The Benson signal., 1917-06-16
GERMANS UNABLE TO
STOP FOES ADVANCE
Enemy Disorganized by Fierce
Attack of Allies.
DRIVEN IN DISORDER
FROM MEssINEs RIDGE.
Mine Explosion Begins Work Com
pIeted by Artillery Fire and Bril-
liant Infantry Advance-OId
Score Made Even.

With the British Armies in France,
June Z, via London, June 8.-The Brit
tsh armies struck today on a new front
and won a victory which supplements
the successes at Arras during the last
two months.
The Germans, though apparently
seemingly prepared to meet it, were
driven from their nearly three years
hold on Messines ridge, opposite poor
old" Ypres. Ypres in a sense was
avenged today, for Messines ridge has
been the vantage point from which the
Germans have poured torrents of shells
into the stricken city. The British also
wiped off an old score against the Ger
mans, for they held the ridge in Octo-
Der, 1914, and with very thin forces,
and virtually no artillery, fought blood
lily but vainly to hold it when the Prus-
sian troops massed their modern and
overpowering weapons of war against
1t.
Prisoners taken declared that the
bombardment of Vimy ridge was
childs play compared with the gunfire
turned upon Messines ridge.
Artillery Fire Devastating.
This fire reached it's climax just
as dawn was graying the eastern skies
and while the full moon was still sus-
pended high in the heavens.
The attack was accompanied by all
the arts and deviltries of latter-day
war. The enemy guns and gun crews
had been bathed for days in gas shells
sent over by the long-range British
guns.
The night was filled with red in
cendiary flames. Shells that spurted
lead in streams crashed in appalling
numbers about the heads of the de-
Tending soldiers. High-explosive and
shrapnel fire was carried out with such
rapidity that the earth writhed under
the force of the attack
Mines that had taken two years to
dig and fill with an overwhelming ex-
plosive broke into an avalanche of
flaming destruction in the half light of
dawn. This was indeed an Ypres day
of retaliation and victory for the
vicious sufferings of two years and
eight months.
SuperfIuous Clothing Discarded.
It was a day of intense heat, and the
gunners worked stripped to the waist
The attack went forward with clock
like regularity.
The British casualties were slight
Three out of four of the casualties
were reported to be walking cases, who
would return to duty in a few days
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 thunder storms
which extended we'll into the night, the
lightning mingling with the flashes of
the guns, but the thunder being virtu-
ally unnoticed amid the din of the can
non. A full moon struggled continu-
ously to break through the clouds.
Sing on Way to Fight.
On the way to the front were all the
familiar pictures of the war-endless
trains of motor trucks; all varieties
of horse transport, the British sol
diers marching to battle light of heart
and singing songs familiar in every
American community.
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 "straffing" 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.
Like Volcanoes in Eruption.
Day was scarcely breaking when
from the dimly visible ridge a score
of fiery volcanoes seemed suddenly to
spring from the earth. The night had
been filled with strange noises and still
stranger sights, but these masses of
flame, leaping from the ground, had a
meaning all their own. They were the
spectacular outward and visible evi-
dences of more than a million pounds
of high explosives which had been
buried deep in mines below the enc
my's positions for months.
All the world appeared lurid and
horrible under the sinister glow. The
earth shook as if torn by great seiS-
mic disturbance. 1t was not a single
shock. The force of the explosion
actually set the earth rocking to end
fro, and under the influence of the
giant guns, which Immediately began
to roar from far and near, the trem-
bling continued Indefinitely.