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Show DUGOUTS SOMETIMES PROVE TOE TOMBS German Refuges for Soldiers Sol-diers Become Unsafe in Bombing Warfare. AN EXAMPLE IS GIVEN French Canadian Captures Twenty-two Teutons Who Meekly Surrender. WITH THE BRITISH IN FRANCE, Jan. 27. The dugouts of the German Hues, some of which have been marvols of underground construction, are becoming be-coming more and more frequently death traps or tombs for thoir hapless occupants. occu-pants. The trench raids which go on nightly from one end of the British ' Vines to the other, are conducted largely for the purpose of bombing these subterranean sub-terranean chambors. No estimate is possible of the number of the enemy killed iri this manner. When a khaki raiding party pounces over the parapet of a German trench in the dead of night, the first alarm of thoir presence sends the defending soldiers sol-diers impulsively in the direction of their dugouts. Once inside, however, thoir doom is sealed. There is a call for surrender, a reasonable wait, and then down goes a bomb, and as many more as may be necessary to completely wreck the place and set it on fire. There have been cases where dugouts have been connected up ,by tunnels and Germans have escaped through these, but, generally . speaking, the dugouts stand alone. Crouching in the far recesses re-cesses of a gallery in one of these, the enemy soldier's very often will not surrender sur-render when the first bomb is tossed in; but later they are glad to get out alive. Sometimes they lave to te dug out by their captors. , Grenade Brings Reply. The Btory is told of a French Canadian Cana-dian who was in a "mop-up" section of the raiders one night. Approaching a dugout which looked entirely de- . serted, he stuck his head in the doorway door-way and called out: "Anny person down there!" No response. "I say, is anny person down thert Last call for anny person down there." Again no reply. So the Canadian tore the safety pin out of a grenade and sent it hurtling into the dark. The echo of the explosion had not died away when he heard sepulchral cries from below: "ELamerad, Kamerad. " Twenty-two Germans were later lifted out of the debris at the entrance to that cave. In some of the recent fighting, as at Beaumont-Hamel, the British have had to face two distinct battles, one over- r land and one underground. They have advanced to a point where they suddenly sud-denly realize there are almost as many of the enemy behind them as in front. Then comes the work of cleaning out the dugouts, tho cellars and the tunnels.' At Beaumont-Hamel these underground works yielded thousands of prisoners. Effect Not Good. : In one of the Beaumont-Hamel dugouts dug-outs the English found fourteen Germans Ger-mans dead. Just how they died no one knew. It may have been concussion or asphyxiation. There was little time for speculation. Their .identity discs were taken off to be sent ultimately to Berlin, and then the dugout was filled in and sealed up a ready-made vault for the men who :had depended upon its shelter. There is a well-defined opinion in the British, army that dugouts on the German Ger-man plan are not conducive to the best morale of the men. In fact, many prisoners pris-oners taken have frankly said that after two or three weeks or months in the comfort of a dugout they had no stomach stom-ach for going back into1 the trenches. They were only too glad to get under cover at the first sign of a Dombard-ment, Dombard-ment, and there many of them were trapped and surrendered; The British do not go in very much for the dugout idea. There are dugouts dug-outs for advanced headquarters, but the men and officers generally stick to the life of the trenches. |