TRAPPED IN A TUNNEL

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7912, 28 July 1917, Page 1

TRAPPED IN A TUNNEL

GERMANS CONSTRUCT THEIR TOMB. A GREAT FRENCH FEAT. (Reuter's Special Correspondent). PRESS CAMP lIEADQTRS., FRANCE, June 2. Typical of the enormous power of the German defensive organisation in Champagne is the Mont Cornillet Tunnel, which, after a resistance of weeks, fell to # the French as the result of the last brilliant attack on the summit. The tunnel had been cut clean through the hill with the object of feeding the southern side in case of

attack. Three battalions could be sheltered with supplies and munitions enough to stand a siege of ten days. Three entrances connected by galleries, with a transverse gallery within the hill, gave access to the tunnel on the southern slope of the crest. The tunnel was ventilated by shafts opening on the hill, and the air in the galleries was kept moving by powerful fans.

For weeks no progress could be

made against the hill in face of a stream of perfectly fresh troops which the Germans were able to launch at any minute from safe shelters within the tunnel. The final attack was postponed until it was possible to concentrate enough artillery of the heaviest calibres to wreck at least the entrances of the channel and render it unusable. The rain of shells was maintained night and day around the entrances, so that the German sappers were unable to work or even to approach them. One big shell struck the ventilation shaft above the point from which the inner galleries radiate and wrecked the entire place, includnig the commandant's quarters, besides choking up the galleries and asphyxiating a large number of the garrison. At that moment the garrison numbered about 500 infantry, two machine gun companies, and four sections of sappers, medical, wireless and other details. The troops were led by two battalion commanders, both of whom were killed by this shell. When some hours later the French infantry swept

over the crest, the tunnel was entirely cut off, and the whole garrison either crushed, asphyxiated, or captured. The German officer commanding in front, finding no help came from the tunnel, went to see what had happened. He found the entrances choked with fallen earth and dead men, and no sign of life coining from within. While investigating the damage he was captured with a number of his men by the French. This is the third instance during

the recent fighting in which, as in the case at Chevreux and on the California Plateau, the tunnels of these subterranean fortresses in which, if anywhere, the Germans might have thought themselves safe, have become the tombs of their garrisons.