TROOPS DASH FORWARD TO ATTACK A GIBRALTAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16561, 9 June 1917, Page 7

TROOPS DASH FORWARD TO ATTACK A GIBRALTAR.

GROUND ROLLS LIKE THE SEA AS MINES EXPLODE.

GERMANS UNABLE TO RELIEVE EXHAUSTED DIVISIONS. Australian and N.Z. Cable. (Received 12.30 a.m.) LONDON, June 8.

A later message from Mr. Philip (libbs states: Our gunners also smothered the German batteries whenever our airmen revealed them. Our aviators have been wonderful. They brought down 44 enemy machines in five days. Flocks of aeroplanes went up this morning in order to blind the enemy and to report the progress of the battle.

Our men knew they were going to attack a Gibraltar, and they expected the enemy to fight his hardest for the Messines Ridge. The final outburst of the guns was the most terribly beautiful thing of the most diabolical splendour seen in the war. Out of the dark ridges of Messines and Wytschaete, and ill-famed Hill 60, there gushed an enormous volume of flame from the exploding mines. A New Zealand boy, who came back wounded, said he felt like being in an open boat in a rough sea as the ground rocked up and down. Thousands of Anzacs and British soldiers thus rocked before they scrambled up and dashed forward into the German lines, assisted by a tornado of shells which crashed over the enemy's ground. White, red and green distress rockets rose from the German lines, telling the gunners the British were upon them. Soon these distress signals did not appear. Instead there wero British signals.

German prisoners began to come back in batches. They described the eagerness of the attackers as so great that sometimes they seemed to be, in advance of the barrage. The Germans did not expect tho attack for another two days. They made a desperate effort during the night to relieve the exhausted troops by new divisions, which lost heavily in coming into the firing-line.

The story of this great victory cannot yet. be told, but reports show that our men everywhere succeeded in gaining their objectives with astonishing rapidity, carrying out Sir Douglas Haig's plans for the battlefield almost to the letter and time-table. Irish Nationalists and Ulstermen, vying with each other in courage and self-sacrifice, stormed their way up to Wytschaete, and after overcoming a desperate resistance captured all that was left of the famous white chateau. By mid-day our men were well down the further slopes of the ridge, while the field batteries rushed up the ridge and took up new positions. Further north along the shoulder of the Ypres salient, English troops captured the greater part of Battle Wood, south of Zillrbekc.