BRITISH CONVERGING ON CAMBRAI IN ADVANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16969, 1 October 1918, Page 5

BRITISH CONVERGING ON CAMBRAI IN ADVANCE.

LINE WITHIN TWO MILES OF TOWN TO NORTH-WEST. ENGLISH TROOPS FORCE CROSSING OF SCHELDT CANAL. Austrian and N.Z. and Router. LONDON. Sept. 29. Sir Douglas Haig reports: Operations on the Cambrai battlefront have made favourable progress. On the right the Fifth and Forty- • second Divisions had heavy fighting last night about Beaucamp Ridge, where the enemy counter-attacked strongly. In the morning they overcame enemy resistance in this locality and pressed forward two miles beyond, capturing highly-organised defences called the Highland and Welsh Ridges. Later the success extended south, capturing Gouzeaucourt, south-oast of Havrincourt Wood. , The Sixty-second Yorkshire Division captured Marcoing, four miles south-west of Cambrai, and made progress to the south-east. The Fifth Battalion of the Duke of Wellingtons forced the crossings ' of the Scheldt Canal at Marcoing and established itself in the German defences on the east bank. North of the village the Second and Fiftyseventh Lanc&shise Divisions cleared the west bank of the canal as fat' north as La Folie Wood, capturing Noyelles-sur-L'Escaut, Cantaing, and Fontaine Notre Dame. The'Lancaahires are making progress east of Fontaine Notre Dame, co-operating with the Canadians northward of the Bapaume-Oambrai road. Here the enemy resisted strongly, and lost heavily in killed and prisoners. ' North of the Ai;r&B-Cambrai road the Canadians and English troops are steadily advancing on the east and north. Strong hostile counter-attacks at Raillencourt, two miles west of Cambrai, last night were driven back with losses. To-day the Canadians took possession of Raillencourt and its twin village Sailly, and also the trsnch system running through these villages. Further north the Fifty-sixth London Division entered Polled. The number of prisoners and guns captured continues to increase.