MASSES OF GUNS

Otago Witness, Issue 3314, 19 September 1917, Page 24

MASSES OF GUNS

AMMUNITION UNLIMITED. HUN TRIBUTE TO'ANZAOS. " I thought I had' seen the limit in artillery possibilities after the naval bombardment in Gallipoli, and some of the stunts on the Somme last yeur, .but they are insignificant beside present efforts," writes an Australian officer in a letter from France to Councillor R. H. S. Abbott, of Bendigo, ctates the Melbourne Herald. '' We are on the verge of very heavy fighting here," he continues, ' such fighting as the world has never dreameq of. There are masses of guns, huge quantities of shells, and millions of men on either side. Each thrust and counter-thrust is bigger than Waterloo, and they are daily occurrences. Our artillery is undoubtedly superior both in quantity and quality, and men cannot live in the open against it. The German counter-attacks are simply wiped out.with a methodical precision that is one of the horrors of modern war.

FOETS MORALE SUFFERS. "In an area the British are going to attack the guns are wheel to wheel for miles, with row behind row. When they open up all at once it is indescribable. We have unlimited ammunition. One artillery officer told me they had to fire it off to get rid of it, and make room for supplies continually pourivg in. The Germans are getting, with compound interest, what they gave us in the first 12 months of the war, and their morale is not standing it well at all. If they go back they are beaten, and if they try to hold on and counter-attaok they 4? re wiped out. They seem to be trying to compromise by retreating slowly. " The enemy's food rations have been cut down again, and that will not improve matters. REPUTATION OF ANZACS.

"The Australians have done extraordinarily 'well during the past six _ months. They have been in the thick of it all the time and the Boches have had to put their very best first-line troops against them to try to hold the Hindcnburg line. I saw an article in- a German paper recently in which they admitted the superiority of the dominions!' troops to their own or any other soldiers. I wonder if the Australian people will ever realise and appreciate at its true value the reputation their troops have made. I doubi it very much Australia and New Zealand are too far away, and they know so Jittle of the happenings outside the official communiques "This work is destructive of all the virtues commendable in the piping times of peace, and many of the returned soldiers will be broken, unsettled men, who will find it hard indeed to fall back into the old ruts. I saw a typical case the other day—an Australian infantryman from Chillagoe, Queensland. He had been as fine a type of the genus homo as one could wish to see. I was interested in him, and we yarned about our experiences. He had belonged to the Third Brigade that made the landing at Callipoli, and we had him on the same ship before we drove the Turks from the shore. He had been wounded in the landing, came back and was wounded again in the August thrust. He came to France and was in the Pozieres slaughter. He was at the taking of Bapaume, and all the brilliant affairs done in very large part by the Australians, who closely followed up the Germans when falling back to tho Hindenburg line. He was with the Australians when they broke that line near Bullecourt, but were beaten back by a weight of Germans ten times their number after all their tanks had been knocked out, but the Prussian Guard had to be brought up specially for the job, and tho Australians so man-handled those German crack troops that they will be of no use for months. BROKEN IN HEALTH. This typical Australian got his first leave to England—tho first leave of any sort he had had since the war started —six weeks ago, and came back ill, and is now broken in health and spirits. "rle is a typical product of the war. He is the type of man who has made the reputation for gallantry and martial renown that Australians who stayed at home will trade on as long as history records tho present doings. Every man who has been here and experienced a European winter under service conditions will return with a vastly added appreciation of Australia. •'One of our new planes shot down a

big Boche seven-seater in fine style close to us to-day. One dived on to him like a hawk on a partridge, and hit him in the petrol tank. The German caught fire when about two miles up, and fell like a stone for the last mile. It was a siokemng sight. Machine and men were charred bevond recognition. If I get hit out in the next stunt, so be it. I am a fatalist now, and realise that the pitcher that goes too often to the well gets cracked sooner or later."