ATTACK ON BELLEVUE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue LXXIV, 30 October 1917, Page 7

ATTACK ON BELLEVUE.

GREAT WORK BY CANADIANS

CAPTURED AFTER GRIM ORDEAL

(Received Oct. 30, 11.10 a.m.) LONDON, Oct. 29. Mr Philip Gibbs states that the Canadians never did better than during their attack on Bellevue. They were beaten back, but reformed, scaled the slopes, and carried the blockhouses held by the Bavarians.

The position was extremely strong, Bellevue on one side and Crest Farm and Passchendaele on the other being able to support each other in sweeping any attack on the slopes. Many of the men were obliged to struggle through bogs and seas of mud, but the right flank attacked Crest Farm along the main ridge, where the ground was much better, and the slope below Bellevue was reached at a point near Duck Wood.

Their position was good, but the Canadians on the left were caught by mud under a heavy machine-gun barrage from a row of blockhouses on the crest of the ridge. The Canadians strove desperately to reach them, and some gained a footing on the higher elopes, but were forced to withdraw from Bellevue almost to the original line. There, strengthened by a small body of comrades, they reformed, advanced again, and worked forward in small packs. More fell, hut enough remained to invest the forts and silence them. The garrison was given the choice of death or surrender, and chose the latter.