Lieutenant C. aroused him out of his sleep by shining his flashlight upon his face. The German officer appeared very much astonished, and informed us, through one of our men who could speak German, that they had been expecting us to attack on the first of April, and as we had not attacked on that date, they thought that we would not attack until the 15th. He also stated that two regiments of German infantry had been sent up to their support lines to be ready for what they thought our attack on the 15th of April.
At the point of a pistol that was held by a very determined officer, it did not require much persuasion to make the Hun officer disclose where the wires were attached to the mines that would have blown us to "Kingdom Come," although the Germans had evidently thought Vimy Ridge was impregnable. Nevertheless, they had prepared for all eventualities.
I visited this tunnel on April 10th, and as I descended, helped by the constant aid of my flashlight, I came to the nice little, well-furnished room in which the German officer had been surprised. It was forty feet underground.
I followed a passageway about ten feet broad and seven feet high. Every few yards I had to pass over the bodies of dead Germans. There had been fierce hand-to-hand fighting. Our boys had certainly used their bayonets with good effect. Some prisoners had been taken and, strange to say, one of the prisoners had lived in Montreal and had been engaged as a waiter at one of the large hotels. He could speak excellent English, and he informed one of the boys that there were several of his fellow soldiers who had been engaged as waiters in New York and Chicago. But these had all been killed in the tunnel.
As I advanced along the tunnel it became wider and on both sides were two tiers of bunks. Many of these contained the bodies of dead Germans which were placed there in order to make the passageway less congested. Later on these bodies were taken out and reverently interred.
I slept for about two hours that night in one of the lower bunks. In the upper tier above me was the body of a dead German.
The Germans had built this tunnel with two objects in mind: first, to enable them to bring forward reinforcements from the Zwischen Stellung trench to their front line, which was a distance of 560 yards, without exposing them to our observation and artillery fire and, secondly, that they could also withdraw their men from the front and support trenches without suffering any casualties.
The Germans had made every arrangement with a view to the comfort of both their officers and men. Electric light had been generated from Vimy Village. The tunnel could shelter comfortably one battalion. Ventilation shafts ran up from it to the surface, and there were chambers or rooms off the main passageway to serve the purposes of a garrison that might be isolated. Commander's post, telephones, temporary hospital, baths with hot and cold water installation, and depots for ammunition and food were here.
It can readily be seen that the Germans expected to remain on the spot, but our New World troops upset their calculations.
One day on the Western front there was a duel in the air. It looked as if the old days were to come back again, when the armies would cease fighting and watch their respective champions in single combat. This fight resulted in the death of Immelman, at that time Germany's most distinguished aviator.