WITH THE NEW ZEALANDERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16926, 12 August 1918, Page 4

WITH THE NEW ZEALANDERS

♦-— '' Ml TAKING ROSSIGNOL WOOD. '

GALLANT CAPTAIN KILLED.; SUCCESS WITH FEW LOSSES. K.Z. War Correspondent. Aug. »■'., TtiE New Zcalanders, after a spell in '■'■' the back area, recently returned to th« lino iwghtly north of their former mc 1 tor, and for some day? now have been acquitting themselves well in minor gg, I terprises, which have resulted in the cap. ture of about a thousand yards en - front of 300 yd*. Included in the cap. tured area is the famous Roaignol Wood where the French fought in the early day of the war, and where rubsequently th» ] British had some hard fighting. The beginning of the matter v.a.= with the Rjjj Brigade, which captured some enemy trenches in front of Hebuterne. An officer and four men rent out in day. light, crawled through the wire, and' jumped into a trench, where they killed three Germans and captured one pri. soner, without casualties. Sh' rtly after. ; wards Captain Salraond, a young and pro. . mising officer, was killed by a bomb at Rossignol Wood.

Following this preliminary invest'.cation : of tho enemy, the Kin"" Brigade pained some ground in the old British front line by the exploitation. Then two com. panics attacked after 10 minutes' bora-' bardment on a 1000 yds front, while at tht same time the men in front of anothw battalion did a bombing attack down ! some old German trenches in the Gom-' I mecourt sector. The enemy offered re- : sistance in places, but the objectives set j our men were easily taken. hen tho i barrage lifted the patrols went forward and succeeded in capturing the whole of the old British line in front of Hebaterne. Going Beyond Objectives. Not content with gaining their objective, the bombing parties went forward and captured a trench 300 yds beyond th» objective. In this operation we took 37 prisoners, eight light machine-guns, three heavy machine-guns, and two bombthrowers, one of which we destroyed with a bomb to prevent the possibility of its recapture. Seventy Germans were killed. Our men have buried M, and several others can still bo seen lying out in No Man's Land. Next morning, about 3.50, the enemy counter-attacked, and drove in two of oui posts. During this attack they captured a New Zealander, who though badly wounded, afterwards escaped and crawled back to our lines. The former situation was promptly restored by a New Zealand counter-attack. On the following day,, the brigadier, while going round the front posts, was wounded in the arm and thigh by a German sniper. Ho was able to walk into Hebuterne. and afterwards wa« conveyed on a stretcher to the dressing station. His injuries are not serious, and his return is -expected in a few weeks. While some of these events had been taking place some of the Canterburys had established posts on the western edge of Rossignol Wood, but were held up by machine-guns fired from strongly wired pill-boxes. They escaped lightly with four men wounded. Our troops started to consolidate the positions gained, and immediately afterwards it was ascertained, that tha enemy was blowing up his pillboxes, evidently with the intention of re-' ! tiring from a spot that was becoming too warm for him Our patrols went out, and getting in touch with the enemy, found he was retiring from Rossignol Wool Otapo troops were pushed.forward to keep in touch with the eneraj. Auckland Bombing Party. Aucklanders co-operated on the right and pushed their way down the enemy'j trenches. After a certain amount of bombing oar men succeeded in clearing ths enemy out of three successive lines of trenches, and establishing a line of posts right in front of the wood. In this advance we killed 25 German?, capturing three prisoners, three machine-guns and one bomb-thrower. The following day some fighting took place in these captured trenches, and that night the Wellingtons again pushed out their patrols oCOyds without meeting further opposition. Yesterday Auckland and Wellington troops co-operated, pushing patrols forward, and succeeded in forcing the enemy out of the old front and support lines in front of Hebuterne. We took more prisoners, who were sheltering in a shell hole, and seemed not sorry to come in. A machine-gun was captured and two large mortars blown up. Afterwards the enemy shelled the wood heavily, but only wasted his ammunition, for wo had no casualties. In the shelling of the trench gained we naturally had some casualties, but these' were quit* out of proportion to tho casualties inflicted on the Germans. The morale of the troops opposed to us was poor, and on one occasion our men stood up in the open and had some gojd shooting at the retreating Germans as they fled before our barrage.

It is officially stated that Captain Salmond's body was found in Rossignol Wood by Sergeant Travis, shortly before the latter was himself killed.