Canada in Flanders, Volume II

by Baron Max Aitken Beaverbrook

That night of April 6th-7th the Germans effected their relief.

They had, by all accounts of prisoners, suffered very severely from the fire of our artillery—but they had held on, retiring by a perverse stroke of irony to our own second line trench dug south of the crater when the bombardment became intolerable. It cannot be questioned that if we had been fully aware of the relative positions of the two forces the British artillery could have blown their opponents bodily out of the craters.

That night, too, the 4th Brigade began to come up to the relief. The 6th Brigade had done its best; it had been fighting continuously for three days and nights; its supply of rations had been intermittent; many of its officers and men had had no sleep for days, and the exhaustion bred of shell-fire and mud was upon it. Its casualties were in all 617 officers and men. The 27th had borne the brunt of the first German onrush and suffered proportionately. Eight of its officers and 209 of its rank and file had been killed or wounded. The 31st, which held its line for the longest period in the Brigade, came next with a roll of 180 casualties. The 29th lost 117, and the 28th, 101. The Brigade had failed, but it had failed gloriously!

April 7th-8th, 1916.

The relief could only be accomplished by degrees. To move large bodies of men up simultaneously was impracticable, and the fighting was therefore continued by mixed battalions of the two brigades. The 4th Brigade, under General Rennie, consisted of the 18th (Western Ontario), commanded by Lieut.-Col. Wigle; 19th (Ontario), under Lieut.-Col. J. T. Maclaren; 20th (Northern and Central Ontario), under Lieut.-Col. C. H. Rogers, and the 21st (Eastern Ontario), under Lieut.-Col. Hughes. In effect, the relief, which lasted over four nights, put the 21st instead of the 27th on the right in the trenches, the 18th replacing the 28th in the centre support position; while the 19th took the place of the 31st on our left and in the Canadian craters. But the Higher Command of the 2nd Division, which exhibited throughout great determination, was not content to await the full relief before it launched a new attack on the enemy. Night, April 8th-9th, 1916. On the night of the 8th-9th fresh assault was launched against Craters 2 and 3.

ATTACK ON THE GERMANS NIGHT OF 8TH TO 9TH APRIL 1916

The object of this attack was to effect a lodgment on the north-west side of Crater 2 and on the north side of Crater 3—that is to say, to secure a position where the St. Eloi-Wytschaete road passes through the craters and bends to the right. The assault on the right was led by Capt. Miller, of the 21st, who was wounded during the engagement. He and a small bombing party succeeded in getting to the edge of Crater 2 under a heavy fire, and in the blackness of the night crept up unobserved. Here Pte. Comego had his right arm shattered. In spite of his excruciating agony he managed to control himself when a single sound would have given away the presence of the whole party. They had expected to find only about twenty of the enemy, but, discovering a far stronger force, beat a retreat to secure reinforcements. Fifty more men of the 21st went up with Lieut. Brownlee, who distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry, to make a renewed attempt. By this time, however, the alarm had been given, and such a tornado of fire was turned on "No Man's Land" that the attack stuck fast. 3.30 A.M., April 9th, 1916. At 3.30 in the morning the exhausted survivors succeeded in struggling back to the trench. In the course of the advance and of vigorous exchange of bombs with the Germans, they had lost three-fourths of their number.

Great bravery was displayed by many men of the 21st. Sniper Zacharias used his rifle in the assault until it was blown out of his hands; he then became a grenadier and hurled bombs at the Germans until his party retired. Two lance-corporals, Currie and Henderson, made heroic efforts to drag the wounded back into the trench under heavy and continuous fire. As a result practically all the wounded of the 21st were evacuated by the stretcher-bearers.