TRENCH RAID SENSATIONS.

Western Star, 21 March 1922, Page 4

TRENCH RAID SENSATIONS.

GHOSTS OF NO MAN'S LAND

SI'DNEY MANS EXPLOITS. ,

Lieutenant Dalton Neville, M.C., D.C.M., Croix de Guerre (and mentioned four times in despatches), is the kind cf man whom people turn t 0 look at twice (says the 'Sunday ,Sur.,' Sydney). A glimpse of his profile stirs the mind sharply, and leaves Hie impression that a familiar face has passed, but one which the memory cannot label. As people half turn for the second glance they murmur: '"I know that chap. I have seen his face somewhere before," and puzzle themselves in a vain effort to recall Irim>. »

If someone could show them, at the moment, a cameo of the Red Indian war chief who filled their imagination in boyhood days, they would recognise instantly the chord of memory which had been stirred. For the .profile of Lieutenant Neville is that of au Indian chief, with one shade of difference, sufficient to baffle the aroused but groping memory. There is no grimness, but a striking suggestion of casualness and ineradicable humour.

In vague and weirdly distorted shapes this calneo of Lieutenant Neville litis impressed itself on a million minds. Strange stories into which its exaggerated shadow always obtruded, passed down from the front' lines of the Australian army right back to the base ; ' men on leave carried them back to 1 Hanoveria and Wlutech'apel—tales of a mystic shadow which swept down on to lonely outposts o' nights and left dead men, or a more terrifying nothingness behind it.

The legends said that sometimes it was tjart of a white ghost which glided ' noiselessly across the snow, and others that it was a vague black shadow which rose out of the mud beside men in the trenches, and struck them clown. So realistic were the visions inspired by these tales that even to-day there are mien in Germany who repeat in nightntares the hb'iiKj of nervous tension spent in dark and isolated listening posts. These tales have a more crystallised form in the records of -the A.I.F. They arise from the fact that t for thipc years Lieutenant Neville played at Red Indians in real earnest on the battlefields of France, gliding, silently among the belts of barbed wire "and down the sides of shell craters as his war-ancestors moved noiselessly' through leafy forests or down the slopes of canyons.' He became known- as the superraider of the A.1.F., for the men he trained and led across the darkness of No Man's Land at night had noequals in art of silent warfare.' Their comings and goings were like visitations frflm, the unknown, and struck terror into the hearts of the meii who were pushed forward into the 'lonely outposts of the German trenches.

"Those Australians'are terrible, inhuman," wrotfr""a German n.c.o. to his friend away in a. quiet village of Southern Germany. "We, go to our outposts afraid even to whisper, because we never know when they will creep up unheard and rush upon us, leaving us no chance to escape. Sometimes when -we go forward to rolieve our comrades we can find nothiiv of them—not even the trace of a = scuffle."' This letter, with the corporal himself, arrived back in the Australian lines under the escort of Lieutenant, Neville's silent fighters, and there was nothing left behind to show how he had gone. The moral effect of these raids on the enemy was so disastrous that the Germans place** a 'price of 10,000 marks on the head of Lieutenant NevjJJe. ' —No Man's Laud Drama.—

But, though the" primary object was capture, killing war, inevitable—desperate hand-to-hand fighting, with the* raiders struggling to strangle the cries of the/ir victims, fording for their bodied iu the dark with their knives, trying not to use their rifles leist the noise should reach the main trenches ..and the air he filled with Very's lights, and every inch of No Man's Land swept with machine-gun bullets. . "

The idk.ni! raiding party consisted of twelve men under the leadership of Lieutenant. Neville. They were armed with rifles, bombs, revolvers, and knives. A system of signals was arranged so that no noise woidd be made.' The men would advance for fifty- yards, isink slowly down on to their knees to get a-better vision, -r the sky line, turn in an arranged direction, and watch for any movement. If there was none the loader would wave his hand, the men would rise to. their feet, move forward again, and repeat the process until they were within 100 yards' or go of the output they were attacking. Then they would "drop down mi their stomachs* and crawl slowly forward. When within twenty yards the leader would decide whether to risk discovery by ciawling further forward;, or whether to rush the poet from that distance. Then came the final rush s and the frantic effort to kill or capture without noise. Each man was taught the German for "Put your hands up quickly!" and would whisper this into the ear of the terrified enemy whcln he had taken by surprise, and over whom he stood with a raised kniio. .

Once in "the outpoists there was nothing nice about the work. Each raider picked his man and gave him a fraction of a second to decide to surrender silently jor be !: ; l!od.

"One one occasion," su ; .t Lioute'iant Neville, recounting mo of his experiences, "we raided an outpost at Vfllorrs B>tonneux in the early part of the advance in 1918. Three of them could make no resistance, but the fourth, a corporal, defended himself with the butt of a heavy revolver. He was a huge, powerful man, and it was impossible to close with'him, so, although I didn't want ''■.. fire, I had to shoot him. The outpost was only "about thirty-five yards from the main German trenches, and the man made a ru--h to get back to his own lines. 1 ehot him again, this time through the

ba?k, but he -dropped on his haudls ;ii'; knees aud. started crawling forward and I had to shoot him twice again in the neck ■ before lie stoppedl. .1 [old my lilen. to get back and crawled over to the German to search liim for information. One of my men camfe up to help me and we were juist ripping off the shoulder Straps when wo heard a noise. We looked tip to see a German officer and a private within five yardu of us. They saw ik at the same instant but wo had our revolvers up quicker, and each tnljing his man shot them both dead. Before we could get away the effect of the.shooting had ite result. Wc were surrounded, and had to fight our way back to the patrol waiting for us in No Man's Land. There we settled into a real battle, but all of us managed to get back without a scratch.

—The Thrill of Death.—

" Sometimes there were wide belts of barbed wire to cut through, and absolute ail once was necessary, for tiio slightest soung might cause the Germans to Hood No Man's Land with machine-gun fire and catch us in the wire. We had an experience ' f lbi« on the Butte do Warlencourt in March, 1917. No Man's Land at the- place of the patrol raid w'ati 1,800 ;.ardis wide. After going about 400 yards we came to a wide belt of barbed wire. We cut a laneway and followed through in single file. Ai hundred yards further on. we were held up by more wire more, than loft thick, and! well within fifty yards of the German trenches we came to another belt. While we were working our way through this one of the party clanked bis rifle against the wire. Immediately three white lights went up from, the G'crmau trenches., Every man etoocl dead still. It was impossible to drop to' the ground because some of the men were still in the wire, and any movement would! have been seen instantly.' There wars an interval of a few minutes before more lights went up, but no one moved, knowing that the absence of the black blurrs which the Germans must have seen by the first lights would strengthen their suspicions. Then directly the second batch of lights had died ? c!lcwu wo rushed the trenches. There were seventeen of us in the party, but we tackled a front of 100 yards, filling every one of the forty, men who occupied it. ,

" The alarm had been raieedlf and to get back • w r e would have had gto pass through a laneway .of machine guns which were all directed on to tho wire. The only thingV to do was to istbp'with Fritz. We did this, driving for the nearest shell holes, in which, b'y the way, we; were up to our waishs in water. But we. stayed there until the firing died down, the Germans believing that we must have: all been caught. Then we crept forward and crawled through the wire. When we were about 400 yards from the trenches I called the men together, and we walked back, not one

man being hurt." > This, by the way, is the extraordinary record claimed by Lieutenant Neville, thiit, although his only work on the line for three years was to lead raiding parties into No Man's Land, not one casuaitiy was suffered He bears an ugly gear .on the back of his head, but this is not counted as a casualty, • because it did not take him out of the line. How he received it is a story typical of tho desperate character of the silent fighter's Avork.

When on a. raid Lieutenant Neville always carried a revolver in oacli hand, and made it a. habit to nvu both when shooting at a man. On one occasion his party had met a counter-j3a.trol, which they ha'tK \*i fight in No Man's Laud. During the fight lie emptied both his revolvers without realising it. . A little later he came race to face with a Gernlan. He pulled both triggers, hut tluh'e was no shot. Rcalisiug---what had happened, he di'oppcd his revolvers, sprang at the \man, and' attacked him with his knife. It was a doublebhided knife, with a " knuckle-duster " handle. But the blade struck a breastplate which the man was wear--ing, and snapped! off. The German seized him by the head and pressed his thumb 'into Lieutenant Neville's eyes, while tlie Australian gripped bini hy the throat with one , hand and with the other pouudied hijs face witft the handle of his broken knife. During the struggle the German rolled over on the ground and managed to -pick up the broken knife; blade, with which he slashed Lieutenant Neville- behind the ear. This appalling swrggle between man and man elided only when Lieutenant Neville had. literally choked the German to death!

—Blade Troops.— It was one of Lieutenant Neville's Rchemes' which was responsible for'the stories belieyed by the Germans in the early days of the Diggers in France that many of the .Australians \\or(} black troops. For many of their raids he and \his parties blackened their faces and hands,, having discovered that on dark nights it was possible to see the uncovered faces of the men for a short distance. To complete their safeguards they also rusted any gleam x oil' their rifles, and varnished their tin hats ivith mud. On the Somme, during the nights, when snow was on tiie ground, they wore white overalls,. which hid their dark equipment, and made them absolutely und'wthiguishable.

To-day Lieutenant Neville is busy, ns a member of a Sydney engineering and manufacturing firm, converting swords into ploughshares and crankshafts.

.But there are two/revolvers which. will not go into' the melting pot. 6n* the butt of one are eight little nicks, and on the butt of the otlier fourteen. Fach records the death of a German cau-'od: in the.da.ys when Lieutenant Neville played a deadly game of lied Indians hi France.

He has one other relic, also; It 's a black and charred pipe with a cover over the bowl. "I smoked it every time I went on a raid," , lie said. " it was not for bravado. Once we got down, to our 'work I was never worried, but at the start I was always in a deadly funk. It was so real that I couldn't kei>p: my teeth irem cha-tcrmi:, and I uvil'd to grip this pipe, between them for the first half-hour &o that uobuk should ;now.