The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-03-19
BRITISH ADVANCE
 ON SOMME FRONT MOVING RAPIDLY
(F'rom a Staff Correspondent of the
 Associated Press.)

(From Staff Correspondent of the Associated Press.)
 British headquarters in France March '16, via London March IT. The retreat of the Germans in the Ancre and Somme region continues to give zest of movement to the war in the west, and trip nowadays along the ever extending new British lines reveals picture theN like of which has not been seen on this front for more than two years. Substantial progress was made by the Allies in the battles of the Somme last summer and autumn, but after the initial forward sweep the resistance became so dog ged that tle advance could be count ed almost by feet if not at times by inches. Recently the onward move has been reckoned in miles, and it is strange to see field Actresses that last year cost thousands of German lives to defend now yield within a few hours after the British "heavies' have begun to pour out their torrent of high explosives.
 It is interesting to stand behind a battery of British howitzers and watch the gun crews in action. The men show the high morals which is inevidence throughout the British army. They whistle and sing and bandy grim jests as they work. As the firing button is pressed the crew jumps back for moment from the gun carriage, but has leaped again to the allotted places before the easy act ing recoil has returned the mammoth weapon to it's original position. It is easy to distinguish the scream of a departing projectile from one that is sent in return by the Germans, and the onlooker can watch without diff1- culty the black base of a British shell as it travels in long loop toward it's destination.
 The forward movement of the Brit into play all the machinery of motion in warfare, Roads seem to spring up over night in most unexpected places. Railroads have audaciously flung themselves forward regardless of mud and shell holes and with complete ness which even includes most preten- tious sign posts bearing the names of French villages which exist now only as geographical remnants. It is also a aLevelatioh of the. intensely practical sidesof modern waT to see six inch water main stretching itself into terri tory but recently occupied by the Germans. S
 Road building has called into play all the ingenuity of pioneer battalions, composed not only of experienced British workmen but of real pioneers from the prairies and mountains of Canada and the far lands of Aus tralia and South America.
 Road material is scarce in the stricken wilderness of No Mans Land. but the refuse of battle often serves the purpose during the first hours of a new forward movement. Broken rifles, bits of clothing, fragments of shells and occasionally few unex- ploded shells are used in the founda- tion of the new paths. The remains of a recent evacuated village bring great joy to the pioneers, for that means a temporary supply at least of much desired broken brick and stone.
 Tn the meantime the British troops are revelling. in the joy of occupying high ground. They are now on the Somme crest and Bapaume and the country east lie on a slope that gradu- ally descendG all the way to the French border. One can but marvel at the fortitude and endurance which enable men to "stick it'' in the muddy depths of the valleys, from which they have now emerged. Even the most shallow trenches were impossible places, and here men dug themselves in at outposts which marked the low lands like so many graves. Graves they were in truth for scores of the khaki clad soldiers who held them all through the black winter under the pelting fire of their enemy.
 It is possible now to sit in the open on the remnants of a dugout and watch the British shells drop into the German lines, see the shrapnel break with a red flash and a puff of smoke just above the opposing trenches, and note the heavier high explosive shells burst into flaming fountains of black ened earth and flying debris. Occa- sionally a protesting shell will come from the Germans, but the roar of the British guns is so great that the noise of the intruder is scarcely mo- ticed. There are black puffs from German shrapnel high in the air and smaller brown puffs vainly reaching for the score or more of British air planes hurrying about on their war duties overhead.
 The earth is continuing mass of shall craters, most of them overlap ping or separated by less than a yard of upturned soil. The fresh fallen German dead have mostly been car- ried away and buried in secluded ho1- lows but now and again an exploding shells unearths bits of skeletons, stray hands. stray feet and stray skulls. The shell holes gather a ghastly little battle field refuse half submerged in pools of water that are often green but more often dull with telltale red.
 One of the problems with which the British are grappling in their drive forward is how to sufficiently hammer their foes with artillery and still keep from blowing the ground ahead of them into another morass with their shells.
 MASONIC NOTES.
 A stated communication of St. John's lodge, No. 3, will be held at