BRITISH ATTACK MADE UNDER TERRIRLE CONDITIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16373, 30 October 1916, Page 5

BRITISH ATTACK MADE UNDER TERRIRLE CONDITIONS.

MEN FLOUNDER THROUGH QUAGMIRE UNDER FIRE. TRENCH TAKEN FROM REDOUBTABLE BAVARIAN REGIMENT Australian and NZ. Cab]©. (Received 815 p.m.) ' LONDON, Oct. 28. Mr. Percival Gibbon, correspondent of the Daily Chronicle, says that the hand-to-hand fighting for gunpits and a hazy trench, which took place on Thursday, was one of the bitterest episodes of the Somme action. The attack was undertaken in weather conditions which only tragic heroism made possible for an advance. When the British units went into the trenches on the previous night they were soaking with rain. There were seven degrees of frost before the morning, but later the rain melted the country to a loathsome yellow paste. The barrage advanced ahead of the attackers. They were only half way out of their quagmire of a trench when they saw the German officer recalling the defenders to the parapets. While our men floundered in the mud every German was firing his rifle. But we took the German position, crawling and tumbling forward somehow until the trench was captured. The defenders were the Bavarians, who captured Vaux in the faco of the magnificent French defence, so they were worthy foes, but they were no match for British bayonets. Dead Germans now lie thick on the ground. But for the miserable weather the British would have been before the great trench system guarding Lc Transloy.