WITHDRAWAL FROM PASSCHENDAELE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue LXXIV, 20 April 1918, Page 5

WITHDRAWAL FROM PASSCHENDAELE.

GERMANS SLOW IN FOLLOWING

FIERCE FIGHTING NEAR GIVENCHY.

(Received April 20, 8.40 am) I ™ ri-ii .LONDON, April* 19. I Mr Gibbs writes: During the withdrawal from Passchendaele the Germans hesitated* m following up, and it was many hours before their advanced patrols drew anywhere near. Meanwhile our guns were awaiting them, and swept the ground, killing the outpost parties and breaking u p those assembled at Polygon wood and elsewhere. I The whole of this country is still of a forbidding nature, with shell craters brimful of water. Prisoners here are' disconsolate, and have little hope of the Germans reaching Calais. I A serious German effort began this S morning from Robecq, below St. ' Venant, down to Givenchy, with the' object of gaining the La Bassee canal and forming a defensive flank for the i enemy while proceeding with his attacks further north, and also giving ■ him more elbow room from the salient m which he is wedged below Merville *or this purpose the Germans brought up several more divisions. The fiercest fighting occurred opposite Givenchv and Festubert, lasting for several hours, but it failed against the I WONDERFUL RESISTANCE I of our troops. v Many German dead are lying about at La Bacqerolles. We lost an outpost, but the German divisions attempting to storm the heights of Givenchy itself were faced by our fire, and several enemy divisions lost fifty per cent in the most recent fio-fit-ing. The Germans' hope must be dying with their lost men.