Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 218, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1916 — RELATE STORIES OF THE BIG PUSH [ARTICLE]

RELATE STORIES OF THE BIG PUSH

Wounded British Soldiers Tell o Thrilling Moments in Charges in Picardy.

BULLETS STOPPED BY BOOK

Machine Gunner Is Killed In a Tree Artillery Work Is Marvel of Exactness^ —Find Few Rifles In Captured Trenches.

London—This city is now daily being thrilled by the stories of the -rent push on the Somme which the wounded soldiers have brought back with them. Sorely wounded as many, of tlffem are, and after a journey which all the care made barely endurable,

the men still tingle with the thrill of the charge and their talk is all of the glorious rush with which they carried every obstacle.

“We went over in grand style,” said a sergeant recalling the assault on Montuuban, “and found the pluce in an awful mess. Most of the houses had been knocked head over heels—the only ones I saw standing were a couple of cases. As we came on we saw lots of Germans ruuning out of the back of the village, but there were plenty of them monkeying about the ruins. We divided the company up Into groups of six, but as we neared the village we joined up again. My five pals and myself saw some Huns in a ground floor room, so we dropped a Mills bomb through the window and didn’t wait for an answer. “As we turned the corner we saw a German lying round the end of a wall. He’d got a machine gun and had made a little emplacement with bricks. He turned the damned tiling on me and got me in the foot It didn’t stop me though, and when I was getting near to him I felt two kicks over the heart. I didn’t wait to see what happened, but simply went at him and bhyoneted him. I couldn’t go on much further, so I sat down to see what was the damage. ; , Book Stopped Bullets. “My foot was pretty bad, but wbeir I looked at my left hand breast pocket I saw two holes In It. JI opened .my pocket and found that two bullets hud gone through my metal shaving mirror. through my pocket case and had nosed their way into a book 1 was carrying. The two bullets after plercv ing the mirror and case had met and fused Into one lump of metal.

“The Germans seemed to be all ages from sixteen to fifty I should say. Some of them came up crying out that they had had no food for five days. One of our boys did wonders with the bayonet —he was chasing three Germans —he caught them up and bayoneted two, as he swung round, he hit the third man down with the butt of his rifle. “As we were going into Montauban we saw a German machine gunner up a tree. He’d got the neatest little platform you ever saw painted so that It was almost Invisible. We shot him, but he didn’t fall clear. The last we saw of him was that he was hanging by his boots from the tree. —^ “The spirit of our boys was splendid—they simply loved the fun. One of them got blown up by a shell. He seemed pretty dazed, but he picked himself up and came along. All he said was, ‘Oh, there must be a war on after all, I suppose.’ Picked Off Two by Two. “We had carried the first two lines and on getting Into the third we saw the Germans coming up from the two exits of a deep dugout and pairing off down the trench. Our platoon commander got into the trench and picked the enemy off as they came out. He had the mouth of the dugout on either side of him, say fifteen yards awuy. He was ns cool as a cucumber; he simply turned from right to left and fired just as if he was in a shooting gallery. It was the best bit of fancy shooting I’ve seen.” A sergeant major of the Middlesex speaking of the work of English lery, said: “They were simply magnificent mid as we advanced they lifted trench by trench. The battalion went over and on in fine style. It was just like a parade and the men felt confident, ns they knew that large reseiwes were behind them.”

A corporal in the Northumberland Fusiliers gave a picture of the precision with which the assault was carried out. “Just on time,” he said, “the first lines went away, not hurrying n bit, just taking it easy. Then came the second itfle. Of course there were gaps, hut these were soon filled. Then went the third line and I followed up with the supports. Everything was gointf*AL “The artillery was lifting from trench to trench and we were following on step by step. It was just like a field day. The carriers with bombs and ammunition kept on coming along as cheerful as anything. v and then later in the day I got moved back thto our own front lines and on to the dressing station.” One man who had been at Mamets said that in the German trenches they found plenty of men, but as far as they could judge bombs were the chief weapons, not rifles. Several men spoke of the comparatively small number of rifles in the trenches.