AFTER MESSINES.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7914, 4 August 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)

AFTER MESSINES.

A GLIMPSE OF THE BIG BATTLE. Writing from “Somewhere in France,” a correspondent gives ail interesting glimpse of the Battle of Me*sines:—‘‘As 1 am now feeling much better, I will endeavour to drop you a few lines, to let you know that 1 mil getting along all right, and am well on the road to recovery. Last Thursday morning, at 3 o’clock, we attacked the wily Hun, and it was as beautiful a sight ns it was possible to see. We stood all night in the trenches, waiting for the signal to “up and at them.'’ and it came one hour before daylight—--3 a.m.—when the buttons were touched. There followed a dull roar like thunder, the sky lit up like day, and flames a hundred feet high lept into the air. That was the signal for the guns to open up, and then —what a roar! At 3.10 a.m. we got our signal to move, and over the top we went with fixed bayonets. From 3 n.m. to 3.10 n.m. were the worst ten minutes of my life. We were all excited, and tin* ground was shaking under our feet like an earthquake. 10 very minute we expected to lie blown skyward with one of Fritz’s mines; but we caught him a couple of days too soon. Then up the hill we went towards Messines, under the cover of our own artillery barrage. Some of us were too keen, and we •miked into our own fire with the result that I got a smack on the back of the neck with a piece of shrapnel; but not enough to stop me, and on we. wont, till we had reached Messines. Then we were ordered to dig ourselves in, while our oncoming waves went through us and dug in on the other side of Messines. That was our objective. During that run we had very fe / casualties, and we had killed or taken prisoner hundreds of Germans. Then olr I'Yitz opened out on us with his guns—heavy stuff—and that deadly shell known to us as the whizz-bang. Well, he “straffed” us for hours, with the result that twice he partly buried me. He made it so hot in our quarter that an officer told us to follow him. Well, three of is did. We jumped out of our hole, ran about 100 yards, and jumped into a battered trench. Wo had no sooner landed there than a H.E. —it inut have been a 10-inch -landed fair in alongide of us. It killed the officer, wounded another fellow, and buried me. I didn’t know any more until I wok.* no on the stretcher on my way home. The Red* Cross fellows told me I wa* buried for an hour belore they could get me out. 1 am now in the* hospital with shell shock and a slight wound on the back of my neck; but I am doing fine, and hope to be discharged soon: in fact I am haying the time of my life —well treated in every way. Claude Townsend i.-i in the same hospital with the same complaint; he also is progressing satisfactorily. There is no need to worry. I am doing Al, and bv the time this reaches you I shall be back with mv unit. Well, I must close now, as it will soon be tea time, and it wouldn’t do to miss that—eh, what?”