PICKING OFF OFFICERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15807, 2 January 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

PICKING OFF OFFICERS.

GERMAN SHARPSHOOTERS. A trooper who arrived in Paris on a special mission told a London Dailv Express correspondent that German sharpshooters are told off to shoot down British officers. The regiment was fightine its way, dismounted, through , which the Germans had held in force. After a hard engagement the enemy were driven out and our men entered the main street. All was quiet. Suddenlv a shot rang out. Captain Springfield, the well-known gentleman jock v, one of the most popular officers in the regiment fell, shot through the head. Several men rushed into the house from which the shot was fired. Tn the firstfloor bedroom they found a Herman. The men were about to kill him for his treachery, but .in officer came running up the stairs and told them to make the German a. prisoner. Much against their will th»«- did so. He told his raptors that in each regiment the best shots were told to pay special attention to officers, ami pictures were shown them so that thev could reeognise them easily. When the Germans had to retire from a village thev left two or three men behind with orders to shoot any officer they could, and then give themselves up. reiving on the British to treat the men as simple prisoners of war. Thr" work of the German spies is simply wonderful. In a certain town where a cavalry division bil'eted five staff officers were much troubled by the constant and accurate shelling by the German artillery. Wherever they ino\ed the Germans found the range at once. It was believed, at first tint their aeron);.n.'s enabled them to do this, but a military policeman happened to go down into the cellar of a bouse where sonic men -u-ere quartered, and there he found a Gorman comfortably installed working a field telephone. He had been there two week*. He had plenty of food, and worked bv candlelight." On another occasion a spy was found in a disused well, and three were found working a telephone from inside a hayi ,stack.