Vimy (41 page)

3RD DIVISION:
Louis Lipsett, C.O.
8th Brigade (Right)

  Right: 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles

  Centre: 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles

  Left: 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles

  In reserve: 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles

7th Brigade (Left)

  Right: Royal Canadian Regiment (Toronto)

  Centre: Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry

  Left: 42nd Battalion (Royal Highlanders, “The Black Watch,” Montreal)

  In reserve: 49th Battalion (Edmonton)

9th Brigade (In Reserve – not committed to the battle)

  43 rd Battalion (Winnipeg)

  52nd Battalion (Port Arthur)

  58th Battalion (Brantford)

  116th Battalion (Nova Scotia)

4TH DIVISION:
David Watson, C.O.
11th Brigade (Right)

  Right: 102nd Battalion (“Warden’s Warrior’s,” Northern B.C.)

  Left: 87th Battalion (Grenadier Guards, Montreal)

  In reserve:

    Right: 54th Battalion (Kootenays)

    Left: 75th Battalion (“The Jolly 75,” Mississauga)

  Attached and in reserve: 85th Battalion (Nova Scotia Highlanders)

12th Brigade (Centre)

  Right: 38th Battalion (Ottawa)

  Centre: 72nd Battalion (Seaforth Highlanders, Vancouver)

  Left: 73rd Battalion (Royal Highlanders)

  In reserve: 78th Battalion (Winnipeg Grenadiers)

10th Brigade (Left)

  44th Battalion (Winnipeg)

  50th Battalion (Calgary)

  In reserve:

    47th Battalion (British Columbia)

    46th Battalion (Regina and Moose Jaw)

Author’s Note

A great many books have been devoted to the Battle of Vimy Ridge, more perhaps than to any other battle involving Canadian troops in any war. It is not the purpose of this volume merely to repeat what has already been published (although the story is retold where it is necessary for background). Nor is
Vimy
intended to be definitive from a military or a tactical point of view. I have not thought it necessary to mention every battalion that took part in the action or every senior officer. There are several books, easily available, that do this.

My purpose, as in my two-volume work on the War of 1812, has been to tell not just what happened but also
what it was like
. I have tried to look at the Vimy experience from the point of view of the man in the mud as well as from that of the senior planners. The new material in this book comes from them-several dozen survivors of the battle, interviewed over the past two years – supplemented by the recollections in tape recordings of earlier interviews conducted two decades ago by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and, even more valuable, by unpublished letters, memoirs, and manuscripts acquired largely with the help of
The Legion
, the veterans’ magazine. For these reasons I have not thought it necessary to append extensive source notes. The bibliography will make clear the personal papers and conversations from which this new material comes.

One thing that impressed me in the unpublished material is the eloquence of the writing. A good many Great War veterans obviously felt the need to record their experiences. Some did it: to get it off their chests, others for the more important purpose of leaving a memoir for their sons and daughters. One of the latter was George Frederick Murray of the 5th CMRs, a man who never got past Grade 6 but who, at the request of his son Ernie, proceeded to fill in handwriting fifty quarter-inch-ruled loose-leaf sheets, every one of which is a pleasure to read.

This book also fulfils a second purpose. In these pages I have tried to continue my study of the Canadian character as it differs from the American and the British and also to chronicle the steps this country has taken toward nationhood. Vimy was clearly a milestone on that journey. In fact, the present book might be seen as a kind of sequel to
The Promised Land
, my account of the settlement of the North West in the years before the Great War.
Vimy
is peopled with many Westerners, some of them Old Country immigrants who had resolved to make Canada their home in the early years of the century. My own view is that the country has never overcome their loss in the First War; they were a different breed from the more cautious native-born. Who can say what these future entrepreneurs, lost in the appalling trench warfare of 1914-18, would have wrought if they had lived?

Acknowledgements

The names of the survivors of the Battle of Vimy Ridge interviewed for this book are listed in the Bibliography. Several, alas, have died in the interim. Almost all the others have entered their tenth decade. For their patience and their enthusiasm I am more than grateful. Without them, this book would not have been possible.

In addition I have drawn heavily on the oral history tapes in the Public Archives of Canada and on the published memoirs of three men-Will Bird, Duncan Eberts Macintyre, and Victor Wheeler. The memoirs of Lieutenant-General E.L.M. Burns, Dr. Robert Manion, and Ernest G. Black, and the letters of Donald Fraser were also useful. I have in addition drawn on several of the interviews appearing in Alexander McKee’s
Vimy Ridge
, on the
Letters from the Front
of Bank of Commerce employees, as well as on personal material appearing in the various battalion histories.

The two biographies of Arthur Currie, that by Hugh M. Urquhart and the more recent work by Daniel G. Dancocks, provided useful background information on Currie, though the first makes no mention of his financial difficulties and the second glosses over them. These were first brought to light by R.C. Brown and Desmond Morton in an article in the
Canadian Historical Review
and are supported by letters and documents in the Borden Papers, Public Archives of Canada. Two other biographies, those of Julian Byng by Jeffery Williams and of Andrew McNaughton by John Swettenham, were very useful. Charles Winter’s sycophantic treatment of his former employer, Sam Hughes, was not so valuable; most of my material on Hughes comes from other sources, notably the Borden and Foster papers in the Public Archives. Much of my background on Raymond Brutinel is drawn from Larry Worthington’s
Amid the Guns Below
, and I want to thank her son, Peter, for drawing my attention to it.

My thanks, too, to Lieutenant-Colonel D.F. Spankie for his advice and counsel, to Bill Gray for allowing me to use material collected on the saps, subways, and craters in the Vimy sector, to Timothy Findley for lending me his uncle’s letters from the Great War, to Dave Breckenridge for background on his uncle Bill, to Ben Sivertz for background on his brother Gus, to Frank E. Macintyre for background on his father, to Mrs. Audrey Ball for background on her uncle, John Mould, and to the Hon. J.V. Clyne for bringing to my attention his brother Harry’s history of Tobin’s Tigers.

My research assistant, Barbara Sears, who again devoted her unflagging energy and questioning mind to gathering much of this material, would like to thank the following for their assistance: Sylvie Robitaille and Jana Vosikowska of the National Film, Sound and Television Archives; Robert Grandmaitre, Map Division, Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa; Gordon Dodds, Bob Tapscott, and Michele Fitzgerald of the Provincial Archives of Manitoba; Eric Gormley, at the Glenbow Alberta Institute; the staffs at the British Columbia Archives, New Brunswick Museum, Provincial Archives of Nova Scotia, and the Historical Directorate, Department of National Defence, Ottawa; Don Wilson and Don Harrison, Department of Veterans Affairs, Ottawa; Reginald Roy, the University of Victoria; and from the Royal Canadian Legion: J.D. Bridges, Regina, Al Erikson, Prince Albert, William Jack, Saskatoon, Kenneth Rooke, Halifax, Alex Andrews, Kentville, James Sandford, Annapolis Royal, Lorraine Sherwood, Vancouver, Robert Horncastle, Saint John, and C.H. Graham, Ottawa.

Because of Jan Tyrwhitt Patton’s extraordinary acumen I was persuaded to rewrite
Vimy
, and there’s no doubt that without her counsel it would be a lesser work. Janet Craig, the best copy editor in Canada, saved me as usual from myself. Elsa Franklin’s critique, which supplemented Ms. Patton’s, convinced me that I was on the wrong track in an earlier draft. As always, the proofreading of my wife, Janet, has been impeccable. My research notes were organized by my former secretary, Caryle Jakobsen, and the various drafts of the manuscript were typed at blinding speed by my present secretary, Susan Blackwell. In a work of this complexity there are bound to be errors and omissions. These are mine.

Kleinburg, Ontario
April, 1986

Select Bibliography

Unpublished Manuscript Material

Public Archives of Canada:

RG9 series 3, vols. 4912-4951, battalion war diaries

Department of National Defence:

Capt. Robert N. Clements, “Merry Hell the Way I Saw It”

Lieut. J.H. Fairweather diary

John Swettenham, “Two First World War Battles”

SGR II 202, Miscellaneous German Sources

British Columbia Archives:

Arthur Crease diary

Mrs. E.M. Garrard diary

Andrew S. Baird letters

Col. Cy Peck diary

Glenbow-Alberta Institute:

M742 Harold McGill Papers

F. Johnson, oral history interview

Manitoba Archives:

MG7 H11 George Hambley diaries

Ontario Archives:

MU4693 Lewis Duncan Papers

MU996 Matthew Ellis Papers

Provincial Archives, Nova Scotia:

MG 100 Harvey Crowell Papers

MG23 A.M. Taylor war diary

Privately held papers:

Gordon Beatty, “Reminiscences of an Old Soldier”

William Breckenridge, “From Vimy to Mons”

Art Castle, “The Takeover of Vimy Ridge”

W.E. Darknell, “The Battle of Vimy Ridge”

Jules De Cruyenaere, “The Battle of Vimy Ridge and Hill 70”

Dr. E. Douglas Emery diary

T. Irving Findley letters

Eric Forbes diary

Bill Gray, Papers on subways, saps, and craters, Vimy Memorial Park

Bill Green, “Autobiography of World War One”

J.N. Gunn diary

R.A. Henderson letters and diaries

Arthur Jenkinson, “My War Experiences”

Harry Gait Lithgow letters

Harry Loosmore, “Recollections of Vimy”

H.W. Lovell manuscript

Andrew McCrindle, “From Private to Private in 36 Months or a Worm’s Eye View of World War One”

John Mould diary

George Frederick Murray, “Account of Service in the Canadian Army During the Great War”

Percy Albert Murray manuscript

A.L.S. Nash, “The Story of the 40th Battery CFA, CEF 1915-1919”