The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-10-18
Correspondent Has Birds Eye View of Terrific Ar
 tillery Engagement
INFANTRY BUSHES
 THROUGH SHELL FIRE
Was Perfect Autumn Day, But Clouds of Cannon Smoke Obscured View of Sun From Battle Lines
 Stretching Below

British Headquarters in France, Oc- tober 16)-(Via London, October 17D Along the Hulluch- Haisnes line, where the fighting has been almost contin- uous since the taking of Loos, a cor respondent had an unprecedented view of the British attack which took the Hohenzollern dedoubt.
 From a vantage point in the flat country was witnessed a stupendous panorama of artillery preparation and glimpses of infantry rushing through smoke and shells. So rapid was the fire that an effort to count the num- Der of audible shots per minute from the British guns failed. In front. to the right and the left and far in the rear guns flashed and scattered shells over the landscape. A seconds lull in the firing by the batteries in the im- mediate neighborhood was filled by those farther away.
 Terrific Engagement
 The line of both the British and German trenches was discernible in long clouds of smoke and dust from the bursting shells. That of the Ger man artillery seemed smaller in vol ume. No shells were seen bursting in Loos itself, which appeared peaceful now back of the British positions. for this tremendous concentration was re- stricted to a narrow theatre, against the frontal positions of the opposing 2 side. It was a warm and perfect au- tumn day. sun shining and playing in nimbus in the sky which gave the aeroplanes cover and into the churned man-made nfmbus rising from the earth. Rolling clouds of gas, rising up rom the British trenches like steam From the locomotive of a passing train above the edge of a cut as it was re- leased from the apparatus in the trenches, was distingushable from the explosion of every variety of shells The reddish, black British lyddite and the coal black German nine-inch ex- plosives shot up through the lighter smoke in dense spurts, tinged at the bottom with dust from the trenches while the explosion of mine made a vast, mushroom shaped column. Smoke bombs, used IS a screen, adding to the effect of the light colored. burst from the shrapnel, shot low to destroy the barbed wire, and high to search the trenches.
 Bursting Shells
 A<hi 6c cdiipTe SHrapnel bursting In the air made big vaporous puffs and high explosives bursting in the air caused big black puffs. There also were asphyxiating gas shells signal shells to assist the gunners and shells which dropped streaming points of fire like those from a skyrocket. The sun, shining through the clouds above and below, made mass of changing col ors that was an eye-tiring spectacle Now toward Hulluch it was pink and toward AuchyLes-La-B -Bassee dark green, while toward the Hohenzollern redoubt and Foss the German parapet became visible for an instant, only to be hidden again. Avenues of trees along the roads, some of them cut down by shell fire. stood stripped, like telephone poles of their limbs and foliage. and there were to be seen the jagged ruins of villages. spectral in the variegated mist of destruction whence came a continuous ugly roar, which submerged the sound of the ma chine guns and rifles firing during the half hour from 1 to 1.30 before the British infantry sprang from their trenches. Meanwhile in the rear the miners of this mining country pro- ceeded with their work, farmers were blowing, women going and coming in the villages or standing in doorways,