DEFENCE OF THE PIAVE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 16037, 23 January 1918, Page 3

DEFENCE OF THE PIAVE.

MONITOR’S FINE SHOOTING. ENEMY BRIDGES DESTROYED. The right wing of the Italian Army’s fyffit begins in the mountains and ends in the mud, says a correspondent of the London Morning Post. At Monte Tomba, where the line reaches the Middle Piave, the Italian positions lie along steep slopes high above the plain, hut at the mouth of the river they are so much below sea-level that it is hand to say whether their defenders are afloat or ashore. The “trenches” are fortified dykes stretching between great tracts of inundated fields, and they are held by marines, who are really seamen dressed in uniform sailorlike in cut but soldier-grey in colour. Three bridges: across the Lower Piave which the enemy was using fop supplying his troops in the delta between the two channels of -the river mouth were on November 29 destroyed by a British monitor with big gun fire of remarkable accuracy. The range was 18,000 yards—loi miles—and the three bridges which were the target lay 200 yards apart. One was a stone bridge, wfcioh the Austrians had repaired; the other two were throe yards wide. On these slight marks the monitor’s guns put five direct hits one of soyen shots. The very first shot was on the target, and the pontoon bridges were hit’ at each end, one of them being so effectively cut in two that the aeroplane observer reported that the middle part of it floated away down-stream. A shell was also dropped right into the stone bridge. Smaller guns mounted on rafts, which are towed in pairs by launches, are scattered about the waterways nearer to the front.

Hardly a day passes without enemy aeroplanes making an attack upon the Italian observation balloons. Two contrived to get within striking range by an ingenious trick. . They approached firing at each other and going through all the manoeuvres of an aeroplane duel. Until they had come close enough for the l shape of the machines to ho clearly seen the Italian look-outs naturally mistook'them for an Austrian aeroplane being attacked by an Italian. The enemy machines were able in this way to - get close to tho observation balloon without being molested. Then the stratagem was discovered and the balloon began to be quickly hauled down. It would have been saved if the winding-gear had not unfortunately jammed, with the result that the enemy airmen were able to sot fire to it.