HILL SEVENTY.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7921, 21 August 1917, Page 1

HILL SEVENTY.

SCENE or HISTORIC BATTLES.

Hill 70, the scene of the recent heavy fighting on the Flanders front, is hardly less famous than its deadly neighbor, Hill 60, and has seen some of the most desperate fighting of the war. The mining town of Loos lies in a shallow hollow, and to the southeast rise farther slopes, *the highest point being marked from its metrical height as Hill 70. From Hill 70 the ground falls away eastward to the hamlet of Cite St. Auguste, about a mile from, Lens, and virtually a suburb of that place. It was in the first battle of Loos that Hill 70 first won fame. That battle, one of the greatest of the war, was part of an operation extending along a fifty-mile front, fought at -the end of September, 1915. The British line then ran a mile and a-half to the westward of Loos, and the front between Loos and Lens, was selected to receive the greatest weight of the impending blow. The attack was preluded by a gas cloud, and after this had done its work the advance began. The troops, who had rehearsed the attack on a large scale model of the ground, swept forward with irresistible dash, and an hour and ten minutes after leaving their trenches the Highlanders were surging through the streets of Loos. Btit they were not content; . their orders were not only to take Loos, butiilso to occupy Hill 70; while there is also reason to believe that they received a further order to push on as far as possible, since supports were following. The rise begins just outside the village, and the crest is a mile away. The 46th Brigade closed in on the slopes from the North, and the remnants of the Highlanders advanced up the slope. They paused for a moment under the heavy fire, but the sight of the German infantry advancing to the counter-attack spurred them to a great effort. They streamed up the hill like hounds, all their battalion formation gone, and enfiladed from north to south. But with the bayonet they went through the defence, and reached the summit of the hill by 9 o’clock. Below the crest of the hill was a strong redoubt, destined to become famous in the succeeding days. The garrison surrendered without resistance, but the Highlanders had no time to secure the place. They streamed onward, now only a few hundred strong, till they were on the skirts of the Cite St. Auguste and beyond the last entrenched German position. But their position formed a mad salient, with no supports on south or north. The captured garrison manned the redoubt on Hill 70, and assailed them with reverse fire, while from front and flank came a converging bombardment. Had the supports been there, had their flanks been more secure, the enemy’s northern front must have been pierced. In less than three hours the heroic Scots had advanced four miles, and had passed beyond all the German trench lines. Lens seemed already fallen, the enemy was feverishly getting away his heavy guns, and for a moment the fate of Lille and the plain of Douai trembled in the balance.

But the lack of support compelled the withdrawal of'the van of the advance, and the line lyas entrenched on the summit. The redoubt was now out of our hands, and the line ran just under the crest on the west, and was continued to Loos. Few of the gallant Sighlanders returned to the British lines on the hill. Reserves in strength were not immediately available, and when the German counterattacks began our line was gravely threatened. It held, however, and next day another attack on the redoubt was planned. The Germans anticipated it, however, and threw heavy forces against our front, driving in the troops on the northern slope of Hill 70, on which we also lost some trenches. During the next day further ground to the north was lost, and the position on Hill 70 became almost untenable, until the Guards, by a heroic charge, won back the lost ground and the crest of the hill, and our new line was consolidated in this position, the first phase of the battle then dying away. Hill 70 thus formed a salient into the enemy’s line, and throughout October they made a number of sporadic attacks, but without driving us off the hill. During the winter fighting the salient was heavily and continuously attacked, and eventually the British retired to a line below the crest, where they have held on until the present attack has taken them back over the old ground.