Canada in Flanders, Volume II

by Baron Max Aitken Beaverbrook

Map—Sanctuary Wood area. POSITION BEFORE ATTACK ON JUNE 2ND 1916

Such were the dispositions of the corps, now under Gen. Sir Julian Byng, who had on May 28th succeeded Gen. Alderson, when the storm finally broke.[[4]] There had been warnings already. The enemy had been driving "T" saps[[5]] out in front of their lines and linking them up so as to form a new trench in advance of the old one. Lieut.-Colonel Odlum, of the 7th (British Columbia) Battalion, launched a daring plan of counter construction at one place against the works and definitely checked their progress. The shelling of the last few days before the attack had been peculiarly heavy, and it is probable that the Higher Command had other information of impending mischief. It was undoubtedly this fact which induced Major-General Mercer and Brigadier-General Williams to make their tour of the trenches on that fateful early morning of June. June 2nd, early morning. They left at six in the morning and reached the Battalion Headquarters of the 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles before eight o'clock. General Mercer was accompanied by his A.D.C., Lieut. Gooderham, and General Williams by Capt. Fraser, the Brigade Orderly Officer. Colonel Ussher conducted them up the communication trench at about a quarter past eight, and the party had either reached the front trench or was about to enter it when with a sudden crash the enemy's guns opened.

The 3rd Division was now to experience in its full fury the artillery preparation of the summer of 1916. All that had gone before was as nothing to this. The bombardment of 1915 had been feeble in comparison, and those of 1914 a mere sun-shower as compared to tropical rain. The soldiers of the 1st Division when they landed in France had, with their native humour, come to laugh at the Jack Johnsons from the 11-inch howitzers, though these were formidable to an army which then had no guns of an equal range. But a preparation in the modern style leaves very few remaining to laugh. The 2nd Division had a taste of the new shelling at St. Eloi and its dangers had been intensified by a bad position and wretched trenches. But even so, all agreed that there was no comparison between the gun-fire of April and of June, which was the heaviest endured by British troops up to that time. The Germans were directing their efforts against a strong position and sound trenches, yet they swept both out of existence as the autumn wheat is mowed down by the reaper. It was not merely a line they destroyed, but a whole area.

June 2nd, 8.30 A.M.-1.15 P.M.

Indeed, the storm which burst on the 3rd Division at 8.30 that June morning was like a tropical tornado which presses men flat to the ground and suffocates them with the mere force of the wind, which uproots forests and hurls them headlong, obliterates all ancient landmarks and the houses and shelters of men and beasts, and leaves behind nothing but a tangled desolation from which a few survivors creep out scarcely sane enough to realise the catastrophe or to attempt to repair the damage. But here the blinding crashes overhead were not those of thunder and lightning, but of high explosive. The fragments which drove through the air were not bits of wood or masses of vegetation. They were steel and iron fragments which pierced the flesh, as the shock of the explosion stopped the heart and threw cascades of earth over bodies in which life still beat feebly or in which it was already extinct. The solid trenches melted away, and mounds and craters appeared where none existed before. A litter of broken wood, burst sandbags, and human remains cumbered the earth where it was not merciful enough to bury them. And this tornado of man was let loose on a few acres which contained, perhaps, two or three thousand troops, and continued for the space of about four hours.

At the end, although the awful noise goes on, the shower of steel ceases. The guns have lifted to the second line. Here and there groups of survivors creep out, wild-eyed or stupefied, like men just risen from the tomb, to see the solid lines of the enemy advancing at a walk or a jog-trot. Every man acts according to his instinct. A few lie where they are and chance being taken prisoners. Some make a rush and crawl for the ruined communication trenches and face the barrage once more in the hope of rejoining their comrades. Another group resists desperately, grasping what rude and broken weapons remain to it, and dies in a hopeless struggle. Such in effect is the story of the front and support line companies of the 1st and 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles and the right-hand company of the Princess Patricia's between 8.30 and 1.15 of June 2nd, as their casualties will prove. That story must, however, be told in greater detail; but isolated facts cannot be understood without their environment.

The Generals and their Staffs were caught by the outbreak of this Inferno. It is idle to go into the question as to exactly how, when, and where the Divisional General died. There are many ways into such a controversy and no way out. All that is certain is that one of the first shells burst close to the Staff, wounding Brigadier-General Williams[[6]] and stunning Major-General Mercer. None the less, shortly afterwards General Mercer sent back a message, the last to come through from Mount Sorrel, asking for the howitzers to be turned on. After that he tried to get back to his post behind the lines and failed. Some say he remained with the 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles Battalion for a time and was seen moving up and down. Soon, at any rate, he was seen no more by living men. He must have made another attempt to get back to his post and been killed on the way. His body was found with three wounds on it in Armagh Wood. He was buried at Poperinghe. There lie the mortal remains of Lieut.-Colonel Hart-McHarg and Lieut.-Colonel Birchall, who served under him in the 4th Battalion of the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division. It is tragic to think that such a brilliant soldier, who had risen to the command of a division by sheer force of ability, should have died just as his new command was going into its first big action and needed his services so greatly.

The trenches of the 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles and their garrisons thus vanished, and nothing more was heard of them save for the stories of small isolated parties which escaped. The last trench on the right and round the western bend of the salient escaped a little more lightly. The garrison held on till night fell, and then the survivors, finding the Germans coming up behind them in Armagh Wood, made good their escape to the lines of the 2nd Brigade on their right. Colonel Ussher collected some of the support company in a roofed-in trench, hoping to keep them under cover there until the German attack. Almost immediately heavy shells blocked both ends of the tunnel and many were stifled before the party could break out of this living grave. This was the last attempt at any organised resistance. Major Dennison fought a rearguard action at point-blank range with the advancing Germans, and eventually got back into the second line with five men. Meanwhile, the shelling on the support line had been almost equally intense. The Fortified Posts held by the 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles were blown to pieces and the platoons in them. One garrison perished and of the second garrison three men got away. In all some thirty or forty men of the 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles got away and were rallied behind the support line. Their casualties were 637; the regiment had simply ceased to exist.[[7]]

On their left the 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles Battalion had fared little better. All through the morning, their advance and support trenches being flattened out section by section, the survivors rallied in isolated groups wherever cover was left. In face of the attack these retired, some on the trenches in the Apex, and some on the Battalion Headquarters, where Colonel Shaw and the support company were preparing to put up a vigorous resistance. The casualties of the front companies speak for themselves. Of one company fifteen came out alive, of the second company fifteen, of the third twenty-three.