A NIGHT ATTACK.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17882, 30 August 1918, Page 6

A NIGHT ATTACK.

INFERIORITY OF THE GERMAN " INFANTRY.

ANOTHER AUSTRALIAN ADVANCE

(From F. M. CUTBACK, Official War

Correspondent.)

Copyright Reserved by the Crown,

FRANCE, Juno 17

Tho battles on the Morlancourt Ridge have none of them been big battles. Tho various Australian brigades who have taken part in one or tho other of them have wished each one could have been bigger. To 'the distant student they seem probaMjf like a steady drive against stiff resistance, a drive in each phase of which the enemy has given up consistently a little bit more of his foothold. This is not quite the case. Ever since that hist day at the end of March when the Australians marched in across the path of 'the German advance towards Amicus they have given the Germans no rest. The lino as they were forced to make it that day was uqt quite tho line they wanted, and so, withheld from making any great attack, the Australians have steadily gnawed and bitten at the enemy's defences. Rivalry has run high among Australian units in these engagements. They have been without exception entirely successful, entailing on our sido small casualties. They have worn out a number of German divisions, often sent here to what is deemed a quiet sector; they have wrecked any morale the men had when they came; they have inflicted on the enemy losses in men and material out of all proportion to the amount of ground gamed. The prisoners taken run into thousands, the machine-guns into hundreds. Tho numbers of slain Germans make it some of 'the bloodiest ground ever taken from the enemy—tho bloodier because it has been won in such small pieces. The Morlancourt Ridge is rapidly becoming tho unliappiest place to which a German division can bo sent. BATTLE OF JUNE 10.

It is fairly easy for the Germans, with their experience of these tactics, to know when such an Australian attack is coming. The precise hour of it wo seek to hide from them, and so fnr successfully. They expected, for instance, this latest attack, but thoughl it was coming in the early morning of Tuesday. It was delivered at the close of twilight—a gorgeous twilight—on Monday evening. The men of the brigade which -made it were in 'the best possible fettle. They had taken no part in any of the numerous little attacks by the Australians in this Somme campaign, and they had heard with a sense of resentment against somebody or something several compliments to Australians from high quarters which they felt they could not take to themselves. It is a hard thing these bright sunny days lor hundreds of eager, healthy men to lie hidden in holes for fifteen daylight nours; but the officers explained the importance of the precaution, and the batualiens, after marching in tho night before, lay hidden and quiet for the whole day preceding the assault. An officer who wont round tho trenches that afternoon and saw them cleaning rifles and rubbing bayonets on bits of flint, every man's face as cool and hard and bright as his steel, said: "God help the Fritz tonight when those boys get to him. The poor devils are duds, most of them too," They were. The machinegunners in many cases Stayed and fought to the last, but the German infantry with one or. two isolated exceptions simply lan. Some ran forward, not to charge but to surrender—as on the front, of the Western Australians—somo ran backwards, chucking away arms and equipment as they went. Some fired a few rounds, and then squealing and whining ducked into their little bivvies and had to he dragged out. Those who ran away were shot down like rabbits by Lewis gunners. Those who remained were mostly taken prisoner. Tho Australian artillery fire accompanying the attack was very good and cut down a considerable number of those who fled. The wounded were heard out in No Man's Land and behind the new German line all nest day, and German stretcher-bearers worked hard nil day under white flags getting them THE FIGHTING.

Tho main attack was made by three splendid bodies of troops—Western Australians on the left, Queenslanders in the centre, South Australians on the right. To the right of them again were more Queenslanders, and they took forward the extreme right over a considerable distance down two spurs and a valley above the village of Sailly Laurette. There was no hitch in the advance. The whole operation was over on the left in thirteen miuutes and on the right in half an hour. Under a curtain fire of shrapnel and high explosive the Australian line on a front of 3500 yards moved forward nearly half a mile and then stopped. No resistance held it up; the battalions could have gone on to the German guns if the l ' had been allowed.

The attack owed its light casualties to the fact that the men followed close behind the barrage and were on to the machine-guns in most cases before the Germans had time to get them into action. Here and there in isolated cases—machine-guns are nowadays very numerous—our barrage missed or only lightly sprinkled some gunners' nest, and the obstacle had to bo tackled by the infantry with the gun in action. Tho men did this in every case on the instant, and there are some gallant stories of these moments. In only one case did a machine-gun have time to do any damage; it was in front of the Queenslanders, its situation gave it the opportunity, and before our men could reach it it cut down most of a platoon. Is ear the main road on the top of the ridge were two machine-gun uests, one on each side of the road; the Western Australians tackling the northern one found one gun, the Queenslanders fighting the other nest found four. These positions wero at about the limit of the advance. The German gunners here, and in a few positions further forward, fought to the last and were all killed. They were no great_ obstacle, for they were not traversing their weapons, but firing straight ahead in a fixed stream; the Australians, when thev came up oh the flanks, found the gunners with their heads down behind the trench wall and their hands reachin"- up to fire their guns blindly from sot. -positions on top of tho parapet. These were tho brave men among the enemy, and those who surrendered were taken prisoner. They were not many. They were vastly sunerior to their infantry comrades. These were, either shot as they ran, or bayoneted if they

resisted ; many of them lay in the grass, and tho advance passed over them. The South Australians found a lot lying like that, and when some of the r>risoners wore asked later the reason for it, they said, "Wo were waiting to surrender. Wo were not lying there to shoot." THE ENEMY REPLY.

Tho German infantry deserve "•that two exceptions should be mado to the remarks above. They stood to fight down one trench opposite the South Australians, and a private leading one platoon of this battalion had to fight his way for over a hundred yards down tho trench, and with bonA and bayonet ho killed twenty-live of them in so doing. And on the extreme left the Western Australians had a stiff little bombing fight at the end near a country road fork. It i*as not quite clear that the enemy met here were not fresh troops counter-attacking. They numbered forty or fifty, and they dispersed one small Australian bombing party; but a sergeant on the spot promptly organised another which, with tho help of a platoon out on the flank, cleared the place. The enemy's efforts at counter-attack were very feeble. There was about a battalion in and around Morlancourt whose business was to counter any Australian blow on that sido of the ridge, and about midnight some two companies of them were put at it; but the Australians were dug in by then and tho Bodies were stopped and beaten back by machine-gun and rifle fire alone without any assistance from the artillery. Five hours later, after daybreak, 'there was another coun-ter-attack on top of the ridge and on the right flank, but it was hardly serious enough to call an attack. Prisoners said it wa» meant 'to be one, but the Germans seem to have lost heart in it as they approached the ta.sk, and in the end they just threw their bombs from a distance and dug in, and the artillery inflicted heavy casualties on them as they did so. Tho battalions on the new line next morning had a rich reward for their efforts. The Germans were evidently uncertain of our positions, and did not realise to what an extent the advance during the night had robbed them of somo of their old security from snipers. At any rate, our men, both riflemen and machine-gunners, shot them down by the dozen. Tho Western Australians say thoy killed more that morning than they did during the attack itself. Tho South Australians say they killed a* least two hundred with the fire of rifles and Lewis guns that same morning. Tho Hun showed how it stung him. From midday onwards lie bombed heavily the whole of our front lino system with direct and enblate fire.

Besides their killed and wounded the Germans lost in men and manorial three hundred and thirty-one men (including six officers), captured, forty-one ma-chine-guns, and six minenwerf er./ These figures include the results of a raid made by a Victorian party on a German post near Ville-sur-Ancre, to the left of the main attack, and contemporaneously with it. The Victorians killed thirty Germans in the post and captured the remaining six, as well as two machine-guns.