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 sh.e.l.ls 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.saulting troops rose out of their trenches like gnomes of the night and started for the enemy lines. The 18th Battalion a.s.saulted 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 sh.e.l.ling and as the Canadians advanced they enfiladed the waves of men as they pa.s.sed.
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."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
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 a.s.sault, and two hours before our barrage opened they began to sh.e.l.l the a.s.sembly 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 sh.e.l.ls. 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 sh.e.l.l-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 sh.e.l.ls 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 a.s.saulting 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
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 t.i.tle 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 a.s.sistance, 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 ma.s.sive 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 s.p.a.ces 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, bra.s.s 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.