BOMBEHS IN THE MOON LIGHT.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15519, 24 May 1918, Page 6

BOMBEHS IN THE MOON LIGHT.

BRITISH AIRMEN DESCEND ON GERMANS i'REI’ARING TOR ASSAULT ON ALBERT. CONCENTRATION OF IL'EMY OBSERVED. (By Philip Gibbs.— Received by Mail.) Wax' Correspondents’ Headquarters, March -8. 'Tuesday and Wednesday the enemy did not make advances on a big scale between the Arras-Bupaume road on the left of the battlefronl, and the villages of Bray on the Somme, but {sauced in his massed attack m order to reorganise his line and bring up artillery. But nc has made cautious movements forward over the old Somme battlefields which have led to sharp lighting at various pants and renewed losses to his assault treops. It has been marvellously clear weather s.noo that first foggy morning of Mai ch 21, and though it is now much colder with a strong easterly wind, which is pamful to our troops at night in the • ■pm ft. Ids, our air squadrons have r<A conn.itrod, bombed and machine-gunned L,s ma-siJ battalions with constant audacity. They have reported heavy concentrations of Berman .storm troops behind Maurepas, Ginchy, and Beugnatre, and the roads around Bapaumo have hoc i crowded with men and guns and transoort passing down through Be Sars, with Berman cavalry along the Bapaumo-B’randcourt road and a steady drift, downwards towards the town of Alert. That poor, stricken, city of the go’d n Virgin, now head downwards with babe in outstretched arms, which I describ'd so often in accounts of tho battles of tire Somme in 1916 when that falling statue was lit up by shellfire. was Tuesday in the centre of the fighting north of the Soramc. During fho night, l)cfore their assault, they liombed it heavily from the air, using the brilliant moon-light, which lay white over all the battlefields and these roofs, (o fly low and pick their targets whoreewer they saw men moving or horses tethered. YOUNG WOMEN HELD THEMSELVES BRAVELY. In several cases it was not men the raiders hit, but women and children, who, when tho war seemed to have passed from this place a year ago. crept back to their homes and built little wooden booths in which they sold papers and picture postcards to our troops. Now, suddenly, the war flamed over them again and they were caught before they could escape by these thunderbolts out of tho shining moonlight, which was terribly clear, revealing the

deed horses winch Iny about the ruined stnefs. When 1 passed through AL belt on Monday, our field guns were pa-wing beiow the outstretched arms of the Virgin, and companies of dusty, proud men of ours took up positions beyond the town below the shell-pierced w. 11s and sunken roads to await the , n my and make him pay the price of bb od. Some refugees were leaving their nomas, lingering to pick tip a few bundles on barrows; some of the children and til jteopie were woeping: but I noticed that the young girls held themselves bravely and still smiled at our soldiers as though to saw; “We also are not afraid.'’ EASY TARGET FOR OCR ARTILLERY. Tuesday afternoon the enemy, who had been working closer with men and guns in the face of heavy machine-gun and artillery tire, opened a fairly heavy Iwiubardraent on Ali>ert and its neighbourhood. From high ground west of Albert our observers could see the many column coining over tire slopes south of the town by Meaulte. Our batteries, which I saw about the red brick ruins of Albert, caught the enemy in the open and tore gaps in his ranks, and our nun now poured rifle hie at his advancing waves as they came over the slopes. During the night all our heavy guns in position flung their explosives over those: battlefields, whose earth had been worse mauled by gunfire than any ground in this world of war. The enemy's mussed troops were hero, without shelter or cover of any kind, stretched c-n the earth and sleeping, if they could, in the tearing cold wind. This bombardment of ours must have kept them awake unless they were drunk with sleep, and many men must have l>ecn killed as they lay still under tho high white moon. At the same time our raiders went out and flew verv low, so that their whirrings were loud above tho heads of German bivouacs, and dropped bombs into their masses and spit machine-gun fire over them, and knew by the turmoil and cries that they were bursting and demoralising tho enemy. BOMBING IN THE WHITE MOONLIGHT. The Germans retaliated in their own way by bombing open towns full of civilians. I was in one of them last night, not fax from the lines now, when these night bombers came over and dropped their engines of death. I have never seen such moonlight in March. It was like a June night in Southern France. Every roof was sharply defined by a silver edge of light, and the walls of the old houses were dazzling white and their shadows very black. There seemed something devilish and cruel in that white light. Quite early in the evening bombs began to fall, and all about took cover under the shadows of old doorways, 'The German raiders came over all through the night. This was in Amiens, under the great shallow of that cathedral which in the moonlight looked as unsubstantial as a dream with all its pinnacles and buttresses , white as snow. The enemy’s strength of attack does not seem so great for the time being as on the first throe or four days, and there is no doubt about what the prisoners sav, that his men are suffering under the strain and horror of their losses and fatigue. But the battles are by nc means over, and this is only the pause before renewed assaults.