THRILLING FIGHT WITH THE ZEPPELINS.
TWO IN FLAMES.
CREWS PERISH.
A number of German aircraft crossed the British coast on November 7th and made inland-as announced in our cable columns at the time avoiding London, where, on their last appearance, they fared so badly.
One was brought down in Bames, and fell in the sea off the county of Durham, all the crew perishing.
A second raider, evidently hit and badly damaged by the inland defences, arrived on the Norfolk coast as dawn was breaking, making her way home. Fired at by guns and attacked by naval air- craft, in a few minutes she flames, and disappeared below the sur- face of the North Sea.
was 14
Although numbers of bombs were drop- ped over villages, no-one was killed, but & woman died of shock. The number of persons injured was sixteen.
THE
HONGKONG DAILY PRESS, SATURDAY, JANUARY 6TH, 1917.
FEAR OF BRITISH AIRMEN TACTICS IN MODERN WAR,
AND ARTILLERY.
HORROR IN THE GERMAN TRENCHES
Here are some extracts from the cap tured diary of a coldier in the lath: Bavarian Regiment:-
Trenches quito fallen in. Plenty of dead and buried. Shrapnel and artillery continually active.
On the way
FRENCH INFANTRY'S NEW
METHODS.
GRENADES IN ATTACK AND
DEFENCE.
[BY "THE TIMES" SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,];
One of the most remarkable and im- portant features of the war is the way to the 6th Company we lost our way and
in which, while it has been in progress, arrived at our 3rd Battalion. Dead and the various nations engaged in it have half buried were to be soon in masses in modified the principles of infantry and out of the trenches. Heads were tactics, both for attack and defence. The sticking out in the middle of the trenches, French Armies seem to me, from what I Six or eight men were lying piled on top have seen, to have adapted themselves of one another. On the way to our eth with extraordinary versatility and rapi Company, which we found after 24 hours,dity to the new conditions, and, without there were just as many corpses and men entering into too many details, a general buried and half buried by shell. We may account of what they have done, and are still doing, can hardly fail to help the layman to arrive at a clearer under standing of what is happening on the different battlefields than the most vivid descriptions of actual advances
some terrible sights.
Lively artillery all day, also great enemy aerial activity. English airmen and artillery are greatly to be feared One often thinks their gunners get no
counter-attacks. thus food or pay if they don't shoot cop- tinuously. Owing to shrapnel, fires brožo out. Every night our patrols have to go to the 4th Company, 500 metres to the right.
In four successive raids made upon England the
have enemy lost six of their ora.ft.
FLAMING AIRSHIP'S DIVE INTO
THE SEA.:
most powerful air-
AFRICAN MAN POWER.
WHITE SOLDIERS WASTED ON
NAVVY WORK.
+
at nut
In the interesting article prinfed below Bir Harry Johnston reviews the area, available for recruiting non-combatant corps of Africans, and estimates the number available £43,000 men.
He says 1 do think there is much available Asiatic population to be drawn on for services in the war zones outside the splendid soldiery of India and the civilians needed to, accompany the Indian troops; in other words, Indians are better employed in this war (and to any extent you like) as
than as labourers. soldiers rather
Malaysia is too far off, and probably, as in Ceylon, the indigenous population only suffices for local labour, needs that cannot.. without damage to our industries, be pretermitted.
So we are left with Africa as our re- andcruiting ground. I estimate when local requirements-certainly not to be over- locked, or our trade suffers are satisfied Gambia, 5,000 from Sierra Leone, 50.000 we might obtain about 3,000 men from the from the Gold Coast (chiefly Ashanti and Southern Nigeria and Cameroons (not
Northern
Territories), 20,000 from
An eye-witness in an East Coast town heavy artillery fire. Our position always creased range and striking force of forgetting the Yoruba behind Lagos),
thas describes what he saw:→→
from a
"We heard here last night that air- craft had gone inland, and had every- thing ready to give them a warm sond- At about off if they should return. a quarter past six we heard a faint huz- zing, which we soon recognised as coming sight, finelin Presently she hove it fairly and we soon saw that she was a cripple. Some time before she got near the sen we heard gunfire. and concluded from her failing to nose up for a rise that she had been seriously damaged by guns from the land or by our aircraft. Shells were bursting all round her at one time, but, as she passed over a town the firing ceased, and she appeared to be blown down the coast in our direction,
From morning till evening to-day under fire, enfiladed on the right, Wa ean thank God if we come through this
Every moment one thinks they will attack"
Against this item the time 1.30 am. is written. The next entry is at 7.30 a.m. the same morning, and it reads:-
At daybreak the heavy artillery he ging with 100 shells at once. Shrapnel and small shell also heard flying over the tronches. We ought to be relieved B001 as the to-night. Apparently, as
fresh wagon load of am English get munition they fire off immediately. Their captive balloons look down straight into our trenches; the airmen are busy and guidu the enemy's fire.
A soldier in the 66th Infantry Regi For almost a week this awful heavy artillery has been bombarding our back lines. Without interval, from a to mid- night, the English have been sending over heavy shells day and night without pase. The dug out shakes, creaks, and trembles. Now the entrancs has just
"She struggled gainely against fate.ment writes:- and when naval airmen went up Wo thought that she had succeeded in making her escape. But in the increasing light we saw our machines overtaking her, and then came the end. It was just a burst of fame, which rapidly enveloped the whole of the Zeppelin, and in what seem- ed
racking anxiety: Now you are going to
out.
The two main factors which hire brought about the change are the inven- tion of new weapons and the improv ment of those already in existence when the war began. It started with the in- modern artillery projectiles. Their, de- structive power has become so great and so far-reaching that something had to be dore to counteract the enormous joss of life which they caused, and, at the same time, to arm the infantry, the chief sufferers from the effect of their fire, with weapons more powerful than the bayonet and the rifle. To gain the first of these objects the old principle of shoulder to-shoulder fighting was deliberately abandoned; the second has been attained by arming a large proportion of the
with hand-grenades, ride infantry grenades, and magazine-rifles, instead of with rifles alone.
TRAINING THE SPECIALISTS.
In company with a few of their officers, some of them new to the change, some of the its authors and executors, I went to see a company of specialist instructors in the process of being themselves in- structed. These men aspiranta, sona officers, and privates drawn from a number of different cavalry and infantry regiments-will, on completion of their
to be but a few moments nothing re-again been destroyed. Always this nerve-three months' training, be drafted back mained, but a drifting cloud of smoke, which rose as the blazing mass foll in the sea. People flocked to the beach and cheered, and I believe that our airman must have heard us as they flew over to their station. Nothing whatever remain- ed of the Zeppelin, and nothing so far has been washed ashore.
DUEL IN THE AIR
A Norfolk correspondent of the Darly.
Targraph reported :---
Four aeroplanes were seen making
to their several units, and carry on be buried under the wreck of the dug (eventually as commissioned officers) the Up to now it has been all right. work of specialist instruction. In this But How long is the dreadful ques-way, by training one relay after another, tion. One is prostrated by terrible sus. the new system is gradually being pense, waiting for this awful fire to spread over the whole Army. cease. In this way one becomes a nervons wreck."--Reuter.
THE HUNGRY GUNS.
In each of the four sections of the com- pany there were men armed with hand grenades, with rifle grenades, and with magazinerites, Attached to them were men carrying the different kinds of ammunition, and the rest consisted of
30,000 from Northern Nigeria, 10,000 Basuto, 5,000 Bechuana, 20,000 Cape Boys, 30,000 Cape Kafira, 60,000 Natal and adjoining Rhodesia, 10,000 from what Kafirs and Zulus, 10,000 from Nyasaland
was German East Africa (Wanyamwezi preferred), 10,000 from Zanzibar and East Africa, 20,000 from Uganda, and 60,000 from the Sudan and Egypt. How many does this addition make t-343,000.
Letters from the French and Flemish fronts during a year-and-a-half, plas personal visit to the neighbourhood of the fighting and elsewhere in France, impress on me the fact that far too large a pro- portion of our magnifcent soldiers, our skilled marksmen and adroit bomb throw ers are employed-away from the front- in sheer navvy's work, in loading and loading trucks at railway junctions, in sanitary work, in digging, road-mending and what not else that could be as fheiently done by strong negroes or negroids. Personally I see no more objec- tion than does Bir Alfred Sharpe to some of these men acting as soldiers, scouts or guards. But let us not be led by factiong arguments from the main necessity of providing our army in France with a stalwart, eager, loyal, well-paid, well clothed, well-fed labour force from Africa,
their way northwards, and it was evident AN AMMUNITION PARK AT THE voltigeurs, or riflemen, pure and sinpe.the French Chamber has voted a bill for
that these had had a hand in the airship's destruction. As they came in sight well out to sea, the crowd gave another mighty cheer, and then went home to breakfast well satisfied. It was subse quently learned that before the Zeppelin was destroyed there was a duel in the air between her crew and the aeroplane men. Those on the airship fired again and again, and our acroplanes replied with interest. This went on for quite ifteen minutes, and then the finishing stroke was given. Steamers were sent out to search for wreckage, but nothing was found except black scum and float ing oil. The Zeppelin is described as one of the latest type, very long, with threu gondolas, and two Iron Crosses painted upon her.
SALVOES OF SHELL.
FRONT.
An A.S.C. officer write:
I've been, and in fact am still, going through a pretty thick time. I am now adjutout to an ammunition park feeding the guns that are doing most of the pre- sent push, and these guns have been very hungry for a long time. At one period of 54 hours over 400 lorries, cach carrying 3 tons, carried shells continuously with out a stop, eating as they went (Ï meau the drivers). They all really deserved a .C.M. sach, as they did during this period nine journeys, half the distance under shell fire.
ALLIES' MAN-POWER.
FRENCH CHAMBER DEBATE. .
After a secret session, lasting an hour, That is the first great change. Only part of the company, instead of the whole taking the census of the 1918 contingent, of it, is armed with rifles,
that is, recruits who will reach their twen- The next change is in the method oftieth year in 1918. The Goverment ex- that the taking of the consus of the deployment for attack. The extensiontingent does not at all ihean the same:
thing as calling the men to the colours. The brief secret session was devoted to discussing the question of the man-power. of the Allies. Some remarks on the same subject were also made at the public sit- ting. One speaker, M. Frederic Brunet, said there was hot the slightest doubt France was ready to go on straining every nerve, for all would prefer death to slavery under German rule.
DEFENSIVE TACTICS.
It
from a company in close formation to the very open order which is now the rule was executed with wonderful speed. So quickly and so quietly that the thing was done almost before you realized that it was taking place, the company was spread out over a front of about 20 yards to depth of a hundred or a hundred and fifty. In this attack for mation there are several lines in front of grenadiers, magazine-rifle men, and Our guns range from 60-pounders to voltigeurs. These are the rates, or 10in. grandmothers,” Heaven knows waves of the assault. Behind them are how many rounds they fired, but they further lines of reserves, from which the wanted all we could supply. Their posi-company commander can fill up gaps in GUNNERS' FINE WORK.
tions. to start with, were right up close the first ranks as they occur, with this to the German lines, and they've all been stand-by to assist him, that though each Writing from a North-East Coast moved forward several miles, 80 it's no man is trained as a specialist in one of town, a correspondent declared that the easy job to deliver by motor-lorry to the four weapons employed, he is also most striking feature of the destruction each battery. My own job was to trained in the use of them all, and can, of a Zeppelin out at sea was the ad- detail each lorry to pies up certain type therefore, at need take the place of an mirable working of the searchlights, and shells and deliver to a particular battery, mau in front of hint who may be killed the accuracy of the anti-aircraft gun be in a position to know at any time or wounded. nery. It was a clear, frosty star-light night, with hardly a puff of wind, and quantities of each in stock, quantities delivered to each battery, why the much scarcely a cloud in sight. Ample warn ing had been received. The Zeppelin and such had not received shells ordered approached from inland at what spand during of other queries. Only got peared to be a leisurely speed, and withstrafed by the Gunner-General onoc, and in a few moments was held in a shaft that because two batteries were running of light from one of the searchlights. out. it's an extraordinary life I've Evidently the Zeppelin commander's been lucky enough to be moved about the aim was to seek safety by making out to British firing line from one end to the sea, but, his position once revealed, he other, and always where the push is was never able to elude the pitiless rays. Everything is going At, and we are at! Another, and yet another threw the quite confident that a big change is envelope into bold relief.
coming over the state of the war very Obviously the aircraft was riding at soon-Times. na imense height. The first shuts fron anti-aircraft guus apparently fell short. Within an increditably short time, how- ever, the gunners had the range, and shells were seen bursting nearer and over nearer to the Zeppelin. A great shout went up from the crowds of people who lined the streets when it was observed that one of the shells had taken effect apparently a hit forward. The airship tilted nose downward to an angle of about 45deg. She righted herself, and was making steadily towards the sea, when a further shell struck her.
Immediately the spectators observed one end of the raider aglow, for all the
world
as one man remarked, like the lighted end of a cigarette.” The flames spread with fearful rapidity. Not many seconds had elapsed before the whole of the envelope was a raging mass of fire, the whole of the district for any miles around being illumined by the glare. The envelope destroyed, the airship seemed to crumple up like an old paper bag, and the whole structure collapsed.
The flames turned to a dull red glare, and the Zeppelin fell rapidly to the sea. Cheer after theer rent the air at this dramatic termination to the raider's mission of destruction.
NORTHERN RAIDER FALLS IN TWO PARTS. Another Zeppelin was brought down in flames in the sea off the North-East Const. The spectacle (says the Daily Telegraph's correspondent) was thrilling and awe-inspiring. It was witnessed by crowds of chering people for miles
-xround,
(Continued at fout of next columa.)
any
Another speaker, M. Albert Favre, said the noble English nation, which Germany had the sudacity to accuse of having pre- meditated this war, bad scarcely army on August, 1914. She bad organis- ed magnificently. Two millions of volun- teers flocked to the colours; this figure in the beginning of 1918 was ingreased to four millions To-day, after the vote of compulsory service, England's strength six million men. But when one consid was yet greater, and would soon reach ered the man-power capacity of all the Allies, one must, after all, note that Eug- Italy one man in eleven, Russia one mind land had moblished one man in ten, in tweuty, and France one man in six. As for France's losses they might be estimated at three times those of Italy and England,
The company then proceeded to give from a line of treaches, modelled on simu of those on the sexual Champagne front. a display of their was the turn of the magazins rifle and grenade specialists first, to stop the on- Before the vote of the bill, which was coming rush which, for the sake of argir carried by 450 to 38, uproar was caused ment, was supposed to have got through by M. Brizon, one of the anti-war Social- the zone of the rifle barrago and to have ist party, which consists of exactly three advanced to within 150 yards of the members. M. Brizon aroused indigna- trenches. Then you began to understandtion of the whole House by saying that the comparative ineffectiveness of rifle Germany was not alone responsible for fire, or, rather, the immensely greater the war. M. Millevoye, who has lost an destructive and stopping force of the only on in the war, cried: “ We will not grenade. Measured only by the much insult our dead," and the House, by an The Zeppelin came over the town from louder report of the explosion it is amous show of hands, refused to listen a north-westerly direction, and she was obviously a far more murderous weapon,
to M. Brizon any longer. almost immediately picked up by several and when we walked forward afterwards searchlights, which closed in upon her over the ground where the grenades had from different points, and never left her fallen t was pitted all over with little firing. The men simply advanced in the for an instant. The craft was flying at holes six inches in
great height, and its size was conse grenade, in fact, makes of each man who had first deployed, some ranks in front diameter The extended order we had seen when they quently dwarfed in the eyes of observers throws it, or sets it in motion by the and others in support, but each rank below. Immediately the searchlights had impact of the bullet from his rifle, a consisting of its separate specialists, focussed on the raider, anti-aircraft guas living eannou. got busy, and the Zeppelin, dropping
It is so deadly a mis-oach in its appointed place in the line. bombs, made an effort to seek a stili sile that, if only a sufficient supply of † Even without the noise and smoke of the greater altitude. One shot, however, the ammunition can be on hand that is battle it was a weird experience to stand seemed to strike har
and she the great difficulty because of its weighs there and see the French coming, as only visibly lurched. Aeroplanes were, it is body of infantry can defend itself the Germans can see them in this war, believed, also on the scene, and the anti- by putting up a barrage fire of its own and to imagine the reality of what they aircraft guns ceased fire,
which co troops will go through, so have to face. The right half company, Then what looked like a tiny speck ofthat it can actually dispense with the on our left, got up to a line of tranches fire was noticed at the stern of the Zep barrage-firo of its own artillery. close to us. The left half were supposed pelin, and in a few seconds she was in After the rifle-grenade the hand-to be checked by a nest of the enemy, fames from end to end, like a huge grenade--another two minutes of deafen-who were, determinedly holding out in a torch. The direction of flight at the ing reports all along the line, and, at a barbed-wire entanglement on our right moment was seawards, and the burning much shorter range, the same impassable front. In a moment each specialist was mass, blazing with varying intensity, curtain fire to stop the supposed enemy, banging away with his own special maintained his direction, seeming also all advancing towards the trenches from weapon, and making the entanglement to drift with the westerly wind. airship described in its descent a huge ing down from the distant horizon. And, short, sharp rush over about a hundred The the long, bare, shell-pitted alope, stretch an inferno of smoke and fame. Then a are in the heavens, and the flames weirdly after each period of firing another of yards of open ground, and the first lines illuminated the countryside for miles the realities of warfare a heavy pall of were into the entanglement and over it, around.
Falling end on, and when still at a blinding smoke, which drifted back to the other lines followed on more slowly great height, the Zeppelin seemed wards us from the trenches, and, till the ca the look-out for any of the enemy gradually to separate into two sections.
wind dispersed it, made it absolutely who might have emerged from their dug The larger part fell with increased impossible to see a yard.
onts behind the first. vagues, and the velocity amid a sheet of intense flame:
assault was over. the other section fell more slowly and glowed a dull red colour. Finally the whole structure plunged into the sea about a mile from the land, and sank in forty fathoms of water. Watchers on shore heard a faint hissing noise as the Zeppelin sank.
stern,
QOING OVER THE PARAPET. That was the end of the defence. It remained to walk forward to the sup posed German position and watch the French infantry as they apring from the tranchée de départ for the attack. This time--for the moment there wa
(Vontinued at foot of next Columa.)
So much for the actual training. Its result and the justification for it lies, it seems to me, especially in this all-import ant fact, that since the adoption of the scheme of infantry tactics which is based noon it the French losses, even in attack,
have been immensely reduced.
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