United States or Mongolia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The raid resulted in the capture of forty-four prisoners. In an attack southeast of Ypres the British, advancing on a front of 500 yards, reached the German support line after desperate fighting. They destroyed dugouts and mine shafts and took 114 prisoners, including an officer and a number of machine guns.
Here During the Day They Worked in Dugouts Far Below the Shell-tortured Earth. They Came To Get Their Coats Mended and Their Buttons Sewed On. The Entrance to the Old Wine Cellar in Mandres. The Salvation Army Was Told that Ansauville Was Too Far Front for Any Women To Be Allowed To Go. L'Hermitage, Nestled in the Heart of a Deep Woods. L'Hermitage, Inside the Tent.
At 4.15 in the morning of February 21, 1916, the great battle began, the German guns deluging the sector with shells of every caliber that smashed and tore the French positions and surroundings until the very face of nature was distorted. French trench shelters vanished and in Caures Wood and La Ville Wood men were buried in the dugouts or blown to fragments.
The whole line was stellated with concrete machine-gun emplacements, which gave a perfect command over the former British front line trenches. Armoured look-out posts for sentries were at the top of all the dugout stairs. The dugouts were deeply mined and well timbered, and would provide shelter for a large garrison.
We learned how to "sleep" five men in a four-by-six dugout; and, when there are no dugouts, how to hunch up on the firing-benches with our waterproof sheets over our heads, and doze, with our knees for a pillow. We learned the order of precedence for troops in the communication trenches. "Never forget that! Outgoin' troops 'as the right o' way.
American soldier boys, chafing under enforced idleness in trenches and dugouts, would often beguile their time making these miniature calliopes to catch the wind. And it is not out of reason to surmise that many a warrior in the war-torn regions was startled and confounded by the aerial lamentations of these harmless little boxes of wires and crude whistles.
Presently, an old warrior who commanded one of the dugouts surrendered. After that they came in one by one until all had laid their weapons upon our decks. Then we called together upon the flag-ship all our captains, to give the affair greater weight and dignity, and all the principal men of Luana.
They were located in the Kemmil dugouts, so away Mac and I went to old Kemmil, where we had been all the previous winter. When we reached the line of dugouts we stuck our head into one and asked where we would find the officer in charge. A voice from a far corner called out, "Oui, the bleeder is in the end dugout, old cock!" We found the officer's dugout without any trouble and reported for duty.
But as we viewed them then the dugouts seemed the last word in luxury; one of those which I inhabited contained a mattress, two chairs, a table, a large gilt-framed mirror, some artificial flowers, a portrait of the Czar and his wife, and an engraving called 'Le Repos du Marin, which depicted an old sailor drinking peacefully under a tree.
At last I heard Ja shouting to the survivors in the dugouts they were all quite close to us now offer-ing them their lives if they would surrender. Perry was standing close behind Ja, and I knew that this merciful action was prompted, perhaps commanded, by the old man; for no Pellucidarian would have thought of showing leniency to a defeated foe.
Word Of The Day