NEW POSITIONS SECURED

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXII, Issue LXXII, 23 May 1917, Page 5

NEW POSITIONS SECURED

SEVERITY OF ENEMY LOSSES CONFIRMED.

RECENT FRENCH GAINS IMPORTANT. .

THE FIGHTING ROUND BULLECOURT.

MORE OF HINDENBURG LINE TAKEN.

LONDON, May 22. Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig reports : —New positions on the Hindenburg line north-westward of Bullecourt were secured to-day, with little interference from the enemy. The severity of the German losses in th recent fighting in this area is confirmed. Excepting a sector, two thousand yards in length, immediately westward of Bullecourt, we hold the whole Hindenburg line from a point one mile eastward of Bullecourt to Arras. There were a number of successful aerial bombing raids yesterday. Our aeroplanes actively co-operated with the infantry in attacking the enemy front line of trenches with machine guns. Sixteen German aeroplanes were downed and four of ours are missing. PARIS, May 22. | A French communique states: In the Champagne the enemy violently bom- i barded the positions we captured yesterday in the region south of Moronvillers. Bombarding aeroplanes' during the night of the 19th dropped 2200 kilos of explosives on railway stations and bivouacs in the region of Epoye and j Betheniville. j (Admiralty, per Wireless Press.) LONDON, May 22. A German official report states: — English attacks wer.e made on Sunday | astride the Arras-Cambrai road, on a j front of twelve kilometres. Our fire broke up the enemy wherever they emerged from their trenches. Between the Scarpe and Senses brook the enemy penetrated, east (of Croiselles but our counter-attack drove them out. Repeated attacks between Fontaines and Bullecourt failed. We captured trenches at Braye, Cerny, and Hurtebise farm. There has been heavy fighting in the Champagne. Strong French attacks northward of the Prunay road resulted in the French obtaining a foothold at Mont Cornillet and Mont Keil. The enemy lost fourteen aeroplanes. PARIS, May 22. Importance is -attached to the brilliant operations at the Moronvillers plateau. The heights captured aie T.BW) feet elevation, and overlook the Staippes Valley and the neighboring lowland, which is 350 feet high. Sunday's advance carried the French well down the northern <-lopes, jvni er. abled (them to shell positions at Noget-la-Chesse, from whence Rhenn 3 was bombarded. The advance manes the German salient westward dangoicut. LONDON, Ma/ 21. Mr Philip Gibbs states: The English and Scottish captured eight thousand yard 6of the second line of trenches westward of Bullecourtj and the Axis- ' tralians took eight hundred on the right. The fighting was most desperate. j Mr Philip Gibbs, wiring on Monday,! said the lull between the battles ended on Sunday, when the English and Scotch attacked the Hindenburg line befcween Fontaine-les-Croiselles and Bullecourt. Heavy guns had been bombing the enemy, hurling thousands of high explosives into the defences until the system of parapets, travei-ees, dug-outs and entanglements were a mere mass of shell craters. The garrison, consisting of the 49th Reserve Division from Posen and Breslau, were caught by the hurricane of shells and had to retire to their dug-outs, where it was impossible for food to reach them. The Germans became physical wrecks as a result of their imprisonment under the intense shelling. When the English and Scottish went over the top the surviving Germane surged into the communication trenches and endeavored to man the machinegun emplacements. They fought fiercely. We took many prisoners from the dug-outs on the first line, but the advance was held up awhile by isolated machine-guns in the support lines. The second British attack in the even, ing penettrated the enemy's second line, the British taking 300 yards of the Hindenburg line to the left of the Bulleeourt ruins, and added to the 80 yards which the Australians were holding on the Tight of the village. Thus far the English and Scotsmen have experienced no counter-attacks, though several bodies of Germans massing to attack were caught by gunfire and smashed.