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<p>a9755010.html</p><p>Poziéres Once Again</p><p>Memories of 1916</p><p>By C. E. W. Bean.</p><p> </p><p>War correspondents' Headquarters,</p><p>France, August 26th</p><p>Yesterday morning British troops launched an attack from the old shell-shattered, tumbled moorland which was once Pozières. For the fourth time in four years the wave of battle has rolled forward across this historic ground. By the afternoon the Germans were fighting a heavy rearguard action near Contalmaison, where the old 3rd and 5th Australian Brigade Headquarters used to be at the time of the battle. The German outposts were holding the much fought-over fringe of the High Wood. Crosses and graves stand on Pozières summit exactly as they were before the great offensive of last March passed over them. Scars of battle mark almost every monument, but the cemeteries, so far as we could see, had been scrupulously respected. The cross of the 7th Field Company of Australian Engineers is nearly cut through by a shell, but still rises over the Candian and Australian graveyard on the hill. The great white crosses of the 1st Australian Division and 8th Australian Battalion stand scarred with shrapnel in the cemetery near the entrance of the village. Before them to-day are two newer rows of German graves, with that of a German senior surgeon amongst them. The cross of the 4th Australian Battalion still stands in the little line of scrub from which the battle started, with the cross of the 10th Battalion beside it.</p><p>The grave of Captain Margetts, of the 12th Battalion, is still marked by a small white cross, beside the stumps of the copse where he fell a little after daylight, when the troops were first pushing across the road against the Germans, who were still at the further side of the village.</p><p><strong>The Old Windmill.</strong></p><p>By the windmill still stands the dark wooden cross of the 2nd Australian Divison, on the summit of the whole Somme battlefield. Heavy shells have shaken this cross half loose from the stone pyramid on which it stands, but it still rises there beside the great road on the hill top which the 2nd Division won. Beside it the north and south lines of the old "O.G." trenches along the summit, can still be traced by small white crosses to nameless Australians who fell there, with here and there the grave marked with the name of the 46th Battalion and other Battalions which two years ago were fighting on that terrible hill-crest. We sat where, two years ago today, the 2nd Australian Division was holding the ugly trenches near Munster Alley.</p><p>The battle this time is proceeding to the south and eastwards. The British are attacking, roughly speaking, from the whole length of the Bapaume Road between La Boiseele and Grevillers, far away to the left. In the valley before Bapaume the dust barrage rolled through Le Barque and Thilloy, across the wild, vast moorland which three years ago was smiling country-side.</p><p>To the right, near Contalmaison, all the afternoon the German shelling was furious, filling the valley with dust and shell smoke. Here the tail of the German army, in order to extricate itself from the British, seemed to be making a counter-attack. The German retreat was clearly directed towards the south-east. On the moorland heights near Longueval, German infantry could be seen taking up a postion to cover it. Through the low scrub of the High Wood there could be clearly made out the German rearguard sentries standing motionless in the scrub every fifteen or twenty yards.</p><p>Beside the British graves on the edge of the High Wood, where the battle temporarily lulled, was a large post of Germans in the old trenches. Two German motor-ambulances were actually between the lines on the road this side of the High Wood, and moved off slowly over the uneven track. The British infantry moved up to attack High Wood, and heavy shelling began to tear the distant hill-top into clouds of tawny dust.</p><p>As evening closed the din and dust of battle rolled away---pray heaven, for the last time---from the wild, tawny upland, where thousands of the bravest men who were ever born---or ever will be born---in Australia lie to-day, and throughout all ages.</p><p><strong>Advance from Bray. </strong></p><p><strong>More Captures than Casualties.</strong></p><p>By C. E. W. Bean,</p><p>War Correspondents' Headquarters,</p><p>France, August 25th</p><p>The Austalian infantry advanced from before Bray last night, north of the Somme, and took the high ground overlooking the town of Suzanne. About fifty Germans surrendered. This makes about twelve thousand Germans captured by Australians since August 8th---a much greater number than the whole of the Australian casualties.</p><p>The Germans retreating are fighting along a line further north. Last night everywhere could be seen German dumps burning. This morning comes news that the famous Australian battleground, Pozières summit, is again in British hands. Two days ago, as New South Wales infantry attacked the steep gully south of Chuignes, and worked through Arcy Wood, they came on a huge German gun---much the biggest ever yet met by an Australian force. This monster barrel was blown off some time before; the barrel tumbled down hill, turned over, and lay further down the gully. The interior of the barrel was rusted, and the gun clearly had not been used for some time past. [1st BA. handwritten insertion]</p><p>In the wood, very well camouflaged, lay an immense gun carriage with the body of the monster, which made the great 11 inch gun captured on August 8th seem insignificant. These two were clearly the guns which had bombarded Amiens. The 15 inch gun in Arcy Wood had been brought there on rails, and later on transferred to a fixed platform.</p><p> </p>