Hard at work on secret maps.
3 enemy & one of ours engage. One of ours is driven off. No casualties.
Make appl. to Bde. Major for pass to Arras.
Walter Draycott’s Great War Chronicle
North Vancouver Museum & Archives
Hard at work on secret maps.
3 enemy & one of ours engage. One of ours is driven off. No casualties.
Make appl. to Bde. Major for pass to Arras.
5 enemy ‘planes attack two of our Scouts and send them to earth one in flames. Observer burnt to death. Pilot has feet burned. The other crashes to earth in Neuville St. Vaast both seriously injured. Enemy possess a very fast machine. Ours are much too slow.
*A scout plane is type of surveillance aircraft used for the purpose of discovering an enemy position and directing artillery. Aerial reconnaissance was often a hazardous task because of a requirement to fly at slow speeds and at low altitudes. The task was made all the more dangerous with the arrival of additional German flying squadrons, including Manfred von Richthofen‘s highly experienced and well equipped (with the Albatros D.III) Jasta 11 (No. 11 Fighter Squadron), which led to sharp increase in Royal Flying Corps casualties.(www.wikipedia.com)
Enemy shelled Mont St. Eloy yesterday causing casualties.
– fine
Enemy sending over 5.9” naval shells into La Targette. I go to see if my boys are alright as a shell pitched just outside their dugout. As I near the place a screaming shell bursts & the air is black with debris. The boys are alright.
In afternoon about 3:30 pm 5 enemy aeroplanes attack one of our machines (a Bristol) and succeed in forcing it to descend in our own lines at back of front line. Fritz strafes it with shells. Another of our machines takes its place & the enemy move off.
Enemy active in morning. At noon I go up to O.P.’s to observe the fire of our 9.2” on Prinz Arnolf Graben and other objects. The enemy retaliated with the most terrible hell of a bombardment. We had to take cover not before we had made good observations. I called on P.P.s Regtl. Sergt. M. and rec’d a copy of Regtl. Order containing my “Mentioned in Dispatches”.
*O.P.’s…Observation Post
*Prinz Arnolf Graben was a German tunnel, one of many dug by both sides at Vimy Ridge.
*O.P. Trees ~ Built using steel and wrought iron, these are no normal trees. They are camouflaged weapons of war used to devastating effect during World War I on the Western Front. The bizarre fake tree observation posts were built to spy on the enemy after switching them under cover of darkness with real battle-scarred stumps left in no-man’s land. The ideal tree was dead and often it was bomb blasted. The photographs and sketches were then sent to a workshop where artists constructed an artificial tree of hollow steel cylinders. It contained an internal scaffolding for reinforcement, to allow a sniper or observer to ascend within the structure. Then, under the cover of night, the team cut down the authentic tree and dug a hole in the place of its roots, in which they placed the O.P. Tree.
Up the line with a runner. Visit several [Hqr]. Make several surveys. Enemy very active. Several aeroplane fights.
Busy making blue prints in morning.
Observer Whiteside and I make tour of unknown trenches & gain valuable information in reference to them. Enemy snipe and shell us as we pass overland.
– frost
About 4 am a party of PPCLI attempted to rush enemy’s post but enemy being on alert beat them off. Our casualties 2 slightly wounded. Our party killed two of enemy in post and then withdrew.
A Raiding party from 49th succeeded in entering enemy trenches capturing 8 prisoners. We suffered no casualties. Weather very cold. Snow & frost.
Lt. Little (PPCLI) is wounded slightly.
*The 49th Battalion (Edmonton Regiment), CEF, was an infantry battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the Great War. The 49th Battalion was authorized on 7 November 1914 and embarked for Great Britain on 3 June 1915. It disembarked in France on 9 October 1915, where it fought as part of the 7th Infantry Brigade, 3rd Canadian Division in France and Flanders until the end of the war. The battalion was disbanded on 15 September 1920.The 49th Battalion recruited in and was mobilized at Edmonton, Alberta. (www.wikipedia.org)
– frost
At 8:20 am a raiding party from PPCLI under Major A. Rasmussen & 12 OR [entered] enemy’s line under a Stokes barrage. Raid successful. A number of dugouts being bombed. Many casualities inflicted. Enemy’s post destroyed and two prisoners brought in. Our casualties nil. Weather frosty with snow. Our Stokes fire 666 rounds.
*OR is an acronym for Other Ranks
*Frederick Wilfred Scott Stokes – who later became Sir Wilfred Stokes KBE – designed the mortar in January 1915. The Stokes mortar was a simple weapon, consisting of a smoothbore metal tube fixed to a base plate (to absorb recoil) with a lightweight bipod mount. When a mortar bomb was dropped into the tube, an impact sensitive primer in the base of the bomb would make contact with a firing pin at the base of the tube, and detonate, firing the bomb towards the target. Range was determined by the amount of propellant charge used and the angle of the barrel. (www.wikipedia.org)
I go to craters on front line Litchfield & Watling & afterwards visit the “O’Pips”. Enemy heavily shelling. Our trench mortars are very active. Pte. Wilson accompanies me. I do a little sketching of enemy’s machine gun positions.
*Litchfield & Watling are the names of large mine craters near Vimy Ridge. Today Lichfield Crater is essentially a mass grave with 57 burials, 15 of which are unidentified. Of the 42 known burials, all except one are of Canadian soldiers, 39 of whom died on the 9th of April 1917.
* O-PIP ~ Observation Post (OP). From the phonetic alphabet (www.ict.griffith.edu.au)
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