class="smcap">Lieutenant O'Kelly (52nd Bn.)

THIRTY CANADIAN V.Cs.

Editor's Note.—These narratives are the work of three members of the Canadian War Records Office—Captain Theodore Goodridge Roberts, New Brunswick Regiment, late H. Q. Canadian Army Corps, B.E.F.; Private Robin Richards, late the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, B.E.F., and Private Stuart Martin, late No. 5 Canadian General Hospital, Salonika.

LANCE-CORPORAL FREDERICK FISHER, 13TH BATTALION

In March, 1915, Canadian guns took part in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, and a Canadian regiment, the Princess Patricia's Light Infantry, fought well at St. Eloi; but it was not until April that the infantry of the 1st Canadian Division came to grips with the enemy.

The Canadian Division moved into the Ypres Salient about a week before the Germans commenced their terrific and wanton bombardment of the unfortunate city of Ypres. They relieved troops of the 11th Division of the French Army in five thousand yards of undeveloped trenches.

Fisher, a lance-corporal of the 13th Canadian Infantry Battalion, performed the deed of valour (at the cost of his life) for which he was granted the Victoria Cross, on the 23rd of April, 1915. He was our first V.C., in this war, by one day.

On the afternoon of the 22nd of April the Germans projected their first attack of asphyxiating gas against a point of our Allies' front. Turcos and Zouaves fell back, strangled, blinded and dismayed. The British left was exposed. A four-mile gap—a way to Calais—lay open to the enemy. The 1st Canadian Division, the only Canadian Division in the field in those early days, held the British left. It blocked the four-mile gap and held up Germany, gas and all.

There were no such things as gas masks in those days; but the Canadians were undismayed by that new and terrific form of murder. They had left their offices and shops, their schools and farms and mills, with the intention of fighting the Hun, and, in return, of suffering the worst he could do to them. They did not expect him to fight like a sportsman, or even like a human being. So they accepted the gas as part of the day's work. It was the last day's work for hundreds of those good workmen.

A battery of Canadian 18-pounders, commanded by Major W. B. M. King, C.F.A., maintained its original position well into the second day of the battle—the 23rd of April. The gunners were supported by a depleted Company of the 14th (Royal Montreal) Battalion, and kept up their fire on the approaching Germans until their final rounds were crashed into "the brown" of the massed enemy at a range of less than two hundred yards.

This is a class of performance which seems to make a particular appeal to the hearts of gunners. It calls for more than steadiness and desperate courage, for technical difficulties in the matter of timing the fuses to a fraction of a second must be overcome under conditions peculiarly adverse to the making of exact mathematical calculations. But this sort of thing is frequently done—always with gusto and sometimes with the loss of the guns and the lives of their crews. The gunner then feels all the primitive excitement of the infantryman in a bayonet charge. He claps his gun, that complicated, high-priced and prodigious weapon, at the very head of the enemy, as if it were no more than a pistol.

On this occasion the guns were not lost. They were extricated from beneath the very boots and bayonets of the enemy and withdrawn to open fire again from a more secure position and at a more customary range. They were "man-handled" out and back by the survivors of their own crews and of the supporting company of infantry; but all those heroic and herculean efforts would have availed nothing if Corporal Fisher had not played his part.

Fisher was in command of a machine-gun and four men of his battalion—the 13th. He saw and understood the situation of Major King's battery and instantly hastened to the rescue. He set up his gun in an exposed position and opened fire on the advancing Germans, choosing for his target the point of the attack which most immediately menaced the battery of field-guns. His four men were put out of action. They were replaced, as they fell, by men of the 14th, who were toiling near-by at the stubborn guns. Fisher and his Colt remained unhit. The pressure of his finger did not relax from the trigger, nor did his eyes waver from the sights. Eager hands passed along the belts of ammunition and fed them into the devouring breech. So the good work was continued. The front of the attack was sprayed and ripped by bullets. Thus it was held until the 18-pounders were dragged back to safety.

Not satisfied with this piece of invaluable work, Fisher advanced again, took up a yet more exposed position, and, under the combined enemy fire of