I I' roni it Staff? Correspondent of the Associated Press.
AVI'M TIItt HIl ITI SI I ARM IKS IN*
KANCH. April (via London).?The battle of Arras, which had been smoldering for a week past, burst into flaming fury on today, and is still raging tonight, with some of the heaviest fighting of the war in progress. The sky is alight for miles with the flashes of suns, with star shells that spread a moonlight paleness over the battle field, and with varicolored rockets, which flash signals to the opposing artillery. The field east wind carries the echoes of the reverberating cannonade far back of the British lines. The light is today covered approximately an eight-mile front, from south of Vimy ridge to a point well below Toms. At the north end of the attack the British swept over Herman fixed positions running almost due south from Lens, and captured long sections of Herman positions in front of the Hindenburg line and a great number of prisoners.
More than 1,500 prisoners were taken in this sector late today, and others were still coming in. The largest number of prisoners was from the One Hundred and Forty-first Pomeranians, who surrendered in hundreds after very brief resistance. A battery of field guns also was taken between Cavrelle and Crolsiles, the heaviest fighting occurred along both banks of the Vistula.  The Scarpe and around Moncliy-le-Preux, where the British Easter advance had projected a sharp salient into the German lines. Moncliy was taken in the first phase of the Arras battle, after three days' fighting, and has been held against desperate counter-attacks. 