Add files from ibiblio as of 2025-03-08 20:54:39HEADmain

1 files changed, 3975 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/40649-0.txt b/40649-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a06c0bf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/40649-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3975 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40649 ***
+
+    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 the Project Gutenberg EBook of Thirty Canadian V. Cs., 23d April 1915
+to 30th March 1918, by Theodore Goodridge Roberts and Robin Richards and Stuart Martin
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40649 ***