MOUNTAIN TOP BLOWN UP.

Waikato Times, Volume 87, Issue 13275, 2 September 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

MOUNTAIN TOP BLOWN UP.

Graphic details are now available of the Italians' great feat when they lid the Gol di Lana (Eastern Treiitino] of the last remnant of the Austrian defenders perched on its extreme summit, towards Mount •-ief. by blowing off the "nose" of the mountain, and thereby overwhelming a whole battalion of encmv forces.

The Col di I -.ana is the supreme peak in the I'pper Cordevole \'a]ley, which, at an elevation of 7oooft, commands the great highway through the Dolomites. In a long series of leaps and hounds during June and July last year the Italian Alpini won their way up the mountain till they had driven the Austrians to seek a last refuge on its topmost cone. for a brief day the Italians, in spite of the avalanche of boulders and showers of hand bombs which were rained upon them by the exasperated foe, managed to gain a tooting on the summit, but the withering tire concentrated upon them from the Austrian artillery and machine-guns planted on the encircling heights soon forced them back to the security of their trenches, some fifty yards below. Months passed without substantial progress on either side. From their citadel overhead the Austrians would often fling the taunt: "You m;iv take Trieste, ot even Trent, but Col di Lana never!" At length it became clear that there was no way out of the empasse except by blowing all the enemy's positions into the air. I he idea originated with the heroic vou'ng Garibaldi. and, to give effect to it., the lien ulean task was inaugurated, on Clnistmas Day, of boring a gallery 250 feet long through the solid rock. A powerful perforator was got to work under ingenious conditions lest its studentvoice should give away the secret. For four months a double shift of mining engineers toiled incessantly, day and night, to achieve their aim. All went well till the early days of March, when boring operations approached the Austrian positions, and the steady, harrowing noise of drills and the thud of pickaxes awoke the enemy to the reality of what was going 011.

The Italians, on their part, speedily became aware that their opponents had started excavating a countcr-tunnel. "Go ahead, rnv hoys," urged the Italian lieutenant in charge of the operations. "It is a matter of a me for life now." The turn matters were taking necessitated an earlier date for the explosion of the Italian mines. The gallery had been bored oil and upwards at a width enabling men to move easily two abreast to the assault which they contemplated immediately after the explosion. When everything was ready for laying the stupendous mine no less a quantity than ten tons of gelignite and dynamite were stored at the extreme end of the tunnel and blocked with a formidable shield of thick armoured steel so as to preclude an outlet to the force of the explosion and to save the. remaining tract of tunnel from destruction, while providing an open pathway for rushing the enemy's trenches. Forty soldiers came forward a< ■volunteers for the last-named task under the promise of a foitnight's holiday if the j attempt succeeded. At 11.30 at night the lieutenant gave two turns to the wheel of a little electric generator. The group of heroes marshalled at the entrance to the gallery were struck full in the face by a mighty icy blast. A moment later the mountain seemed as though it were shaken to its base by a territfic earthquake. A hellish roar burst forth and reached across the vast wastes of the Dolomite Alps. For a few minutes the gallant forty were held up by a series of after explosions caused by the ignition of mines which the Austrians had prepared. When at length they bounded forward towards the enemy trenches* the moon suddenly and providentially beamed out in full splendour from behind the clouds, revealing heaps of mutilated corpses and rows of spectral, dumbfounded survivors with hands upraised in token of surrender. In the meantime the Italian artillery began raining a tempest of shells upon tin mountain saddle between the Col di Lan; and .Mount Bief with the double object o: preventing the flight of the enemy and tin outcome of fresh forces. But nobody tried to escape. Tli