The 2nd Division had completed ten days.of what was to be a months’ rest when the long-expected Hun offensive broke away south on the British right on March 21st. The 25th Battalion had only started their syllabus of training and recreation when they were ordered south. The northern limits of this effort of the Hun was marked by the southern boundary of the Canadian Corps’ front, and here the 2nd Division took over the completely disorganized line of the Imperial troops. The sector was known as the Mercatel-Neuville Vetasse Sector. Here the 25th Battalion was engaged three months in punishing the German Division opposite. Each period of six days spent in the front line was marked by a raid on the enemy outposts, and sometimes our boys penetrated three-quarters of a mile into the Hun lines. So completely terrorized was Fritz by the vigorous onslaughts which occurred almost nightly and several times in broad daylight that no resistance was offered in most cases, and at length the news was gleaned from some of the last prisoners that the whole Division had to be withdrawn for re-equipment.
LIEUT.-COL. J. WISE, D.S.O., M.C., CROIX DE GUERRE.
The 25th Battalion established themselves as the “Master Raiders” of the Canadian Corps, and were called on for some officers and non-commissioned officers to instruct the famous Guards Division in the new and most effective art of keeping Fritz worried. Six of the raids conducted on this front were led by one officer, Lieut. (now Major) Max MacRae, every one of which netted prisoners, besides machine guns and documents. Among the other officers taking part in these raids were Captains Anderson and Holmes, Lieutenants Lounsbury, Hawes, Bell, Johnstone, Holly, Burchell, Spurr, and Wright. It was here that the Battalion established its record of successful raids and became known throughout the 1st and the 4th Armies as the “Raiding Battalion,” putting on about thirty raids in this sector.
Lieut.-Colonel (now Colonel) Blois, D.S.O., was granted leave to Canada and handed the Battalion over to Major (now Lieut.-Colonel) Wise in May, 1918.
At the battle of Amiens, August 8, 1918, when the Canadian Corps was first launched into the grand offensive which broke the German morale and brought them begging for peace, the 25th Battalion was on the left of the Canadian Corps and in touch with the dashing Australian Corps on their left. The attack, like that of nearly two years previous at Courcellette, was made with the 4th Brigade taking Villers, Brettonneux, and Marcelcave on the Amiens-Roye Railway, and a considerable stretch of country to the right of those towns. The plans were so well guarded and the assemblage of troops, guns, etc., so effectively concealed, that the enemy was utterly stunned at the suddenness of the attack and the speed with which it was pushed.
After the 4th Brigade had established their line in front of Marcelcave the 5th Brigade carried on the attack through Wiencourt and Guillaucourt. The 25th Battalion encountered considerable opposition in a small wood south of Wiencourt; and it was there that most of the casualties occurred. Lieut. J. W. Holly, of St. John, was killed by machine-gun fire, and thirteen other officers were wounded in ousting the Huns from this wood.
CAPT. N. H. WETMORE.
At Guillaucourt, Lieut.-Colonel Wise, who was the first to arrive at the objective, fell, severely wounded by a sniper’s bullet. The Adjutant, Capt. N. H. Wetmore, utterly disregarding his own safety, sprang to his O.C.’s assistance and became the target for a better directed bullet from the same sniper and fell, never to rise again.