THE "STRAFES."

Taranaki Daily News, 8 November 1916, Page 2

THE "STRAFES."

A PICTURE OF THE OFFENSIVE. London, September 7. In these days comparatively few let- , ters find their way into the newspapers ■ giving a first hand description of the , actual fighting. A. yoimg officer writing from the front, however, gives a vivid impression of his experiences"lf you try," he writes, "to imagine all the most terrific thunder that ever rent the air and try to concentrate it ! into one place and one period of an hour or so, you do not even then begin to get an idea of the noise which begins to shake both heaven and earth, while a mental pcture of all the most vivid > lightning you have ever seen, couple:! with Brock's most magnificent display oi • fireworks, will not tell you the half ol the effect of the 'strafes' to the eye, > The other night I was on duty at a certain point while a final half-hour's concentrated bombardment raged, and ] realised as I have never done before what . modern warfare means. In front of mt were field guns which cast forth theii projectiles in one continuous stream, while from behind and at each side ol me came the death-dealing shells from ; our big guns. The noise was stupendous ) the crack and boom of the guns in i front and the terrific reports from the guns behind, coupled with the shriek of the shells as they passed over oui heads, made one , great pandemonium I of noise, and in the superlative degrt-; _ at that. ' "The sight of it all was just as gigantic as the noise; the whole front was a blaze of light. The bursting of ou: own shells and those which the Germans were'putting over, together with the glut of star-shells which both sides were sending up, made up a dight which will, to me at any rate, make the most magnificent display of fireworks at the Crystal Palace seem as tame as a nightlight. And the feature of a bombard- , ment like this is the way in which the 1 country in front is revealed in a light as bright as the midday sun. You stand in darkness j-ourself, and in front you see miles of country like a huge and eerie panorama. "An hour or so after what I have described above the sound of wheels if heard, and we stand to know that our first batch of wounded is arriving. One by one the cars come up and discharge their pathetic cargoes—you cannot begin to understand what is meant- by 'men broken in the wars' until you see these heroes as they come red-hot from the fray to have their wounds dressed before they are passed on to a casualty clearing staton, and from thence to the base and 'Mighty.' A crowd of wounded men in London with their white bandages and blue uniforms has inspired pictures entitled 'Broken in the Wars,' but until some genius arises who can produce on canvas the scene at an advance dressing station or field ambulance when an attack is in progress the people at home will lu.ve little idea of the true significance of the phrase. A few hours before all this they swing pa>t us with a smile on their faces and a song on ! their lips, their bodies the picture of life and energy, and their uniforms clean and smart; and now they have come out I again with bodies maimed with shot and shell, and with their khaki stained with the mud' and' blood of battle. Sad, I pathetic, ghastly! Ycr, it would be but for one thing, and that something so ' gloriously British. All the horrors of the fight and the agony of the wounds have not broken their spirits or taken ; the smile from their faces and the cheery words from their lips. Thev are. mag nificent, even more so in their weakness than in the strength in which they went out. The only time the smile ■ leaves their faces is when they inquire 1 anxiously whether their comrades are ' holding the ground and whether the regi- ' ment is npholdng its proud traditions 1 Jt is just the same ay their wounds are dressed. No complaints, no peevishness, no regrets. It strikes the onlooker as something more ihan human, and he feels that there is something almost -divine in a race that can produce such men as these from factory and. office, field and market-place."