LA BASSE VILLE FIGHT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLII, Issue 10104, 11 October 1917, Page 7

LA BASSE VILLE FIGHT.

«s> _ WORK OF NEW ZEALANDERS. FIFTY MINUTES' GRIM EFFORT. The work of the New • Zealunders in tho groat British advance at Ypros, which began on July 31, was to form the southern flank of the advancing lino. Correspondents at British headquarters state that they had only a very slight advance-to rtiake to keep "step with the rest of the line, and they did it punctually. At some points there was sharp fighting, as at La Basse Ville, which the New Zealanders found honeycombed with cellars and dugouts full of Germans, with the usual machine-gun defences. After the place was captured, the enemy counter-attacked three times in the course of the day. Onoe he gained a foothold, only to be immediately thrown out, and the other attacks were broken by our guns and the New Zealand rifles. . The enemy casualties here were very heavy, and the dugouts simply full of German elead. In the Basse Ville area the fields are divided by hedges, and through those hedges the Germans had strung barbed-wire, besides digging machine-gun pits or using shell-holes concealed with wire-netting. In spite of wire and machine-guns the New Zi-alanders cleaned out tho whole region, and one battalion which got home with its bayonets afterwards buried over 100 German dead among the hedges and shellholes. Below here the Australians had a )>oint of local importance to take in a ruined windmill on a slight but commanding knoll. It wus taken by them, re-taken m counterattack, taken again, and remains in their hands. The whole of this southern part of tho attack, while, the advance was not of any great depth, was extremely cleanly and thoroughly executed and with _ casualties which wen very gratifyingly slight. Another dispatch stated that the New Zealanders found stout foes at La Basso Ville. Tho ruins had been taken before the battle, but a strong counter-attack had brought them again within the enemy Jines'. The New Zealanders drove into the ullage on the first wave of the battle and found it full of good German troops. The Germans had many machine guns in strong positions, and even when the attackers swarmed in among them the gunners and bombers tried to hold their ground. J here were fifty minutes of grim effort by tho New Zealanders before La Basso Ville was wholly theirs and before the remnants of the garrison which had escaped were retreating in the direction of Warneton. As at llollebeke, cellars full of Germans who would not come out were blown in, and the New Zealanders sent- word back after tlie capture that they could nor. use these underground refuges" at the moment because they were filled with bodies. Nothing is left of La Basse Ville. The German defences beyond it, too, were demolished by our artillery.