THE HINDENBURG LINE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17039, 25 June 1917, Page 6

THE HINDENBURG LINE

AUSTRALIAN DIVISION'S GRAND ATTACK. THE DIARY OF THE BATTLE. From C. K W. Bean (Australian War Corespondent) (Copyright Reserved by tho Crown.) April 11. It is 4 o'clock in the morning. We aro sitting on the slope oi an open milL Around us the snow surface stretches into tho night. To • the north-west the guns aro continually rolling and drumming, with flashes like summer lightning oTer the horizon. I'he battle of Arras, wnieh startui trie day before yesterday, is blazing over there. Straight before us there rise continually white flares like tho stars thrown from a Roman candle. You can see them droop like graceful lilies and fall on to the snowcovered side of a hill a nixie or two beforo us. They are the lights fired by the garrison of tbn Hindonburg line. One hour from now, at dawn, the Australian division will attack that fortress of which the Germans have spoken and written so much. We know it is a tremendous task. The Germans aro holding tlie Hindenburg line with a normal garrison—not with a few companies of rearguard. There are at least two battalions in the small section which the Australians will attack, and other battalions in close reserve. And the wire in front of the line is something that has never yet been seen in modern fortifications—German prisoners boasted of it nine months ago and their generals are boasting o£ it still. There is the chanco of a great success by ..tho breaking of the Hindenburg line at once—without delay. Many things may spoil that chance, but it has been decided to attempt it. To do this there is no time to break the -wire down with bombardment. An attempt is to be made to break it down with tanks. If the tanks get through the Australian Infantry is to follow. The big puns behind us have been sending their shells-steadily overhead—a slow regular bombardment of the German villages. Intermittently over the horizon we can seo the flashes of the German guns firing towards vs. 4.30 a.m. —Our gnns have started to fire •very much faster. This bombardment must not be on the German wire but on their trenches. We wonder whether our tanks have started vet.

4.35 a.m.—A green flare has just gon« up from the German trenches at Ballecbtut— a village on our left around which' the German trenches run. That is a call to their guns to protect them. 4.36 a.m. —A spcond green flare has been sent up from Bullecourt. 4.40 a.m. —Green fiares and gold flares have been soing up in pairs from Bullecourt and from the left. White flares are going up in shetifs all alonpr the line—as tlr'rk as we ever saw them at Pozieres. Two, three, four groat bursts of an explosion have just broken out. towards Lagnioourt on our right.- You can see the ragged .edges of earth torn up by the shock and the slow orango flash lighting up the outer edges of tbo smoke oloud for a second or two just as the steam of a railway engine is lit at night by the glare of the firebox. Wonder if the German is blowing up mines behind his lines. The sky is just paling but not enough to show anything at a thousand yards' Not a sign of a tank or a man, "'though wo strain our eyes. The coloured flares are all from the German left —not a sign from the Gorman right' or the village of Reincourt behind it. 4.45 a.m.—Those slow explosions still occurring, 12 or 15 of them by now, always two at a time, must be sheilburst. 1 have never seen the like of them before.

4.50 a.m. —Our guns have suddenly ceased fire —the tanks must bo close to the enemy by now—still too .dark to see them. A red flare has gone up on the right. 5 a.m. —The attack must have-. been launched by now. The flares have suddenly ceased. The Germans run. 5.20 α-m.—Our supports are going up over the snow in extended order. A party of cavalry has passed. The German flares started again soon after they stopped, and 10 minutes ago a whole line of red flares went up suddenly from the right. The German* shrapnel has since started bursting there—wo can see the line of pin-point flashes. The light is growing fast. 6 a.m. —Just now, across tho enow in front of Reincourb, we saw the figures of men moving. They are still there —half a dozen of them—walking calmly across the snow. Some of them seem to be picking their way carefully through the d-ark L>jio wmen n.u-. there across the hillside. We can see the other men on tho hillside pass on moving in three and fours, obliquely—some towards the top of the hill,' others away from it. That belt is the Hindenburg wire, The men cannot he Germans; they must be Australians. And they are through the Hindenburg wire. No sign of a tank—perhaps the tanks are over the top of tho- far rise beyond.

6.5 a.m. —Watching closely the men who are moving through and beyond that wire, we notice that many of them, in their walk, suddenly break into a run. Sometimes they drop for a minute, your heart goes into your mouth, and then they run onagain. Sometimes I think they drop and do not go on. A,t the end of their journey those who finish it suddenly drop out of sight, clearly into a trench. We can see one small group of dark heads just above the snow, half-way up tho slope towards Roincourt—well beyond the Hindenburg line, I should say. There is no sign of movement in lleincourt, but a single red flare has gone up from the'further side of it. It looks as though the Germans had •retired right through the village. And yet those men in the foreground are clearly under fire —the way in which they cover parts of- their journey at a run is a certain, indication of that. There are actually three horsomen itp by the wire—they come back at high speed—so they must be under frre, too. 6.20 a.m.—-Just now, close up by tho wire, we caught sight of a blaok, oblong- shape. Since then it has gradually veered to the left, and is now moving- up the wire. There is no mistaking it. It is a tank. It r-hifts gradually up through t!ip wirr>._ and th»« stands there hesitating, without its noso in the air. exactly like a set lion. Tlipro is a party of a dozen infantrymen, which started to go forward, and then hesitated, as if uncertain about its direction, and then camn 'back towards tho point. One or two of them go hnok to meet tho tank, and step up to the side of it as fchongh wtiispcrrngin its ear. Someone comes round the sido of tho tank—apparently someone from insido of it. Joins them for a moment, and then goes back joo tho tank again. Tho Lnfnrrtry to walk forward oTt-nH. ; T"- »n thoy go- to intervals of a few paces, and in a most perfect line-. The tank edges on again just behind their fl-ttnk, and thnn from the front o f tho tank thtrre has Iburrt a brilliant, stabbing flame. She h-as fired her gun. Flash, flash. There it goes again. Fash, flash, flash. It is firing obfcqur-ly across the front of tho infantry as they go forward. So they must. see a German machine gon or strong post to tbo loft of them. Tho infantry go on quite confidsJitlv over tho slope and into tho d<-rws3 : ni\ where we loso sig'ht of them. The tank

moves on, too, firing at intervals —sliding , along: the ground like a slug, nose in air, tail dragging through tho snow. Presently tho bend of the hill beyond tho Hindenbnrcr lino hidos her from us, too. It strikes me that I saw another flash just now —up amongst the trees on a further hill. An angry flash like a gunflash. It could not be—and yet there it went again and again. TTicre was no mis-

taking it. It is no shell burst. It is the tlake shooting from tho barrell of a German gun. The Germans must have a gun there firing direct over the sights—straight at its target. There is infantry moving through tho German trenches ou the left now, nearer to Bidlecourt. You can • see the men coatixmally hopping over the broken down places in the trench—appearing for a moment and then bobbing down again. All along the line of the German wire you can see at intervals men coming or p-oing. Those coming from the trench puzzled me at first, till I noticed that some of them wero stretcher-bearers carrying wounded. The other figures are without rifles. Sometimes they are limping, sometimes walking, sometimes over certain distances running tor ali they are worth. in those overcoats it is not easy to run either. They are the wounded. A stream of them) ones, twos, threes, is beginning to reach us also. I notice that wherever the infantry go you can see the stretchers also. Ilea carrying those long poles over their shoulders are dropping into the further Hindenburg trenches—you can see them working m the wire;" it seems to me that the infantry are moving out beyond the Hindenburg trenches in that depression, and can see the stretcher-bearers movintr there also. 8 a.m.—The tank which we saw in the depression is moving- book from some voyagu out into the grevn country: beyond the direction-from which the first" is retiring there is moving a second tank. Snddenly there is a spurt of grey-black smoke 30 yards behind it. Fifteen seconds later another shell bursts in the ground as far in front of it. The tank zig-zags to avoid the bursts, but they are beginning to rain round her about ono -every 10 eeconds. Tho sixth was- just und&r her chest—then two at once beyond her. She hae stopped. Suddenly, as if by a miracle, a number of men appear around her—a dozen men in khaki. overcoats—and trot away from her sides. A couple of hundred yarde away they stand calmly looking on. The tank is there motionless—shell after shell still bursting around her. And on the grass around her lie three or four bundles of khaki. Either those shells or some machine gun must have caught the crew as they left her. A few minutes later I saw two men with, a stretcher go up to those men lying in that deadly area, stoop . over one of the men on the grass, and slowly lift him. on to the stretcher and carry him away. 8.30 a.m.—Across the far hillside,- about three-quarters. of a mile beyond the. German trenches, there is approaching a line of men in open order. There are about 30 of them, marching at accurate intervals 6teadily across the front towards Bulleoourt. They seem to have come over the hill beyond Reincourt. They must be Germans surely, and yet none- of them fall. It looks as if tie Germans are reinforcing their _ left for a counter-attack. They move steadily across the hillside until the same depression hides them. '

_ There has been no movement for a long time upon the snow slope in front of Reincourt. The isolated men ■whom we saw earlier moving there are no longer apparent. But we have seen men working up the trenches as far as the horizon on our right, and other heads bobbing alon& the trench towards Bullecourt on our left. Clearly we have carried the whole of the Hindenburg lino in front of us. How it was dono we cannot guess. It was almost beyond hoping for.

Later. We moved up at about'lo o'clock to.a headquarters where wo should hear .what had. happened. On the way a battalion passed us. A subaltern waved a cheery hand. "Tres bon!" he shouted as he passed.

And it was tres bon , almost past beEef. As far as they knew, the infantry had reached the line before the tanks, and had broken through it somehow—found the gaps or struggled through the scanty shell holes; they had got well behind Bulleoourt—they had reached every point they had been told to reach.' And a message had just come in from one officer whom everybody could trust, saying that all was well, and the line could hold it provided it had the necessary stream of supplies. They had suffered in breaking through, but' they were in great heart.

It began to da.wn on one that this infantry had done something extraordinarily magnificent—something that no one dreamed that infantry could do. One was afraidto think of the possible cost, but the great. , chance seemed to be reading itself. There '

was no sign by which to tell of what had happened elsewhere. ' But the infantry, seemed to have done for itself what nobody ever proposed that it ehould do—to have . got through without a bombardment and without the tanks first breaking the wire. That was certainly what had happened nearly all along the line, though there." was some evidence that one or two tanke had, given great help at one part. The youngsters commanding the tanks were extraordinarily game—straining to jro anywhere and do anything. But most of thnm were foiled by the fall cf snow, which wae the last "thing to be expected at this season. As we walked back we turned aside to have a last look it the line. It, was just on 12 o'clock. The sun had melted tho snow on the Hindenburg elopes •almost to the colour of the brown wire. But we noticed at once that from the far right of the line a few men were coming back across the open from the trench on : the horizon. They were probably wounded,: and they were certainly under fire, for from time to time they ran. At no time did these slopes seem free from constant fire. Up one looked at tne trench to see the cause. And there it too clear. Near the right of the position from the parapet of the trench came a constant succession of snow-white puffs of smoke—blown away in the wind, but : always, recurring almost as constant as the escaping steam from an engine. It was a German bomb attack. For half an hour we watched lfc written on' the skyline as plainly as in a book. Down the trench came the German bombs; eomttimes stationary for five or 10 minutes., but always forward in the end. Twenty or 30 yards nearer to the Germans wo would see the bigger smokebursts of our own bombs —fewer than those of tho Germans, but never ceasing. You could tear plainly the bumping bursts o£ the bomb showers. AH tho time the figures of men were running along the parapet at the side, clearly throwing down bombs into the trench. Sometimes you could see them

jumping- in after their bombs. There were Australians on the parapet too, but' it looked only too clear that they were making a last few throws and then moving bade across the opon with ail their bombs finished. All the time there ware appearing from the far side of tho trench men and more men. and jumping in behind the German bom-bers or on ton of our men, who wero engaged in fighting along tho trench.

It was a most gallant, stubborn fight, but our bombs wero far fewer, and a stage was reached when tho Germans broke in at other points along tho trench, and we saw our men driven from them. Wβ thought wo could ses bombs buTFtinjr in the trenchea ior some while aftrx. But it was hopeless; then. One of th« most wonderful fights that was ever fought had been wou. And, victory or defeat, it has achieved one invaluable result—it has broken tho fame of the Hindenburg Imo at a single blow.