SHELL FIRE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 27 September 1915, Page 6

SHELL FIRE.

CANTERBURY MAN'S IMPRES-

SIONS

"From my experience of shells, those you can hear are not making for you, and cannot hurt you. If one is to get hit,- 1 should say he would he hit first and hear the shell afterwards. Anyway a shell coming screaching overhead, catching one unawares, makes one duck. It's a funny thing this ducking, utterly useless, but a hard habit to break oneself or. I remember one night many weeks ago when our battalion made an assault and were supported by the artillery. I didn't participate,, and from the rear of the trenches watched the shells leave the guns. It is rather peculiar. You can see a red spark which hangs for a fraction of a second near the muzzle and then a red streak across the sky, after which the report. The noise that night was deafening." Thus (says the Christcnurch Press)' does Private W. # 0. Oookson, of the Canterbury Battalion, describe shell fire in a letter to his father, Mr A. Cookson, Lincoln. Pri-vate-Cookson, in the course of further N remarks, says: . Of our original section which landed I am the sole survivor on the Peninsula. Of the remainder, seven are killed, three woundod (two of them are unfit for further service), and one away sick. Of course this section has been very unlucky., "VVe were all very| close friends, having lived together since the beginning, gone out together, been 'broke' together, and had a very pleasant time, and the loss of such chaps takes some living down. Talking about D.S.O.'s and ether awards, Private Cookson remarks: One night two sappers volunteered to blow up a Turkish bomb-proof, and crawled out with a heavy charge of guncotton on top of the bomb-proof itself. After half an hour's work everything was ready, and, having lit the fuse, they crawled back unharmed, having been under fire the whole tipe. I' believe they were rewarded. Anyway there wasn't much of a bomb-proof after the explosion.