencii artuiery, a letter recently found on a .bavarian soldier who h<id net had time to send it oir, is published br the French '".Eye-witness." It depicts a terrible picture of the destructive wcrk of the guns. "Not till to-day (he wrote) have I been abie to find time to wnte to you. On the 17th i;nd Ibth we sustained such artillery fire as we had never before seen. According to the estimate of. our artillery odtietu's, about 8000 shells were wad during iL-f/s^ two days by the French artillery, trench prisoners stated that 64 guns were in action. The cost Would be about £200,----000. Unfortunately, I did not escape absolutely uninjured, for I am deaf in the left ear. Perhaps I may be able to hear again later on; I do not know, As for our losses, in one regiment we have had about 300 killed and 490 seriously wounded. It is probable this was the heaviest bombardment there has been during the war. That I am still alive I owe to an incredible fortune, for our section of 80 men occupied a trench at 2.30 in the morning, and almost all the others are killed; the others who escaped are seriously wounded. The dead were lying in some places piled 10 or 12 high, and in others side t>y side I lost my hearing at the moment when a 28cm shell fell quite close behind me."