POLYGON RIDGE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17666, 19 December 1917, Page 7

POLYGON RIDGE.

STORY OF SECOND FIGHT. A DUEL AGAINST AEROPLANES. (From 0. E. W. BEAN, Special Correspondent with Australian Forces.) (Copyright reserved by the Crown.) British Headquarters, France, October 8. Of the three groat fights by which the ridge east of Ypres was won the heaviest fight, was probably the third. The most difficult and complicated was the second. All arrangements on the right had been more or loss disturbed by the very heavy enemy attack of tho immediately preceding day. The enemy managed to concentrate into the area where ho meant to attack about lour times the normal number of guns and laid down, on the sector of our lines in trout of him a really formidable barrage not very different from that to which we treat nim on a wider front. He attacked behind his fire, and at the one point where our line crossed a g'uliy —the awkward valley of the Trickle which runs past Reu tel—-ho penotrateu a considerable distance. The Australian troops on the. hill on the left against whom tho flank of the attack came managed to hold, though Germans reached to within fifteen or twenty yards of them- But they were worn, and further troops were brought up promptly for tile next morning’s attack. These Australian reinforcements reached their position on the hill in time for the attack, and went over. But the position in the valley was so difficult in the dark that some of the troops who were to have started there lost their way and the start could not be made to full advantage. The experience of one body of Australians who were thus pushed up and attacked was typical and well worth telling. Tlie Australian troops had just arrived at the position where they were to lie in support during that attack when they heard that they were to attack : at dawn, and were pushed straight on. This unit, of course, had no knowledge of the particulars of the attack other than the general knowledge of the situation and certain details affecting its own duties in reserve. But it found it way along the right track to its position behind the first wave of attacking troops. It. had to pass through scattered barrages, the ragged end of yesterday’s fighting, on its way up. IN THE GRIP OF THE BARRAGE

Very shortly aiter it reached its position down came our barrage, and the troops scrammed o\it of slielilioles and went on behind it. The men walked steadily belund the dust and the clamour. The grey light was just breaking. Presently they were conscious that through the dust and shredded dun eartli and broken, dusty brushwood, tiiero were machine-gun bullets flying. There was a noise of several machine-guns which might have been anywhere, but was distinguishable above through the thunder of artillery. Presently the line almost tripped on to a few grey moving figures in a shellhole. cioso ahead, busy over something. The nearest part of the line rushed them, and. tiic advance went on almost without looking round. Here and there a man dropped—sometimes one could see his mate crumple beside him—lifelong friends, perhaps, but he could barely spare time to turn his head—much less to kneel down beside him, as they did in the old days, or bind him up. The barrage had tnom irx its grip; unless they followed it with their whole mind and effort intent on that and nothing else, it would slip away from them and the worst trouble that can confront a modern attack would have arisen. Mates or no mates the seething country which was yust ahead of them was their complete master in those grey hours.

MACHINE-GUN FIGHTING. There followed a series of little spasmodic lights—tiiero must have been about twenty ot them in that units sector very similar to that first ;Aiuuil surprise. Sometimes it was when tbe line found grey battered concrete blockhouses looming out of the receding shell dust —tli.ugs like some great send blocks of grey stone half smothered in khaki dust. Someone grey might bo moving beside it fumbling to get his machine-gun mounted. More often when they passed the places and bombed the doors if they were shut out came a mass of wounded, half pushed from inside and over them a string of Germans with their hands up. On the whole tho German machine-gun-ners fought where they could. There was one point where the line again found bullets swishing round it suddenly, obviously from very bear. Men were dropping hit—tho line just rippled with the first suspicion of a waver. It was aware of a figure in a shell-hole immediately ahead with machine-gun on stand —tho man’s fingers on the trigger buttons doing deadly shooting. There was just a ripple and then the whole line in that nart swung in together towards him. Officers and non-c.ommissioned officers were doiiig magnificent work that morning. The line simply made up its mind on tho instant and swung at him. Men dropped, but a few seconds later tho loading man reached liim with his bayonet, and he died with his thumbs still pressing tho triggers'. There were three or four dead with him in the shellhole where his ma-chine-gun was , employed ; this man seemed to have been tho last of Isis team left by tho barrage.

COOPED IN A BLOCKHOUSE. From one grey blockhouse which they passed there came first the disgorged wounded and then a line of men amongst whom was one in British uniform. Our men with immediate suspicions of German treachery dived for ibis man instantly and questioned him. Ho had beeu out reconnoitring in front of his men three days before when a sniper’s bullet hit him in the back of the neck and stunned him. The Germans saw him fall and went out. and brought him into their concrete blockhouse. Then our artillery fire descended and for three days no man entered that blockhouse nor left it. The place became crammed with wounded who trickled in. They could not be carried to the rear. No ration parties came and no one went to fetch them—they lived on the food in the plane. They treated their English captive very kindly, dressed his wound and made him share their shelter, but they could not send him away; and when our attack went througn Tie was released by our own men. TEA ON THE OBJECTIVE.

Tho plan of the attack had to bo slightly modified while the light was only actually halfway through, as tho hitch in the difficult- valley on the flank became known. Heavy machinegun lire was coming from there. But the modification was just in time—it says volumes for the extraordinary and intelligent training and discipline of the Australian troops that these sudden changes—most dangerous expedients as a rule—were able to be carried out somehow. The whole operation was completed according to plan during the afternoon. An officer who went round the line immediately after they had reached the intended lino told me that he found the men already settled in their consolidated position—each little place improved so as to command tho section ahead of it. Every groun of men had collected a few sticks from tho rain, nants of Polygon Yv'ood around them. In the bottom of every other shellhole a tiny fire was burning, a thin oulf of blue smoke was being- fanned;

and the morning’s tea was already boiling, with two or three more or «ess happy men around it. As he along -the position they grinned at aim with tho familiar smile. _ . They were in this position aerem days, and owing to the shelling descended and the demand for men for work further back, ration parties detailed to bring them food and water were delayed. They had to do what has rarely been done by these troops before—break into their own rationThey boiled water from the shellholea —there was no other —but they wer® perfectly confident that the Germans never could have got through, however hard .they attacked* “They never could have done it, sir,” they told their officer when they were coming out. Eao.i little group were perfect generals m their own sector—they knew the ground ahead of them and they knew everything that happened there —they had studied it out and they knew just how they would take the German if ho arrived. THE PLANS. It was immediately after the morning attack, as the troops were actually getting into their position, that the German aeroplanes arrived. They came two or three of them low overhead and dropped flares to show their people behind just where tho line was. Then there began a duel between them and the infantry as interesting as has ever happened between air and land. The planes came swooping over them time after time, wheeling like so many great hawks, snooting at them. They could see the .observer every time working his machine-gun on its swivel while the pilot steered the machine for himEvery rifle opened at them. Each man laid a bead on the observer and blazed. The airmen chased small parties that crossed the open. They hit a few men, but the infantry up there in Polygon Wood did get home on them in the end. Two for certain, and some say three, were brought down, crashing amongst the craters. Of one, I believe, the observer was only wounded, though th® pilot was killed, or vice versa. The German aeroplanes led their counter-attacks most boldly, stooping over our front line to show the German infantry where the line was, throwing flares, doing all they could to direct the German attention to tha proper place. But what could you do with such opponents as they had. Tha men were full of fight all the time. In a modern attack you go out to face shaken or disorganised garrisons, bub these men were boiling with fight. During the advance, when the two barrages were tearing down the sky overiVDd, they asked or answered any question exactly as if they were coming away from a football match and inquiring the road, and the bullets and shells were the spitting of a threatening shower.