GERMAN COURAGE

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 27 May 1915, Page 2

GERMAN COURAGE

la their counter-attacks from the Bois dv Biea during the fight round Neuve Ghapelle the German losses were tremendous. Line after line went down before our rifles. Indeed, in their picturesque phraseology some of our Sepoys said that shooting the <»nemy was like cutting grain. Our xnen in action .in. this Quarter",were so excited that they clambered tip on to the parapets in order,to gee better and obtain greater freedom to, use their :iSfles. "^ "■• ... --I In -some of the captured trenches then held by us there was not room on th«S banquettes, o#'ra*6ed portions from which men fire, for all the men in the trench "to shoot at the same time, and as the action prqcQeded those below in rear>ssquld, 'WOW terrain their impatience, '^ey shouted:.;, "Get .down ~and ore n&^a chance," sonae even pulling aown *hose; in'fr'ont in order to take their places. One battalion reserved their fire until the Germans were only 50 yards away, and then opened both with rapid rifle fire and with machine guns. The German officers displayed the most reckless courage. On more than one occasion they invited certain death by riding forward on horseback to direct the attack to within a few hundred yards of our line. None "of those who so exposed themselves escaped. One Jager in. charge of a machine. gun kept his gun in action throughout our bombardment, and then, when our men charged down upon him, awaited death, calmly standing on the parapet of the trench arid emptying his revolver at them. .-■'•■

The effective co-operation of our artillery was due in no small measure to the services of our airmen. In the misty weather that prevailed little could be seen by the latter from a height at which they were comparatively safß,- and they did "not hesitate to accept the greatest risks by descending to a height of only 800 ft above the hostile batteries. Our guns must have caused great losses in the Bois dv Biez and m rear of it, for an airman has since reported that the Germans have been burying numbers of their dead behind the wood.