FRANCE'S CANAL FLEET.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 10526, 2 December 1916, Page 11

FRANCE'S CANAL FLEET.

ARMOURED MONITORS ON THE SOMME. . Mr Henry Wood, the correspondent of the United Press of America with the French Army, writes:— Mont St. Quentin, which dominates Pennine from the north-east, constituting the key of the latter's defences, is slowly and steadily being encircled by the French in the same manner which preceded the capture of. Com hies. The methodical advance of the French against Mont. St. Quentin presents the novel characteristic of a combined land and naval assault. France's magnificent .network of canals along the nomine, centring on Peronne, is now navigated by ironclad monitors, which participate daily' in the bombardment., and arc gradually aflvancing their positions with the general closing in of the land artillery line-s.

I Working my way in towards Peronne early in the morning, I witnessed the novel spectacle of marine gunners wdio serve the gune aboard the monitors after their morning plunge in the canal and breakfast, beginning the day's bombardment in the same methodical and scheduled clockwork manner as ordinary workmen begin a day's labour. The same proved true of the long lines of the land batteries, where the artillerymen, after the morning's wash-up and breakfast, apparently without the necessity of their officers' presence, began serving the guns at a scheduled time like so many factory employees beginning work at the whistle's blast. Occasional German shells falling near did not interrupt for a single instant the routine of their day's labour. Only the lunch hour did that. Peaching finally an artillery observation post directly facing Mont St. Quentin, I was permitted to follow the methodical French artillery advance and encirclement of the village of Mont St. Quentin that has already suffered the safe fate as forty-seven other villages captured up to date during the Allies' offensive, being completely reduced to heaps of brickbats and protruding tree stumps, where, however, Germans remain strongly fortified, especially in the cellars. I was able to watch the French artillery fire completely encircle the hill' and village for the purpose of interrupting the German communications in the rear, while occasional shells were directed against the villa for the purpose of burying the Germans in their dug-outs and cellars.