| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII | HTML | PDF ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: Thirty Canadian V. Cs., 23d April 1915 to 30th March 1918
Author: Richards, Robin, Goodridge Roberts, Theodore, 1877-1953, Martin, Stuart
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Thirty Canadian V. Cs., 23d April 1915 to 30th March 1918" ***
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
Transcriber's Note:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible, including some inconsistencies in hyphenation and accents.
Some changes of spelling and punctuation have been made. They are
listed at the end of the text.
Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
Bold text has been marked with =equals signs=.
OE ligatures have been expanded.
THIRTY CANADIAN V.Cs.
23rd APRIL 1915 to 30th MARCH 1918
Compiled by the Canadian War Records Office
The Author's royalties of this book are devoted to the
Canadian War Memorials Fund.
LONDON
SKEFFINGTON & SON, LTD.
34, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C. 2.
_Publishers to His Majesty the King._
A DEDICATION
BY
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIR R. E. W. TURNER, V.C., K.C.B., K.C.M.G., D.S.O.
It is difficult to write an introductory in words to adequately do
justice to the gallant deeds performed by our Canadians since the
outbreak of the war in France and Belgium.
Canada's Army has grown beyond all the expectations of the world, and
glorious pages will be written, in future history, of the self-sacrifice
of those true sons, many of whom have laid down their lives for the
highest traditions of the British Empire.
No finer inspiration is needed for the future than the words of Corporal
Joseph Kaeble, V.C., a French-Canadian, when mortally wounded in
repelling a German attack--"Keep it up, boys! Don't let them get
through. We must stop them!"
To the Canadian V.Cs. of the Great War, and the many others deserving,
this little volume is respectfully dedicated.
CONTENTS
PAGE
LANCE-CORPORAL FISHER (13th Bn.) 3
COMPANY-SERGEANT-MAJOR HALL (8th Bn.) 6
CAPTAIN SCRIMGER (C.A.M.C.) 9
LIEUTENANT CAMPBELL (1st Bn.) 11
CORPORAL CLARKE (2nd Bn.) 13
PRIVATE KERR (49th Bn.) 15
MAJOR MACDOWELL (38th Bn.) 19
LIEUTENANT HARVEY (L.S.H.) 24
PRIVATE MILNE (16th Bn.) 26
SERGEANT SIFTON (18th Bn.) 28
LIEUTENANT COMBE (27th Bn.) 31
CAPTAIN BISHOP (Canadian Cavalry and R.F.C.) 34
PRIVATE PATTISON (50th Bn.) 40
PRIVATE BROWN (10th Bn.) 43
COMPANY-SERGEANT-MAJOR HANNA (29th Bn.) 47
SERGEANT HOBSON (20th Bn.) 50
PRIVATE O'ROURKE (7th Bn.) 53
CAPTAIN LEARMONTH (2nd Bn.) 55
CORPORAL KONOWAL (47th Bn.) 58
PRIVATE HOLMES (4th C.M.R.) 61
LIEUTENANT O'KELLY (52nd Bn.) 63
CAPTAIN PEARKES (5th C.M.R.) 67
LIEUTENANT SHANKLAND (43rd Bn.) 70
PRIVATE KINROSS (49th Bn.) 73
LIEUTENANT MACKENZIE (C.M.G.C.) 76
SERGEANT MULLIN (P.P.C.L.I.) 79
PRIVATE ROBERTSON (27th Bn.) 81
CORPORAL BARRON (3rd Bn.) 85
LIEUTENANT STRACHAN (F.G.H.) 88
LIEUTENANT FLOWERDEW (L.S.H.) 94
THIRTY CANADIAN V.Cs.
EDITOR'S NOTE.--These narratives are the work of three members of the
Canadian War Records Office--Captain Theodore Goodridge Roberts, New
Brunswick Regiment, late H. Q. Canadian Army Corps, B.E.F.; Private
Robin Richards, late the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry,
B.E.F., and Private Stuart Martin, late No. 5 Canadian General Hospital,
Salonika.
[Illustration]
LANCE-CORPORAL FREDERICK FISHER, 13TH BATTALION
In March, 1915, Canadian guns took part in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle,
and a Canadian regiment, the Princess Patricia's Light Infantry, fought
well at St. Eloi; but it was not until April that the infantry of the
1st Canadian Division came to grips with the enemy.
The Canadian Division moved into the Ypres Salient about a week before
the Germans commenced their terrific and wanton bombardment of the
unfortunate city of Ypres. They relieved troops of the 11th Division of
the French Army in five thousand yards of undeveloped trenches.
Fisher, a lance-corporal of the 13th Canadian Infantry Battalion,
performed the deed of valour (at the cost of his life) for which he was
granted the Victoria Cross, on the 23rd of April, 1915. He was our first
V.C., in this war, by one day.
On the afternoon of the 22nd of April the Germans projected their first
attack of asphyxiating gas against a point of our Allies' front. Turcos
and Zouaves fell back, strangled, blinded and dismayed. The British left
was exposed. A four-mile gap--a way to Calais--lay open to the enemy.
The 1st Canadian Division, the only Canadian Division in the field in
those early days, held the British left. It blocked the four-mile gap
and held up Germany, gas and all.
There were no such things as gas masks in those days; but the Canadians
were undismayed by that new and terrific form of murder. They had left
their offices and shops, their schools and farms and mills, with the
intention of fighting the Hun, and, in return, of suffering the worst he
could do to them. They did not expect him to fight like a sportsman, or
even like a human being. So they accepted the gas as part of the day's
work. It was the last day's work for hundreds of those good workmen.
A battery of Canadian 18-pounders, commanded by Major W. B. M. King,
C.F.A., maintained its original position well into the second day of the
battle--the 23rd of April. The gunners were supported by a depleted
Company of the 14th (Royal Montreal) Battalion, and kept up their fire
on the approaching Germans until their final rounds were crashed into
"the brown" of the massed enemy at a range of less than two hundred
yards.
This is a class of performance which seems to make a particular appeal
to the hearts of gunners. It calls for more than steadiness and
desperate courage, for technical difficulties in the matter of timing
the fuses to a fraction of a second must be overcome under conditions
peculiarly adverse to the making of exact mathematical calculations. But
this sort of thing is frequently done--always with gusto and sometimes
with the loss of the guns and the lives of their crews. The gunner then
feels all the primitive excitement of the infantryman in a bayonet
charge. He claps his gun, that complicated, high-priced and prodigious
weapon, at the very head of the enemy, as if it were no more than a
pistol.
On this occasion the guns were not lost. They were extricated from
beneath the very boots and bayonets of the enemy and withdrawn to open
fire again from a more secure position and at a more customary range.
They were "man-handled" out and back by the survivors of their own crews
and of the supporting company of infantry; but all those heroic and
herculean efforts would have availed nothing if Corporal Fisher had not
played his part.
Fisher was in command of a machine-gun and four men of his
battalion--the 13th. He saw and understood the situation of Major King's
battery and instantly hastened to the rescue. He set up his gun in an
exposed position and opened fire on the advancing Germans, choosing for
his target the point of the attack which most immediately menaced the
battery of field-guns. His four men were put out of action. They were
replaced, as they fell, by men of the 14th, who were toiling near-by at
the stubborn guns. Fisher and his Colt remained unhit. The pressure of
his finger did not relax from the trigger, nor did his eyes waver from
the sights. Eager hands passed along the belts of ammunition and fed
them into the devouring breech. So the good work was continued. The
front of the attack was sprayed and ripped by bullets. Thus it was held
until the 18-pounders were dragged back to safety.
Not satisfied with this piece of invaluable work, Fisher advanced again,
took up a yet more exposed position, and, under the combined enemy fire
of shrapnel, H.E., machine-guns and rifles, continued to check and slay
the Germans. The men who went up with him from his former firing
position fell, one by one, crawled away or lay still in death. But the
Lance-Corporal continued to fire. The pressure of his finger did not
relax from the trigger until he was shot dead.
[Illustration]
SERGEANT-MAJOR F. W. HALL, 8TH BATTALION
In the lesser wars of the past the Victoria Cross was more frequently
awarded for demonstrations of valour in connection with the rescuing of
wounded under fire than for courageous acts designed and carried out
with more material and purely military advantages in view. To risk one's
life, perhaps to lose it, in a successful or vain attempt to save the
life of a disabled comrade was--granting favourable circumstances and
conditions--to be recommended for that crowning award. When we consider
the nature of those lesser wars we appreciate the admirable spirit in
which those recommendations were made. Those were days of small armies,
long marches and short battles. The fate of the Empire, say even of the
world's freedom, never hung upon the turn of any one engagement. A
soldier was something more romantic then than a unit of man-power.
The length, the unrelieved ferocity and the stupendous proportions of
this war, have somewhat altered the spirit in which recommendations for
awards are made. The deed of valour must show material rather than
sentimental results; the duty that inspires the deed must show a
military rather than a humane intention. The spirit of our heroes is
the same to-day as it was yesterday, whether the courageous act results
in the holding of a position, the killing of a score of Germans, or the
saving of one comrade's life. Only the spirit of official appreciation
has changed; but this new spirit is logical.
F. W. Hall was recommended for his Cross in the old spirit.
The deed of valour for which Company-Sergeant-Major Hall, of the 8th
Canadian Infantry Battalion, was awarded the Victoria Cross was
performed on the morning of the day following the great achievement and
death of Lance-Corporal Fisher. Hall, too, lost his life in the very act
of self-sacrifice by which he won immortality.
During the night of April 23rd the 8th Battalion, of our 2nd Infantry
Brigade, relieved the 15th Battalion, of the 3rd Brigade, in a section
of our front line. In moving up to our fire-trench the relieving troops
had to cross a high bank which was fully exposed to the rifle and
machine-gun fire of the enemy in the positions opposite. This bank lay
about fifteen yards in rear of our forward position at this point. Its
crest was continuously swept by bullets while the relief was taking
place and the incoming battalion suffered a number of casualties. In the
darkness and the confusion of taking over a new trench under such
adverse conditions, the exact extent of the casualties was not
immediately known; but Sergeant-Major Hall missed a member of his
company on two separate occasions and on two separate occasions left the
trench and went back to the top of the bank, under cover of the dark,
returning each time with a wounded man.
At nine o'clock in the morning of the 24th, the attention of the
occupants of the trench was attracted to the top of the bank by groans
of suffering. Hall immediately suggested a rescue, in spite of the fact
that it was now high daylight, and Corporal Payne and Private Rogerson
as promptly volunteered to accompany him. The three went over the
parados, with their backs to the enemy, and instantly drew a heavy fire.
Before they could reach the sufferer, who lay somewhere just beyond
their view on the top of the bank, both Payne and Rogerson were wounded.
They crawled and scrambled back to the shelter of the trench, with
Hall's assistance. There the Sergeant-Major rested for a few minutes,
before attempting the rescue again. He refused to be accompanied the
second time, knowing that as soon as he left the trench he would become
the target for the excellent shooting that had already put Payne and
Rogerson out of action. It was his duty as a non-commissioned officer to
avoid making the same mistake twice. He had already permitted the
risking of three lives in the attempt to save one life and had suffered
two casualties; but doubtless he felt free to risk his own life again in
the same adventure as he had already successfully accomplished two
rescues over the same ground. He may be forgiven, I think, for not
pausing to reflect that his own life was of more value to the cause than
the life of the sufferer lying out behind the trench.
The fire from the hostile positions in front and on the flanks of this
point in our line was now hot and accurate. It was deliberate, aimed
fire, discharged in broad daylight over adjusted sights at an expected
target. Hall knew all this; but he crawled out of the trench. He moved
slowly, squirming along very close to the ground. The bullets whispered
past him and over him, cut the earth around him, pinged and thudded upon
the face of the bank before him. Very low shots, ricocheting off the top
of the parados in his rear, whined and hummed in erratic flight. He
reached and crawled up the slope of the bank without being hit. He
quickly located and joined the wounded man, guided straight by the
weakening groans of suffering. He lay flat and squirmed himself beneath
the other's helpless body. Thus he got the sufferer on his back, in
position to be moved; but in the act of raising his head slightly to
glance over the way by which he must regain the shelter of the trench,
he received a bullet in the brain. Other bullets immediately put an end
to the sufferings of the man on his back.
Hall had been born in Belfast, Ireland, but Winnipeg was his Canadian
home.
[Illustration]
CAPTAIN FRANCIS ALEXANDER CARON SCRIMGER, C.A.M.C.
During the terrible days from April 22nd till April 25th, 1915, the
Canadian troops had their mettle tested to a supreme degree. In those
four days the second battle of Ypres was fought and the German drive
held up where its authors had thought it irresistible. Even the deluge
of gas--the first used in the war--gained them less benefit than they
expected. That battle of Ypres was decidedly a Canadian victory.
Captain F. A. C. Scrimger, of the Canadian Army Medical Corps, was
attached at the time to the 14th (Royal Montreal) Battalion. On April
22nd he was in charge of an advanced dressing station situated in an old
farm building near the battered city of Ypres. The house was surrounded
by a moat over which there was only one road; and that afternoon, during
the heavy fighting, the German artillery found the lonely house and
began to shell it.
For three days and nights Scrimger worked among the wounded, heedless of
the pandemonium of the battle, in a situation which was perilous in the
extreme. The Germans, in their forward rush, brought the farm within
rifle range, but still Scrimger and his staff went about their work.
On the afternoon of the 25th the German artillery sent over incendiary
shells, and one of these, landing on the farm, set the place alight. The
staff were at last forced to move.
The single road was almost impassable owing to a heavy German shrapnel
barrage, but the wounded were nevertheless taken back to places of
comparative safety. Some of the staff, and some of the less badly
wounded patients, swam the moat. They were all removed except one badly
injured officer; for him swimming was out of the question.
Scrimger took upon himself the task of saving this patient, but, as he
was preparing to move, several direct hits were made on the house by the
German artillery. Shrapnel burst through the rafters. Scrimger bent over
his patient, protecting him with his body as the splinters fell around
them, and finally, during a lull, carried him out of the blazing house
on his back.
But in the open there was not even the protection of the shaky walls of
the farm, and Scrimger had not gone far with his burden when he saw that
the officer was too severely wounded to bear this kind of journeying.
There was no shelter in sight, nothing but the shrapnel-swept wastes and
the torn, shuddering earth.
Laying his patient down, Scrimger remained beside him, shielding him
again with his own body, till help arrived later in the day.
[Illustration]
LIEUTENANT F. W. CAMPBELL, 1ST BATTALION
On the afternoon of the 15th of June, 1915, the 1st Canadian Infantry
Battalion moved up to a jumping-off position in our front line, with two
other battalions of the same brigade on its right, and a third in
support. The 7th Division (British) was about to make an attempt to
drive the Germans out of an important and formidable position known to
our troops as "Stony Mountain," and the 1st Canadian Battalion had been
told off to the task of covering and securing that division's right
flank of attack. This meant the conquest and occupation of one hundred
and fifty yards of the enemy's front line running southwards from "Stony
Mountain" to another German stronghold called "Dorchester." It was too
big a job to be undertaken in a casual, slap-dash manner or a
happy-go-lucky spirit. Experts prepared it, and the artillery and the
engineers took a hand in it.
We know that our gunners are always eager to fight at pistol range.
Major George Ralston, C.F.A., had two guns of his battery dug into place
and sand-bagged at a point in our fire-trench called "Duck's Bill" by
the morning of the 15th. These guns had been brought up to and through
Givenchy during the night, in the usual way, and from the forward edge
of the village they had been "man-handled" into the places prepared for
them. One was commanded by Lieutenant C. S. Craig and the other by
Lieutenant L. S. Kelly. All was ready before daybreak. The German line
opposite was only seventy-five yards away
During the afternoon our batteries, firing from normal positions in the
rear, bombarded selected points of the hostile front. At 5.45 the field
of fire of our two entrenched guns was uncovered by knocking away the
parapet in front of them. They immediately opened fire; and in fifteen
minutes they levelled the German parapet opposite for a distance of
nearly two hundred yards, slashed the wire along the same frontage and
disposed of six machine-gun emplacements.
Then we sprang a mine close in to the German trench; and then our
infantry went over.
The leading company of the 1st Battalion charged across the open ground
through the smoke and flying earth of the explosion. They were met and
swung slightly from their course by withering machine-gun fire from
Stony Mountain; but the unhit ran onwards, entered the hostile trench
and took and occupied that system of defences called Dorchester. They
fought to the left along the trench; but Stony Mountain itself held them
off.
With the second wave of the attack came Lieutenant Campbell, his two
Colt's machine-guns and their crews. On the way, before reaching the
shelter of the captured trench, all the members of one of his gun-crews
were wiped out. He got into the trench with only one of his guns and a
few unwounded men. He immediately moved to the left towards Stony
Mountain, until he was halted by a block in the trench. By this time one
Private Vincent was the only man of his two crews still standing and
unhit. All the others lay dead or wounded behind him. Vincent, who had
been a lumberjack in the woods of Ontario in the days of peace, was as
strong of body as of heart and a cool hand into the bargain. When his
officer failed to find a suitable base for his gun in that particular
position, Vincent saved time by offering his own broad back. So
Campbell straddled Vincent's back with the tripod of the gun and opened
fire on the enemy.
By this time our supply of bombs had given out and our attack was
weakening. The Germans massed for a counter-attack. Campbell fired over
a thousand rounds from his gun, from Vincent's back, dispersed the
enemy's initial counter-attack, and afterwards maintained his position
until the trench was entered by German bombers and he was seriously
wounded. Then Vincent abandoned the tripod and dragged the gun away to
safety.
Campbell crawled back towards his friends. He was met and lifted by
Sergeant-Major Owen and carried into our jumping-off trench, where he
died.
[Illustration]
CORPORAL LEO CLARKE, 2ND BATTALION
Twice veterans of Ypres, the 1st Canadian Division moved southward to
the Somme on the first day of September 1916, and established
headquarters near the battered town of Albert. A few days later they
marched up the Bapaume Road, under heavy enemy shelling, and entered
trenches behind Mouquet Farm, to the south of Courcelette, where they
relieved the 4th Australian Division. This time the Headquarters were in
the shaky shelters of Tara Hill. As soon as the division arrived in the
new position the German artillery began to plaster the trenches with
every variety of explosive missile, hoping to shake the nerve of the men
from Ypres.
About half-past two on the afternoon of the 9th of September the 2nd
Battalion relieved the 4th Battalion in a trench on the right of the
Canadian position. The 2nd had been chosen to attack a salient of
German trench about 550 yards long, near the north end of Walker Avenue.
This salient lay between the Canadians and Courcelette. Before they
could attack the village, which was about a mile behind the German
trench, the danger of the salient had to be swept from their path.
The attack began that afternoon at a quarter to five. Only the first
three companies of the battalion made the assault, the fourth being held
in reserve; but when the attackers reached the German line they found
that our barrage had not reduced the resistance of the enemy to the
extent hoped for. Crowds of Germans were waiting to repel them.
Corporal Leo Clarke was detailed by Lieutenant Hoey to take a section of
the bombing platoon and clear out the Germans on the left flank. When
the trench was captured, Clarke was to join up with Sergeant Nichols at
a block which the latter was to build in the meantime.
Clarke was the first of his party to enter the trench, which was found
to be strongly garrisoned. His followers came close on his heels. They
bombed their way along the trench from bay to bay, and forced a passage
with bayonets and clubbed rifles whenever the need arose. But the odds
were heavy against the Canadians, and at length, with his supply of
bombs exhausted, Clarke found himself supported only by his dead and
wounded. He decided to build a temporary barricade to the left of where
Nichols was erecting the permanent block. As he was working at this, a
party of Germans, including two officers, advanced cautiously towards
him along the trench.
The officers urged forward their reluctant men, who had already
experienced more than they liked of Clarke's offensive methods. Clarke
left his work of construction and advanced to meet them, determined to
keep them at bay until Nichols had finished the job on the permanent
block.
His only weapon was a revolver. He emptied its contents into the mob,
picked up a German rifle and exhausted its magazine in the same target,
flung that aside, snatched up another and continued his hot fire.
As Clarke was thus employed, the senior German officer took a rifle from
one of his own men and lunged wildly at the Canadian. The point of the
bayonet caught Clarke just below the knee; but that was the officer's
last act in the war, for Clarke shot him dead where he stood.
There were still five Germans left. They turned and ran--and Clarke
dropped four of them as they dashed along the trench. The survivor,
shouting in excellent English, begged so hard for his life that he was
spared. Clarke had killed two officers and sixteen other ranks.
But for Clarke's action, Sergeant Nichols could not have erected the
permanent block, which was of vital importance to the security of the
Canadian position.
Though wounded in the back and the knee, Clarke refused to leave the
trench until ordered to do so by Lieutenant Hoey. Next day he returned
to his platoon in billets.
[Illustration]
PRIVATE JOHN CHIPMAN KERR, 49TH BATTALION
The war was no new thing, many Canadians were veteran soldiers and many
were in Flanders graves, when Kerr decided that his services were more
urgently required on the field of battle than on his own new acres in
the Province of Alberta. He had gone north and west shortly before the
outbreak of war, from the home of his family in Cumberland County, Nova
Scotia, to virgin land on Spirit River, fifty miles from the nearest
railway.
Kerr found other "homesteaders" on Spirit River who saw eye to eye with
him in this matter--a dozen patriotic adventurers who were determined to
exchange safe establishments in life for the prospects of violent
deaths. Together they "footed" the fifty miles to the railway. In
Edmonton they enlisted in a body in the 66th Battalion.
Early in June, 1916, four hundred officers and other ranks were drafted
from the 66th, then training in England, to the 49th, then fighting in
France. Private J. C. Kerr was a more or less unconsidered unit in that
draft. These reinforcements, with others, reached France shortly after
the Battle of Sanctuary Wood, an engagement in which the Germans
attacked with so crushing a superiority of men and metal and the
Canadians fought so stubbornly as to necessitate the withdrawal of
fragments of battalions of a whole division for reorganization. The 49th
Battalion was represented by one of these indomitable fragments.
The Canadians marched from the Salient to the Somme in the autumn of
that year. The 49th, up to strength once more and with its old spirit
renewed, reached Albert on the 13th of September.
Forty hours later it took up a battle position at a point near the
Sunken Road, before and to the left of the village of Courcelette, with
other battalions of the same brigade.
In the great Canadian advance of September the 15th, in which our
morning and evening attacks drove the Germans from the Sugar Refinery,
Courcelette, and many more strongholds and intricate systems of defence,
the 49th Battalion supported the Princess Patricia's and the 42nd
Battalion on the extreme left of our frontage of aggressive operations.
These battalions advanced the line to the left of Courcelette, keeping
abreast of the units that assaulted and occupied the village and mopped
up its crowded dug-outs and fortified houses. Their activities were
devoted entirely to the subjection and occupation of strong trenches and
trench machine-gun posts. They moved irresistibly forward, cleaning
things up as they went. They reached and occupied their final
objectives--with the exception of a length of trench about 250 yards in
extent, which remained in the hands of the enemy until the following
day. But the defenders of that isolated section of trench could not
retreat, for the head of their communicating trench was blocked, they
dared not attempt a rearward flight on the surface and they were flanked
right and left by the Canadians. So the matter rested for the night,
with no more stir than an occasional exchange of bombs across the
flanking barricades.
On the afternoon of the 16th, a party of bombers from the 49th Battalion
undertook to clear this offending piece of trench and so make possible
the consolidation of the entire frontage gained in the previous day's
offensives. Here is where the ex-homesteader from Spirit River steps
into that high light which illuminates more frequently and glaringly the
feeble activities of the music-hall stage than the grim heroics of the
battle-field.
Private John Chipman Kerr, as first bayonet-man, moved forward well in
advance of his party. He twitched himself over the block in the
communicating trench in less time than he had ever taken to negotiate a
pasture fence on the home-farm. He advanced about thirty yards into the
hostile position before a sentry took alarm and hurled a grenade. Kerr
saw the grenade coming and, in the fraction of a second at his disposal,
attempted to protect himself with his arm. He was partially successful
in this, for when the bomb exploded it did no more than blow off the
upper joint of his right fore-finger and wound him slightly in the right
side.
By this time the other members of the assaulting party were close to his
heels. The exchange of bombs between the defenders and attackers now
became general, though an angle in the trench hid each party from view
of the other. Good throwing was done by our men, who were all experts;
but Kerr felt that the affair promised to settle into a stationary
action unless something new and sudden happened. So he clambered out of
the trench and the shocks of that blind fight and moved along the
parados until he came into close contact with, and full view of, the
enemy. He was still armed with his rifle and two grenades; and, despite
loss of blood, he was still full of enterprise and fight. He tossed the
grenades among the crowded defenders beneath him and then opened fire
into them with his rifle. Mud jambed the bolt of his rifle, whereupon he
replaced it with the weapon of the second bayonet-man, Private Frank
Long, who had followed him out of the trench and had just then caught up
with him.
While Kerr pumped lead into the massed enemy beneath his feet he
directed the fire of his bombers so effectively, by voice and gesture,
that the defenders were forced back to the shelter of the nearest bay.
He immediately jumped down into the trench and went after them, with all
the Canadian bombers and bayonet-men at his heels. A dug-out was
reached; and while this was being investigated Kerr went on alone,
rounded a bay and once again joined battle with the defenders of the
trench. But the spirit of combat, even of resistance, had gone out of
them. Up went their hands!
Before having his wounds dressed, Private Kerr escorted the 62 Germans
across open ground, under heavy fire, to a support trench, and then
returned and reported himself for duty to his company commander.
The official recommendation says: "The action of this man at this
juncture undoubtedly resulted in the capture of 62 prisoners and the
taking of 250 yards of enemy trench."
This seems to be a conservative statement of the case. It takes no
account of the other Germans who were involved in that brisk affair.
They have been dead a long time.
[Illustration]
MAJOR T. W. MACDOWELL, 38TH BATTALION
Major MacDowell won his D.S.O. on November 18th, 1916, for his quick
decision and determined action in an attack made by his battalion--the
38th, from Ottawa--on the British front, south of the Ancre, against
Desire Trench and Desire Support Trench. With "B" Company, of which he
was Captain, he advanced to within throwing distance and bombed three
German machine-guns which had been holding up the advance, capturing,
after severe hand-to-hand fighting, three officers and fifty of the
enemy crews. It was this enterprise which cleared the way for the
advance to the final objective.
The same qualities of courage and swift decision were manifested on the
occasion on which he won the Victoria Cross during the action of Vimy
Ridge on the 9th of April, 1917. MacDowell delights in battle detail. He
wants to know just where he is going when he enters an engagement, and
before the big attack on Vimy he studied all the available Intelligence
Reports and aeroplane maps, even selecting the particular German
dug-out in which he intended to establish his headquarters after the
position was won.
The 38th, having been reorganized after the battle on the Somme, had
moved up to the trenches at Vimy just after Christmas Day, 1916. For
four long winter months the battalion remained in front of the famous
ridge until, on that day in April, it went up, in conjunction with other
Canadian units, in full battle array and snatched the position from the
enemy.
It is impossible to over-estimate the strategic value of Vimy Ridge. Its
two spurs, flung out west and south-west in a series of heights which
dominated the western plain, were regarded by military experts as the
backbone of the whole German position in France. The Ridge was not only
a naturally strong position made as impregnable as German skill could
make it; it was more than that. Upon it, it was argued, hinged--and
still hinges--the entire strategy of the enemy's retreat in the west.
The enemy had held the heights since the third month of the war. They
were the great bastion of his lines. Four times had the Allies attacked
the position, biting deep into the German line; but still the enemy held
the Ridge, though the holding of it had cost him sixty thousand men. It
was to obtain possession of this famous series of hills that the
Canadian battalions climbed out of their trenches at 5.30 a.m. on that
April day.
Few men slept soundly on the night before the great attack. The stern,
hard training for the operation which had been in process for some weeks
had tightened and toughened every link in the chain from the highest
rank to the lowest, and the last few hours dragged fitfully. All watches
had been synchronized and immediately 5.30 o'clock ticked a roar of
artillery, awe-inspiring and stupendous, burst from the batteries, the
hiding-places of which were only revealed by the short, sharp flashes;
and Vimy Ridge was all afire with cataclysmic death and destruction.
Behind the barrage, driving through No Man's Land towards their
objective, went the Canadian battalions. Captain MacDowell reached the
German line about fifty yards to the right of the point for which he was
aiming; but most of his men, having worked slightly farther to the
right, became separated from their leader, who found himself alone with
two runners. The German dug-out where he aimed at establishing himself
could be seen in the shell-torn line, but there was no time to collect a
party to clean the place up. But on the way to his destination MacDowell
captured two enemy machine-guns as an aside. He bombed one out of
action, then attacked the other. The second gunner did not wait, but ran
for shelter to a dug-out whither MacDowell followed and got him.
Working their way along to the big dug-out the three Canadians saw that
the place was more formidable than they had anticipated. It stretched
far underground. MacDowell bawled down the deep passage, summoning the
German occupants to surrender. No answer came from out the depths to his
demand; but that Germans were down in the underground there seemed no
doubt. The captain decided to go down and find out. It was a gigantic
game of bluff he was playing, and it succeeded by reason of its very
audacity.
A flight of fifty-two steps led to the earthen floor below, and down
those fifty-two steps went Captain MacDowell. Along a narrow passage he
went and then, suddenly, as he turned a corner, which led into the main
room of this subterranean fortress, he found himself face to face with
a large group of the enemy. There were seventy-seven of them--though he
did not know the exact number till afterwards, when they were
counted--mostly Prussian Guards. Now, by all the laws of arithmetic and
logic Captain MacDowell ought to have been taken prisoner or killed. But
he was not out to be governed by the laws of arithmetic or logic. He was
out to capture Boches and to kill those he could not capture.
Quick as a flash he turned and began to shout orders to an imaginary
force behind him--and up went the hands of the seventy-seven stalwart
Guards. "_Kamerad!_" they said.
It was one thing, however, to accept the surrender of this large party
and quite another to get them out of the dug-out, for there was more
than a chance that when they discovered there were but three Canadians
to look after them they would try to overwhelm their captors. The
captain decided to send the Germans up in batches of twelve, and the two
runners, Kebus and Hay, marshalled them in the open at the top. Among
the prisoners were two officers.
What had been expected, once the Germans were marched up into the
daylight, occurred. Some of them were furious at the trick which had
been played on them and one of them caught up a rifle and shot at one of
the Canadians. The rebellion did not last long, for it was checked by
quick, drastic measures.
That afternoon, when the riot of the attack had quietened somewhat,
MacDowell and his two men made a thorough exploration of the dug-out and
a report on the position was sent back to headquarters. Here is the
report in his own hurried words, written with a stump of pencil, with
his notebook on his knee as the German shells were crashing all around
the entrance to the dug-out:
"While exploring this dug-out we discovered a large store of what
we believe to be explosives in a room. There is also an old sap
leading down underground in the direction of No. -- Crater. This
was explored ... we have cut all the wires, for fear of possible
destructive posts. The dug-out has three entries, and will
accommodate easily 250 or 300 men, with the sap to spare. It is
seventy-five feet underground and very comfortable. The cigars are
very choice and my supply of Perrier water is very large....
"They are firing at us all the time with their heavy guns from the
south-east, but I have no casualties to report since coming in
here, except being half scared to death myself by a 'big brute'....
"We have taken two machine-guns that I know of; and a third and
possibly a fourth will be taken to-night. This post was a
machine-gun post and was held by a machine-gun company. I believe
they are the Prussian Guards; all big, strong men who came in last
night. They had plenty of rations; but we had a great time taking
them prisoners.
"It is a great story. My two runners, Kebus and Hay, did invaluable
work getting them out of the dug-out.... There is a large number of
wounded in front of here, as I can see by the rifles stuck in the
ground. We are using German rifles as ours are out of commission."
Five days later, when the enemy artillery slackened, reinforcements were
sent up and succeeded in reaching the captain; and when, finally, he was
relieved from the position and reported himself at his battalion
headquarters, one can imagine that his brother officers--those who were
left--were glad to see him.
[Illustration]
LIEUTENANT FREDERICK MAURICE WATSON HARVEY, LORD STRATHCONA'S HORSE.
The first Canadian cavalryman to win the Victoria Cross in this war is
Lieutenant Harvey, of Lord Strathcona's Horse.
The Strathconas, raised for service in South Africa, and originally
recruited largely from the Royal North-West Mounted Police,
distinguished themselves in the Boer War and afterwards were established
as a unit of the Canadian Permanent Militia. Along with the other
regiments of our cavalry brigade they fought as infantry in the trenches
throughout the autumn and winter of 1915-16. The brigade was then
withdrawn from the line, rehorsed and embarked upon a long course of
training and waiting.
March, 1917, found the Canadian Cavalry Brigade serving with the 15th
Army Corps, north of Peronne on the Somme. At this time the brigade
consisted of the Royal Canadian Dragoons, Lord Strathcona's Horse, the
Fort Garry Horse, the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, the Canadian
Cavalry Machine-Gun Squadron and a field ambulance.
On the morning of March 24th the brigade received orders to form on a
twelve-mile frontage, with Nurlu as its centre, and from there to
advance beyond our infantry positions. By the evening of the same day
the Royal Canadian Dragoons were in possession of several hostile
positions, including the woods to the south-west of Lieramont; and
during the night the Fort Garry Horse, on the left of the advance, took
the villages of Ytres and Etricourt.
On the afternoon of the 25th Captain Sharpe, with his squadron of
F.G.H., dislodged the Germans from the smaller of two woods that they
held in strength. From this first wood he launched an attack upon the
second and larger, in open order at the gallop, and drove the enemy
through and out of that cover and into the shelter of a trench beyond.
This was the first instance, in more than two years, of cavalry riding
straight at a position held by rifles and machine-guns.
At six o'clock of the following day (March 26th) the Strathconas gained
a wood south-east of Equancourt, where they dismounted, and from which
they advanced upon and captured the village at the point of the bayonet.
At the same time the Fort Garry Horse, attacking from the north, made
their objectives in spite of heavy machine-gun fire. The admirable
shooting of the R.C.H.A. had much to do with the success of the
operation.
During the night, and early in the morning of the 27th, the R.C.D's
occupied the villages of Longavesnes and Lieramont. They handed the
defence of the former over to the infantry; but they remained in the
latter and there repulsed a strong counter-attack.
High ground about the village of Guyencourt and Grebaussart Wood was the
final objective of a series of attacks made by the Lord Strathcona's
Horse and the Fort Garry Horse on the evening of the 27th. A heavy
snow-storm delayed the initial stroke until 5.15; but then, the moment
the air was clear enough for the leaders to see the way, a squadron of
the Fort Garry Horse galloped forward to Hill 140 and there established
two machine-guns in commanding positions. This squadron then pushed
around the hill into Grebaussart Wood, Jean Copse and Chauffeurs Wood,
and successfully posted three more machine-guns. Other squadrons of this
regiment rode straight at the village of Saulcourt, and penetrated its
outskirts. The Germans, retiring before them, were caught by our
machine-gun fire.
The Strathconas, with Guyencourt in view, charged on to a ridge on the
left front of that village, where they were confronted by machine-guns
and strongly wired positions; so they swung to the right, rode at the
north-west corner of the village and won to the partial shelter of its
walls.
It was at this stage of the swift action that Lieutenant Harvey
performed the conspicuous deed of valour that was recognized by the
highest award. He commanded the leading troop of the charging
Strathconas and rode well in front of his men. He was close to the edge
of the village, when, by the failing light, he discovered a deadly
menace to his command set fairly across his course--a wired trench
containing a machine-gun and a strong garrison. He swung from his saddle
and sprinted straight at the gun, firing his revolver as he ran. He
reached the triple entanglement and hurdled it, shot the machine-gunner
and jumped on to the gun.
The man at the gun must have lost his nerve and his wits in the face of
that amazing, swift frontal assault; his hands must have fumbled,
misguided by his flinching brain: we know that his gun jammed and that
he died a violent death.
Thus the trench became ours, the Strathconas took Guyencourt, and Harvey
won the Cross.
[Illustration]
PRIVATE WILLIAM JOHNSTONE MILNE, 16TH BATTALION
The 16th Canadian Battalion (the "Canadian Scottish") occupied the left
sub-sector of the 3rd Brigade front in the attack on Vimy Ridge on
April 9th, 1917. On the left of the 16th was the 18th Battalion and on
the right was the 14th Battalion. Private W. J. Milne was of the 16th.
In due time the important and detailed story of the attack on the ridge
will be given to the outside world and in that day the victory of the
Canadian troops will be seen in its true perspective. The enormous
amount of preliminary work required before the attack took place has
been hinted at elsewhere in these pages. The 16th Battalion had its
share in these preparations and also in the glory of conquest.
The 2nd and the 3rd Brigades were appointed to capture the first two
objectives, namely, Zwolfe Graben and Zwischen Stellung. After taking
these two positions they were to consolidate and allow the 1st Brigade
to pass through on their way to capture the farther objectives.
Every unit was reported assembled and ready well ahead of "Zero" hour,
which was 5.30 a.m. Two minutes after our barrage opened on the enemy
front our infantry climbed out of their trenches and went forward. As
they went over No Man's Land a rising north-westerly wind blew up a
storm of snow and sleet which continued for several hours.
As the 16th Battalion approached the first objective an enemy
machine-gun opened a heavy fire on them, causing many casualties. Milne
located the gun, and, crouching on his hands and knees, began to work
his way forward. Over his shoulder was slung his bag of bombs. Several
times he was fired at, but he continued to crawl till he was within
bombing distance, then leaping to his feet, he hurled his bombs into the
midst of the gun crew. Every German went down, dead or wounded. Milne
rushed forward and captured the gun.
The Canadian line reformed and the battalion continued its advance. They
swarmed over the Zwolfe Graben, bundled out as prisoners those Germans
who still crouched in the deep dug-outs, killed those who still offered
resistance; and then went ahead to the second position.
Here again the hidden German machine-gunners gave considerable trouble.
Many of those nests of machine-guns were concealed in pockets near or in
dug-outs, and as our men advanced they were met by unexpected bursts of
fire. Just before reaching Zwischen Stellung the battalion was again
held up by a concrete emplacement hidden in a hay-stack near Terry
Trench.
Milne undertook to clear out this nest as before. He repeated his
tactics, stalking the gun in the same way. He was again successful. This
time he knocked out the weapon, causing the garrison to surrender. The
second objective of the battalion was taken soon afterwards.
Milne, however, did not live to know his bravery had won him the
Victoria Cross. He was killed not many hours afterwards; but his
contribution towards the Vimy Ridge victory was officially recognized
when the dust of conflict had settled down.
[Illustration]
LANCE-SERGEANT ELLIS WELWOOD SIFTON, 18TH BATTALION
On Easter Monday (April 9th), 1917, in a mixture of recurrent rain and
driving sleet, the Canadian troops took Vimy Ridge from the Germans.
When it is said that the Canadians "took" this ridge the literally
correct phrase is used. No other word expresses the historic incident
so well. The Canadian battalions took Vimy Ridge; and Lance-Sergeant
Ellis Welwood Sifton, of the 18th Battalion, from Ontario, was one of a
few men whose deeds on that tremendous day won for them the highest mark
of admiration their fellows could offer for valour. He gave his life for
the award.
The taking of Vimy Ridge was an operation which involved practically
every Canadian unit. It was a scheme the authors of which hardly dared
to hope would be so completely carried out, for the ridge was the pivot
of the German millions on the whole western front. It was an
eight-thousand-yards-long fortress, deemed by its occupants to be
impregnable, a bastion of inestimable strength and importance, an inland
Gibraltar.
British and French armies had tried several times to wrest it from the
German grasp. The Germans had met their smashing blows, had quivered
under them--but had continued to hold the ridge. On the morning of that
Easter Monday they held it, arrogant as ever. In the evening they were
gone!
The slopes of Vimy were a maze of trenches of superb construction,
fashioned to withstand the pounding of any artillery. The dug-outs were
vast, fortified underground chambers--some capable of sheltering entire
battalions--where enemy shells could not find the occupants. Its
machine-gun fortresses were formidable as miniature battleships.
To familiarize themselves with the difficulties which an attack on this
ridge would involve, the Canadian Divisions went into strict training
for weeks behind the lines. Battalion commanders were called in
conference to the headquarters of their brigades, brigadiers to their
divisions, divisional commanders to corps; the results of these
deliberations were made known to regimental officers; officers lectured
the non-commissioned officers, the non-commissioned officers passed it
on, as non-commissioned officers do, to the rank and file. All ranks
trained.
At 5.30 on the fateful morning the 18th Battalion was in position on the
right wing of the 4th Brigade front. The dawn was dull, uncertain,
depressing. Heavy clouds lay over the battlefield and a biting
north-west wind scudded across the waste lands.
With the first crash of the barrage which fell on the German front the
waves of assaulting troops rose out of their trenches like gnomes of the
night and started for the enemy lines. The 18th Battalion assaulted on a
three-platoon frontage in four waves. Before them the fire-edged barrage
swept on, destroying with the completeness of a flaming guillotine.
The first German line was gained and captured with very small loss to
the attackers. The Germans were stunned and demoralized by the hurricane
of explosives which was being hurled at them. They called "_Kamerad!_"
and were dispatched, still meek and submissive, to a safer place.
But at the second line, after the barrage had swept over it, the first
opposition of importance was met. Here small parties of machine-gunners,
tucked away in their concrete fortresses, had escaped the terrible
shelling and as the Canadians advanced they enfiladed the waves of men
as they passed.
One such nest stemmed the advance of "C" Company. Men began to fall, hit
by the unseen enemy. The others peered around in the gloom, trying to
discover the nest. Lance-Sergeant Sifton saw it first. The barrel of the
gun showed over a parapet.
Sifton did not wait to work out an elaborate attack, for there was no
time to lose. He rushed ahead, leaped into the trench, charged into the
crew, overthrew the gun and turned on the gunners with his bayonet.
Before they had time to resist, every one of the Germans was out of
business. With the demolition of the machine-gun, the advance of the
18th Battalion moved on.
Sifton's men hurried up to support him, but before they reached the
position a party of Germans advanced on him from down the trench. He
attacked them with bayonet and clubbed rifle and held them off till his
comrades jumped into the trench and ended the unequal fight. But none
noticed a dying German, one of Sifton's victims, who rolled over to the
edge of the trench, picked up a rifle and took careful aim.
That was how he died--the man from Ontario, of whom it was stated in
official phraseology that "his conspicuous valour undoubtedly saved many
lives and contributed largely to the success of the operation."
[Illustration]
LIEUTENANT ROBERT GRIERSON COMBE, 27TH BATTALION
When Captain Stinson, of the 27th Canadian Battalion, received a message
from a breathless runner during the darkness of early morning on May
3rd, 1917, to the effect that Lieutenant R. G. Combe had but five men
left out of his entire company, he realized that matters were serious on
the right wing of the attacking formations. How serious he did not know
until later. By the time he had sent reinforcements and investigated the
situation, Lieutenant Combe had lost his life and won the Victoria
Cross.
It had been planned by headquarters that the attack on the German
front-line system in the vicinity of Acreville should take place before
dawn. But Lieutenant Combe and a handful of followers were the only men
of the 27th Battalion (City of Winnipeg) who reached their objective.
Darkness and the enemy's concentration of artillery were responsible for
the hold-up of the other sections of the advance.
The battalion was in the ridge line with headquarters at Thelus Cave
just prior to the attack, and they relieved troops who were already
weary after a strenuous spell in the trenches. The attack began at 3.45
a.m. on the 3rd May; but the Germans had guessed very accurately the
time of the intended assault, and two hours before our barrage opened
they began to shell the assembly area with determined severity. So heavy
was the fire that the attacking forces sustained many casualties before
they were in the jumping-off trenches, and it was plain to the leaders
that the problem of maintaining any kind of formation would be a
difficult one.
The 31st Battalion worked on the left of the 27th. It was still dark
when the first waves of infantry went over the top and forward behind
our barrage. They left in perfect order, walking into a darkness as
intense as that of the Pit, save for the fitful flash of exploding
shells. Terrible gaps were torn in their ranks as they advanced; whole
groups of men were blown out of the line, and those who continued to
stumble on soon lost touch with their fellows. The fears of the
battalion commanders were fulfilled. Formation was impossible, and it
was only with small groups that touch could be kept.
The leading companies were forced to take cover at a distance of seven
hundred yards from the German front line. They lay down in shell-holes
and on the torn, trembling earth, scratching feebly at the hard surface
to secure cover while they got their second wind. In a short time they
were up and stumbling forward again; but they had only gone two hundred
yards when the German artillery shortened range and the full force of
the barrage fell on them.
Under that staggering blow men collapsed in dozens, crushed by the
weight of uptorn earth or blown to fragments. In the right company,
Lieutenant Combe was the only officer who had survived so far. His
company was but a tattered remnant of what it had been a few moments
before; but Combe had his orders surging at the back of his head, and he
meant to carry them out. Collecting the handful of men left to him he
began to work his way through the German barrage. He managed it. He
brought his followers safely through that terrible curtain of fire, only
to find that if he would reach the German line he must also get through
the barrage of our own guns. He steadied his men and accomplished the
second journey also. Just how he piloted them through the hail of shells
it is impossible to explain; these things can only be guessed at. But he
did it; and he had only five men left when he reached the German
trenches.
Back in the rear, Captain Stinson, of the supporting company, saw the
advance checked on the right; but there was no sign of failure on the
left. He concluded that the latter wing had reached its objective. With
a runner he scrambled forward towards the German line. When he was
within twenty yards of the enemy trench he stopped, amazed, for the
Germans were lining their parapet, waiting to meet the assaulting
battalions. That was how Captain Stinson discovered that the 31st
Battalion had not reached its objective. He retired with the
information.
It was then that he received the message from Lieutenant Combe, asking
for reinforcements and stating his position. Captain Stinson ordered
Sergeant Boddington, of "A" Company, to send forward twenty men to help
Combe. The Captain himself went forward in advance, with a runner. He
found Combe in the act of winning his posthumous decoration.
Combe and his men had entered the German trench after a terrible
struggle, aided by a few men of another company whom they had picked up.
They bombed the Germans along the trench with German bombs, having
exhausted their own long before. Eighty prisoners had been captured and
were on their way back to our lines, and 250 yards of trench were in the
hands of the invaders.
Again and again the gallant little band charged the enemy, Combe always
at their head, leading them around traverses and into dug-outs. Along
the whole of that 250 yards of trench lay dead and dying Germans.
Combe was killed by a rifle bullet as he was leading his gallant bombers
up the trench in the climax of his triumph.
[Illustration]
CAPTAIN WILLIAM AVERY BISHOP, R.F.C. (LATE CANADIAN CAVALRY).
"Give me the aeroplane I want," said Captain W. A. Bishop, "and I'll go
over to Berlin any night--or day--and come back too, with any luck."
It was during a discussion in the mess on the question of air reprisals
that Canada's champion airman slipped in the quiet remark; and when a
man who has won the V.C., the Military Cross and the D.S.O. with a bar,
says he could bomb the German capital it may be taken that he means
what he says. He had then brought down nearly fifty German flyers,
besides a few balloons.
Born at Owen Sound, Ontario, in 1894, a son of the registrar of Grey
County, this stripling received a commission in the Canadian Cavalry in
March, 1915, and went to France with a cavalry unit. He was in the
trenches in the days when our Cavalry Brigade held a section of the line
as infantry. Later, after only one experience of fighting Germans from
horseback, he decided that he wanted more excitement and joined the
increasing host of airmen.
His headquarters in France as a flying man were until recently in the
cosiest of aerodromes, cuddled close up against a small bunch of cool
trees, which looked innocent enough from the air. An ancient farm is in
the vicinity and the title of the young airman's hut was "The Abode of
Love." It is a fitting answer to the Hymn of Hate.
Commanding this squadron of airmen, he brought it to perfection, and
none disputed that he was a fitting successor to Captain Ball, the
famous English V.C. hero, who was the leader until his death. Every man
of the squadron has brought down at least ten Germans and the cheerful
group is reputed to have the greatest percentage of flying nerve on the
western front.
His best and most daring work, however, has been done when he has been
"solo" flying. It is true that he attributes most of his success to
"luck," but his comrades know that more than luck is needed to bring an
airman safely out of some of the awkward situations in which he has been
placed. On the 24th April, 1917, he was climbing slowly against the wind
a few miles east of Monchy when he saw an enemy two-seater busily making
observations of the Allied line and sending wireless messages to the
German headquarters in the rear. He dived at the big machine, firing in
bursts from his Lewis gun as he went. But his gun jammed and he was
compelled to wheel round, tinkering with the weapon as he flew. In a few
moments he had remedied the trouble and banged fifteen more shots at the
enemy; but again his gun jammed, and before he could clear it the big
German had escaped.
When he got the gun into working order again he flew eastward towards
Vitry, hawking the air lanes for other opponents. Before long he
observed another two-seater, also on observation work. This time he
tried his gun at long range, then rushed at the enemy, firing in bursts
as he charged.
The German machine wriggled, flying first one way then another, with the
Canadian hanging on at its tail and spouting gusts of bullets at it in
short intervals. Hit at last in the fusilage, the German made a dive for
earth. Swift on the track of the two-seater came the captain, firing all
the way; and when the German machine finally landed in a meadow he
finished the remainder of his ammunition drum into it as it lay on the
ground. Neither pilot nor observer climbed out. Both had been killed as
they sat in the 'bus.
Ten minutes later, after he had recharged his gun, Bishop climbed into
the clouds to continue his cruise of the front line. As he rose he saw,
away ahead, a British Nieuport being attacked by three Albatross scouts.
He flew to his compatriot's assistance, and, coming up from behind,
emptied his gun into one of the enemy. The German collapsed and went
down like a stone. The Nieuport by this time had started in pursuit of
one of the other Albatrosses, which was trying to escape, so Bishop
tackled the third. A few buzzing, manoeuvring circles, a few bursts
from the deadly little gun--and the German was diving steeply to earth.
Captain Bishop slid down in his smoking wake and saw him crash, a heap
of broken spars and flames.
There is no trick of aircraft that this young Canadian does not know,
though he is not a showy flyer. The number of his exploits is endless,
and as his squadron moved from one part of the line to another he
constantly found new pastures for adventure, new opponents to defeat,
more Germans to kill. He has fought German airmen high over the waves of
advancing battalions and has heard, as a faint whisper coming up to him,
the cheers of his fellow countrymen when he shot down his enemies at
their feet. He has chased a German Staff automobile along a dusty road
and opened fire on it so that the driver lost his nerve and ditched the
car, and the occupants threw their massive dignity to the winds and
scrambled for shelter into a dug-out.
Not very long ago, when he was roaming alone, twelve thousand feet high,
he heard the stutter of machine-guns from out the clouds, and drove in
their direction to find his own juvenile major fighting single-handed
against five formidable German battle machines. Down swooped the captain
on the tail of the nearest enemy, riddled the pilot and observer with
bullets, fought another for a few minutes and sent him also to the
ground, dived down, reloading his gun as he went, then up again and blew
a third into eternity with a terrific burst of fire; and then, joyfully
and with calm happiness, escorted his major home in a merry, zig-zag
course which told the watchers of his aerodrome that all was well with
the world.
The incident which brought him his Victoria Cross occurred one June day
in 1917, when he was working, as usual, independently. He _zoomed_
across No Man's Land, over the German front and support trenches,
driving on to where he thought was game worth seeking. The game in this
instance was an aerodrome. But as he circled above the enemy hangars at
fifteen thousand feet the place seemed to have a strangely deserted
appearance. Down he came to within three hundred feet of the hangars to
investigate; and the only occupant of the aerodrome proved to be a very
nervous gunner who feebly turned a machine-gun on him. The nervous
gunner was sent scuttering to cover by a few bursts of fire. Then the
disappointed captain turned the nose of his machine upwards, wondering
whether he would find any hostile craft waiting for him above the
clouds. Through the thin clouds he mounted into the clear spaces above.
No enemy was to be seen, nothing but the blue void; and the warm, soft
atmosphere was very pleasant that day. The captain was out for
adventure. He flew on deeper into the German lines.
Twelve miles from the German front line he looked over the side of his
'plane and saw, basking in the pleasant sunshine, the very thing he had
come to smash. It was another German aerodrome, with a number of
machines lined up in front of the sheds, ready for a journey.
Bishop counted the machines--one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Seven new, beautiful bombers all in a row, brass burnished, oiled, a few
of the engines running, all ready for a trip into Allied territory--or
perhaps to England! It was a very tidy aerodrome and the seven machines
on the lawn looked very trim. The captain descended to have a closer
look--and the Germans spotted him and raised the alarm; guns began to
splash white puffs of shrapnel around him.
Down dived this youngster through the barrage till he was within fifty
feet of the ground and then his machine-gun began to spray the German
machines and the lawn with bullets. A mechanic, who was trying to start
one of the aeroplanes, fell beside the propeller, riddled with shot. Up
raced the Canadian then, rising in sharp spirals as fast as his machine
could travel. Up after him went a German, throbbing with a desire for
revenge. But Bishop was expecting this very thing; and as the German
reached sixty feet from the ground he swooped down and around suddenly
and fired into the chasing machine at close range. The German 'plane
crashed to earth, carrying a dead pilot with it.
Turning swiftly, the captain saw a second Albatross rising. He closed
with this one till about 150 yards separated them; then, getting the
German full on his sights, he sent a blast of thirty rounds into him.
Away went the Albatross, side-slipping into a tree, where it hung a
wretched, broken thing.
A third Albatross came up to the combat, while the invader swung over
the aerodrome sheds in the midst of a storm of shrapnel from the enemy
guns. Bishop cleared the sheds and swept upward a thousand feet, met his
third enemy as he mounted and emptied the remainder of his drum of
ammunition at him. The Albatross swerved, slid, fluttered and fell to
earth within three hundred yards of the spot from which it had mounted
but a few moments before.
The invader quickly inserted a new drum and swung round again to where a
fourth machine was humming towards him. He took no chances with this
antagonist, but opened fire at a fair range as it headed at him.
Already a fifth German was coming out of the blue, trying to sandwich
him between it and its fellow. He had no time to waste on the fifth. He
kept hammering at the fourth till it also left the fight and planed
down to the green sward below, out of control and little better than a
wreck.
He faced the fifth--had him, indeed, in a favourable position for ending
his career also--when he realized that he had finished his ammunition.
That fact saved the life of the German airman. Captain Bishop
regretfully raised his empty drum and waved a farewell to this, his
latest adversary, and started on his hundred-mile race for home.
The solitary German was soon left behind; but from another aerodrome
came four German scouts who had been sent to the rescue of their friends
of the now untidy aerodrome. They had seen the latter part of the
battle. Though they were about a thousand feet above him they did not
attack, but fell behind after following for about a mile.
With his machine slashed almost to ribbons, Bishop made a safe landing
near the bunch of green trees beside the ancient farm. That night there
was great rejoicing at the "Abode of Love," for the news spread
quickly and men came from neighbouring parts of the line to offer
congratulations.
[Illustration]
PRIVATE J. G. PATTISON, 50TH BATTALION
During the morning of April 10th, 1917, the 44th and 50th Battalions
were instructed to capture and consolidate, as an outpost line, the
Eastern edge of Vimy Ridge lying beyond Hill 145. The men of the 10th
Brigade had been in reserve while their comrades swept over Vimy on the
previous day and were anxious to get in some good work with the rest of
the Corps. There is no doubt that they succeeded.
The men of the 50th made their way to Beer Trench, and at zero hour,
3.15 p.m., went forward with a rush. Opposition was immediate and
severe. From every broken tree and battered piece of cover machine-gun
fire swept the attack, and casualties were extremely heavy; but the men
continued to push forward.
On the right "C" Company attacked, with "D" Company in close support; on
the left "A" Company, with "B" Company in support. The leading companies
found the "going" extremely hard, but for a time all went well, and
though the advance was slow, steady progress was made.
As the incessant fire thinned the waves of attacking troops, greater
difficulty was encountered in enveloping the machine-gun nests that
barred our progress. In the first stage of an attack made by determined
troops the resistance close at hand is easily swamped; but as the men
continue to push forward the innumerable obstructions and perils of the
battlefield gather against their weakening impact, fatigue slows them,
their front is broken and their connecting files are shot down; and so a
steady enveloping movement becomes a series of bitterly contested little
battles, where small parties in twos and threes fight strategic
engagements with isolated strong points of the enemy. Finally a series
of partial checks culminates in an abrupt cessation of the advance--and
a gathering company finds itself held up before an embattled
fortification whose point of vantage covers the whole local zone of
attack.
Then the real trouble begins. Time and again in the history of the war
one hostile fortification left in otherwise captured territory has
changed or materially affected the final issue of the engagement. It
may serve as a rallying-point for a determined counter-attack, or by its
wide zones of fire hamper the advance of reinforcements on the flanks,
or prevent the supply of vital munitions to a new and precarious front
line; its effectiveness is limited only by its natural position, and as
this has been selected with care and forethought by an efficient enemy,
one small but actively hostile strong-point may prove a very capable
thorn in the side of a harassed general.
On that April afternoon the 50th Battalion encountered just such a
check. It was on the left of the battalion attacking zone, and the men
of "A" Company, gradually gathering in the nearest cover, had organized
and carried out several gallant attempts to rush the position. Each time
they had been beaten back with heavy losses.
Now "B" Company arrived to reinforce the assault. Another attack was
organized, with no more success than the last; and then, as so often
occurs, a critical situation was relieved by the clearheaded bravery of
a single soldier.
Private Pattison, an engineer from Calgary, proceeded to deal with the
situation. He advanced single-handed towards the machine-gun post in a
series of short rapid dashes, taking cover on the way in available
shell-holes while deciding his next point of vantage. In a few moments
he had reached a shell-hole within thirty yards of the vital
strong-point. He stood up in full view of the machine-gunners and under
their point-blank fire threw three bombs with such good aim that the
guns were put out of action and the crews temporarily demoralized. This
was Pattison's opportunity, and he took it without hesitation. As his
last bomb exploded amidst the Germans he rushed across the intervening
space and in a moment was using his bayonet upon the unhappy enemy. He
had killed them all before his companions had caught him up.
Twenty minutes later all objectives were gained and the Canadians busy
consolidating the captured line. Pattison came unscathed through the
day's fighting, and through the successful attack on the Pimple on the
following day; but he never wore his V.C., though he was aware that he
had been recommended for the honour. He was killed on June 2nd in the
attack upon the Generating Station.
Very few men of Pattison's age now reach the honour of the Victoria
Cross, as this war has set almost too high a standard for their physical
activity. Pattison was 42 years old--a smart soldier and a good fellow.
His son, a young soldier in his father's battalion, wears the ribbon
upon his right breast, and probably will wear it on his left side too,
before this war is over.
[Illustration]
PRIVATE HARRY BROWN, 10TH BATTALION
Most men who have won the Victoria Cross have gained it by some act of
violent, passionate valour. Private Harry Brown, Number 226353, of the
10th Battalion, won it by suppressing the impulse to violence. Whilst
others on the same field of battle were earning the decoration in the
impetuous fury of assault Harry Brown was earning it by the terrible,
pitiless restraint which he imposed on his emotions. His was the supreme
courage of self-control, the silent valour of abnegation.
The 10th Battalion took part in the attack on Hill 70, near Loos, which
began on the 15th of August, 1917, and lasted for several days. Before
midnight of the 14th the battalion was in position, and at 4.25 a.m. the
attack began. The first German line was captured in face of fierce
opposition, the fighting continuing intermittently throughout the day;
but the position was held. During the night, attempts were made to
consolidate the new line; but the 7th and the 8th Battalions were in
difficulties and the 10th Battalion was ordered next morning to move to
their assistance.
This second attack began at four o'clock on the afternoon of the 15th.
Chalk Pit, the redoubt on the left of Hill 70, was assaulted by "A," "B"
and "C" companies. "A" company encountered terrible enemy machine-gun
fire when within two hundred yards of the pit and were forced to take
cover in shell-holes for a time. After a short rest the position was
captured in a rush, the waves of attackers, carried forward by the
impetus of the advance, reaching a trench seventy-five yards beyond
Chalk Pit. The German occupants were all either killed or captured.
The position was being consolidated when Sergeant J. Wennevold and a
party of men of "C" company went out to reinforce a post to the right of
the new battalion front in order to protect the flank from a
counter-attack. Consolidation of that position was terrible work. To the
men who tried to dig into the hard, chalky soil that attempt must always
remain a nightmare. They could make little impression on the earth. In
one part of the front the result of the previous night's labour was a
trench scarcely two feet deep, blunted tools and aching hands and backs.
While the work was in progress the Germans poured a hurricane of fire
from machine-guns and field-guns on the position. Men were killed and
wounded faster than others could take their places. The crisis of that
day and night of endurance and agony came at a quarter to five o'clock
in the afternoon, when the Germans were seen massing for an attack on
the right.
By this time every wire to headquarters was cut by the enemy artillery.
If they were allowed to attack, the companies in the trench would be
annihilated and the hard-earned position lost. The situation was
desperate.
Only one chance of averting disaster remained.
A runner must get through with a message to our artillery asking them to
smash the German attack. Private Harry Brown and another runner
undertook to deliver the message. When they set out on their desperate
mission a hostile barrage was raking the open behind the newly occupied
ground, the enemy's intention being to prevent supports coming up. The
messengers had to get through this curtain of fire, a curtain under
which nearly every yard of ground was being churned into a mess or
torn up savagely in tons and tossed on high as if by some unseen
Brobdignagian hand.
They had gone but a little way on their adventurous journey when one was
killed and Brown was left, the only link between his isolated battalion
and its hope of succour. If he failed to get through his comrades would
be wiped out to a man.
He continued to stumble along, sinking into new, smoking craters, now
and then up to the waist, dragging himself out and crawling through the
debris, lying still for short intervals till the shock of the explosions
had passed. Flying missiles hit him and shattered an arm. He was
bleeding and exhausted. He sat down, dazed and uncomprehendingly. But
his will forced him to his feet again. He staggered onward towards the
support lines, walking like a man in a dream, his brain in constant
dark motion, his thoughts in a flux even as the ground on which he
strove for a footing.
It was a pained, dreary thing, sore and weary, that kept doggedly
crawling and staggering on through the intensity of the shrapnel and the
high explosive. His strength ran from him with the blood from his
mangled arm. His steps were automatic. The last part of the journey was
the worst. It was his _Via Dolorosa_.
* * * * *
An officer standing in a dug-out in the support line was peering out at
the devastation which the enemy artillery was spreading so prodigally.
Shells rained on every side, the earth shuddered and shrank at every
blow. But the telephone to headquarters was working.
A dark form crawled out of the ruin and stumbled towards the dug-out. It
was a soldier--hatless, pale, dirty, haggard, one arm hanging limp and
bloody by his side, his clothing torn and stained. He reached the steps
of the dug-out, and seeing the officer, tried to descend. But his
strength was gone, his limbs refused to act. He fell down the short
stairway, spent--utterly spent and dying.
The officer lifted him gently and brought him into the dug-out and laid
him down. Then Brown handed over his precious slip of paper.
"Important message," he whispered.
And Private Harry Brown lay back and drifted into unconsciousness. He
died a few hours later in the dressing station.
[Illustration]
COMPANY SERGEANT-MAJOR ROBERT HANNA, 29TH BATTALION
When the first big attack was made by the Canadian troops on Hill 70 on
the 15th August, 1917, the 29th (Vancouver) Battalion moved forward to
the support of the 5th Brigade, remaining in the area for three days
while the battle raged in the forward lines.
The first stage of the attack ended on the 18th; and that night, under
severe shelling, the 29th Battalion took over Commotion trench from the
junction of Caliper and Conductor trenches to the junction of Nabob
Alley and Commotion trench. On the morning of the 21st August the second
stage of the offensive was resumed. It was then the battalion took an
active part in the struggle.
The opening of the second phase was timed for 4.35 a.m. At 1 a.m. the
companies began to move into the assembly positions. At 3.15 a.m. the
scouts reported that the tapes had been laid, the companies were getting
into position uneventfully and none of the enemy was to be seen.
But about 4.10 a.m. the German artillery began to plump shells along the
front of the parapet, increasing the intensity of the barrage towards
4.30, when a sudden deluge of "fish-tails" descended on the trenches.
Accompanying this bombardment was a curious kind of bomb, square in
shape, which exploded with a great flame and sent out a dense,
suffocating smoke. One of those dropped in the trench occupied by "D"
company, wounding practically every man in a platoon.
While attempts were being made to clear the débris, Sergeant Croll, who
was stationed near the corner of Nun's Alley and Commotion trench, heard
the word passed along: "Heine has broken through the 25th and is coming
down the trench."
Croll collected five unwounded men and kept the advancing Germans at bay
by bombing them till reinforcements arrived from the 28th Battalion and
drove the enemy out.
Major Grimmett, who was in command of "A" company in support, hearing
the bombing and concluding that something had gone wrong with "D"
company, sent forward a platoon under Captain Abbott. Our opening
barrage by this time had begun and was moving forward. Abbott's platoon
took up the fight, carried it into Nun's Alley and established a block
there.
The other companies--"B," "C" and the remainder of "D"--had gone forward
behind the barrage. One platoon of "D" company, which attempted an
overland attack on Nun's Alley, was wiped out almost to a man by
machine-gun fire. "C" company, attacking in the centre, was badly
mauled. The left platoon was swept away by German machine-gun fire
before it reached its objective. The right platoon had almost reached
its objective--Cinnebar trench--when it ran into a strong enemy
machine-gun post surrounded by barbed wire. Lieutenant Carter, who had
already been wounded, was killed in an attempt to drive the Germans out
of this stronghold.
Lieutenant Sutherland, on the extreme right, got into Cinnebar trench
and gave the order for rapid fire on a party of Germans who were
advancing overland. In the act of picking up a rifle he was mortally hit
by a sniper's bullet. Sergeant Stevens, who then took command, was
lifting Sutherland's rifle when he too was shot through the head. A
corporal took the sergeant's place. A moment later he also was killed.
The remainder of the men fought on desperately till a platoon of the
28th Battalion came to their aid.
In the meantime "B" company, to which Sergeant-Major Hanna belonged, had
reached the objective in Cinnebar trench. Believing that all was well
with "C" company, Lieutenant Gordon, the commander, was about to send
off the pre-arranged signal when it was discovered that the signal
cartridges were wet. Before a substitute could be found word was brought
that "C" company, on the left, was being badly smashed, all the officers
having been killed. Lieutenant McKinnon was sent along with a bombing
party to aid "C" company. He was killed just as he joined the fight.
Gordon then went along to the relief of the company on his left, after
ordering Lieutenant Montgomery to get a party of snipers outside the
trench so that they could take toll of the enemy. Gordon was badly
wounded in the arm. Lieutenant Montgomery was soon afterwards killed by
a German sniper. The leadership fell upon Sergeant-Major Hanna.
Hanna saw that the crux of the position was a German post protected by a
heavy wire and armed with a machine gun. He collected a party of his men
and led them against the post amid a hail of rifle and machine-gun fire.
Rushing through the wire he bayoneted three of the Germans, brained a
fourth, and overthrew the machine gun. The redoubt was captured.
The Germans arrived in force and counter-attacked. Hanna, who was now
short of bombs, built a block. Again and again the enemy tried to rush
his position; but he and his handful of men held it until they were
relieved later that day. Next day the battalion frontage was taken over
by another Canadian unit and the 29th went back to a well-earned rest.
[Illustration]
SERGEANT FREDERICK HOBSON, 20TH BATTALION
The men of the 20th Canadian Battalion lay down in their trenches before
Hill 70 on the night of the 14th August, 1917, in a soft drizzle of
rain. They were to take part in the attack on the hill early next
morning and the artillerymen behind had already trained their guns on
the enemy trenches, ready to let loose the bellow of destruction when
the word was passed.
Hill 70 lies near the La Bassée-Lens road, in the vicinity of Loos, the
village of Cité St. Auguste on its right, Bois Hugo and Chalk Pit on its
left. Its sides and crest are scarred with trenches and bruised by much
shelling. The Allies have taken it from the Germans and have been pushed
out of it by the Germans more than once. On the 14th August, 1917, it
was in German hands.
Precisely at 4.25 o'clock on the morning of the 15th, just as a red
streak smeared the horizon, the word for which the Canadians had been
waiting was given and the artillery barrage fell like a hammer stroke on
the German front line. For six minutes it pounded the trenches into
pulp, then lifted to a hundred yards farther on, tore a line of
devastation there for another six minutes, lifted again in another
hundred yards' stride and so continued its work of destruction at
similar intervals.
As the curtain of our shells rose from the German front line the men of
the 20th Battalion, with other units, leaped from their jumping-off
trenches and waded across No Man's Land. They found the Germans--all who
remained of the front line garrison--shaken, bruised, more or less
subdued. Where they surrendered they were taken prisoners; where they
resisted they were killed. In Cowley trench only one enemy machine-gun
was working and soon it was out-flanked and captured. In Commotion
trench an emplacement was in action. It was smothered.
Sergeant Frederick Hobson and some men of "A" company went forward up
the enemy trench known as Nabob Alley. They bombed their way along,
beating back the Germans, who retreated slowly and grudgingly; and,
having conquered about seventy yards of the trench, they established a
post at that point. The objectives of the battalion elsewhere were also
gained and the position was consolidated. The attack was a success.
All this happened on the 15th of August. But to take a position is one
thing: to hold it is another. For three days the Germans kept probing
various parts of the line, hoping to find a spot which would yield. At
1.40 a.m. on the 18th, their artillery opened a heavy bombardment on the
whole Canadian Corps front and for half an hour shells were rained on
every part of the line. The general bombardment slackened for a short
time, during which the village of St. Pierre received an avalanche of
gas-shells; and at twelve minutes past four o'clock every gun the enemy
could muster opened again on the front.
The concentration of artillery was nerve-racking. It was almost
demoralizing. Up in the advance posts the majority of the Lewis gun
positions were obliterated, men and guns being buried in the vast
upheavals. Twenty minutes after the shelling began the headquarters of
the 20th Battalion was hit by a heavy shell and vanished. Every wire
leading to the posts was cut, every light extinguished. And in the
darkness and confusion came word from the battalion stationed on the
right of the 20th to the effect that the Germans were out in No Man's
Land, coming to attack.
Sergeant Hobson in his trench saw the grey figures swarming across the
open ground. The Lewis guns had all been wiped out except one--and as
this one was being brought into action a German shell landed beside it.
When the smoke cleared, only one man of the crew remained alive, and he
and the gun were buried in the debris. Hobson was no gunner, but he knew
the importance of the position. He raced forward, seized an entrenching
tool and hauled the dazed survivor out of the mud.
"Guess that was a close call," said the survivor, Private A. G. Fuller.
"Guess so: let's get the gun out," replied Hobson.
They began to dig. Across the open ground came the Germans, firing at
the two men as they advanced. A bullet hit Hobson, but he took no notice
of his wound. Together he and Fuller got the gun into position and
opened up on the Germans, who were now pouring down the trench. They
were holding the enemy well when the gun jammed.
Hobson picked up his rifle.
"I'll keep them back," he said to Fuller, "if you fix the gun!"
He ran towards the advancing enemy, a lonely, wounded, desperate man
against many and with bayonet and clubbed rifle barred their passage. No
man knows how many Germans were killed by Sergeant Hobson in that fierce
encounter; dead and wounded were heaped in front of him when a shout
from Fuller intimated that the gun was again ready for action.
And just at that moment a German pushed his rifle forward and fired
point blank at the Canadian Horatius.
As Hobson fell Gunner Fuller pressed the trigger of his Lewis gun and
threw a stream of death into the German mob. A few minutes later
reinforcements from "B" company took the enemy in the flank and chased
them back across No Man's Land; and the machine-guns of "B" company
cleaned them up as they ran.
They found Sergeant Frederick Hobson where he had fallen, still grasping
his deadly rifle. His enemies were sprawled around him, silent witnesses
to his prowess. His heroism had saved the situation--and he had fought
his last fight.
[Illustration]
PRIVATE MICHAEL JAMES O'ROURKE, 7TH BATTALION
Down by the docks of the city of Victoria, B.C., you may observe a man
who keeps a fruit stall and wears about an inch of dark red ribbon on
his left breast. That fruit vendor is Michael James O'Rourke, late of
the 7th Canadian Battalion; and the inch of dark red ribbon means that
he has won the Victoria Cross.
O'Rourke gained the decoration when he was a stretcher-bearer in the 7th
Battalion during the big attack on the German positions near Lens which
began on the 15th August, 1917, and continued for several days.
At 4.25 on that morning the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Canadian Brigades
attacked and captured Hill 70 and the German defences about Cité St.
Laurent. In conjunction with this operation a gas attack was
successfully launched in the Avion sector and a subsidiary attack west
of Lens.
The opening of the main operation was no surprise to the enemy.
Prisoners taken during the attack admitted that they had expected it and
had been "standing-to" for a fortnight in anticipation; and orders which
were captured confirmed this statement, for they contained elaborate
instructions in the method of procedure to be adopted when the attack
was launched.
Two hours before the advance began that summer morning the Germans were
sending streams of gas shells into the district around Maroc and the
Lens-Béthune road, while a 5.9 howitzer was playing on Loos at intervals
of five minutes.
When our barrage opened the 7th Battalion went forward and formed up in
No Man's Land in the rear of the 10th Battalion which was to capture the
front German line. At first there was a slight mix-up of battalions
owing to enemy fire, but before long, though only after heavy fighting,
the objectives were gained with the exception of the centre where our
men were held up by machine-gun fire from Cité St. Auguste and the
brickworks. In time, however, reinforcements arrived and that obstacle
was removed.
For three days the fighting was the fiercest the Canadian battalions had
up till then experienced. The Germans were in no mood to give up their
positions without stubborn resistance and the struggle ebbed and flowed
day and night with bitter violence. On the front on which the 2nd
Division attacked many Germans held out in small parties hidden in
ruined houses and in deep cellars until cleared out by bomb and bayonet,
while counter-attack after counter-attack was thrown against the
battalions which had succeeded in clearing the German trenches.
With the 7th Battalion were sixteen stretcher-bearers, including
O'Rourke. Out of that sixteen, two were killed and eleven were wounded,
for the Germans sniped at them as they worked to carry the wounded from
the field. During those three days and nights O'Rourke worked
unceasingly rescuing the wounded, dressing their injuries under fire and
bringing food and water to them. The area in which he worked was
continually subjected to the severest shelling and was frequently swept
by machine-gun and rifle fire.
Several times he was knocked down and partially buried by shell-bursts.
Once, seeing a comrade who had been blinded stumbling along in full view
of the enemy who were sniping at him, O'Rourke jumped out of the trench
and brought him in, being himself heavily sniped at while doing so.
Again he went forward about fifty yards in front of our barrage, under
very heavy fire from machine-guns and snipers, and brought in another
wounded man; and later, when the advanced posts retired to the line, he
braved a storm of enemy fire of every description and brought in a
wounded man who had been left behind.
It was for these acts, in which he showed an absolute disregard for his
own safety, that O'Rourke gained the highest award--one of the
comparatively few men who have been given the Victoria Cross in this war
for saving life under fire.
[Illustration]
CAPTAIN OKILL MASSEY LEARMONTH, 2ND BATTALION
With the Military Cross already in his possession, Captain O. M.
Learmonth, of the 2nd Battalion, was one of that small number of
Canadians who won the highest decoration during the capture of Hill 70
in August, 1917.
The weather in which that attack began on the 15th of the month was
unsettled and sultry. The weather in which the fighting ended on the
18th of the month was clear and sunny. It was during the fighting on the
latter date that Learmonth died.
On the 15th, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Canadian Brigades attacked the
hill and the German defences about Cité St. Laurent. For the next two
days they held the new trenches against constant counter-attacks and
under incessant bombardment from every gun the Germans could bring to
bear on the position. At midnight on the 16th the 2nd Battalion relieved
the troops of the 3rd Brigade in the trenches from Chalk Pit down Hugo
Trench to Hurray Alley. During the whole of the 17th the German
bombardment continued with an even intensity which made the position one
pandemonium for the men of the 2nd Battalion.
The line was very thinly held. The whole strength of the battalion was
only 614 souls when day broke on the 18th. That was the day which knew
the climax of the situation.
At four o'clock in the morning the German artillery opened a terrific
fire on the whole battalion front line and supports. For forty minutes
the bombardment continued at full pressure. Then it lifted and the
German troops attacked, using liquid fire. On the left wing the Germans
succeeded in entering the trenches held by No. 4 Company; but a bombing
party was at once organized, and they were driven out again, leaving
behind a _flammenwerfer_ and a considerable number of dead.
Learmonth (who was then Acting Major) was in command of Nos. 2 and 3
Companies. He saw that a number of the Germans, after their advance had
been checked within a few yards of our trenches, had found shelter to
some extent in a small wood; and to rout them out of the wood a bombing
party from No. 3 Company was sent forward. They bombed the Germans out
of the wood and down a trench named Horse Alley, driving them into the
open, where our snipers and machine-gunners engaged them and cleaned
them up.
Throughout the whole of the attack Learmonth showed what his Commanding
Officer has named a "wonderful spirit." Absolutely fearless, he so
conducted himself that he imbued those with whom he came into contact
with some of his personality. When the barrage started he was
continually with his men and officers, encouraging them and making sure
that no loophole was left through which the enemy could gain a footing.
When the attack was launched against the thin Canadian line, Learmonth
seemed to be everywhere at once. When the situation was critical, he
took his turn at throwing bombs. He was wounded twice, but carried on as
if he were perfectly fit and whole. He was wounded a third time, his leg
this time being broken, but still he showed the same indomitable spirit.
Lying in the trench, he continued to direct his men, encouraging them,
cheering them, advising them.
At a quarter past six that morning the battalion headquarters received
word that Learmonth was badly wounded and was being carried out of the
line on a stretcher; but the enemy attack had been repulsed. He had
waited till he saw the finish.
They brought him down to headquarters, and, lying on his stretcher, he
gave valuable information to the officers there before he was taken to
hospital. He died shortly afterwards--the man who would not give in.
[Illustration]
CORPORAL FILIP KONOWAL, 47TH BATTALION
The fighting about Lens in August, 1917, called for more individual dash
and initiative on the part of the troops engaged than had been required
before. The house-to-house fighting, the repeatedly isolated and
difficult positions, the many knotty problems which required instant
solution--all these combined to make leadership, whether of a section or
a battalion, more arduous and responsible and, with it all, much more
fascinating. Such fighting is after the hearts of most Canadians. As was
expected, our men did well at it.
After the successful attack on Hill 70, incessant fighting was forced
upon our troops to maintain the new positions. The enemy's bombardment
was constant and intense. It was decided to continue the offensive and
improve our line. The 10th Brigade was instructed to capture Green
Crassier and the enemy's defences about this point, and accordingly the
attack was arranged for the 21st, with two companies each of the 50th,
46th and 47th Battalions, the 47th Battalion on the right to attack
through Cité du Moulin to the Lens-Arras Road and Alpaca Trench.
At 4.35 a.m. our men went forward, penetrating the immediate German
barrage without hesitation, and moving as if on parade. The morning was
bright and sunny, and our fellows got away in splendid style, though
they were badly harassed by machine-gun fire from Green Crassier, a
barren expanse of slagheaps and broken railway tracks on the right
front. However, our smoke barrage was most effective, and the drums of
blazing oil thrown upon the enemy's communication lines and attempted
formations did much to take the heart out of his resistance. Crossing
the Lens-Arras Road, the troops plunged into the ruined houses beyond,
and stiff fighting, in cellars, long dark tunnels, and comparatively
deserted outhouses, ensued. Many were the isolated heroic combats that
took place, and many men were reported missing after the battle who had
fought out their lives in some underground chamber.
Corporal Konowal was in charge of a mopping-up section. In fighting of
this description it is an undecided point whether the original
assailants or the moppers-up get most excitement. The main attack sweeps
on; but in such a rabbit-warren of broken houses and tunnelled
foundations many Germans and frequent machine-guns are left to be
eliminated at some cost by our following waves. The buildings about the
Lens-Arras Road proved difficult enough to clear. The main body of our
troops had passed through and continued to the objectives beyond, but a
couple of buildings still held Germans and German machine-guns, and
there was heavy firing upon the rear of our advancing men. Entering one
of these houses Konowal searched for the Germans, and finding no living
traces of their occupation, dropped daringly into the cellar. Three men
fired at him as he landed, but this he escaped unharmed. Then ensued a
sanguinary battle in the dark, a mêlée of rifle fire and bayonets, with
the odds three to one. Finally the scuffling ceased and Konowal emerged
into the daylight--he had bayoneted the whole crew of the gun!
But this is all taken for granted in the business of mopping-up, and the
corporal and his section continued their way along the road, every
sense alert to locate the close rifle-crack that might betray the wily
sniper. There was a large crater to the east of the road, and from the
bodies of our good men before the edge it seemed obvious that a German
machine-gun had been in position there. Halting his men, Konowal
advanced alone. Upon reaching the lip of the crater he saw seven Germans
endeavouring to move the ubiquitous machine-gun into a dugout. He opened
fire at once, killing three, and then, charging down upon them,
accounted for the rest with the bayonet.
These drastic methods rapidly concluded the clearing of their section of
the line, and the corporal and his men moved on up to our new front,
where the enemy was delivering heavy and incessant counter-attacks.
Heavy fighting continued throughout the night, and in the morning troops
of the 44th Battalion, who were making an attack upon the Green
Crassier, requested the aid of a party of the 47th in a raid upon a
machine-gun emplacement in a tunnel about Fosse 4. Corporal Konowal was
an expert in this subterranean fighting, and his party succeeded in
entering the tunnel. Two charges of ammonal, successfully exploded,
somewhat demoralized the German garrison, and then Konowal, dashing
forward in the darkness with the utter disregard of his own safety he
had displayed all through the fighting, engaged the machine-gun crew
with the bayonet, overcoming and killing them all. Altogether this good
fighting man killed sixteen men in the two days of the actual battle,
and continued his splendid work until he was very severely wounded.
[Illustration]
PRIVATE THOMAS WILLIAM HOLMES, 4TH CANADIAN MOUNTED RIFLES
Heavy rain had been falling on the Passchendaele country for two days
before the 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles waded up to their positions in
the front line, between Wallemolen and Bellevue. All the dykes and
ditches of the low country were full and overflowing, and even in that
short space of time ground that was firm and solid had become dangerous
swamp. However, the men pushed on through the darkness, and the slipping
and splashing, the long halts, the interminable discussions with
somewhat vague guides, all came to an end at last, and at five o'clock
on the morning of October 25th the regiment had arrived at its battered
line. Through the day the weather cleared, the sun and wind considerably
improved the ground, and the men were able to discern their objectives
for the following day's attack--occasionally with mild misgiving, for
there seemed entirely too much water about the low hills and copses they
had to traverse.
The C.M.R. were on the extreme left of the Canadian Corps front, with
the Hood Battalion of the Royal Naval Division on their left, and the
43rd Battalion on the right. Their objectives were Woodland Copse and
Source Farm, and it was hoped to consolidate a strong line upon
Wallemolen Ridge, all with a view to the establishment of a good
jumping-off line for the capture of Passchendaele town itself. Though
the clearing of the weather had greatly improved the ground, it also
improved the visibility and the German artillery and riflemen made very
effective shooting upon our hastily improvised communication lines. The
persistent bombardment was very severe indeed, and while many gallant
attempts were made to supply the soldiers in the front line with
munitions, time after time the men of the carrying party were wiped out
and the supplies dispersed by the incessant shells. Ammunition was
plentiful, however, but the men went into action the following day with
practically empty water-bottles.
Soon after five o'clock on the 26th the troops were assembled in the
jumping-off positions, "C" and "D" Companies in advance of the front
line, and "A" and "B" Companies in close support. As our barrage opened
at twenty minutes to six, the heavy rain began again, making the ground
very difficult and slippery as our fellows went forward. Heavy fighting
occurred at once, a line of pill-boxes across the flanks of the low
hills maintaining concentrated machine-gun fire, and all these small
fortresses had to be stormed with the bayonet. But they did not take
long to clear, and after a few minutes of close bayonet work our
troops swept through and on to the stubborn resistance of the
Wallemolen-Bellevue line. Here was a serious check. North-east of Wolf
Copse a German pill-box was situated, its own strong defences
supplemented by a machine-gun mounted close to the building on each
side, and against their fire our men advanced, at times up to their
waists in water. It was not possible to advance quickly, and man after
man of our small attacking force went down into the mud. Reinforcements
from "A" Company came up on the right, and a series of gallant attempts
were made to rush the enemy's position, which was holding up our entire
local advance. Each time our men failed to get home, and eventually they
were forced to take whatever cover was possible some fifty yards from
the pill-box. At this moment Private Holmes advanced alone.
Making his way forward, indifferent to the concentrated fire of the two
guns, Holmes reached a point from which he could throw his bombs. Then,
with marvellous coolness, he hurled his missiles, with such precision
that he succeeded in knocking out each gun, one after the other, killing
or wounding every man about them. But this result was not sufficient for
him, and he returned to his comrades for more ammunition. Securing
another bomb from a friend, once more Holmes ran forward alone, this
time getting close to the pill-box itself. Landing his bomb within the
entrance of the concrete fort, he caused such an explosion in the
confined space that the unhappy survivors of the garrison crawled out
and surrendered. One does not know how Private Holmes escaped the
sweeping fire that was poured upon him, but there is no doubt that his
gallant action saved a critical situation, and allowed our men to push
forward and establish a strong line in advance of their intermediate
objective. Here they held back counter-attack after counter-attack,
subjected to intense bombardment and heavy machine-gun fire from the
high ground on the right, until later in the day the gallant capture of
Bellevue Spur by the 43rd and 52nd Battalions cleared the situation, and
permitted the consolidation of a strong line.
[Illustration]
LIEUTENANT (ACTING CAPTAIN) CHRISTOPHER PATRICK JOHN O'KELLY, 52ND
BATTALION
When the Canadians went up to take the ridges before Passchendaele the
men of the 52nd Battalion were in support, and were not pleased with
their minor share in the preliminary offensive. Their fears were not
justified, however, for no battalion engaged played a larger or more
gallant part in the attack.
The 9th Brigade attacked at "zero" hour with the 43rd and 58th
Battalions, and at first reports were good, and the Canadians appeared
to be making excellent progress up the difficult slopes of Bellevue
Spur. But by 8.30 a.m. the news had changed, weary parties of survivors
came straggling back in twos and threes to the jumping-off line, and the
52nd Battalion troops were aware that their services would be required
in short order. Colonel Foster, the Commanding Officer, went forward to
the front line and returned with news of a critical situation. On the
right the 58th had encountered terrible machine-gun fire and had been
unable to make any progress, while some forty men of Lieutenant
Shankland's company of the 43rd had managed to fight their way to the
crest of the spur, had roughly entrenched themselves, being able to
advance no more, and were still holding out after four hours of steady
fighting, under heavy close-range fire from pill-boxes on the ridge, and
in constant danger of a flanking move by the enemy on either hand.
Lieutenant O'Kelly, in charge of "A" Company, was ordered to move at
once to their assistance, advancing on the left flank of the 43rd
Battalion post upon the hill, and filling the gap between the 8th and
9th Brigades.
Drenched by the steady rain and pounded by the enemy's shells, the men
of the 52nd were very bored indeed with inaction. They went forward
strongly, penetrating the German barrage on the flank without losing
very heavily, and making good progress up the low northern slope towards
the crest of the spur, where their comrades of the 43rd were not only
doing most effective shooting on their own account, but were preventing
the Germans from paying very much attention to the manoeuvres of the
52nd. The top of the hill was defended by numerous concrete machine-gun
forts, and these fired spasmodically upon the advancing troops, causing
a number of casualties but no delays. Lieutenant O'Kelly had brought his
men up well, and sweeping over the brow, they caught the flank of the
enemy advancing against the 43rd Battalion post, driving the Germans
before them and shooting them down as they ran. For a moment it was a
most successful rout, but then the fire from the pill-boxes grew
heavier, and there ensued a series of gallant attacks upon the strong
points before them. Our troops rushed pill-box after pill-box, small
parties of men striving to win close to the walls of each fort, while
sections to the rear bombarded every opening and loop-hole with bullets
and rifle-grenades. This made it very difficult indeed for the Germans
to take aim, and allowed the actual assailants an opportunity of gaining
the dead ground close beneath the walls and hurling their bombs inside
through any aperture. The effect of quite a small bomb upon the mass of
men in the confined space of a pill-box is very terrible, and usually
the treatment requires no second application before the surrender of the
garrison. However, the reduction of these forts is a very costly
business, and many a time the attacking section would be caught within
the zone of fire of a machine-gun and practically wiped out, though on
more than one occasion the attack was carried to a successful conclusion
by two or three survivors, who would compel the garrison of thirty or
forty men to surrender to them. Through all this fighting Lieutenant
O'Kelly led his men with wonderful judgment, selecting the point and
method of attack with cool precision, and never losing sight of his main
object--to gain ground and consolidate the ridge. Finally his force was
joined by "B" Company, and the two companies of the 52nd set out to
advance their line. The buildings of Bellevue Farm proved excellent
cover for the retiring Germans, and there was stubborn fighting about
the ruined outhouses before our fellows got through. A clear half-mile
of ground was captured and consolidated, our men reaching the
Wallemolen-Bellevue Road and driving the enemy before them from the
country west of it. For a time the hostile bombardment was vague and
uncertain, though on occasion a barrage would be placed before our
advancing men, the enemy's gunners appearing to be supremely indifferent
to the scattered parties of their own troops who were still holding out
bravely enough before the Canadians. But directly our new line was in
process of formation the German shelling became intense. For an hour the
countryside was hammered and pounded, and then the inevitable
counter-attack developed at two points of our thinly-held line. However,
O'Kelly's men felt that they had saved the situation, his pluck and
initiative had pulled a victory from a defeat, and the men of the 52nd
had no intention of giving up a foot of the ground they had won. So
heavy a fire was developed upon the attacking enemy that the
counter-attack was shrivelled and dispersed two hundred yards from our
line. The shelling began again, but our position was strong and clear,
and consolidation was continued, while during the night Lieutenant
O'Kelly's men went forward again, and raided several strong points that
might have hampered the advance of our men in the next phase of the
offensive. The men of the 52nd Battalion have great reason to be pleased
with themselves for that day's work, for they captured 9 officers and
275 men, no less than 21 machine-guns, and more important still, saved a
very critical situation indeed.
[Illustration]
CAPTAIN (ACTING MAJOR) GEORGE RANDOLPH PEARKES, M.C., 5TH C.M.R.
There are many wonderful deeds recorded in the history of the Canadian
Corps at Passchendaele, but for stubborn endurance carried far beyond
previous standards of physical limitations, for cool pluck and
pertinacity under very terrible conditions, the story of the 5th
Canadian Mounted Rifle Battalion on October 30th, 1917, is remarkable.
The night of the 29th was clear and fine, and the moon was nearly full,
the light helping our men to pick their way through to the assembly on
the comparatively firm ground between the flooded shell-holes. Soon
after 5 o'clock on the morning of the 30th the troops were in position,
and at ten minutes to six "A" and "C" Companies went over the top and
forward to the attack on Vapour Farm and the outlying defences of
Passchendaele. The ground immediately before the 5th C.M.R. was very
swampy, and owing to this it had been previously found impossible to
send troops straight through Woodland Plantation. Accordingly the waves
of our attacking infantry divided, and "A" Company went forward and
round the south of the Plantation, while "B" Company attacked on the
north. For nearly an hour the smoke covering the plantation prevented
any observation of our progress, but soon a wounded runner stumbled into
Headquarters with a report that the left of our attack had reached the
intermediate objective. On the right the men of "A" Company had
encountered the enemy south of the wood, and fierce hand-to-hand
fighting was still going on, with the Canadians steadily making their
way forward. In this bayonet work, with the opponents waist deep in mud
and water, our men won the advantage, for the knowledge that a mis-step
or a disabling wound meant a peculiarly unpleasant death in suffocating
mud was an incentive to desperate fighting, and the Germans hated it
from the start.
By the time the smoke had cleared our troops had won their way around
the copse, and the two companies, now barely half their original
strength, had joined and were resting while our barrage hammered the
line of the intermediate objective. But this halt was a mistake. The
Germans, retreating before our advance, were given time to re-form, and
in a moment or two machine-gun and rifle fire became terribly heavy from
the high ground to the east. However, led by Major Pearkes and
reinforced by the remaining companies, the 5th C.M.R. went forward
again, until our observers lost sight of them as they went over the
ridge. Then occurred a time of anxious suspense for the men at
Headquarters, until half an hour later a message came through from Major
Pearkes saying that he was holding a line near to his final objectives
with some fifty men, that the fighting was close and desperate, and that
help was required.
Major Pearkes was in a very difficult situation. He had taken his men
forward, fighting his way through obstacle after obstacle until he had
reached his objective, and now he was holding a hastily improvised line
with both his flanks exposed to any German attack. The troops attacking
with him on each side had been unable to make any headway, and only the
well-directed and aggressive shooting of his men prevented a flanking
move that might have cut him off completely. On his left the Artists
Rifles had been unable to capture Source Farm, and from this point heavy
enfilading fire was poured upon his exposed line. It was impossible to
maintain any position under such fire, and the major realized that the
only hope of holding his ground lay in the capture of this strong point.
With the few men at his command he organized and led an attack, and the
gallant recklessness of the assaulting party carried the place by storm.
Now he could get forward again, and he did so, only halting to establish
his line when it became obvious that his handful of men, though willing
enough, could hardly fight their way through an entire army corps.
He withdrew his men from Vanity House, consolidated a line of
shell-holes from Source Farm to Vapour Farm and prepared to meet a
strong counter-attack. His fighting strength was now twenty men. It is
hard to conceive how so small a party may hold a previously unprepared
position against a determined attack, but these men did so, and beat the
Germans back in disorder. However, it was scarcely possible to withstand
another such attack--ammunition was running short, the rate of
casualties was much too high for so slight a garrison, and a flanking
attack by the enemy could hardly fail to be successful--but Major
Pearkes and his men held on, praying for reinforcements and determined
to see it through.
A company of the 2nd C.M.R. had been sent forward to reinforce the
original assailants, and finally, as the fresh troops advanced, they
came within sight of the weary garrison. Most of the ground behind the
latter was low and swampy, and all of it was swept by the enemy's
machine-gun fire, but the supporting company came over the heavy ground
in splendid style. The men in the shell-holes could see the casualties
occurring in the wave of men, but never for a moment was there any
hesitation, and at last the reinforcements tumbled into Pearkes' rough
line of defence.
Affairs were still in a serious condition. The shell-fire was very heavy
and counter-attacks were imminent, and it was not until after dusk that
sufficient supports were available to cover the flanks and enable the
successful consolidation of our new line.
[Illustration]
LIEUTENANT ROBERT SHANKLAND, 43RD BATTALION
The attack made by the 3rd and 4th Canadian Divisions on October
26th formed an essential preliminary to the capture of the whole
Passchendaele Ridge and town. It was necessary to establish a good
jumping-off line for the attack on the village itself, and this was
accomplished, though our men went through some very stiff fighting
indeed before the position was won. The troops of the 9th Brigade had as
their objectives Bellevue Spur and the high ground about it, and after
the fighting a captured German officer remarked that the Spur was
considered to be the key of Passchendaele town, and that its capture by
the Canadians was a notable feat of arms, considering the efforts made
by the German Higher Command to ensure its successful defence. One does
not know if the officer was merely endeavouring to alleviate the mild
rigours of his captivity, but in any case the fighting was most
difficult and critical, and too much praise cannot be given to the
scattered parties of men who hung on to isolated positions in
shell-holes and ditches along the crest of the hill, under the most
intense shell-fire, and held back the enemy until reinforcements arrived
and consolidated the line.
The 43rd Battalion held the centre of the 3rd Divisional front, on the
left of the Gravenstafel-Bellevue Road, with the 58th Battalion on the
right and the 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles on the left. At 5.40 a.m. the
troops went forward in the steady rain, advancing splendidly over the
muddy, wet ground, and by half-past six men of the 43rd were seen
against the sky-line going over the crest of Bellevue Spur. The German
artillery fire had been immediate and heavy, and formidable pill-boxes
on the top and flanks of the hill maintained steady fire upon our
troops, causing many gaps in the waves of infantry stumbling and
slipping upon the muddy slopes. "D" Company, led by Captain Galt and
Lieutenant Shankland, made good progress up the hill, until checked by
the heavy fire of a machine-gun in a strong emplacement to the right
front. Collecting a few men, Captain Galt attempted its capture, while
Lieutenant Shankland continued the advance with the remainder of the
company. He gained the crest of the hill, and here close fighting won
our men more ground. The pill-boxes were captured, but a trench some
fifty yards beyond them checked the advance, and the weary survivors of
the attack dug themselves in as well as possible.
In the meantime the battle was going badly enough. On the right the
troops of the 58th Battalion, held up by determined resistance and the
concentrated fire of many machine-guns at Snipe Hall, had been unable to
make good their objective, and were drifting back in twos and threes to
the comparative shelter of the jumping-off line. But a few parties of
men held out with Shankland's company on the crest, and maintained a
rough and disjointed line of shell-holes, of which there were many,
across the hill top. Upon this line the Germans poured a relentless
stream of lead. At no time previously had our men experienced such
shelling. The mud and water dispersed by the bursting shells clogged the
weapons of the Canadians, and, in spite of instant attention, in many
cases rendered them temporarily useless. The going was terribly hard,
but Lieutenant Shankland held his battered line for four hours along the
crest of the Spur, keeping his men together and in good spirits,
recruiting those soldiers of other companies who had gained the hill but
were left without officers, and maintaining against heavy counter-attack
the Canadian position that had cost so much to win. But here a new
danger asserted itself. On his left Shankland had established rough
connection with the 8th Brigade, but now these troops were forced to
withdraw, while on the right his flank was completely exposed, and
German troops were advancing from the direction of Snipe Hall,
enfilading his line, and threatening to cut him off altogether. After a
careful survey of the whole position, he handed over the command to the
Machine-gun Officer, who, though wounded, had refused to leave the line
while his guns were in action, and making the best of his way back to
Headquarters, handed in a very valuable report, giving a clear summary
of a critical situation, and enabling steps to be taken that previous
lack of information had rendered unwise. While the men of the 52nd and
58th Battalions drove back the enemy on the flanks, the Lieutenant got
back through the mud and shell-fire to his own company on the hill top.
The Germans had attempted to rush this precarious position, and had been
beaten back by our machine-gun fire with heavy losses. They had
continued to lose, for the 52nd Battalion, advancing in splendid style,
drove many of them back across the fire of Shankland's company of the
43rd upon the crest of the Spur. Finally, the flanks were firmly
established, and our troops consolidated the new line, with the object
of our attack accomplished, though they had not penetrated as far into
enemy country as they had hoped.
[Illustration]
PRIVATE CECIL JOHN KINROSS, 49TH BATTALION
On October 28th, 1917, the 49th Canadian Infantry Battalion, under
Lieutenant-Colonel R. H. Palmer, moved from Wieltje area and relieved
three companies of the 116th Battalion in the front line south-east of
Wolf Copse, on the left of the Gravenstafel-Bellevue Road, the
P.P.C.L.I, relieving the remaining company on the right of the road. The
strength of the Battalion consisted of twenty-one officers and 567 other
ranks. The relief was a difficult business, the enemy very alert, and
the bad weather and heavy going rendering the operation exceedingly
arduous. However, by 1.50 a.m. on the 29th the relief was effected, and
preparations for the morrow's offensive were immediately undertaken.
The 3rd and 4th Canadian Divisions were to continue the attack on the
outlying defences of Passchendaele; to capture Vapour Farm, Vanity
House, Meetcheele, Friesland, the high ground about Crest Farm, and
other strong points; and to establish a line approximately from Goudberg
Copse in the north to the railway line just south of Vienna Cottages in
the south. Six battalions were to attack at zero hour, 5.50 a.m. on the
30th, the 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles, the 49th Battalion, P.P.C.L.I.,
72nd, 78th, and 85th Battalions, in order from left to right.
The troops of the 49th Battalion had as their objective Furst Farm and
the pill-boxes about and beyond, and the strong points to the north of
Meetcheele. Late in the afternoon the barrage maps were received at
Battalion Headquarters, and Colonel Palmer found it would be necessary
to evacuate the front-line positions occupied by "A" and "D" Companies
and establish a jumping-off line to the rear, as the conformation of the
ground rendered the establishment of a really effective barrage a most
delicate task. Of late the enemy had developed a mischievous habit of
keeping very close indeed to our front line, making his way inside our
barrage at the moment of its inception, and so being enabled to meet our
attacking troops with a volume of fire quite unmitigated by the curtain
of lead designed to eliminate such resistance.
About midnight October 29th-30th the troops moved to the assembly, the
evacuation of the forward positions being postponed until the very last
possible moment. The night was very clear, and as it was possible to
discern almost any movement from a distance of two hundred yards it is
probable that German patrols were aware of the gathering. At any rate,
about 4.30 a.m. two green flares went up near Furst Farm, were repeated
in a moment from the rear, and at once the hostile shelling became more
local and intense. By a quarter past five assembly was complete, and at
5.48 a.m., two minutes before zero hour, our barrage opened on the right
and the troops went forward.
The morning was clear and bright, a strong wind drying the ground
somewhat during the night and making better foothold possible for the
men; but such a hurricane of fire encountered the troops as they
advanced that only slow progress was possible. "B" Company, on the
right, lost most of its effective strength before crossing the
Wallemolen-Bellevue Road. "B" and "C" Companies, forming the first wave,
were met at once by intense rifle, machine-gun and artillery fire, and
progressed in a series of rushes, going forward indomitably in spite of
their heavy losses. The supporting waves, "A" and "D" Companies, fared
little better, and it was painfully evident that the advance would be
brought to an early conclusion through sheer lack of the men to force a
passage. Considering the resistance, however, good progress was made,
the men taking no heed of their losses and fighting every inch of the
way. Near Furst Farm the first real check occurred, a well-mounted
machine-gun covering our whole local advance and holding up the
assailants, who took what cover the torn ground afforded, continuing to
reply as well as might be expected to the heavy fire, until the
situation was lightened by the heroic action of a private soldier.
Private Kinross, completely indifferent to the bullets directed upon
him, surveyed the whole position coolly and carefully, deciding upon a
plan of action that pleased him thoroughly.
Returning for a moment to cover, he cleared himself of all unnecessary
equipment and made his way by devious courses to a point as near as
possible the vicious machine-gun. Arrived there, he rushed the position,
against point-blank fire, alone and in broad daylight, killing the six
men of the crew and finally destroying the gun. It is impossible to tell
properly of such deeds, but the daring of it, and the complete success,
so heartened our men that in their immediate advance our line was
carried forward a full three hundred yards and two strong positions
stormed without a halt. This brought our men to the intermediate
objectives, where the line was cleared of the enemy, held and
consolidated.
By this time the strength of the Battalion had decreased to four
officers and 125 men, and no further advance was possible, incessant
fighting being necessary to maintain the position already gained.
Throughout the day and night the troops held on, several platoons of the
Royal Canadian Regiment reinforcing the sadly depleted ranks of the
49th, and assisting in the defeat of three strong counter-attacks. By
the evening of the 31st all our wounded had been removed from the
forward area and the tired troops were relieved by the 42nd Battalion.
In the fighting of October 30th the 49th Battalion gained more glory
than German ground, yet a great deal of German ground was captured.
[Illustration]
LIEUTENANT HUGH MACKENZIE, CANADIAN MACHINE GUN CORPS
The 7th Machine Gun Company had been in the line for eight days before
the second phase of the Canadian operations against Passchendaele, and
the continual heavy rain that had fallen before the 30th of October made
offensive preparations very difficult indeed. But on the 29th, the day
before the attack, the weather cleared, and a strong west wind made
footing somewhat easier upon the higher ground--the lower ground was all
flooded, or consisted of almost impenetrable swamp. The night was very
clear, and the moon full, and our fellows blessed the welcome light as
they moved their guns to the forward positions; the enemy, too, took
advantage of the change in the weather, and there was some fairly heavy
shelling of our lines and communications, though few casualties were
caused among the machine-gunners.
Lieutenant MacKenzie, in charge of the four guns of his company, was
covering the 7th Brigade in the attack upon the difficult country about
Friesland, Meetcheele and Graf. With his gun-positions on the high
ground, he was prepared to bring direct fire upon the enemy as our
troops advanced, and to lay an effective barrage before our line upon
the occupation of the objectives.
At ten minutes to six on the morning of the 30th, the P.P.C.L.I. and the
49th Battalion attacked, the troops for a time keeping close to our
barrage and going forward wonderfully well, in spite of the terribly
heavy hostile fire. But soon after zero our communications were cut by
the intense shelling, and then came the usual anxious time in the
support areas, when news is vague and contradictory, and there is no
information available save that afforded by some wounded soldier
stumbling back to safety. At last at 7 o'clock a message came through
saying that all was going well, and subsequent communications were
fairly regular.
Lieutenant MacKenzie took forward his guns, two behind the Princess
Pat's, and two with the 49th Battalion, finding many opportunities for
effective fire. The casualties amongst his men were pretty heavy as they
advanced, but they stuck close to the infantry, and took advantage of
every piece of rising ground from which direct fire might be delivered.
But the critical point of the attack was still to come.
About the intermediate objective before Meetcheele the rising ground
supplied much natural cover to the German riflemen and machine-gunners
retreating before our men. In addition to the enemy's supplementary
defences of pill-boxes and concrete emplacements, the difficulties of
the assailants were enhanced by the swampy ground on each side of the
spur, limiting the field of attack to a narrow strip of ground, every
foot of which was exposed to the fire of the machine-guns upon the
slope.
One pill-box in particular on the crest of the hill maintained such a
murderous fire that the attacking company of the Princess Pat's was
brought to a halt upon the slope of the hill, with every officer and
N.C.O. shot down, and the men remaining seeking what cover they could,
unable to advance and unwilling to retreat. All this time MacKenzie had
been ploughing forward with his guns, seeking good positions and finding
them, rendering a German emplacement untenable, wiping out some hostile
formation that threatened a sudden counter-attack, and endeavouring to
keep down the heavy fire of the Germans immediately before our advancing
infantry. Noting the hesitation of our men on the slope of the hill, he
left a corporal in charge of his guns, and made his way through the
heavy fire to our fellows in their terribly exposed position. The
Company had been very hard hit, two thirds of its effectives were gone,
but still the men were determined enough. Taking command of the company,
he cheered them by his good spirits, and instantly set about arranging a
plan for the downfall of the pill-box above them. Not only was there the
pill-box to deal with, but the upper hill was a veritable nest of
machine-guns, and MacKenzie had to make a daring reconnaissance before
he could effect a suitable scheme of attack.
Detailing small parties, he sent them off to work their way round the
flanks, overcoming any hostile resistance they might encounter, and to
be prepared at a given moment to make an attack from the rear upon the
pill-box that was holding up the advance. Then he arranged the frontal
attack, choosing himself to lead a small party of men directly up the
slope to the fort, while the remainder of his men attacked the same
front from a different angle. At the word they went forward, MacKenzie
leading the forlorn hope on the most exposed front of the attack. It was
not possible to win through such fire unharmed, and he was shot through
the head and killed at the moment of the capture of the pill-box by the
flanking parties he had detailed. One may hope that he saw his object
attained.
This pill-box, in its dominating position upon the crest of the hill,
commanded the lines of our attack for many hundred yards. By its capture
Lieutenant MacKenzie and his men saved the lives of many soldiers, and
enabled the successful consolidation of our objectives upon the whole
local front.
[Illustration]
SERGEANT GEORGE HARRY MULLIN, M.M., P.P.C.L.I.
The conformation of the country about Graf and Meetcheele made the
arrangements of a really effective barrage a highly technical affair. In
that district of swamps and hills and copses it was impossible that our
line should be straight, and on the night before their offensive the men
of the P.P.C.L.I. were compelled to establish their assembly position
close in rear of the front line. This enabled our artillery to place a
heavy barrage just before our attacking troops without too much risk of
casualties among our own men.
On the morning of October 30th, when the Princess Pat's went forward to
the attack upon Graf and Meetcheele, our artillery fire was effective
enough, and good progress was made, though our casualties were heavy.
Stubborn bayonet fighting took place about the enemy's pill-boxes on the
flanks of the hill, and along the valley of the Ravebeek, where the
heavy smoke barrage covered the right of our advance.
For a time all went well: but the enemy's fire was close and intense,
and our men suffered so heavily that for a time it seemed as if our
advance might die out through sheer numerical weakness. But we kept on,
and reached the foot of the hill at Meetcheele before a really serious
check was encountered. A German pill-box was situated upon the top of
the hill, and all the higher ground was dotted with the machine-gun
emplacements of the enemy. From the commanding position of the concrete
fort upon the crest, direct observation could be obtained over our whole
local advance, and the sweeping fire of its guns inflicted casualties
upon our men attacking half-a-mile away, who were in complete ignorance
of the existence of such a strong point.
As in many cases during the Passchendaele fighting, the front of this
attack was dangerously narrowed by marshy ground on each side of a dry
spur leading direct to the top of the hill.
It is an interesting fact to consider that the Germans, after the first
Canadian attack, altered the zones of fire of a number of their
machine-guns so as to cover swamps and marshy ground that previously had
been considered impregnable from their natural difficulties. This was a
real compliment to our men--for apparently the enemy thought the
Canadians quite capable of attacking over ground impassable to other
troops.
However, in this case, the Princess Pat's fought their way up the slope
until most of their effective strength was gone; and then Sergeant
Mullin went forward to reconnoitre the possibilities of a flanking
attack. Finding a place where one man could advance unobserved, but
where the movement of a party would certainly bring disaster, he made
his way forward alone.
Crawling through the brush, he reached a point close to a sniper's post
just before the master pill-box on the top of the hill. He destroyed
this post and its garrison with bomb-fire, then made straight for the
pill-box. It must have appeared most heroically absurd--this attack by
one man upon a concrete fort bristling with men and guns--but Mullin
knew very well what he was about. It was all done before the eyes of our
men, who were swarming up the slope, regardless of the heavy fire in
their anxiety to be in at the finish. Mullin climbed on to the roof of
the pill-box. Crawling to the centre, he fired down upon the German
machine-gunners inside, laying them out across their weapons. Then,
sliding down the roof, he landed beside the entrance just in time to
receive the surrender of the thoroughly demoralized garrison.
The capture of this fort decided the issue upon the local front, for the
offensive capacity of the pill-box proved as great in the hands of the
Canadians as it had in those of the enemy. Our objective was gained and
consolidated, and excellent positions assured for the next attack.
[Illustration]
PRIVATE JAMES PETER ROBINSON, 27TH BATTALION
Late in the afternoon of November 5th, the 27th (City of Winnipeg)
Battalion, under Lieutenant-Colonel P. J. Daly, D.S.O., left Hill 37
and began the weary tramp along the duckboard trail to the front line.
The village of Passchendaele was to be captured by the 2nd Canadian
Division on the morrow, and all along the Corps front soldiers, weary
with long days in the trenches, were being replaced by fresh men. The
relief of the 29th Battalion was completed early in the evening, but the
move to the assembly position was not made for several hours, Colonel
Daly contenting himself with establishing a line of posts some fifty
yards in advance of the front line, to intercept any inquisitive Hun.
Soon after midnight the men moved to the assembly, and by 3 a.m. the
gathering was complete and the troops resting in the mud after their
long tramp from the reserve area.
The night was very dark, and, though the enemy did not spare his
artillery, few casualties were caused. On the left of the 27th Battalion
lay the troops of the 31st, and on the right those of the 26th. Their
objective this time was the village of Passchendaele itself, and the men
were pleased because it was their part to attack the real objective of
the whole offensive, after the stubborn preliminary operations of the
26th and 30th of October.
Promptly at 6 a.m. our barrage came down, 150 yards in advance of our
front line, and from there it advanced, at a rate of 100 yards in eight
minutes, with our men close behind. The morning was dull and overcast,
and the attack appeared to be a complete surprise, the assailants
following so close upon the curtain of shell-fire that they were amongst
the enemy and using their bayonets freely before the surviving Germans
had recovered from the whirl of flame and explosions that had so
suddenly enveloped them.
The German front line of defence consisted of fortified shell-holes,
and many of the machine-guns established there were knocked out at once
by our heavy fire; the occupants stood no chance against our men with
the bayonet, and the Canadians swept over with scarcely a halt, catching
up the barrage and reaching the outskirts of Passchendaele town just
behind it. The troops holding the enemy's main line before the village
had no desire to try conclusions with the owners of those free-swinging
bayonets, and without hesitation they bolted, unfortunately for
themselves, arriving in the middle of the ruined town simultaneously
with our barrage, which had been arranged to play on this portion of the
objective for a double space of time. But strong emplacements amongst
the masonry still gave our men pause.
On the left flank of the 27th Battalion a German machine gun, surrounded
by uncut wire and broken, reinforced walls, formed an ideal point for
stubborn defence. The flanking platoon charged this position three
times, and on each occasion was driven back. The assaults were met by
the point-blank fire of the machine-gun, and by bullets from riflemen in
the ruined houses along the main street of the village. Then, while his
platoon brought as heavy rifle and Lewis gun fire as possible to bear
upon the emplacement, Private Robertson crossed the open line of fire
alone, and running round the flank of the position, leapt the barbed
wire and got in with his bayonet among the garrison. He had bayoneted
several men before the gun crews had gathered their wits to meet the
sudden onslaught, and his furious fighting daunted the remainder. They
fled, nothing left them but the instinct of self-preservation. But
Robertson did not intend to let them escape--he had been told too often
at his training camp that his aim in life, nay, his whole ambition and
purpose, should be centred on the elimination of the Bosche. Seizing
the captured gun, he swung it about and opened fire on the running men,
killing most of them before his platoon had arrived at the position he
had captured so gallantly. Then, bearing the captured gun with him, he
continued on his way towards the final objective, the eastern outskirts
of the town, meeting with several opportunities to use his new weapon
and wasting none. The troops followed him down the main Passchendaele
street, past the broken church, mopping up the enemy's strong points
among the masonry as they advanced, and taking few prisoners. About each
damaged machine-gun and every ruined cottage they left German dead,
almost every man killed with the bayonet.
Little further resistance was encountered. The enemy had no taste for
the brand of fighting in vogue, and our snipers, passing through the
foremost line, lay out in advance of our busy troops, harassing points
of possible hostile observation, and making an end of many Germans who
sought refuge in the woods behind the town. But the enemy's shell-fire
was intense and destructive. With his range noted to a nicety from his
previous occupation of our new line, he pounded the unfortunate village,
occasionally revenging himself for our successful shooting with a burst
of shrapnel just in advance of our line.
During the consolidation, Private Robertson had been busy with his new
machine-gun, but, seeing two of our men lying wounded well in advance of
the line, he abandoned the gun and without hesitation went forward to
bring them in. He got in successfully enough with the first man, but now
the Germans, stiffened by reinforcements, had returned on their tracks
and were establishing posts behind every available piece of cover. In
spite of a veritable storm of bullets, Robertson went out again. He
fell before reaching the second man--he was probably hit--but picking
himself up, he continued his way, and secured his wounded comrade.
Slipping on the sticky mud, nearly exhausted, he stuck to his man, and
had put him down close to our own line, when an unlucky shell exploded
near by, killing him instantly. He did not live to know the honour he
had won, but the men of his battalion who fought through Passchendaele
village will not forget him.
[Illustration]
CORPORAL COLIN BARRON, 3RD BATTALION
The two preliminary assaults on the high ground before Passchendaele had
secured the Canadians an excellent jumping-off position for the attack
on the village itself. The capture of Crest Farm on October 30th by the
4th Division gave our men almost direct observation into the town, and
the consequent concentrated fire of our riflemen and machine-gunners
rendered the position of the German garrison most uncomfortable.
The 6th of November was the date chosen to justify the costly operations
of October 26th and 30th, and at 6 a.m. the Canadians resumed the
offensive, the 2nd Division troops on the right going forward to the
capture of Passchendaele town, while on the left the 1st Division
occupied the hills to the north.
The 1st Division had difficult country to manage. Not only were there
many pill-boxes to occupy, but ways and means of progress were terribly
limited and clearly defined by the areas of swampy and impassable ground
that lay before our advance. In view of the fact that we had so
recently driven the Germans from the ground we were to cover, it was too
much to hope that they were unaware of our limited attacking fronts, and
the subsequent machine-gun barrages that swept our lines of progress
proved the contrary.
The 3rd Battalion attacked on the extreme left of the Canadian Corps
front, with the intention of reaching the Goudberg Spur. But between our
line and the Spur there lay a very formidable strong point indeed, the
pill-box at Vine Cottage. Now the pill-box itself was a standing
testimonial to the thoroughness of German defensive works, but, in
addition to its 18-inch walls of reinforced concrete and its appropriate
armament, no less than six machine-guns had been placed in positions
commanding every approach to this _chef d'oeuvre_. Our fellows had
attempted the reduction of this minor fortress a week before Corporal
Barron and his section of the 3rd Battalion took the matter in hand, and
had gained no appreciable results beyond a somewhat depressing casualty
list and a raised estimation of German defensive ingenuity. However, its
capture was imperative, and a special plan of attack was arranged.
At zero hour, Lieutenant Lord's platoon jumped off towards the
south-east, intending to capture Vine Cottage and swing round northwards
to the final objective. Advancing through the rain, our men got near the
strong point and were met at once by heavy fire. Vine Cottage itself,
though hardly justifying its name, was a pleasant building enough in its
Belgian way, and it was not until the observer had approached it nearly
that he could define German handiwork behind the crumbling bricks.
The enemy, with simple cunning, had raised a concrete building within
the broken walls, with such successful camouflage that our scouting
aeroplanes had not reported it as a pill-box for some time, while the
easy unconcern with which the building received a direct hit by an
18-pounder shell had caused our gunners anxiety to a degree. As the
Canadians drew near they extended and attacked the position from three
sides. Their advance was slow over the sodden ground. It was impossible
to win close enough to the building or gun positions to throw bombs with
good effect. Time and again our fellows charged, but from every point
machine-gun fire drove them back, and finally they were forced to take
whatever cover they could find, while a fresh scheme of attack was
planned. The going was very heavy, and the mud and constant rain made
the condition of the wounded terrible beyond description. Our men
started to attack once more, and as they rose to their feet a diversion
occurred to the front.
Corporal Barron, a Lewis gunner, had worked round the flank with his
weapon, and was knocking out the German crews one after the other with
his well-directed fire. Completely exposed, he directed his gun
undisturbed by the point-blank shooting of the enemy, until he had
silenced two of the opposing batteries. Then, without waiting for his
comrades, he charged the remaining position with the bayonet, getting in
among the gunners and killing four of them before the rest of his
platoon could arrive. The slackening of the heavy fire gave the
Canadians a chance to get well forward, and in a moment they were about
the position. The guns Barron had been unable to reach kept up a heavy
fire until our fellows were on top of them, when most of the crews
surrendered, while others attempted to escape to the rear. But the
Canadians had lost too many of their comrades to feel merciful, and they
were infuriated at the general morale of men who would maintain
murderous shooting until imminent danger pressed, and then calmly sue
for mercy. They took few prisoners.
Corporal Barron, however, had not finished his good work. Turning the
enemy's guns about, he opened fire upon the retreating Germans, catching
the groups upon the hillside, and shooting them down with such good
effect that hardly a man escaped.
That was a job well done and the remaining men of the platoon moved
northwards to the consolidation of Goudberg Spur with the capture of six
machine-guns and a strong pill-box to their credit, and the satisfying
knowledge that the German losses were double the number of their own.
[Illustration]
LIEUTENANT HARCUS STRACHAN, FORT GARRY HORSE
It is generally admitted that initiative and an aggressive spirit are
very necessary concomitants of the successful cavalry leader. Their
possession does not prove an infallible rule--cavalrymen claim no
monopoly of these qualities--yet on occasion a cavalry officer's
possession of them to a degree marks an exploit abnormal in its
exceptional dash and daring. Such an exploit was that of Lieutenant
Strachan of the Fort Garry Horse, in November, 1917, at Cambrai.
During the morning of November 20th, the Canadian Cavalry Brigade moved
forward to the outskirts of Masnieres, and there the troopers halted,
awaiting word from the G.O.C. 88th Brigade, whose men were preparing the
way for the cavalry. The British infantry and tanks had broken the
enemy's line between Gonnelieu and Hermies, and it was the intention of
the Higher Command to push the cavalry forward through the gap, and with
the mounted men to seize Bourlon Wood and Cambrai, to hold the passages
across the Sensee River, and to cut off the enemy's troops between
Havrincourt and the Sensee.
Riding forward into Masnieres, General Seely received word that the
attacking troops had secured their objectives, and accordingly the
brigade advance guard, the Fort Garry Horse, entered the town and
managed to get across the river bridge in the main street. The canal
bridge beyond, however, had been broken down, either by the weight of a
tank or blown up by the enemy during the crossing of one of these
machines. At any rate, one of our tanks had plunged through into the
canal beneath, and, without very radical repair, the bridge was
impassable to mounted men.
Another bridge, in a rather better condition, was discovered to the
south-west, and Major Walker, of the Machine Gun Squadron, commandeered
the help of every available man, including civilians and German
prisoners, and by three o'clock the bridge was strong and practicable.
This work was accomplished under very heavy fire.
Upon the completion of the bridge, "B" Squadron of the Fort Garry Horse,
under the command of Captain Campbell, pushed forward across the canal
and attacked the enemy's line upon the ridge, while the remainder of the
regiment prepared to follow. But conflicting statements arrived from the
infantry--there had been a check--and before the rest of the mounted men
could advance, Colonel Patterson, commanding the Fort Garry Horse,
received orders instructing him not only to remain west of the canal,
but to withdraw any of his troops that might have crossed.
Colonel Patterson immediately sent messengers after "B" Squadron, but
the orderlies were unable to deliver their instructions. The Canadian
troopers had wasted no time--opportunity had been denied them too
long--and there had been little delay in getting to grips with the
enemy. They were well away.
Captain Campbell's men came under machine-gun fire directly they left
Masnieres, and for a few minutes the horses were hard put to it in the
marshy ground about the canal. Before them the infantry had cut a gap in
the German wire, and winning through the swamp they charged for this at
the gallop, taking little heed of the heavy fire.
Casualties were rather heavy at the gap. Captain Campbell went down, and
command was taken by Lieutenant Strachan. There was no delay. Sweeping
through the gap, Strachan led his men north towards Rumilly, and soon
encountered the camouflaged road just south-east of the town. This
obstacle was negotiated successfully enough, with some slight damage to
the screens and an occasional telephone wire, and, forming in line of
troop columns, the men went forward at the gallop to an objective dear
to any cavalryman's heart. A battery of field-guns lay before them.
A good horse, firm ground and guns to be taken--a cavalryman wants no
more. The Canadians charged down upon them, and in a moment were among
the guns, riding the gunners down or sabreing them as they stood. Two of
the guns were deserted by their crews as our fellows came thundering
down, the third was blown up by its gunners, and the crew of the fourth
fired a hasty round point-blank at the advancing troopers. This shot
might have seriously disorganized the mounted men, but fortunately the
gunners were much too demoralized to train their weapon surely. The
shell went wide. There was a brief mêlée of plunging horses and
stumbling artillerymen. Then the business was finished, and the men
hoped for a breathing-space.
But there was no rest for a while. Behind the guns a body of German
infantry appeared, and, swinging his men about, Strachan led the
troopers on into the thick of them. A few saddles were emptied, but the
firing was vague and ragged. The Germans were not accustomed to this
kind of thing and would not stand. They fled, our fellows cutting them
down as they ran.
Strachan gathered his men and continued towards Rumilly, under constant
fire from block-houses on the outskirts of the town. A sunken road
crossed his line about half a mile east of the town, and here the
troopers halted and prepared a hasty stronghold. All this time
Lieutenant Strachan had been anxiously waiting for news or sight of the
main body of the Cavalry Brigade, and as the day passed and there was no
sign of his regiment he realized that something had gone wrong. He could
not face the German Army with less than a hundred cavalrymen, however
determined, but he decided to hold on awhile in the rough cover of the
sunken road until it became obvious that no supports were coming to his
assistance that night.
The enemy had collected what troops he could, and the band of dismounted
troopers were surrounded on three sides. Several tentative rushes had
been made, but the steady fire of the Canadians had driven these back in
disorder. Still, without rapid support it was impossible for the party
to hold out much longer. Only five horses remained unwounded, and the
strength of the squadron was under fifty men. Ammunition was none too
plentiful, and Strachan called for two volunteers to carry messages back
to Headquarters in Masnieres.
The job was risky enough, but there was more difficulty in selecting
applicants than procuring them. Two troopers, Privates Morrell and
Vanwilderode, were dispatched, and in the meantime the lieutenant set
his men to cutting three main telephone cables that ran along the side
of the sunken road. This small operation in itself should have caused
the enemy some slight annoyance.
The light was going fast, and Strachan decided to abandon his horses and
cut his way through to Masnieres. He imagined, shrewdly enough, that
though the Germans were in no manner of doubt as to his presence, they
were very vague about the strength of his party, and were by no means
anxious to try for a definite conclusion until their numbers were
assuredly overwhelming.
The light was just strong enough to distinguish the church tower of
Rumilly, and taking a compass bearing from the building, Strachan
started off to fight his way back to the brigade. First he collected his
horses, and with some commotion stampeded them to the eastwards. This
manoeuvre drew the fire of every machine-gun in the vicinity upon the
unfortunate animals, for the Germans thought that, not content with
the havoc that they had already created behind their lines, the
irrepressible cavalrymen were starting off again upon their destructive
mission.
With the mêlée at its height, Strachan gathered his men, and led them
off quietly towards the British lines.
The journey back was hardly less eventful than the outgoing trip, though
it was a great deal slower. Leading his men through the dark, Strachan
made as straight a line as possible for the town where he had left the
brigade. One might have imagined that the military ardour which had
fired these troopers throughout the day would have been temporarily
damped, but there was no sign of it. No less than four parties of
Germans were encountered on the homeward route, and each time attacked
and dispersed. On two occasions the enemy was numerically a great deal
stronger, but disregarding the obvious, the dismounted troopers went
forward with the bayonet, routed the unsuspecting Germans and captured
more prisoners than they could conveniently handle.
However, most of them were brought along, and after an hour of somewhat
nervous travelling the remainder of the squadron reached the wire. At
this point there was some slight difficulty in finding a gap that would
admit the passage of the men, and in the search in the darkness the
party became separated. Lieutenant Cowen with the prisoners and half the
men made the best of his way back to Masnieres, while Strachan sought
another road with the rest of his squadron. Both parties were successful
and came in without a further casualty.
Comment on the day's action would be superfluous. Strachan had destroyed
a battery, inflicted well over a hundred casualties, most effectively
tangled German communications over a wide radius, and captured or caused
the surrender of a number of the enemy exceeding the original strength
of his squadron. Had conditions been favourable for the use of cavalry
upon a larger scale a very great victory might have been won.
[Illustration]
LIEUTENANT GORDON MURIEL FLOWERDEW, LORD STRATHCONA'S HORSE
March 30th, 1918, dawned full of menace for the Allied line.
Early that morning the Canadian Cavalry Brigade received information
that the Germans had captured Mézières and were advancing on Amiens. The
brigade was ordered to cut across country and arrest the advance.
Already the Germans had occupied the Bois de Moreuil, the strategic
importance of which could hardly be over-estimated. From the wood they
could overlook the whole of the valley leading up to Amiens and to the
main railroad to Paris. The cavalry decided to attack.
Reaching the north-east edge of the wood, headquarters were established
in a small wood adjoining the large one. The smaller wood had not then
been occupied by the Germans, but they were sending bursts of rifle and
machine-gun fire at the cavalry from their cover and it was imperative
that the attack should not be postponed.
The Royal Canadian Dragoons, who were leading, sent an advance-guard
squadron, commanded by Captain Nordheimer, around the north-east corner
at a gallop. A second squadron, under Captain Newcomen, rode at the
south-east face, intending to get into touch with Nordheimer's squadron.
A third squadron, under Major Timmis, followed in support of Captain
Nordheimer.
Though raked by a heavy fire, Nordheimer's squadron charged into the
north-east corner of the wood, and came to grips with the enemy in a
hand-to-hand combat. Many of the enemy were killed, for they refused to
surrender; but at last a large party, of about three hundred, driven
from cover, retired from the wood south of the point at which the
cavalry had entered.
It was then that Lord Strathcona's Horse received the order to advance,
Lieutenant Flowerdew's squadron in support of Nordheimer, while the
remainder of the regiment moved, dismounted, against the southern front
of the wood.
The mounted squadron rounded the corner of the wood at a gallop, to cut
off the retreat of the enemy on the eastern side. They were nearly at
the destination when suddenly in front of them they saw, from the top of
a road in a cut bank, two lines of Germans facing them. There were about
sixty Germans in each line, and machine-guns were posted in the centre
and on the flanks of both, the rear line about two hundred yards behind
the first. Immediately the enemy saw the horsemen they opened fire.
Flowerdew quickly ordered a troop under Lieut. Harvey, V.C., to dismount
and carry out a special movement. With the remaining men he charged the
German lines.
From the enemy machine-guns came a concentrated stream of fire on the
rushing cavalry. There is little need to describe that charge. It was a
return to the days when battles were decided by the strength of men's
arms. It was the charge of the Light Brigade over again, on a smaller
scale--smaller in physical weight of onslaught and opposition, but equal
in spirit.
The Germans stood up boldly to the attack. They never expected that the
horsemen would penetrate into their midst. There was no question of
surrender, nor much time for it. Through the first line went the
squadron, across the intervening space and through the second line,
cutting down the enemy as they passed. Behind the second line they
wheeled and rode through again full tilt. Over seventy per cent. of the
attackers were casualties, but the fury of the charge was more than the
Germans could face. They broke and fled. Nor was this all, for the enemy
who were still fighting in the wood, hearing the clatter of hoofs behind
them, believed themselves surrounded and their resistance to our
dismounted troops weakened.
The survivors of Lieutenant Flowerdew's men established themselves in a
position in which they were joined later by Harvey and those of his
force who were left. Both leaders had been wounded, Flowerdew having
been shot through both thighs.
Only after the action was the full importance of the victory realized,
and of Flowerdew it is written in official language that "there can be
no doubt that this officer's great valour was the prime factor in the
capture of the position."
THE END
_Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey._
SKEFFINGTON'S
New Novels by the Leading Authors
Captain Dieppe (=4th Edition=) =ANTHONY HOPE=
A Novel of "The Prisoner Author of "The Prisoner
of Zenda" period. =5s: net.= of Zenda," etc.
In this novel, Anthony Hope, after a long interval, returns again to
similar scenes that formed the background of his famous novel, "The
Prisoner of Zenda." The story, which has a powerful love interest
running through it, tells of many adventures.
The Test =6s. 9d. net:= =SYBIL SPOTTISWOODE=
Author of "Her Husband's Country,"
"Marcia in Germany," etc.
This delightful novel can be thoroughly recommended.
Claymore! (=2nd Edition=) =A. HOWDEN SMITH=
=6s. 9d. net.=
A first novel of the '45 Rebellion which, we believe, will bring to the
Author immediate popularity.
The Green Jacket (=2nd Edition=) =JENNETTE LEE=
(_A Lady Sherlock Holmes_) =6s. 9d. net:=
This is a detective story quite out of the common. The Author combines
an exciting story with the charm of real literary art; the mystery is so
impenetrable as to baffle the cleverest readers until the very sentence
in which the secret is revealed.
Sunny Slopes =6s. 9d net:= =ETHEL HUESTON=
Author of "Prudence of the Parsonage," etc.
Both young, and those not so young, will glory in Carrol's fight for her
husband's life, and laugh over Connie's hopeless struggle to keep from
acquiring a lord and master. The quotations below will show you that
Ethel Hueston has something to say and knows how to say it.
"If one can be pretty as well as sensible I think it's a Christian duty
to do it."
"The wickedest fires in the world would die out if there were not some
idle hands to fan them."
The Wedding Gown of "'Ole Miss" =GERTRUDE GRIFFITHS=
=6s. 9d. net. (3rd Edition)=
Not even Winston Churchill himself surpasses the authoress in the rare
gift of recreating the haunting atmosphere of those old-world days on a
Virginia plantation. An enchanting story of Love and War.
The Wife of a Hero =NETTA SYRETT=
=6s. 9d.=
A clever modern novel, with plenty of love interest, dealing with the
problems arising from an unhappy marriage.
Simpson of Snells' =WILLIAM HEWLETT=
=6s. 9d. net. (2nd Edition)=
The delightful story of a "tie with a temperament." A book that will
enhance the reputation of Maurice Hewlett's brother. A most original
plot, presented in a highly interesting fashion; a novel showing
extraordinary powers of characterisation, deep feeling and a refreshing
sense of humour.
The False Faces =LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE=
=6s. 9d. net.=
Love in the Darkness =MRS. SYDNEY GROOM=
=6s. 9d. net.=
An important new novel by a very gifted author of over 50 popular
serials.
The work of an authoress who has already achieved fame, anonymously, for
some of the most soul-stirring serials ever published. In this, her
first book, she reveals with a master-hand the soul of a girl who dared
to laugh at Love. It is a remarkable and absorbing drama of real life,
throbbing with passion from beginning to end, and written with such
extraordinary power and charm that is likely to make Mrs. Sydney Groom
as popular as Ethel M. Dell or Gertrude Page. A phenomenal sale is
predicted for "Love in the Darkness," and an immediate demand for
further work from the same pen.
Michael Good News =MARGARET BAILLIE SAUNDERS=
=3s. 6d. net.= With Frontispiece and 3 illustrations.
A delightful gift book for children. A touching Christmas story. A true
tale retold for the children.
Rotorua Rex (=3rd Edition=) =J. ALLAN DUNN=
=6s. 9d. net.=
Everybody is on the look-out for a good strong story of love and
adventure. Here is an exceptionally fine one, on the South Seas, which
all lovers of Stevenson's and Stacpoole's novels will thoroughly enjoy.
Each page grips the attention of the reader, and few will put the book
down until the last page is reached.
William--An Englishman =6s. 9d. net.= =CICELY HAMILTON=
(Author of "Senlis," 2nd Ed., etc.)
A novel of fine quality, written with intense, but restrained feeling.
Every stroke tells. The story of two English lovers caught in the
whirlpool of the Great War. A book of unusual power and fine
psychological insight.
Her Mother's Blood =BARONESS d'ANETHAN=
=6s. 9d. net.=
A charming romance with a Japanese setting, bringing into sharp relief
the difference between East and West---the struggle between Western
ideals and "the call of the blood." An absorbing love-story with a happy
ending. The Baroness knows and loves Japan.
Suspense =6s. 9d. net.= =ISOBEL OSTRANDER=
A detective story of extraordinary fascination. A tale of mystery and
romance which, once begun, will not be laid down unfinished. Miss Isobel
Ostrander has come to stay.
The Good Ship Esperanza =ROY NORTON=
=6s. 9d. net.=
An appealing story of love and adventure. The thrilling experiences of
"Twisted Jimmy" and his companions. A story of the present day with an
atmosphere of high idealism pervading it.
The Upward Flight =6s. 9d. net.=
MRS. KENNETH COMBE
A novel dealing on a high plane with a problem--that of Divorce--which
is being discussed on all sides, and which confronts thousands of men
and women at the present time. The story of a woman who remained true to
her ideals through the fiercest temptation.
Hammers of Hate =6s. 9d. net.= =GUY THORNE=
A good mystery story. By the Author of "The Secret Monitor."
The Stolen Statesman =3s. 6d. net.= =WILLIAM LE QUEUX=
"The Stolen Statesman" is a new novel with a weird and fascinating plot
which holds the reader from the first page to the last.
The Secret Monitor =3s. 6d. net.= =GUY THORNE=
A remarkable, thrilling and swiftly-moving story of love, adventure and
mystery, woven round about half a dozen characters on the Atlantic coast
of Ireland. This novel ought to considerably increase the popularity
which has been gradually and constantly growing for Mr. Guy Thorne's
mystery novels. No one, after picking up the book, will want to put it
down until the last page is read.
Blake of the R.F.C. =LT.-COL. H. CURTIES=
=3s. net.=
A quick-moving novel of an airman's love and adventure in Egypt during
the war.
Tales that are Told =6s. net.= =ALICE PERRIN=
This volume consists of a short novel of about 25,000 words and several
fine Anglo-Indian and other stories.
EARLY REVIEWS.
"Ten of her very clever tales."--_The Globe._
"I can recommend these stories."--_Evening News._
"This attractive book."--_Observer._
"We can cordially recommend this book."--_Western Mail._
"An admirable and distinguished bit of writing. Mrs. Perrin at her
best."--_Punch._
GENERAL BOOKS.
Tales of War Time France =6s. 9d. net.= Translated by =WILLIAM L.
MCPHERSON=
Representative of the best French fiction.
A fine volume of short stories, ranking with those of Daudet and
Maupassant, by such well-known writers as Pierre Mille, Frédéric Boutet,
Maurice Level, René Benjamin, Alfred Machard.
Vanished Towers and Chimes of Flanders =26s. net.= =GEORGE WHARTON
EDWARDS=
Author of "Holland of To-day," "Brittany and the Bretons," etc.
An exquisite volume with over 20 coloured plates and monotone
illustrations from drawings by the author, and a frontispiece of
the great Cloth Hall at Ypres--that was. A book that will be of
ever-increasing value in years to come. Only a limited number available.
Vanished Halls and Cathedrals of France =26s. net.= =GEORGE WHARTON
EDWARDS=
Author of "Vanished Towers and Chimes of Flanders."
Illustrated with 32 plates in full colour and monotone, from drawings
made just before the War. This book of rare beauty, like its companion
volume on Flanders, will be a perpetual and highly-prized memorial of
the vanished glories of this region of France. Only a limited number
available.
Marshal Foch and his Theory of Modern War =CAPTAIN A. HILLIARD
ATTERIDGE=
=5s.= Author of "Muret," "Marshal Ney," "Famous Modern Battles,"
"Towards Khartoum," etc.
A book of paramount importance, not only for all military men but the
general public, who here, for the first time, see the great French
Field-Marshal as a man and a soldier.
A book giving an intimate biographical sketch of the man whose genius
may be said to have saved France and Europe at a critical moment;
containing a full and clear _exposé_ of the theory and practice of
strategy, based on Marshal Foch's own books, and on his operations in
the present war. It is impossible to overrate the importance of this
book, written in a graphic and delightful style, by this well-known
expert on military matters and history, the man who was present
throughout Kitchener's Soudan Campaign.
Three Years with the New Zealanders =6s.= =LT.-COL. WESTON, D.S.O.=
With 3 maps and many illustrations.
A narrative of absorbing interest from a military and human point of
view, giving a vivid account of New Zealand's share in the Great War, at
Gallipoli and in France, and full of interesting and illuminating
observations on the nature of the New Zealander and the people of the
Home Country.
Thirty Canadian V.C.s Cloth =2s. 6d. net.= =CAPTAIN T. G. D. ROBERTS=
A long, authoritative and spirited account in detail of the actions
which have gained for Canada thirty V.C.s in the Great War. Capt.
Roberts has had access to the official records, and gives a great many
entirely new and interesting facts.
Order of St. John of Jerusalem Past and Present =Illustrated.=
=5s. net.= =ROSE G. KINGSLEY=
An illustrated and authoritative account of the Order of the
Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, from the earliest time to the
present day. It traces its history from the early body of military monks
under whose auspices a hospital and a church were founded in Jerusalem;
follows them to the island of Rhodes, tells of their troubles there
(through the seizure of the island by the Turks), and their subsequent
possession of the Island of Malta, the government of which they
administered until it was occupied by Napoleon in 1798; and finally ends
with the work by members of the Order during the present war.
The Prisoner of War in Germany =DANIEL J. MCCARTHY, A.B., M.B.=
=12s. 6d. net.=
An intensely interesting and deeply moving book by the representative of
the American Embassy in Berlin during 1916.
=Ambassador Gerard= says: "I cannot praise too highly Dr. McCarthy's
book.... The better treatment of prisoners is largely owing to his
work...." A true book that will bring a comforting message to many a
British home.
Three Anzacs in the War =6s. 9d. net.= =LIEUT. A. E. DUNN=
A book of irresistible charm. The story of three Australians who
volunteer for service across the seas, by the one who was left to tell
the tale. A book written with dash and spirit, deep pathos and sparkling
humour. It will make every Briton proud of the sons of the Commonwealth.
With the Austrian Army in Galicia =OCTAVIAN C. TASLAUANU=
_Crown 8vo, cloth, with map_, =6s. 9d. net=.
A simple narrative of the first months of the war against Russia, by a
Roumanian subject of Austria. A book that will shed a flood of light on
the mysteries of the question of the "Near East," and all that will be
involved in the solution of that question, when the day of Peace
arrives.
Round about Bar-le-Duc =SUSANNE R. DAY=
=6s. 9d. net.=
Nothing could exceed the charm of this war book, written with tenderness
and real wit, giving a true and moving and inspiring account of the
sufferings and the dignified attitude of the refugees from Northern
France, among whom, and for whom, the authoress worked.
The Drift of Pinions =ROBERT KEABLE=
=6s. 9d. net.= (=2nd Edition=) Author of "A City of the Dawn."
A collection of most remarkable miracles--personal experiences--retold
in a touching manner. A book that will make a special appeal to all
those interested in the occult.
Humour in Tragedy =CONSTANCE BRUCE=
=3s. 6d. net.=
With an introduction by the RT. HON. =The LORD BEAVERBROOK=. Foolscap
4to, with over 60 very original and humorous pen-and-ink sketches by the
author. One of the most delightful, refreshing books that has appeared
as yet, by a Canadian nursing sister behind three fronts.
Parliament and the Taxpayer =G. H. DAVENPORT, B.A.=
Barrister-at-law, Private Secretary to the Assistant Financial
Secretary of the War Office. With a Preface by the Rt. Hon. HERBERT
SAMUEL, M.P., Chairman of the Select Committee on National
Expenditure. =6s. net.=
The first book which deals with the financial control of Parliament
historically and critically. It shows how Parliament has failed and how
it may yet succeed.
Can we Compete? =GODFREY E. MAPPIN=
Definite Details of German Pre-War Methods in Finance, Trade,
Education, Consular Training, etc., adapted to British Needs. =4s.
6d. net.=
A book of momentous interest that will be read by every intelligent
British man and woman with the eagerness commonly devoted to fiction.
The author gives, _for the first time_, a full account of Germany's
system of commercial and scientific education, consular training, etc.,
with statistics and tables of results. He proves the absolute necessity
of reforms in England, if we would retain our trade in the future, and
makes valuable and highly interesting suggestions as to how to avert
disaster and to checkmate successfully the economic danger confronting
the British Empire.
SYNOPSIS OF BOOK.
Practical Sketch of History, and lessons therefrom of Political
Economy, old (British) _v._ new (German).
Actual Courses of Study in German Commercial and Technical
Universities, Compulsory Technical Education and Consular Training.
Financial Means for developing Co-operation in Germany, and Trade
Development.
Suggestions for Training of Women to become Self-supporting.
Improvements in our Public School Education.
Series of proposals of various improvements: Public Baths and Houses,
etc., based on German examples.
Germany's Commercial Grip on the World =6s. net (4th Edition)= =HENRI
HAUSER=
The most exhaustive and interesting study of Germany's methods for
world-wide trade. A book which all commercial men should not fail to
read.
The Future Life: In the light of Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science. =6s.
9d. net.= =LOUIS ELBÉ=
The most exhaustive book so far published on the subject, tracing the
belief in a future life from the earliest ages down to the present day,
among the primitive races as well as the civilised peoples of the East
and West. The author is a man of profound learning who has the
additional gift of a fascinating style, which is so well preserved in
the English translation that it reads like the original. It contains
over 100,000 words, and more than 120,000 copies of the French edition
have been sold. Such a sale is conclusive proof in itself of the book's
excellence.
Sea Power and Freedom =GERARD FIENNES=
=10s. 6d. net.=
A very important book, mainly historical, reviewing, from the
Phoenicians onwards, the history of all the nations who have possessed
Sea-power, and showing how its possession depends on a national
character which is, in itself, antagonistic to despotic rule.
Les Quatrains d'Omar Khéyyam =ODETTE ST. LYS=
Author of "L'Auberge," "Inn-of-Heart."
_In small booklet form, leather bound, gilt edged_, =2s.= _net_.
Edward FitzGerald's first edition of the "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam,"
translated into French quatrains for the first time. French and English
text side by side. A book for all lovers of Omar Khayyam and a solace
for the trenches.
Walks and Scrambles in the Highlands =ARTHUR L. BAGLEY=
Member of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club.
With Twelve Original Illustrations. Large crown 8vo, cloth, =3s. 6d.=
net
This delightful volume describes Walks and Climbs in the Highlands,
chiefly in the more remote and little-visited districts. Readers will be
interested and fascinated by the descriptions of these explorations.
"This Book has a real attraction. Many Englishmen would do well to
follow Mr. Bagley's footsteps over our British hills and
mountains."--_The Saturday Review._
"A more readable record among the mountains, valleys, and lochs of
Scotland has probably never been published."--_The Western Morning
News._
The Cult of Old Paintings and the Romney Case =6s.= net. =RICKARD W.
LLOYD=
With an Introduction by Sir Edward Poynter, P.R.A.
Sir Edward Poynter says: "You have set forth the difficulties and snares
which beset the Cult of Old Paintings in a way which is both interesting
and amusing, and I have read your treatise with pleasure.... Seeing that
there is nothing in your writing of a polemic character, I shall be
honoured by your coupling my name with your little book."
Silver Store =S. BARING GOULD=
New and Cheaper Edition. Fifth Impression. =2s. 6d.= net.
A Volume of Verse from Mediæval, Christian and Jewish Mines. Includes
"The Building of St. Sophia" and many Legends and other pieces, both
serious and humorous, which will be found not only suitable for home
use, but also most useful for Public Reading at Parish Entertainments,
etc., etc.
"Many will welcome the attractive reprint of Mr. Baring-Gould's
Poems."--_Guardian._
Three Years in Tristan da Cunha =K. M. BARROW=
Wife of the Rev. J. G. Barrow, Missionary in Tristan da Cunha, and
fellow-worker with him in that island.
Large crown 8vo, cloth, =7s. 6d.= net.
This book contains the fullest details of this most remote part of our
dominions. It describes in vivid and picturesque language the island
itself, its inhabitants, the occupations, industries, etc., etc., and is
illustrated with a map and 37 photographs of both places and people,
taken expressly for this work.
"We wish we had room for even a few of the romantic and amusing
details, of both of which the book is full; and must conclude by
heartily commending it to the general reader."--_Church Quarterly
Review._
Saint Oswald: Patron of the C.E.M.S. =ARTHUR C. CHAMPNEYS, M.A.=
A Biographical Sketch, full of interest.
Fcap. 8vo, cloth, =1s.= net.
A Jester's Jingles =F. RAYMOND COULSON=
Fcap. 8vo, cloth, =2s. 6d.= net.
A volume of forty-three pieces of humorous verse, including a quartette
of Drawing-room Ballads, and seven Cockney Carols. Among the titles are:
"The Tyranny of the Tip"--"The Railway Porter's Bank Holiday"--"Books
and Bacteria"--"Ode to a Demon Cock"--"Ode to a Pig," etc., etc.
Verses and Carols =ELLEN MABEL DAWSON=
Crown 8vo, cloth, =3s. 6d.= net.
Being a Selection from the Writings of the late Ellen Mabel Dawson. They
include Allegories and Parables from Nature, Verses and Hymns for the
New Year, for Easter, etc.
With the C.L.B. Battalion in France =JAMES DUNCAN=
Chaplain to the 16th K.R.R. (C.L.B.).
With Frontispiece and a most interesting Preface by the REV. EDGAR
ROGERS.
Crown 8vo, cloth, =2s. 6d.= net.
This intensely interesting book gives an account of the doings of the
Battalion raised from the Church Lads' Brigade. Among the vivid and
striking chapters are: Going to the Front--In France--In Billets--In the
Firing Line--The Trenches--The Red Harvest of War, etc.
Lovely Man =G. E. FARROW=
Nineteenth Impression. =1s.= net.
His Manners and Morals--The Parson--The City Man--The Soldier--The
Lawyer--The Working Man, etc., etc. A Counterblast against "Lovely
Woman." Cover by John Hassall.
Gordon League Ballads (More) =JIM'S WIFE=
(Mrs. Clement Nugent Jackson.)
Dedicated by Special Permission to the Bishop of London.
Crown 8vo, cloth. Second Impression. =2s. 6d.= net.
A Third Series of these most popular and stirring Ballads. They are
seventeen in number, including many of striking general interest; also
six remarkable temperance ballads; also three stories, specially written
for audiences of men only.
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
Gordon League Ballads. =First series.=
Dedicated to H.R.H. the Princess Louise.
Sixteenth thousand. Crown 8vo, cloth, =2s. 6d.= net.
Including "Harry," as recited with such remarkable success by Mrs.
Kendal; also "Mother," and that most striking ballad, "The Doctor's
Fee," recited by Canon Fleming.
"The book is beautiful in its appeal to the common heart, and
deserves to be widely known. We pity anyone who could read such
veritable transcripts from life without responsive
emotions."--_Standard._
Gordon League Ballads. =Second Series.=
Eighth Impression. Crown 8vo, cloth, =2s. 6d.= net.
Among the Ballads in this Second Series may be mentioned: "How Harry Won
the Victoria Cross," being a sequel to "Harry" in the First Series; "In
Flower Alley," "Beachy Head: a True Coastguard Story of an Heroic
Rescue"; "Shot on Patrol: a True Incident of the Boer War"; "Grit: a
True Story of Boyish Courage"; "Granny Pettinger: a True Story of a
London Organ Woman"; "A Midnight Struggle," etc., etc.
Short Plays for Small Stages =COSMO HAMILTON=
Crown 8vo, cloth, =2s. 6d.= net.
A volume of Short Plays for Amateurs. There are five Plays: In the
Haymarket, Toller's Wife, Why Cupid Came to Earl's Court, St. Martin's
Summer, and Soldiers' Daughters. They are all eminently suited for
amateur performers at home or in a theatre.
"Should prove a boon to clever amateur players, for all five of the
Plays are simple, effective and quite easy to produce."--_The
Lady._
The Merrythought Plays =MYRTLE B. S. JACKSON=
Second Impression. Crown 8vo, cloth, =2s. 6d=. net.
Six Original Plays, for Amateur Dramatic Clubs, Village Entertainments,
Girls' Schools, Colleges, etc. Easy to stage, easy to dress, and easy to
act. These excellent and amusing Plays have already met a very felt
want, and are having a very large sale. They are easy to produce and
furnish capital entertainments at Christmas and other times, whether in
the Drawing-room, at School Prize Days, or at Public Entertainments.
"Some of the most lively and well-written little dramas that were
ever written ... in short, this is a most useful and entertaining
volume, which will soon be known wherever amateur theatricals are
popular."--_The Daily Telegraph._
The Great Historians of Ancient and Modern Times: Their genius, style,
surroundings and literary achievements.
=ALBERT JORDON, M.A., D.D., LL.D.=
Rector of Llanbadar-Fawr
Crown 8vo, cloth, =2s. 6d.= net.
The chapters are arranged in chronological order from Herodotus to John
Richard Green. The book is one of great interest and includes the chief
Greek and Latin Historians, in addition to the most important French,
English and Scotch writers.
Please Tell Me a Tale =MISS YONGE, S. BARING-GOULD, MISS COLERIDGE=, and
other eminent Authors.
Thirteenth Thousand. In artistic cloth binding. Super-royal 16mo, =3s.
6d.= net.
A Collection of Short Tales to be read or told to Children from Four to
Ten Years of Age.
Monologues and Duologues =MARY PLOWMAN=
Second Impression. Crown 8vo, cloth =2s. 6d.= net.
These most original and amusing Pieces (some for men and some for
women) will furnish charming and delightful Recitations for Public
Entertainments, the Drawing-room, School Prize Days, etc., etc. They are
thoroughly up to date. In all, the book contains eight Monologues and
two Duologues.
"Most welcome to those who are always eager to find something new
and something good. The Monologues will be most valuable to
Reciters."--_The Lady._
=Puzzles for Parties=, Including "Buried Words" and "Word Building," two
most entertaining competitive games for afternoon tea-parties or evening
entertainments. The answers to be filled in by the guests in a given
time.
Complete with Solutions. Fcap. 4to, thick paper wrappers, =1s.=
net.
The Questions separately (perforated for distribution to the guests),
6d. net.
The publishers are confident that these most amusing and instructive
Puzzles will be immensely popular with old and young alike.
"Valuable at the Party-season; it would keep the most uproarious
quiet and interested."--_The Morning Leader._
Sisters in Arms =M. O. SALE=
Crown 8vo, cloth, =2s.= net.
A series of Short Plays in the form of Triologues, Duologues, and
Monologues, on thoroughly amusing and up-to-date Subjects. Among the
titles are: The Other Woman's Photograph--The Editor and the Girl--The
Unfinished Story--Back to the Land--The Lover Exposed--The Jaunt that
Failed, etc.
"Entertaining to read and should act well."--_Scotsman._
In the Lilac Garden =F. M. WHITEHEAD=
Author of "The Withy Wood."
Crown 8vo, cloth, =2s. 6d.=
A most interesting Story for Children, beautifully illustrated by the
author. A charming gift-book for birthday or Christmas.
Angelique of Port Royal, 1591-1661 =E. K. SANDERS=
Demy 8vo, 448 pages, with frontispiece. New and Cheaper Edition. Second
Impression. _5s._ net.
This Biography covers a period of deep historic interest. The intrigues
of Richelieu, the Anarchy of Anne of Austria's Regency, and the
despotism of the great Louis had each their special bearing on the
fortunes of Angélique Arnauld. But her life has a further claim on
attention, for she was the friend of François de Sales and Mme. de
Chantal, the inspirer of the religious movement that has Blaise Pascal
for its chief exponent, and the leader of the celebrated Nuns and
Hermits of Port Royal, whose personal self-devotion, while it proved an
effective protest against the moral corruption of the age, won for them
the antagonism of the Jesuits.
"The history of the Great Abbess, as unfolded in this most
interesting work, will come to those in sympathy with the religion
of silence with an irresistible appeal."--_The Times._
The Daily Biographer =J. P. SHAWCROSS, M.A.=
Consisting of Short Lives for Author of "The History
every day in the Year. of Dagenham."
Demy 8vo, cloth, =5s.= net.
This original book contains a short but interesting and accurate
Biography of some eminent person for every day in the whole year. The
dates are fixed by the birth or death of each subject. It is a book of
deep interest, and full of information as a valuable work for reference.
Skeffington's Famous Reprints 2/- net
Sir Nigel =Conan Doyle=
The Window at the Black Cat =Mary Roberts Rinehart=
Spragge's Canyon =H. A. Vachell=
The Mysterious Mr. Miller =William Le Queux=
The Great Plot =William Le Queux=
The Leavenworth Case =Anna Katharine Green=
Her Heart's Longing =Effie Adelaide Rowland=
The Woman's Fault =Effie Adelaide Rowland=
Lone-Wolf =Louis Joseph Vance=
_Each with three-colour pictorial wrapper._
Skeffington's New Theological Works
=The Five Weapons of the Christian Soldier= (3/- and 2/-) =Rev. L.
Harvey Gem=
Dedicated to the Rev. Gregory Smith, LL.D., Hon. Canon of Worcester.
=The Religion of Worship and Service= (3/- and 2/6) =Rev. J. R. Lumb=
The object of this book is to show that the system of religious
education requires revision and that the War is giving a new opportunity
to the Church to strengthen its hold upon the community.
=Minima= (2/6 Cloth, 1/9 Paper) =Rev. J. D. Bletchley Hennak=
Talks to boys on the Christian Faith. A simple and inspiring book that
will be as helpful to boys as to teachers and preachers.
=The Ministry of Women.= Fcap. 8vo (2/6 Cloth, 1/9 Paper). =Rev. H. A.
Mackenzie=
Postage 2d.
Addresses suitable for Lent and Holy Week, also Mothers' Meetings.
=Grounds of Christian Belief.= Crown 8vo (3/- Cloth, 2/-Paper). =Rev.
F. W. Butler=
Postage 3d.
Presents in an interesting manner the truths of the Christian Faith in
the light of present-day thought; by a writer of ability and
distinction.
=The Holy Catholic Church and Her Sacraments= (1/3 net) =Rev. F. T.
Mills=
Invaluable as a manual of simple instruction regarding "The Faith once
delivered to the Saints." A book every candidate for Confirmation and
every thinking member of the Church of England should possess.
=The Fellowship of the Saints= (In 2 vols., 4/6 net each) =Rev. G. Lacey
May=
A course of addresses for the year.
=What's Wrong with the Church of England?= Crown 8vo, boards 2/6; paper
2/- =Rev. H. Ernest Crofts=
A very excellent work and one that ought to prove very popular. The
writer puts his case well and makes an attempt to correct every abuse
which he exposes. The Publishers can heartily recommend it.
=The Solace of the Soul= (3/6 Cloth, 2/9 Paper) =Rev. L. W. Key= Vicar
of All Saints, Ipswich
Meditations on Prayer, with an introduction by the Ven. Archdeacon
Everingham, B.A., Archdeacon of Suffolk. A consoling book for mourners
and those in sorrow.
=A Bishop's Message= (4/6 net) =Right Rev. Ethelbert Talbot= D.D.,
LL.D., Bishop of Bethlehem
With an Introduction by the =Rt. Rev. J. C. Ridgeway= D.D., Lord Bishop
of Chichester
Counsels on Some of the Manifold Problems confronting Clergymen To-day.
A valuable book by a very fair-minded Prelate, written in simple and
convincing language.
=In the Track of our Troops in Palestine= (2/6 net) =Canon
Scott-Moncrieff=
=War and the Christian Faith= (2/- net) =Arthur Machen=
Author of "The Bowman," etc.
=Palestine and the War= (3/6 net) =Rev. Euston J. Nurse=
Author of "Prophecy and the War."
=Some Penitents of Scripture= (3/- net) =Rev. C. A. Cobbold=
=Life in Christ: or what it is to be a Christian= (3/6 net) =Canon
Keymer=
=Religion and Reconstruction= (3/6 net) =By various Bishops and others=
=Fruits of the Passion= (3/-net) =H. Parham=
=At God's Gate= (3/- net) =The Ven. Rev. J. Wakeford=
=Piety and Power= (2/6 net) =Rev. Congreve-Horne=
=Our Lenten Warfare= (2/6 net) =Canon Goudge=
=Thoughts for Dark Days= (3/6 net) =Canon Goudge=
=The Message of the Guest Chamber= (2/6 net) =Rev. A. V. Magee=
=God's Love and Man's Perplexity= (2/6 net) =Rev. A. V. Magee=
=Tennyson's "In Memoriam":= =Rev. T. A. Moxon=
Its Message to the Bereaved and Sorrowful (2/6 net)
=Our Advent Armour= (2/6 net) =Rev. J. H. Williams=
=Triplicates of the Holy Writ= (2/6 net) =Rev. J. H. Williams=
=The Language of the Cross= (2/6 net) =Rev. J. H. Williams=
=Lenten Teaching in War Time= (2/6 net) =Rev. J. H. Williams=
=Prophecy and the War= (3/- net) (8th edition) =Rev. Euston J. Nurse=
SKEFFINGTON & SON, LTD.,
34, Southampton St., Strand, W.C. 2.
(_Publishers to His Majesty the King_)
THE ANCHOR PRESS LTD., TIPTREE, ESSEX, ENGLAND
Transcriber's notes:
The following is a list of changes made to the original.
The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.
German line opposite was only seventy-five yards away
German line opposite was only seventy-five yards away.
27th, the R.C.D's occupied the villages of Longasvesnes
27th, the R.C.D's occupied the villages of Longavesnes
up the low northern slope towards the cres
up the low northern slope towards the crest
CAPTAIN (ACTING-MAJOR) GEORGE RANDOLPH PEARKES, M.C., 5TH C.M.R.
CAPTAIN (ACTING MAJOR) GEORGE RANDOLPH PEARKES, M.C., 5TH C.M.R.
afforded, continuing to reply as well as might be
afforded, continuing to reply as well as might be expected
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Thirty Canadian V. Cs., 23d April 1915 to 30th March 1918" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.