GRAFENSTAFEL RIDGE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 14480, 15 December 1917, Page 10

GRAFENSTAFEL RIDGE.

MORALE OF THE ENEMY. (From Malcolm Ross. X.Z. W'snv Correspondent.) The capture of the Grafenstafel Ridge, of which I gave a hint m my last dispatch, is now an accomplished fact. No one doubted for ono moment that the ridge would fall before the New Zealand attack, just as Messhies and other strong positions had fallen before. The 'Kew Zealandev.H m this battle followed m the wake of other British ti-oops who had cleared the ground for the attack tni Grafenstafel. Hills 35 and 37 had fallen before their onslaughts. But m many places there had been bitter struggles, and some minor positions had been lost and Avon again and again. The reinforced concrete emplacements and the so-called "pill-boxes" were obstacles that hindered the former advance, for they seemed almost impervious to tbe heaviest gunfire we could bring to bear upon them. "Many of them were made of reinforced concrete through which steel wire, rounded and, as thick as a man's little finror. was interlaced. This gave them a certain resiliency that seemed to absorb, or counteract, the shock of fair1v heavy direct hits. In. the larger emplacements the concrete, five and six feet in* thickness, was further strengthoned by wilway jrori. But m spite of this, several of the garrisons had succumbed to direct hits..and as many as 20-dead could be seen inside the sup♦poaed ' luwns 'of refuge. The "pS'l-boxes" were oblons; m shape, with n slit m them that gave an antfle of about 30 decrees for machine gun f<ve. They varied m height from four feet six to about six feet. There were some m which a man could stand uplight, others m which an average-sized man woflld have to maintain a stooping position. The lower half of the structure was embedded m the ground, but there still remained sufficient height for the. deadly machine guns to hit the advancing troops, about the middle of the body. The best method of attack was for the infantry to endeavor to evade the machine ipin fire by dodging from crater to crater while advancing slantwise towards either flank. In this way they could get round to the back door, nnd once there the "pill-box" and all that it contained was theirs. At ■ that stage the German gunners suddenly became aware of the fact that their fancied fitironghold had m reality become rfi death-trap, and —well, the subsequent proceedings soon interested them no more. Som£ oi these emplacements were said to have Rteel doors, but on the part M the battlefield over which I went I saw no such doors./ There was only an open doorway through which the {runners could he easily bombed once our men pot round. Some were tilted oii one side where a shell had. lobbpd jnst under them m. the i soft earth. Others had hit them, but the shell had bounded off, chipning, but not breaking them. If a nine-point-two shell hit them, even that mf<?bt not smash them up, but the shock ?n ir>r>st ca«es would be. so sprore as to kill the entire gai'risqtj. Still, a "pill-box" is not an easy tarpet even for n five-noint-nine. and. generally, it wonld-be only a. chance shot thnt knocked them out. Several of the enemy strongholds we^ afterwards turned to our own advantage, usincr his haulVs of timber s>nd sandbags to guard the back,. doors frnni shell splinters. RIDGE DESERTED. In front of Hills 35 and 37 the ground dipped slightly to a shallow trough, where once ran the little Hanebeek, now 'so pock-marked and torn with our terrible fire as to be almost unrecognisable as a stream. The trough was simply a piece- of waterlogged ground, with a trickle running from shell-crater to shellcrater. Later, when the rain came the -water increased m depth m these shellholes, but the trough was never a very formidable obstacle m" our' path. The whole countryside here had 'been whipped with such a hail' of shells as to be absolutely: unrec6gnisable,'iSs. farm lands. Tlie steadings themselves had been blote ted out, and had" also the main road leading to Zonriebek^ "^ The trees that remain.-rooted m the earth were only skeletons of their J f6rrjier. selves. In places a low rubbV of red brick marked the spot where, for generations, the simple Belgian peasant* families ' had lived m peace and m comparative comtort. The dominating feature of all this country is tho long Passchendaele Ridge almost a continuation of the Messines Ridge, running m a north-easterly direction, and rising to heights of up to Tlf^t above sea level. British and Australian troops had already taken some of the oomrnandini? heights on the ridge farther south. But m this fi<rht, the New Zealanders were not concerned directly with the Passd'endaele Ridsre. Their objectivr was the, Grasenstafel 'Ridge, which, like a taperin<t peninsula, jutted out from higher Pesschendaele, and rose m the plat«au-like Abraham Heights to an altitude of 126 ft above Bea level. This is m itself no great height, and when it is remembered that the place from which we attacked is 82ft above the sea level there is left only a height of some 44ft to be climbed. And tHis point of attack was at such a distance as to make the rise a very gradual one. To a New Zealand»>r, Used to the mountains or even *the foothills of the South Island ranges, this land would not be called a ridge at all. It would be called a rolling plain. Even the Passchendaele would scarcely appeal to his imagination as a xidge worthy of a name. But m all countries heights, to the inhabitants, and to the map-makers thereof, are merely relative; and, m warfare, it can never be forgotten that even Buch insignificant heights as these are of the greatest importance, .and that once taken and garrisoned they are not easily won back,/ I merely . make the compariß&n to give the New Zealand reader some idea of the nature of the groundt and so that he will not picture m his mind's eye our callant troops storming steep slopes and heights such as frowned down upon us at Gallipoli. The Grafenstafel Ridge was a smaller - edition of the Messines Ridge, with a still smaller village on its crest —a' Village that even before the attack had been reduced to a few heaps of building rubble, fit now only for a garden path. The region m which the New Zealanders attacked is historic, and there are names .on ttye map that are well remembered by-survivors from the first battles m the Ypres region. There is valuable ground that we lost there m Anril, 1915, when French arid British troops experienced the choking agony of the first cloud of German poison- gas. *It has fallen to the lot of New Zealand to win back some of that ground, won by-; the Germans through. methods that we should never have.thought of. much less have adopted. The taking of the Grafenstafel Badge and Abraham Heights' With other high. • ground along the line of attack, is, no doubt/a stepping-stone to other conquests, and thei final conquest of the whole of the Passchendaele Ridge. If the enemy should be driven off this ridge we shall have the. command of the whole countryside that 1 he for so long has enjoyed m Belgium. It has given him a tremendous advantage m the past, and it still gives him a great advantage m the struggle that is now going on. But pushed off it he will surely be if .our armies make the attempt. Ofn the other side there are only a few isolated heights, and beyond them; the i^reat pl^in of Flanders stretching away for many mileß. ■ It will be a dreary place for hie ill-fed armies to winter m.