The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1915-09-25
Frederick Palmer Describes One
of Most Picturesque Actions
on British Front.
BAG GERMANS IN NOVEL WAY
-hunders Of Artillery Duel Heard
Many Miles In Rear-British Off
GERS Enthusiastic over Work Of
Zig Guns-Fight Without
Thought Of Cost.
BY FREDERICK PALMER.

NlANtl HdlAOudl NEWS CtINltSs(
British Headquarters, France.-The
British have retaken the mine crater
at HODGE in one of the most pictur-
esque actions which has happened
along the British front for a long
time, without counting the novel way
in which a bag of prisoners was made.
Hooge is the name of what was once
a village in a region as fiat as a bill
lard table. 1t is in the YpTes salient.
As for the nature of life in the Ypres
salient there is the testimony of Ger
man prisoners who say that when a
man on their side is assigned to 1t
the saying is that he may consider
himself as good as lost.
1t is generally agreed that more
blood has been spilled in the Ypres
salient than over any similar length
of line on the western front, with the
exception of Souchez, where the
French made their reat attack in May
and June.
The blowing up of a mine under the
German trench some weeks ago made
HODGE about the hottest point in the
PACo ooAChts IL wac OhO Va hhO
largest mines the British had yer
exploded to begin with, and it made
a hole in the earth about 40 feet deep
and 20 feet across. The British charged
in and took possession of it.
In reply to. the mine the Germans
brought up their flame e~jector ap-
paratus, which they had tried on the
Trannh hofOro hut naxr nCad ON Tho
English for the first time. Mean
while around the edge of the crater
the two sides were only five feet apart
at one place.
The crater was SO big, and it had
so disfigured the landscape that it was
very difficult to consolidate the po-
sition" as the official bulletins say,
particularly when showers of bombs
from either side punished any enter
prise on the part Of the other.
On top of a bombardment with ar
tillery of all the neighboring part of
the British line where the trenches
were close together, the Germans sud-
denly sprayed the British front with
fire over a section where their in
fantry attacked. The British had to
give up their crater and HODGE, too,
and some 500 yards of trench. When
they set out to ecove it at first
they found the Germans had the line
bristling with machine guns, so they
got back one end of what they lost.
Reck Not the Cost.
The rule in the Ypres salient seems
to be never to lie down tamely under
any setback. Both sides fight to re
cover a loss, no matter what the cost,
S%anguinary battles are waged for few
acres of ground.
All one day the British kept an al
most continuous roar of shells over
other parts of the salient. They made
the German trenches boil with dust
under clouds of shrapnel smoke. The
German guns replied. They threw in
some more 17-inch shells into the
ruins of Ypres and into other points
which they had not considered worthy
of 17-inch attention before.
The thunder of this artillery duel
could be heard 80 and 40 miles tc
the rear. 1t made a sound like the
roll of a drum with almost no inter
walls between the shots. Nothing heav
Ter had been heard since Souchez.
About two the next morning guns