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I went there first to the hill of Notre Dame de Lorette looking northward to Lens, and facing the Vimy Ridge, which the enemy held as a strong barrier against us above the village of Souchez and Ablain St.-Nazaire and Neuville St.-Vaast, which the French had captured when they were still there; and I am glad of that, for I saw in their places the men who had lived there and fought there as one may read in the terrible and tragic narrative of war by Henri Barbusse in Le Feu.
Always there were the bursting shells, and the old bent peasants paying no heed to them. Always there were the circling airplanes, far above us, like hawks against the deep blue of the sky. And always we came nearer and nearer to Vimy Ridge that deathless name in the history of Britain. Now Captain Godfrey leaned back and smiled at us. "There's Vimy Ridge," he said. And he pointed. "Yon?"
Others had been wounded, and some were missing, believed to be prisoners in the German lines. Hal and Chester had been in the midst of the Canadian advance and capture of Vimy Ridge. Immediately after the battle they had left the fighting front and returned to America, where they spent several months training reserve officers at Fort Niagara.
At the sight of smoke the dirty Boche starts shelling again. So we do not get dry, and we have no warmth, and we cannot make even a cup of good hot coffee. That dirty Boche up there on Vimy looks out of his deep tunnels and laughs up his sleeve and says those poor devils of Frenchmen are not gay to-day! That is true, mon Capitaine. Mais, que voulez-vous? C'est pour la France." "Oui.
A French School Our Soldiers and French Children Nissen Huts Tanks A Primeval Plough A Division on the March Significant Preparations Increase of Ammunition "The Fosses" A Sacred Spot Vimy Ridge The Sound of the Guns A Talk with a General Why the Germans Retreat Growth of the New Armies Soldiers at School. No. 3
These, known as the "Battle Details," were subsequently increased in number, and later a G.H.Q. publication fixed exactly who would and who would not accompany a battalion into battle. As Major Beasley had left us at Vimy and not returned, Capt. Shields became 2nd in Command and had to stay behind, a cruel blow to him, for he was essentially a fighting man. His Company, "D," was taken by Lieut.
During April 10, 1917, when the last German was being cleared out of the Vimy area, the snow fell heavily. Throughout the day following the weather continued unfavorable, impeding the operation of troops and making observation impossible.
Hal and Chester found themselves in the midst of the fighting, alongside the heroic Canadians of Vimy Ridge fame. The part of the field in which they found themselves was to the extreme north of the Hindenburg line, almost opposite Douai. Time after time the Canadians drove the foe back at the point of the bayonet.
"I am a critic of these affairs," he said. "They seem to me too expensive. But I'm here to do what I am told." We did not regain the Vimy craters until a year afterward, when the Canadians and Scottish captured all the Vimy Ridge in a great assault. The winter of discontent had passed. Summer had come with a wealth of beauty in the fields of France this side the belt of blasted earth.
Souchez, most of the Givenchy Wood, La Folie farm, and Thelus were captured, and on the 28th they made some progress up the Vimy slopes.
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