Arizona republican., 1917-06-08
the somme and Arras offensives, but


 The preparations for today's show had been made carefully and deliber ately Every detail was worked out down to the last minute detail of the itinerary of each of the tanks. The tanks, by the way had fields day.
 The attack began at dawn and the setting was as picturesque as can well be imaginable. The day before had been hot and sultry. Toward evening there was a series of thunderstorms which extended well into the night, the lightning mingling with the flashes of the guns, but the thunder being vir- tually unnoticed amid the din of can non. A full moon struggled continu- ously to break through the heavy clouds which scudded across the vel vety night sky.
 On the way to the front were all the familiar pictures of the war, end less trains of motor trucks, all va rieties of horse transports including old timbers and wagons which had been handed down from civil war days, the British soldiers marching to bat tie, light of heart and singing songs familiar in every American commun- ity. The steel shrapnel hats are un- commonly hot, so in last nights hu midity most of the soldiers were tramping along bareheaded loath to don this impediment until compelled to do so by proximity to threatening shells.
 The guns were flashing all along the ten mile front at midnight, just as they had been flashing for week past From the German line the same lazy looping rocket signals were as- cending to illuminate the treacherous bit of ground between the trenches known as No Mans Land. This night ly "stTafing' had been going on so long that the enemy considered it en- tirely normal and took no alarm. Oc casionally blue and yellow rockets would be flung into the air by Germans holding the front line. The Germans are always so prodigious in their use of illuminants that the British never bother about such details in the trenches. leaving all this very neces- sary, but somewhat boring work to the enemy.
 The nights are very short in these northern European attitudes and dawn comes at very early hour. It was just after half past two o'clock that the British guns began to cease fire, as if the nightly demonstration of hate" was ended To those who knew, however, this sudden and strange silence had the same meaning as a similar period of quietude just before the battle of Arras broke into flaming fury two months ago.
 One by one the guns became silent.
 There was the old "grandmother" howitzer of enormous caliber, which kept breaking the peace at five minute intervals. the shock of each succeed ing explosion and the shriek of the heavy shells being emphasized by the silence which lay over all the sur rounding country In this silence could also be heard an ominous sound which hitherto had been completely submerged in the roar of the British guns. It was a spiteful swish and spit of the German shrapnel breaking above | the British battery positions.
 After the British guns had been still l twenty minutes or so even this sound l ceased, the German gunners evidently considering they had effectually silenc- | ed all the opposing batteries. For | about ten minutes the silence became | intensely oppressive. In the east | streaks of dawn were showing pale ! through rifts in the storm clouds 1 which lurked along the horizon in all | directions
 1 High in the heavens the full moon struggled for supremacy over the thin veil of clouds which all but hid the less brilliant stars. Somewhere in the dis ] taEce a cock crowed, a strange sound l to be heard in the very storm center of the world. Then followed the clang of the triangle-an alarm that enemy ! gas shells were about. The old grand 1 mother Howitzer was again maintain | ing at least a semblance of hate 1 Day was scarcely breaking when from the dimly visible ridge score of fiery volcanoes seemed suddenly to spring from the earth. The night had been filled with strange noises, and l still stranger sights, but these masses of flames, leaping from the ground, had a meaning all their own. They were the spectacular outward and visible 1 evidences of more than million pounds of high explosives which had
 been buried deep in mines below the i enemy's positions for months
 All the world appeared lurid and hor-
 rible under the sinister glow. The earth shook as if torn by a great | seismic disturbance. It was not sin i gle shock. The force of the explosion actually set the earth rocking to and | fro, and under the influence of the giant guns, which immediately began
 to roar from far and near, the trem- bling continued indefinitely. It was ter minutes past three o'clock as this final terrific bombardment began.
 It has seemed that the British ha6 attained the ultimate in the close as-
 sembly of war weapons, but this sud den outpouring on Messines ridge was beyond all calculation. The lighter
 field guns set up perfect curtain
 under which the assaulting troop!
 trudged confidently to their allotted | alc r.tt, oclx ha fnf
 heavier guns began to pour out torrent.
 of high explosive shells on the Ger
 man trenches and communications
 while still other guns-enough to vii
 any ordinary battle-confined them