The average head protection in one of these was from four to five feet of solid concrete, and our field artillery shells would bounce off them like tennis balls off the sidewalk.

As soon as the shelling ceased, out would come “Mr. Bosch” with his machine guns, and from selected positions play havoc amongst our troops, floundering around in the mud. Once in a while a twelve-inch “how.” would make a direct hit on one of these hornets’ nests and then, of course, Fritz would stay in there never to come out again. But a twenty-five-foot target at a range of ten miles is a difficult one to hit, and the majority of the “pill boxes” were captured by hand-to-hand fighting.

The ground seemed to be composed of an endless series of ridges, and you no sooner reached the top of one ridge than another more formidable loomed up in front.

From Abraham Heights the Bellevue Spur (another name for a ridge) dotted here and there with “pill boxes,” stood out like a sentinel keeping watch over the village of Passchendaele in the distance, and it was plain to all around that fresh and experienced troops would be needed at this point to effect its capture. There was perhaps no Corps on the Western front at that time more capable of undertaking this difficult task, or as numerically strong, as the Canadian Corps, and that is the reason we ate corn at Caestre instead of hunting the Hun around Lens.

Two more days’ rest were given us to digest this news, and to enable parties to visit the area of desolation and gloom which was to be the scene of our future endeavours. Orders were then received to entrain for Ypres, and our arrival at that historic ruin was greeted by many cheers from the outgoing Australian units. From all they told us or rather shouted at us as they crowded into the train we had just left, we began to realize that we were not going to enjoy ourselves quite so much as we thought. “Go to it, yer blighters,” they yelled, and away we went. Having occupied several “Camps” in the neighborhood of Wieltje, the 9th Brigade, with the 116th Battalion in support, attacked the Bellevue Spur on the morning of October 26th, and by the morning of the 27th, after one of the fiercest and most bloody onslaughts in its history, succeeded in destroying the entire German garrison.

On the evening of the 27th the 116th Battalion took over the front line from the remnants of the Brigade, remaining there until relieved by the 49th Battalion (7th Brigade)—during the early hours of the 29th October.

We were not sorry to move away from our present gruesome surroundings; but it was not until the 7th November that we actually said “good-bye” to them, as we thought, and moved by bus to Vlamertinghe, and from there to the Watou area, east of Poperinghe, having lost forty-two other ranks killed, three officers and one hundred and one other ranks wounded, and twelve other ranks gassed.

The “Rough Road” to Passchendaele, 1917.
(Canadian Official Copyright)
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