N.Z. TUNNELERS

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7916, 9 August 1917, Page 2

N.Z. TUNNELERS

SPLENDID WORK NEAR AE* GERMANS OUTWITTED. MILES OF UNDERGROUND WORK. The New Zealand war cormp 011 at the front writes under date 13th:— * ‘ In March, over a year ago, a Zealand Tunneling Company, strong, and well officered, arrived Northern France. A New Zej staff officer, now G.S.O. of an corps, was in command, and him were several capable engi jfficers. The men were mostly j the gold and coal mines of the minion—strong, determined wor| ready to strike a blow against German tyranny. FIRST EXPERIENCES.

Within a week of their landih foreign soil, with their tram their full equipment, and even )wn little hospital, they were at i m the Sabliere front, north of 4 n the famous “Labyrinth.” j being there for three weeks they shifted south, and took over a in area on the front opposite J where they have been mining since. Their chief operations ea *d over about a mile of front, j this time it has not been possj write anything about their r.ow that our victorious troops gained the Vimy Ridge, which memy thought impregnable, and made a great bulge in the Germs in front of Arras itself, they n pven their due meed of praii which, so long, they have waiti complainingly and modestly. I saw them some months ago the Uready driven galleries for a « of three and a-lialf miles. By they must have extended their n to about five miies. Much of work was done at a depth of 80 feet below the surface.

When they took over, the ft underground operations were ck the British lines, but by splendid hey were able to push back thee miners till the safety of the B front trenches was assured, more the vaunted superiority of German army in one of the impt details of modern war was ova by men from the overseas Domii This is no empty boast; it ig| fact, and officers from the Bi armies have told me how well have done their work. At the the enemy had the initiative, but the energetic counter-mining, skit undertaken, they lost it. The ft miners had blown very large i igainst us, the craters 150 ft. 160 ft. in diameter, but with m vantage to themselves, for our It had located their positions fair) curately, and our infantry wen pared to seize the craters the m the mines were blown. We, a part, had retaliated with w large mines, with what damq the enemy we cannot, of count, for certain, but we know that pushed him back. The trencht* >nly some 200 yards apart. The Engineers also blew mines that stroyed the German galleries. All they did with scarcely a casual the actual mining, and only very from shell-fire above ground, aoi face of the fact that the German been mining here for twelve m before there was any real cob mining on our part. THE END OF THE WORK A few days ago, on the eve d great battle, I made a trip to A We went past the 16th Century! de Ville, which is one of the! wmest in the north of France, ill Gothic facade, now broken by ft shells'—one of its bells weighed al nine tons —to the railway statioi which only the splendid iron & work is left. Here we pfl n the ruins, picking up railway ti for Douai and Cambrai, still vd hind the German lines. Later a °ame upon one of the tunnel ranees, and descending by soraei down an incline of one in two 1 ourselves in a new world, when -save-dwellers were going to ini like bees in a hive. We passed a from the Welsh mines, and from; "astle. “Where,” we asked,“ii find the New Zealanders?” “H go along this tunnel and turn t» right farther on, you’ll find soot them in a cave on the right,” w l old. Wires for electric light | fixed along the tunnel walls. On* side were big chambers, and a* with the roof high above. In these we found some New' Zealai installing a dynamo! I looked*! switchboard, and found it *** marble. ‘ 1 Where on earth did that from ?” I asked. A speell engineer screwring at a bolt an?* me. “Oh, w r e got those slabfj •he latrines at the railway statu It was another case of oversea? H live.

And now Arras is safe from German gunners. In the past ancient capital of Artois, it was on the right bank of the Scalp* has seen wars and revolutions, never such a war as this. Man} ' it was captured and recaptured® wars between Burgundy and f and Germany. And now it h* redeemed once more to France fore long such of its 30,000 in* ants as have not found how* graves in this the greatest of an will be coming back to their bat® houses. It has not been destfl as have Ypres and other towns, it will be many a long day befoj* ravages of war are entirely ated, before the bells of its great tered cathedral toll again, before railway station has been rebuilt, before banks and shops and hotel* what they were before the 0® horde advanced.

Meantime it is of interest to that the New Zealanders have < some,hand in its redemption,* n ". w'hen, on bank holiday, great were loosed off to send whole see of the German Jine high in the ® ,r j work of the New r Zealand tunne had its fruition, after long ro° D a sweet rev^pge.