IN SEA OF FIRE.

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

IN SEA OF FIRE.

GERMAN FLAME-THROWERS. PARIS, Aug. 17. A remarkably vivid description of the recent desperate fighting on the Somme front has been given by a wounded French signaller to Georges le Hir, a special correspondent of the Now York Times. Asked how he came by his injuries, the signaller made the startling reply:— "In watching hell-fire from a tree top. The. captain called for someone to stay behind to watch and signal the enemy's movements. That's my regular job, so 1 C.».n.l ~,„c<>lf mi in ilm, eleff, of .') t.rf.fi.

I fixed myselt up in tno cieic oi a tree, taking with me a telephone which was connected with the nearest battery. For nearly on hour nothing happened. Then n group of about. 40 Boohes crept forward from the wood, rapidly followed by tho best part of a company. "I telephoned 'Enemy advancing, led by a detachment of flannnenwerfer,' for I had recognised the devilish apparatus carried by the foremost group. When the latter' were about 30 feet from the empty trench they halted in a hollow just below the. rise in the ground, and then, with appalling suddenness a dozen jets of white and yellow flames darted up to fall plumb into the trench. The .!„,,»« i-mnl.-o hid the rest of rhe Germans.

(dense SmOKe lUU Hie IC3I ui in." ucnimua, but, thanks io my mask, 1 was able to 'give information to the battery. |° "It was then I had a glimpse of what hell must be like. Our gunners had the I range to an inch, and a torrent of shells I burst right among the fire-throwers. Greatsheets of flame sprang up, one jet from lan exploding container just grazing me, burning my clothes and scorching me rather "badly. But it was impossible to escape. The ground was a sea of fire. and in the midst of it the Germans, like 'living torches, were dying horribly, j "One man span round like a top, not I even trying to run away, until he. tell .in ~. poo! of flame. Others rolled on the 'ground, but the blazing liquid ran around 1 them everywhere, and I could smell the horrible, odour of burning llosh. ! don'l think any fire-throwers escaped. Then screams, heard despite the cannonade ami rifle fire, seemed to continue terribly long. ' The company behind them appeared panicstricken. As the smoke . lifted I saw them running back to the wood, and our machine guns did severe execution amongst th«JL."