The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-10-27
IRISH REGIMENT
 NEVER FALTERED
 IN G|NCHY' FIGHT
Drove Enemy Over Field Covered With Dead, Be-
 fore Them.

London, Oct. 21.-How an Irish regiment assisted in the storming of Ginchy, near the Somme, is told as follows in a letter home by a young second lieutenant of that unit: "Ginchy had been taken once or twice before, I believe-some days four times-but even out here it is difficult to get authentic news about things which are happening quite close to us
 "We were in reserve. The front line was some 500, or 500 yards high CT up the slope, nearer Ginchy. 'Tt was about 1 p. m. when we first learned that we should have to take part in the attack on Ginchy. We were ordered to move up into the front line to reinforce. Our shells | bursting in the village of Ginchy made it belch forth smoke like a vol cano. The noise was deafening. I turned to my servant. O'Brien, who has always been cheery, optimistic soul, and said Well, O'Brien how do you think we'll fare?' and his | answer was, for once, not encourag- ing We'll never come out alive, sir, | was his answer.
 'It was at this moment, just as we were debouching on to the scragged front line of trench, that we beheld scene which stirred and thrilled us to the depths of our souls. The great charge of the Irish had begun. Between the outer fringe of Gin chy and the front line of our own | trenches is No Mans Land, wilder ness of pits so close together that you rid cf, no nartitionS between any two of them. As you look half right, obliquely down along No Mans Land. you behold a great | host of yel1ow-coated men rise out 1 of the earth and surge forward and upward in a torrent-not in extend ed order, as you might expect, but l in one mass There seems to be no end to them. Just when you think the flood is subsiding. another wave comes surging up the bend towards l Ginchy.
 I've joined in on the left. There was no time for us, any pore than the others, to get into extended or der. We formed another stream con- verging on the others at the summit By this time we were all wildly excited. Our shouts and yells alone must have struck terror into the Huns, who were firing their machine guns down the slope. But there was no wavering in the Irish host. We couldn't run. We advanced at a steady walking pace, stumbling here and there, but going ever onward and upward. That numbing dread had now left me completely. Like the others, was intoxicated with the glory of it all. I can remember shout I.ox fo hn nf
 platoon, who were only too eager to go on.
 "The Hun barrage had now been
 opened in earnest, and shells were | falling here, there and everywhere in No Mans Land. They were most
 ly dropping on our right, but they | were coming nearer and nearer, as | if a screen were being drawn across our front. I knew that it was a case
 of now or never and, stumbled on feverishly. We managed to get through the barrage in the nick of
 time, for it closed behind us, and aft
 CT that we had no shells to fear in
 front of us.
 "I mention merely as an interest
 ing fact in psychology how, in crisis of this sort, ones mental faculties are sharpened. Instinct told us, when the shells were coming gradually closer, to crouch down in the holes
 until they had passed. Acquired l Knowledge, on the other hand-the
 knowledge instilled into one by lec- lures and books-told us that it was
 safer. in the long run, to push ahead
 before the enemy got our range, and it was acquired knowledge that won.
 "And here another observation I l l-1. 5 J1xr fIoa oxr r member reading somewhere-I think
 it was in book by Winston Church ill@that of the Battle of Omdurman, the writer could recollect nothing in the way of noise. He had an acute visual recollection of all that went on
 about him but his aural recollection was nil; he could only recall the
 scene as it it were a cinematograph
 picture. Cautiously this was my own
 experience at Ginchy. The din must
 have been deafening q learned after
 wards that it could be heard miles
 away), yet have only confused re-
 membrance of it.
 'We had to chamber over all man
 ner of obstacles-fallen trees, beams,
 great mounds of brick and rubble-
 in fact, ever the ruins of Ginchy. It
 seems like @ nightmare to me now. I remember seeing comrades falling
 round me. My sense of hearing re-
 turned to me, for I became conscious
 of a new sound-namely, the pop,
 pop, pop. pop of matchin guns, and
 the continuous cracking of rifle fire.
 By this time all units were mixed up, | but they were all Irishmen. They
 were cheering, and cheering like
 mad. There was a machine-gun
 playing on us nearby. and we all
 made for it.
 "At this moment, we caught our
 first sight of the Huns. They were
 in a trench which ran in and out
 among the ruins. Some of them had
 their hands up. Others were knee ling and holding their arms out to us. Still others were running up and
 down the trench distractedly, as if
 they didn't know which way to go, but as we got closer they went down
 on their knees, too.
 | "There was no holding the men
 back. They rushed through Ginchy,
 driving the Huns before them. The
 Hun dead were lying everywhere,
 some of them having been frightfully
 mangled by our shell fire. We dug
 in by linking up the shell-craters and, though the men were tired