Middletown transcript. [volume] (Middletown, Del.) 1868-current, 1917-06-16
BROKE GERMAN LINE
Details of important Allied Vic
tory Before Ypres.
OLD SCORE is WIPED OUT
Capture of Messines Ridges Peculiarly
Gratifying, as 1t Was the Scene
Of Former British Defeat
Defenses Shattered.

Defenses Shattered.
With the British Armies in France.
June TN one of the most deliberately
planned and daringly executed ma
neuvers of the war Sir Douglas Haig's
forces have dealt a mighty blow
against the German line in Belgium,
and been rewarded with notable gains
in terrain and the capture of more
than 5000 prisoners and numerous
guns of various caliber. In addition
they inflicted heavy casualties on the
Germans.
The Germans, though apparently
aware that the blow was coming anu
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
| it.
Prisoners taken declared that the
commandment of Vimy ridge was
child's play compared with the gunfire
turned upon Messines ridge.
Triumph for Artillery.
This fire reached it's climax just
as dawn was craving 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 names. 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 tC
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 da!
| Df viz
vicious sufferings of two years ant
eight months.
Gunners Strip to Waist.
1t was a day of intense heat, and thu
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 wh'
would return to duty in a few days
The attack began at daw1l, and tn
setting was as picturesque as can wei
be imaginable. The day before hat
been hot and sultry. Toward evening
there was q series of thunder storm
which extended well into the night, tn
lightning mingling with the flashes 0
the guns but the thunder being virtr
ally unnoticed amid the din of the can
non. A full moon struggled continu
ously to break through the heav
clouds which Scudded across the vel
vety night Sky.
Sing on Way to Fight.
On the way to the front were all tn
familiar pictures of the war-endles
!, trains of motor trucks; all varietie
! of horse transport, the British sol
, diers marching to battle light of hear
and singing songs familiar in ever
American community.
; In the shadow Of an old windmill
which has withstOOd the storms of
, century and been undaunted by neari
, three years of war; the correspondent
, witnessed the last phases of the sever
, day preliminary bombardment and tn
I final outburst of the guns which sen
r the British infantry confidently o.
their way to new successes in fiShtin
the greatest military nation the worl
has ever known.
From the German line the sam
lazy, looping rocket signals were as
cending to illuminate the treacherOu
bit of ground between the trenche
known as No Mans Land. This nigh
ly "strafing" had been going on S
q long that the enemy considered it Ell
2 tirely normal and took no alarm. Ok
). casionally blue and yellow rocket
) would be flung into the air by German
q holding the front line.
q One by one the guns became silen
r. There was the old grandmother
! howitzer of enormous caliber. whic
O kept breaking the peace at five-mil
i. ute intervals, the shock of each SUI
n ceeding explosion and the shrek
the heavy shells being emphasized b
the silence which lay over all the su
rounding country.
Like Volcanoes in Eruption.
Day was scarcely breaking whe
" from the dimly visible ridge scol
of fiery volcanoes seemed suddenly
h spring from the earth. The night ha
e been filled with strange noises and sti
Of stranger Sights, out THESE MASSES
ia flame, leaping from the ground, had
q. meaning all their own. They were II
70 spectacular outward and visible ev
20 dences of more than a million pount
q of high explosives which had bee
.r buried deep in mines below the en-
" my's positions for months.
rs All the world. appeared lurid az