FRICOURT AND LA BOISELLE

North Otago Times, Volume CIV, Issue 13662, 2 September 1916, Page 8

FRICOURT AND LA BOISELLE

GALLANT ."FIGHTING BY BRITISH [ t TROOPS. DKADLY WORK IN A DOUBLE SALIENT. Prom Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent with New Zealand Forces). War Correspondent's Headquarters, Franco, July'2, The great battle of the Sommc along an extended front became really a series of battles ami some of the fiercest, fighting has taken place in the vicinity of the battered villages of Fricourt and La Roiselle—strong points in the German line that for a time held l up our attack, This was really a battle in itself, and I-had the'rare good fortune to watch it from an adjacent slope within easy, range and right out in the open, It was a unique position, from which in this war one could witness a real battle.' Well within n . complete circle of gun fire, and even within the range of the machine-guns and rifles, had tiiey cared to shoot, we could follow almost every movement of our troops,in places even with the unaided 1 eye. Both'villages had been battered beyond recognition by our intensive initial bombardment, but the enemy still clung, tenaciously to the positions. 'Prisoners said afterwards that they, had been told to hang on at all costs. For superb' gallantry in the face of great odds I liave seen ■ -nothing to equal this fight since the tight on Chumik Bair—the highest point we gained on the Gallipoli Peninsula—by the New Zealanders.

For hours our bombardment of the trenches and ruins of these villages made them a veritable inferno, That which was the German front trench at La Boi'sellu- had in places become almost a level road. Trees in the adjacent wood had been shot to bits, and bricks and mortar had'crumbled till the houses were shapeless ruins, Mainetz, a village to the right, had already been taken, and when we arrived on the scene our troops were trying' to get round the Fricourt Wood from there, while another body was endeavouring to join with them round the other side of the wood. Work of the Gunners,

Gallant, work was'done at Mametz too, The men from one unit got into the German line with a single casualty, and were in the second line with only two. One man himself took twenty prisoners. Other units were not so lucky. They came up against liiachine-gun fire and wore also heavily bombed. In one spot, lying amongst, the grass in the line in which.they were 'advancing, were the bodies of six men and a little dog—the mascotte of the regiment—that,had gone into the light with them. One regiment had taken many prisoners and was tremendously bucked up. Another had "got it in the neck" and was correspondingly' depressed, but they continued bravely fighting, and in the end the Germans wore worsted, .Next day, an our men advanced from this position to get round Fricourt Wood, the German gunners put a very hot barrage of high-explosive and some shrapnel in the hollow through which they had to pass, yet they got there all the same. The enemy also '"crumped" our firing line, but were too late. Our men had already advanced. "Woolly Bears," that burst with a peculiar tearing noise/were mixed with tho other stuff. An officer told me that our shelling had been most effective, ■ He had wandered into 'a German redoubt that had been greatly strafed and found it a heap of tumbled earth, Some cheery pioneers from a Northern.-iioiitity wero ajready''at work digging a communication trench soon after our troops had taken'the German line. With their, move peaceful implements of war they streamed down laden with beams of stout timber. Effects of Modem Arttllevy.

When we arrived on the scene the ■real battle for La Boiselle was jnsi commencing, and the .Inst of the main Gorman force was already in process of being cleared out of Fricoiirt, We got so close to the fighting that with the unaided eye we could clearly see the troops going into action, They streamed round one corner of the Fricourt ruins and swung to the right of the wood. Others came up out of tho wood; Others came up out of the hollow of the valley more to. tho left. These also advanced, but almost at tho same time we hoard the craeklo of a machine-gun and could see that they were held up. The gun was hidden somewhere in the wood. Most of them took shelter on the edge of a little copse, at a place that had been Fricoui't.Fnrm, The trees of the copse, had been .torn and dismembered by our sholl tiro. Thoy were living skeletons, Farther round on the left on the crest of a ridge overlooking a chateau in a beautiful wood was all that 1 remained of La Bolsolle after our guns had been at it for about a. week. It was very very littlo, but such ruined villages afford a good deal of shelter to an enemy, nnd with their deep dug-outs, in which both men and maclui-o-gnns have be..n saved, they are the v,ery devil ( to dean up in an ad' vnnce. In one case our irie.'i went right through a village, so quick was their advance, and tho enemy afterwards came out of their "bunny-holes" pfl fought. But they failed to savo the position. 'Many of tho Germans who remained were killed and wounded, The others were taken prisoners, Merciless Shelling,

'While our men wore held up at the end" of Fricourt Wood our gunners were mercilessly shelling the La Boiselle position, still strongly held by the Germans and commanded by their artillery lire mi by our qwn, The highexplosive sent the earth tearing heavenward, and the already broken brick walls of farm and cottage disappeared in clouds of red dust. At intervals a big shrapnel or <! universal" shell would burst in the air, spattering the ground with its pellets/ and leaving foehind it a beautiful rolling cloud of light greyish-green smoke.; That was no doubt to catch any German who might take it into his head to cut and run for better shelter. But all the time we watched not a man showed himself. So terrible was the shelling that one thought nothing could live within its zone, For hours the terrible "preparifHon" for our advance went on.

Away on the left a battery of heavy guns, with fine teams of black horses, swung into action right in the open, This was a splendid and a cheering sight—a sight such as one had not expected in this war of trench and wire Pfl Hog-ppt. Tlia Bag of Frinoiiai'fl,

On the slope of the Fricourt-La Boiocllo Ridge our men were nonchalantly walking about, 'and the stretcher-bear-Ms were going and coming in the open, Amongst the uniforms I noted some (hat were ■strangely grey, and, looking through my glasses, T saw that they were Germans, right among pur Hut they were Gorman prispnprs, Tfipre must Ijovr jiecp a wiiplo company of (hem, liiidnr Hie- gleaming bayonet's oi' half-a-dozen guards. They were marched down the valley to a barbed-wire enclosure well away from'' the battle ground. Other "Tommies" were bringing in prisoners in Iwos and threes from the captured trenches on the FriconrlLa Boisellc Ridge. At. intervals' for fully half '.in' hour we wa|;cl|pd fli'ift Inimflurisd slowly fringing his, inijj] ij], I'lin prlsoiipi' 'Boolllol] fp"]je'shjjiiimiiijj, and was reluctant'to come, Apparently he thought he was going to his doom.

Occasionally the.re would be n bit of aii argument, in which ii 'threatening bayonet point played -a part, but the "Tommy" persevered., He made tho 'man cross the trenches in front of'him, and when it was his turn to clamber ;iip the other side he made the prisoner stretch out his 1 hand and help him up, the other side, Signallers at Work.

The position nt both Fricourt ami La Boisollo was intensely interesting. In modern war in such country one might not see such a battle in n lifetime, So we ventured along a-little further to where a small group of our soldiers wore lying on the yellow earth of a communication trench. The group consisted of a colonel, a major, and some signallers, Amongst them was n big, handsome young Australian, whose father was a Broken Hill millionaire. Tie had been in England when the.war broke out, and had joined the artillery. He was enthusiastic and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself. For some hours we lay beside these men on the yellow clay watching the wonderful battle spectacle and listening to no end of messages going and coming over the field telephone. Expressions of de* light were sandwiched in between orders and messages to the guns, '"There's another blighter!" r< His hands are npl His hands are' up!" "There's another follow in a long cloak by the Crucifix!" The *'crucifix" si nd the "Poodle" came into it a good deal, The "Poodle" turned out to be a woolly-looking tree on the far ridge just in front of the other German line, The "Crucifix" was a real crucifix'standing amidst a small clump of naked trees on the horizon, Crucifixes seem to have.a way of escaping shell' fire, and in these cases the French peasants regard them with a sort of superstitious awe. Interspersed with such talk were oilier sentences of a more technical kind, such as putting "No, 4 gun on to ißnrhham Wood," or "No, 3 on to X 20 ak 16," "dropping twenty-five," or "twenty minutes more left," or right, as the ease may be. The Germans were shelling our troops in a place called by these enthusiasts "Losenge Wlood," and our aforesaid guns were now cheerfully strafing the Germans just over the .ridge. The shells tore past, and we watched them bursting just over the crest/of the ridge, Our infantry had been in Crucifix Trench, and others advancing to the further attack were now held up at "The Poodle." The shelling was to let them get on. This they. subsequently did, and by,next day the whole Fricourt Wood was surrounded and the position made good. Another battery commander wanted' to- know over the 'phone if he could "chip in," but an officer replied: "No; Major Blank's battery will do the necessary." It was very much as if a man were sitting in his office ordering a. ton of coal for his household or arranging a deal in shares' or produce. They could not, of course, see their own guns. Neither could the gunners see what they were shooting at—it was all done with scientific accuracy from the map and from observation in this forward position. ' ■ -

Launching the Infantry. The position at Fricourt having been satisfactorily cleared up, we again turned our attention on La Boiselle, which was more than ever now being whipped with a rain of shells. Other batteries, including some "heavies" far back, were doing this. It seemed as. if the gunners had warmed to their work, One could imagine them.stripped, to the shirt going for all they wero worth. Their shelling was dreadfully effective and terribly accurate. Presently they, banged in a tornado'of shrapnel and then suddenly "lifted." .From thatr we know that the infantry attack on La Boiselle was just on tho point of being launched, and,-, sure enough, in a minute or two wo saw tho first -of the men debouching from a communication trench and cheeping up across a battered German trench in the direction of what had, boen the village, Others followed, and soon thcro was a little group in a very oxposed position waiting for their chaneo to go forward, Capturing La Boiselle.

Jt was now the turn of tho Gorman 'gunners, They put a heavy barrage in the hollow to the left to endeavour to prevent our men coming up, and they also shot nt the little group crouching on the whito chalky nibble of n damagod trench, on which they wore finding all too inadequate shelter, The ground was whipped with' shrnpuc) and high oxploslvc, and a German machine gunner, who had evidently lived through our-fire, emerged from his "bunny hole" and commoncod tiring. There was also.the cracltlo of rifle lire now mingling with tho reports of the guns that wore banging away all around us, and with tho noise of the bursting shells immediately <in front, One felt very sorry for tho little group of brave men crouching there in the open. Presently there was a bnwt of shell beside'thorn andanothor right over them. The smoke of the sholl and the whippod up dust obliterated them for a moment. When it cleared we say man after man get up, and crouching low, advance into the village, against the machine-gun tire from .the leafless wood and the ruined houses, Thore were some seven or eight who did not move. They still lay in strangely huddled attitudes, motionless on the light earth of the battered trench. They were still there next day —in Iho same strange attitudes. Death had caught them in the very hour of victory. But other gallant fellows camo on through the pitiless hail of German shrapnel to take their places, They came singly and in twos and threes. * Some dropped, but there was no flinching, no turning back. It was all very sad, but finely inspiriting. It made the pulses thrill, One felt proud to be of the breed. In (his manner did we gain our footing in La Boiselle. And all the time with this wonderful battle panorama being unfolded before us, on a slope decked with red pqpples and blue cornflowers, Ihe swallows were flitting, about, and in tho bluo above a soaring lark was putting all his soul into his song,