NEUVE CHAPELLE CHARGE

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume XI, Issue 524, 1 June 1915, Page 7

NEUVE CHAPELLE CHARGE

The following is a soldier's description of the Neuve Chapelle attack : —

At 7 the bombardment began, 350 guns blazing at a short target.- It was, I suppose, the most terrific ban? a soldier has ever heard and the / grandest sight one could imagine. It shook the trenches and the barricades. Shells burst everywhere with great flashes of flame.

We saw Germans breaking cover m all directions. It was a hard job to keep oilmen down; they were constantly jumping up to shoot. # Our officers insisted on their crouching at the bottom of the trenches until they were wanted. Otherwise they ■would h«,ve been raked' by our own shrapnel fixe. They laughed and bobbed down. They sang and shouted. "That's one for Wipers V (Ypres). "That's got the s!" "Koll on, find let's get at. 'em!" They were mad for a scrap with the cold steel. . The bombardment lasted three-quarters of an hour. Then a whistle blew, and our men came shinning/ out of the trenches, officers m front, carrying rifles and bayonets. They ran across the "no man's land", of 200 yds which divided the trenches, raked all the time by German machine guns from concealed positions. — A Steady Rush. — No firing from our chaps. Firing takes time. A swift, steady rush m open order. The first line of German trenches was reached. No Germans there, saving the dead and "wounded, as many as 10 m a single traverse. On, on, over the bodies. The Germans were in' a second trench line, a hundred yards or so behind the first. A yell and a dash, and out jumped the Germans m swarms, as keen for a fight as our own men. They went for each other with rifles and bayonets — bang, stab, scuffle. One shot at close quarters, then the cold steel. You can't miss. You may fall. You don't bother about tb4t — there is no time. The thing is, bowl over • as many of the enemy as you can, and recover your bayonet qiiick. This scrap lasted, I should say, about a minute and a-half. Many Germans threw down their rifles and held up their hands. My own battalion captured 50 prisoners m. i as many seconds. By this time the remainder of our line had advanoed. The Gurkhas grinned and stabbed. Battalions began to act independently, under their own colonels. Every bit of low wall was a small fortress, with a murderous machine gun behind it, and each wall had to be taken. The Germans formed a third line, 400 yds behind the second, and thai also had to be captured. Seventy yards away from it the^ signal was given for the assault. The Germans would not stand up to it. They ran away. We chased them and shot them running. The prisoners were fine men, fresh, well fed, well clothed; and of good physique. There were no old men among them and no young boys. The rush continued until we had got three-quarters of a mile of the German territory. The fighting was furious. Some of our men cried: "That's ona for Scarborough!" — " Stop !"— Three-quarters of a mile on we were ordered to stop. The Gurkhas had almost to ] be dragged out of the fight. We threw up I head cover and began to dig trenches. On i the left we> suffered, because a regiment was I entangled m wire which the shells had failed to blow away. The German artillery began to bombard us, but their , fire was feeble compar<3d with what ours had been. Our iuen were m the best of spirits, callous of danger. In the afternoon the Germans began their counter-attacks on our new trenches. They rushed) up masses of men, one attack after another — fresh men each time, of course, for neither German nor British troops could face tmch work twice on the same day. We mowed them down witih machine guns, shrapnel, aud rifle fire. The Germans indiilged m bursts of rapid rifle fire during the night. For three dayc they pursued their counterattacks with heavy .fighting, but, we did not lose an Inch of the ground we had. won, and we hold it still. .

In the charge itself you feel mad, murderous. You simply want to set on; you don't think of your personal risk. But unless you are a raw. recruit, it comes back at you later. While you want to win and are willing to stick it until you do you do not desire war as a permanent occupation.