Over the top with the 25th: Chronicle of events at Vimy Ridge and Courcellette

Transcriber's Note:
A Table of Contents with links has been included for the use of the reader.
Click on the images to see a larger version.

LIEUT. R. LEWIS, M.M.



he end of August, 1914, found me following my usual employment as second mate on a small steamboat plying between St. John's, Newfoundland, and various stations on the coast of Labrador. The news from the front aroused my patriotism, and though my captain, who was a Britisher through and through, strongly urged me to remain with him because of the great difficulty of securing another man, I was fully made up in my mind that my clear, plain duty was to enlist. On my return trip to St. John's I found, greatly to my disappointment, that it was all too late to enroll my name in the already organized Newfoundland regiment. There was nothing for it but to cross to Canada and try my luck at enlisting there. Arriving at Sydney, and making enquiries, I discovered that the second division was not going to be formed up for some little time, and I therefore enlisted in the 94th Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders. With them I remained in Sydney until October of the same year when the 25th Battalion was organized—a battalion which has since covered itself with glory and earned the legitimately proud title of The Fighting Twenty-Fifth.
Although I was one of them myself, I do not hesitate to assert that a finer bunch of men never left the shores of Nova Scotia to take up arms for Britain in the fields of France and Flanders than the gallant boys of the splendid Twenty-fifth. The general public does not appear to know very much of the achievements of this battalion and this perhaps may be due to the fact that we left Canada in May of 1915, and that we had been in France some nineteen months before any other Nova Scotia Battalion went into action as a unit. This story is not being penned with the slightest idea of seeking in any way to disparage the Nova Scotia Highlanders; that intrepid body of superb fighters have fought splendidly and well and their glorious record is fresh in the minds of all.