TERRIFIC FIGHTING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15951, 23 June 1915, Page 9

TERRIFIC FIGHTING.

USE OF GAS AT YPRES.

".DIRTY TRICKS" OF NO AVAIL

HELPLESS MEN BAYONETED.

Another letter was received yesterday by the Rev. C. Griffin from his son, Surgeon-Lieutenant Cyril J. A. Griffin, who ha« been on active service with the Ist Cavalry Field Ambulance since the early stages of the war. Writing on April 29, Lieutenant Griffin stated that he was then about 15 miles from Dunkirk, this being the furthest north that the ambulance had been.

" We are on the move again," he wrote. " You will have read of the sudden German attack on the French north of Ypres. They gained a little ground by the use of asphyxiating gases, and our cavalry were rushed up to" support the French. The French have brought up numerous reinforcements.' and have gained most of the lost ground. We were not brought into the actual firing-line, but put into reserve trenches a little way back, in case the Germans broke through.

"The fighting has been terrific. I have never heard such cannonading, and tho casualties have been enormous. I do not think the Germans can break through, in spite of all their dirty tricks. One of our officers met a French colonel of Zouaves, who said 1400 of his men were made insensible in the trenches by the gases, and were bavnneted by the ' Germans as they lay helnlcss.

" Our Royal Army Medical Corps men have been ' busy making face-masks of gauze to protect the men acainst tbs gnse.«. Thev soak them in a sodium hyposulphite rolntion. You can see the gases nrtpvmrhing. They are blown by the wind like a thick cloud of yellow fog. The fas is probably chlorine, or sulphur dioxide. I have now some hundreds of the masks ready to issue to the men of my brigade."