Dec. 14th, 1915.
On the night of December 14th-15th, the 5th Battalion and the 3rd Battery Canadian Field Artillery took the barricade in hand. Preliminary work was done by our artillery on the 12th, 13th, and 14th. During the bombardment of the position on the 13th, twenty Germans broke from the cover of the barricade and made a dash across the open for their own lines. Sergeant McGlashan, of the 5th Battalion, a crack shot and an opportunist, dropped five of the enemy before they could reach their parapet.
The 5th Battalion had constructed an emplacement for a field gun in our front line where our trench cuts the Messines-Armentières road. From a flank of the emplacement they sapped out towards the barricade.
Dec. 15th, 1915.
Early on the morning of the 15th an 18-pounder from the 3rd Battery Canadian Field Artillery was brought down the road by an armoured car to within a couple of hundred yards of the prepared emplacement. From that point it was man-handled into position in our trench by Capt. G. V. Taylor and his gun crew. Attacking parties from the 5th, commanded by Lieuts. K. T. Campbell and K. A. Mahaffy, and supports under Lieut. E. H. Latter, took up position to right and left of the gun and just outside the parapet.
It was now four o'clock in the morning. On the minute our artillery opened against the German trenches with shrapnel and high explosive, and Capt. Taylor's gun cut loose at the barricade, point blank at 120 yards, firing five rounds a minute for five minutes. Then our guns in the rear lifted their fire from the enemy's front line to his reserve trenches, and the attacking parties of grenadiers and riflemen advanced to the site of the barricade. Four dead and two living Germans were found in the ruins of wire and sandbags. The living were captured and sent back to our trench. Live wires were discovered in the bottom of a ditch on a flank and immediately in rear of the position. These were cut in a hurry, in the belief that one or more of them connected mine locations near at hand with the hostile trench. Our men then mined the ruined barrier and retired to one of our saps. The German artillery and machine-guns now became active, and retaliated heavily against the wrecked barricade and our front line and winter trenches.
During the examination of the prisoners it was learned that three wounded Canadians—one of them an officer—had been passed back through Messines a few days before. It was suggested more in a reliance upon hope than upon fact that those men may have been Lieut. Galt and the survivors from the attack of December 18th, when Lieut. Galt and two men were left behind. All we know is that his name appeared in the list of "Missing"—a word which means a greater tragedy than any other in the casualty list. The dead have died in their glory, and of them we know the best and the worst; the wounded we expect and hope to see again; but the missing remain for months nothing but a supreme and torturing anxiety.[[1]]
Jan. 30th, 1916.
On the night of January 30th-31st, 1916, two battalions of the 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade (Brigadier-General Ketchen), supported by artillery, machine-guns, and trench mortars, succeeded in an important attack against the unsuspecting enemy on their brigade front. The objects of this operation were the same as those of the 7th Battalion's offensive in November, to obtain prisoners and information, to cause casualties, apprehension, and material damage. This enterprise exceeded that of our 2nd Brigade in that it pierced the German line at two widely separated points.
In their conception and plans of attack the General Officer Commanding the 6th Brigade and his Staff gave the same careful attention to details as had their comrades of the 2nd Brigade two months before.