Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 279, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 November 1916 — CAVALRY CHARGE VERY THRILLING [ARTICLE]

CAVALRY CHARGE VERY THRILLING

Officer of Deccan Horse Telit How Mounted Men Got Into Action. DID NOT WANT PRISONERS * —————— But Eight Germans Who Threw Away Their Rifles and Called “Pity" Were Taken Alive—Under Fierce Fire.

London.—During the first two years ol the war cavalry played no part in the great battles fought on the western front. The men of this arm of the service were used In the trenches to reenforce the infantry. Recently, howr ever, the cavalry got its chance and how well the mounted arm responded Is Indicated In a letter written by an officer of the famous Deccan. Horse of the British army to his wife in Ireland, The letter reads: _ “At we started our famous ride into the enemy country, every now and then coming under heavy shell fire — shrapnel und higli explosive. No one can believe, without seeing, what a state the ground is in; there is not room for a table cloth on any part of the ground there, without some part of it touching a shell hole, so you can imagine the regiment galloping over it ut full gallop, barbed-wire —well cut by shell fire —old trenches, dead bodies, and every sort of debris lying in every direction. Words fail me to describe it. Bring Down Balloon. “That was for about three miles; then full tilt down a steep bank like the Haggard fiffid, but steeper, tato a very famous valley, where the shrapnel got worse, as Xve were spotted by one of their sausage balloons. This was soon driven down by the fire of our batteries, which just smothered it with shrapnel. On we went, pa»t the remains of guns and everything —tons oT ammunition and abandoned material and dead Germans everywhere; and we passed here an enormous gun they had left behind, so really I suppose it was us that took it. We were under cover here for half a mile, but suddenly, coining out of the valley, we had to turn sharp to the right up another little valley, and here we came under terrific, but rather inaccurate, machine gun fire from two directions. “It was now about 7:30 in the evening, and there were 24 aeroplanes hovering over us, and one monoplane came down to about 200 feet and fired his machine guns on the Germans just over us—going round and round — the finest sight I have ever seen. Well, we moved out under a heavy fire and got on about half a mile. During this advance we rounded up eight prisoners. while between us and the British regiment, I supose, we stuck with sword and lance about forty of them, a glorious sight. “Our men "were splendid and didn’t want to take any prisoners, but these eight had chucked away their arms, so we couldn’t very well do them In. They were simply terrified, and one clung on to my leg and kept calling, ‘Pity ! Pity!’ his eyes starting out of his head. Poor devil, I pitted him, and we sent him back to the regiment. We dismounted in a little hollow then and went on on foot through a good crop of wheat full of shell holes and dead Germans. Of course, we were creeping all the way, M the fire VMM very hot. At last, after going a quarter of a mile, we got to the flat top of the hill, driving them before us. Here we had to stop, as the ground was being swept by rifle and machine gun fire, and they were now shelling us heavily. We got our Hotchkiss guns into action and set to work. Not a Healthy Spot. “By crawling slowly forward we got a field of fire, and could see the Germans plainly and a battery about half a mile ahead. We plugged a few here, and then it happened to get dark, and we had to retire about 300 yards to a better position and dig in for the night. This we did all right, the Germans making a feeble charge as we did it. I was along at the time with a message, so I let fly six rounds at them with my revolver, and they all lay down. However, it was not a healthy spot, and I had to craw! back, and rejoined the squadron. We got our horses, and came back and rejoined the regiment. One shell landed in the middle of us as we amounted. These tin hats are good, especially for shrapnel. “Well, we got back and dug in like blazes. They made two weak attacks during the night, and shelled us all the time. We hung on there until four o’clock, put up wire in front of us, and our battery helped us well. Infantry relieved us then; they had just got up. “You see our job was to push on as far as we could, and hold the line to give ‘the feet’ time to get up. So we did our job all right. We then rode back —‘but not the 600.”