TRENCH TRAPS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 16050, 7 February 1918, Page 8

TRENCH TRAPS.

MINES LAID UNDER THB GERMAN DEAD. PREPARED DEATH PITS. Boche ingenuity is particularly manifested in tile devdisn, death-dealing, and maiming machines he scatters over fields of battle in France and Flanders, writes Major R. E. de Loney, in the Weekly Dispatch. The chemists of Germany have developed the horrors of wax to a point unbelievable in a country that still talks of its “civilisation.” Chlorine gas, liquid flame, burning oil, and incendiary shells are products of their laboratories. They are evolving constantly new ami more hellish devices to kill and kill—not soldiers, but women and babies, animals and the very vegetation in districts beyond the military zones. The dozens and dozens of traps laid for the Allies presuppose a Prussian retirement. They are prepared for the purpose of catching the French and British, anti now the Americans, when old positions are evacuated and then occupied by the Allied forces. The very imps of Satan themselves could not show more cleverness in evil work than some of those Hunniah contrivances. MINES IN THE TRENCHES. Trench and field mines are ns old as powder in war. Every army uses them when opportunity occurs. When it becomes necessary to retire from, a position charges of high explosives are buried (ust under the surface of the ground in trenches or in the field along a lino which probably will be used by the advancing forces. Short fuses are attached to the mines, and they are covered with a board or a loose sprinkling of earth. The preseure of a foot on the covering ignites the fuse and explodes the mine just at the moment when it is certain to claim the most victims. One of the most common, traps we encounter is tho dead man. The first work to lie done alter a position is won i nd consolidated is to clean up the scene pf the fight. This moans that all the bodies must be picked up and sent back for burial. Scores of our men wore blown to bits while thus engaged before we awoke to the fact that a Roche’s work is not done even when he i* dead. He still remains a menace to bo guarded against with all our wits.

Tim comes about from tho fact that mines are laid under tho dead. 'To spring the mine all that is needed is to touch the body and move it for transport to tho rear. A short and almost invisible wire attached to tho clothes runs to tho mine, and the slightest movement of the body, brings an explosion which eliminates ail need of a burial party for that particular position. Now, when conditions permit, hooks attached to n lone rope are used to move all tho bodies where there is -the slightest reason to suspect tho presence of a mine. A photograph of a pretty girt always .incites tho cupidity of a soldier, whether he knows tho original or not. Ihe Roche is familiar with this human weakness, and behind many of these photographs ere planted enough explosives to pretty thoroughly wreck the dugout and the ground around it. Tho romovid of the photograph sets off the mine, or maybe it discharges an antorr a tic revolver concealed just behind it. Hand grenades with instantaneous fuses are scattered over tho ground and carefully attached to a wire buried beneath the surface or interlaced with a small twig. Tho mechanism of detonation is so delicately adjusted that the moment 'the grenade is picked ilr> the fi so is ignited and the missile explodes. Every possible sort of variation has been worked in the way of mi.bo traps. There is scarcely an object left in an abandoned position which may not. conceal a contact, mine. A loose board, an innocent-looking bit of sheet steel, an old boot, a discarded bayonet, a battered “tin hat”—all these are potential death. Rifles are imbedded in the sides of a trench, with lanyards attached to refuse of one kind or another. PDk up the refuse to dispose of it, and the rifle is discharged. You can count on it being placed at such an angle that the bullet comes on a line with, the average man’s head. TO MAIM MAN AND BEAST. Out in the open as many diabolical devices arc arranged to maim not only men hut the animals that are used to move the artillery and field stores. Iron spikes aro buried just beneath tile surface of the ground. Horses in particular suffer from these traps. Wolf and hear traps are hidden along roadwavs and communication trenches. Wide aiu deep holes are dug in roads and

s paths and bridged across so carefully r that only close investigation will show ;] tlmt the ground is not solid. 3 My battalion suffered from one of e these traps ono day about a year ago. s IVe wore moving up in the dark, to I relieve another battalion which had v captured a Hochfe position in tho morn- . ing., Without thd slightest warning 3 17 men disappeared into the earth. s They had walked on a bridge which cov--9 cred a well ten foot deep, which needed their combined weight to break it . down. In tho well the Huns had braced sharp-pointed steel stakes about ono ’ to the foot in all directions. Every one j of the 17 men was impaled on at least , ono stake. Eight of them were killed I outright' or died from the wounds the , stakes indicted. ’ “Nothing in No Mail’s Ennd or In , captured trenches is what it seems,’’ I may ho safely taken as a guide lino by the soldier. Death may lurk beneath 1 or behind the most trivial object,' and 1 eternal watchfulness is absolutely neces- . sary.