At the beginning of April we find the 1st Canadian Infantry Battalion at Maison Blanche an underground chalk quarry where they sheltered before the attack on Vimy Ridge. On their first tour of the front lines that month they are involved in a number of activities. Some preliminary raids and forays that were more intelligence gathering in nature. Captain Spencer was killed in one such raid into the German trenches. Then Lt Massey is hit by a sniper on another attempted foray. Eventually the Canadians do find a way into the German trenches by doing a day time raid. Lt Hutchinson finds a way through to the German trenches where he kills 6 Germans and then makes it back to the Canadian side. Lt Cuddy is also able to locate the enemy trenches and then fend off a German counter attack. The battalion is then relieved., but they only get a couple of days of rest before they are called to the assembly area at Brunehaut Farm an Ariane Dump. For the first time all the Canadian Division will fight together as one unit. Some claim this event to be the birth of the nation of Canada. The Battle of Vimy Ridge is about to begin. The Battalion advances to attack at 5:30 am on April 9, 1917. Over the next few days the Canadians advance and successfully take Vimy Ridge. Yes the attack is successful, but it comes with a huge price. The numbers for Private Dixon’s battalion are 50 men killed, 26 missing and 159 wounded. For the Canadian divisions in total the losses are staggering – 3,598 Canadian men killed and another 7,000 wounded . After the dust settles the survivors like Private Dixon find themselves in what were once the German trenches . And there is plenty of work to do consolidate the gains made. The Battalion provides over 500 men to “working groups.” This would be hard work to clean out the German trenches, repair them, dig new trenches, new tunnels, place defensive barb wire, all while under enemy fire. And one can only imagine the working conditions, the mud, the stray barbed wire, the lice, the rats and the dead bodies and the parts of dead bodies everywhere.
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