FALL OF VIMY RIDGE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 14286, 1 May 1917, Page 3

FALL OF VIMY RIDGE.

THUNDEIRBOLT TO DROOPING

GERMANS

OMINOUS HUSH AS 'GU.NB CEASED

War Correspondents' Headquarters, April 9, via London, April 10.— After the retreat from Bapaume and Peronne the news of the) fall of the" Vimy Ridge shduld be a thunderbolt in Germany, tearing the scales from blind and raising anew a cry for peace.. Some trenches were taken by the help of tanks, which. advanced upon them in their leisurely, -way, climbing up banks and over' parapets, sitting for a white to rest and then waddling forward again, shaking machine-gun "bullets from their steel flank* and pouring a deadly fire into . the enemy's position and so mastering ground 'north •of the Scarpe to the northeast of Arras.

It is too soon to tell much of the story of this great battle, which is still being fought. As I Write, out of ita turmoil, in rainstorms which turned to snow for a few minutes, only brief reports com© back. They are all good reports so far. SWEPT HUNS OUT. The attack about which I know most was the on© around Arras". Hero the enemy's lines ran right .into the suburb of St. Laurent and Slangy, where once, through a chink in the wall only seven yards away, I saw a German post. This morning our men swept the Germans out of these positions and went, stolidly through the enemy trenches to Fenchy. In the marshes below the River Scarpe, four miles east of Arras, the enemy was afraid of the attack, and in the night had withdrawn all but the rearguard posts to trenches farther ba«k, where h© resisted fiercely with incessant machine-gun fire. , The enemy's trench system south of Arras was enormously strong, but our bombardment pounded it and- our. men went through without much- loss to the reserve support trenches, then "on to a chain- of posts in front of the Harvest trench, which was strongly held, and after heavy fighting with' bombs and bayonets to the Observatory Ridge, from which, for. two years and a-half, the enemy looked down, directing five of his batteries against the French and British positions. : South of Tilley there were two formidable positions, called The Harp and Telegraph Hill, the former heang a fortress of , trenches shaped like an Irish harp, and the latter rising as far as the wood of the White House and north again along V.imy Ridge. The first attack was at 5.30 o'clock this morning. Officers were looking at their wrist watches as on the. day in July last year whioh saw the assault on the Somime inaugurated. The earth lightened. SUDDEN HUSH GAME. A few minutes before 5.30 the guns almost ceased firing, so that there was a strange solemn hush. We waited and our pulses beat faster than the second hands. "They're away!" said a voice. The bombardment broke out again with new and enormous effects of - fire and 'sound. The enemy was shelling Arras heavily, and black shrapnel and high explosives came over from the lines, but our gun-

fire was twenty times as gr°at, Around the whole sweep of his linos,', green lights rose. They wore signals of distress; his men were calling for help. Ifc was dawn now, but ■ clouded and storm-swept % A few airman came out with the wind tearing at their wings, but they could see nothing in the mist and driving rain, and went down to the outer ramparts of Arras. The eastern suburb of Blangy seemed 1 aJready in our hands.

On the higher ground Beyond our men were fighting forward, and I saw two waves of infantry advancing against the enemy's trenches, preceded by our barrage of field guns. They went in a slow, leisurely way, not hurried, though the enemy's shrapnel was searching for them. • ■"■■■■'.

Fifteen minutes afterwards a group of men came back. Th.e v brought wounded! and German prisoners. I met the first of these walking a-nd wounded. Afterwards they were met on the roadside by medical officers, who patched them up there and then before thev were taken to the field hospitals in* ambulances. From these men hit by shrapnel and machine-gun bullets I heard the nrst news of progress. They were bloody and exhausted, but claimed success.

DEAD LYING THICK. "We did fine," said one of them. "We were through the fourth h'nes before I was knocked out." "There were not. many/ Germans in the first trenches," said another, "and. there were no seal trenches either after out- shelling. We bad knocked their dugouts out. and their dead were lying thick, and the living onas put their hands up." _ There were tanks in action. ' Some of the men had seen them crawling forward, and then lost sight of thenv. They B™™** l * fc *6 . rwnembnwicß "ofl them, as the London men laughed six months ago when the monsters : first came to nght. '

"Our bombardment was great," said a wounded boy, with a. shrapnel helmet over, his-blood stained face, "It knocked heU out of old Fritz," "We did well" said another lad, -simply. "We've taken all we were asked io take."