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قراءة كتاب Thirty Canadian V.Cs., 23d April 1915 to 30th March 1918

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Thirty Canadian V.Cs., 23d April 1915 to 30th March 1918

Thirty Canadian V.Cs., 23d April 1915 to 30th March 1918

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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safety. Some of the staff, and some of the less badly wounded patients, swam the moat. They were all removed except one badly injured officer; for him swimming was out of the question.

Scrimger took upon himself the task of saving this patient, but, as he was preparing to move, several direct hits were made on the house by the German artillery. Shrapnel burst through the rafters. Scrimger bent over his patient, protecting him with his body as the splinters fell around them, and finally, during a lull, carried him out of the blazing house on his back.

But in the open there was not even the protection of the shaky walls of the farm, and Scrimger had not gone far with his burden when he saw that the officer was too severely wounded to bear this kind of journeying. There was no shelter in sight, nothing but the shrapnel-swept wastes and the torn, shuddering earth.

Laying his patient down, Scrimger remained beside him, shielding him again with his own body, till help arrived later in the day.

VC

LIEUTENANT F. W. CAMPBELL, 1ST BATTALION

On the afternoon of the 15th of June, 1915, the 1st Canadian Infantry Battalion moved up to a jumping-off position in our front line, with two other battalions of the same brigade on its right, and a third in support. The 7th Division (British) was about to make an attempt to drive the Germans out of an important and formidable position known to our troops as "Stony Mountain," and the 1st Canadian Battalion had been told off to the task of covering and securing that division's right flank of attack. This meant the conquest and occupation of one hundred and fifty yards of the enemy's front line running southwards from "Stony Mountain" to another German stronghold called "Dorchester." It was too big a job to be undertaken in a casual, slap-dash manner or a happy-go-lucky spirit. Experts prepared it, and the artillery and the engineers took a hand in it.

We know that our gunners are always eager to fight at pistol range. Major George Ralston, C.F.A., had two guns of his battery dug into place and sand-bagged at a point in our fire-trench called "Duck's Bill" by the morning of the 15th. These guns had been brought up to and through Givenchy during the night, in the usual way, and from the forward edge of the village they had been "man-handled" into the places prepared for them. One was commanded by Lieutenant C. S. Craig and the other by Lieutenant L. S. Kelly. All was ready before daybreak. The German line opposite was only seventy-five yards away

During the afternoon our batteries, firing from normal positions in the rear, bombarded selected points of the hostile front. At 5.45 the field of fire of our two entrenched guns was uncovered by knocking away the parapet in front of them. They immediately opened fire; and in fifteen minutes they levelled the German parapet opposite for a distance of nearly two hundred yards, slashed the wire along the same frontage and disposed of six machine-gun emplacements.

Then we sprang a mine close in to the German trench; and then our infantry went over.

The leading company of the 1st Battalion charged across the open ground through the smoke and flying earth of the explosion. They were met and swung slightly from their course by withering machine-gun fire from Stony Mountain; but the unhit ran onwards, entered the hostile trench and took and occupied that system of defences called Dorchester. They fought to the left along the trench; but Stony Mountain itself held them off.

With the second wave of the attack came Lieutenant Campbell, his two Colt's machine-guns and their crews. On the way, before reaching the shelter of the captured trench, all the members of one of his gun-crews were wiped out. He got into the trench with only one of his guns and a few unwounded men. He immediately moved to the left towards Stony Mountain, until he was halted by a block in the trench. By this time one Private Vincent was the only man of his two crews still standing and unhit. All the others lay dead or wounded behind him. Vincent, who had been a lumberjack in the woods of Ontario in the days of peace, was as strong of body as of heart and a cool hand into the bargain. When his officer failed to find a suitable base for his gun in that particular position, Vincent saved time by offering his own broad back. So Campbell straddled Vincent's back with the tripod of the gun and opened fire on the enemy.

By this time our supply of bombs had given out and our attack was weakening. The Germans massed for a counter-attack. Campbell fired over a thousand rounds from his gun, from Vincent's back, dispersed the enemy's initial counter-attack, and afterwards maintained his position until the trench was entered by German bombers and he was seriously wounded. Then Vincent abandoned the tripod and dragged the gun away to safety.

Campbell crawled back towards his friends. He was met and lifted by Sergeant-Major Owen and carried into our jumping-off trench, where he died.

VC

CORPORAL LEO CLARKE, 2ND BATTALION

Twice veterans of Ypres, the 1st Canadian Division moved southward to the Somme on the first day of September 1916, and established headquarters near the battered town of Albert. A few days later they marched up the Bapaume Road, under heavy enemy shelling, and entered trenches behind Mouquet Farm, to the south of Courcelette, where they relieved the 4th Australian Division. This time the Headquarters were in the shaky shelters of Tara Hill. As soon as the division arrived in the new position the German artillery began to plaster the trenches with every variety of explosive missile, hoping to shake the nerve of the men from Ypres.

About half-past two on the afternoon of the 9th of September the 2nd Battalion relieved the 4th Battalion in a trench on the right of the Canadian position. The 2nd had been chosen to attack a salient of German trench about 550 yards long, near the north end of Walker Avenue. This salient lay between the Canadians and Courcelette. Before they could attack the village, which was about a mile behind the German trench, the danger of the salient had to be swept from their path.

The attack began that afternoon at a quarter to five. Only the first three companies of the battalion made the assault, the fourth being held in reserve; but when the attackers reached the German line they found that our barrage had not reduced the resistance of the enemy to the extent hoped for. Crowds of Germans were waiting to repel them.

Corporal Leo Clarke was detailed by Lieutenant Hoey to take a section of the bombing platoon and clear out the Germans on the left flank. When the trench was captured, Clarke was to join up with Sergeant Nichols at a block which the latter was to build in the meantime.

Clarke was the first of his party to enter the trench, which was found to be strongly garrisoned. His followers came close on his heels. They bombed their way along the trench from bay to bay, and forced a passage with bayonets and clubbed rifles whenever the need arose. But the odds were heavy against the Canadians, and at length, with his supply of bombs exhausted, Clarke found himself supported only by his dead and wounded. He decided to build a temporary barricade to the left of where Nichols was erecting the permanent block. As he was working at this, a party of

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