Brave Battalion (20 page)

Urquhart remained uneasy, fearing reported “strong masses of Germans … moving up towards Mount Sorrel” indicated that enemy reinforcements had so strengthened the enemy positions the counterattack would fail. By the time Tuxford returned, all the headquarters staff, except for Urquhart and the brigade major, had gone ahead. Horses saddled and ready outside the small hut, the three men huddled for a final consultation over a large trench map showing the southern portion of the salient spread on a table before them. Suddenly a car pulled up and Gen. Currie stomped in. “Towering above them all and pointing to the map … he explained in a quiet, decisive way the involved situation, urged all speed with the assembling of the troops, and ended his appreciation by the statement: ‘We can't tell what the enemy's intentions are, and, for all we know, he may be planning to drive us from the Salient before the morning.'”
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By this time the battalions were marching across open country with their objectives visible in the distance. The Germans were sending up massive volleys of Very lights, “orange, red and green,” so that the low ground before the slopes of Hill 60 and Observatory Ridge was clearly illuminated. Both sides had artillery firing continuously, the sounds of guns echoing back from the hills. Hearing the ground in front of Observatory Ridge was free of enemy, Tuxford ordered the leading 14
^th
and 15
^th
Battalions to assemble at the ridge's westerly foot just in front of Zillebeke and facing a cluster of houses called Valley Cottages that lined the road running up the ridge. The 14
^th
was on the left, the 15
^th
on the right with the 16
^th
close behind it in support. The Canadian Scottish slipped a little to the south of where the 48
^th
Highlanders were forming and found shelter in some old trenches dug behind a hedge near a main communication trench called Fosse Way. Off to the left, the Royal Highlanders of Canada had set up about 200 yards farther back behind a copse of trees between Fosse Way and Zillebeke Lake.

Six green rockets fired from 3
^rd
Division's advanced headquarters were to signal Zero Hour at 0230 on June 3.
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Impatiently Tuxford watched as first his second hand and then minute hand ticked past the appointed hour. It was a miserable night, a cold heavy rain falling. The troops stood or sat in the open, growing colder and wetter with every passing minute. Soon Tuxford looked away from his watch. Minutes turned to hours with still no signal. At 0445 Tuxford assured 3
^rd
Division his brigade was ready to go, but there was no reply.
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Finally word came that the 7
^th
Battalion from 2
^nd
Brigade and the 49
^th
Battalion of 3
^rd
Division's 7
^th
Brigade were still on the march. The attack had to wait on their arrival. Dawn came and, with it, instructions that the attack would begin at 0700.
²⁶

A twenty-minute bombardment that Tuxford thought “exceptionally weak” preceded the attack. Ten minutes after the shellfire ceased the rockets shot skyward. Urquhart wondered if they really were the rockets, for they just looked like “puffs of smoke in the sky. There was a pause of doubt. Then the two attacking battalions after a short interval moved off.”
²⁷
The officers of the 7
^th
and 49
^th
Battalions never saw the rockets at all. They held their troops where they were and watched as the two 3
^rd
Brigade battalions advanced out of the centre of the Canadian line toward Hill 61 and Tor Top “with the greatest coolness” and straight into a hailstorm of artillery, mortar, and machine-gun fire. Had the four battalions gone forward as one the fire could not have been so concentrated, but due to the uneven start the Germans saturated the Montreal and Toronto troops with fire and then meted out the same punishment in turn against each of the other two leading battalions as they lurched forward at different times.
²⁸

The Royal Montreal Regiment excelled this day, advancing into the withering fire at a steady pace that kept it right in line with the 48
^th
Highlanders. Both battalions disappeared from view, swallowed by the gunsmoke cloaking the battleground. Two hours passed before a runner came back with word that they had advanced 2,000 yards, going through Valley Cottages and on to Rudkin House. This put them within 1,000 yards of the forward trenches. But the runner said they could advance no further because of the intensity of artillery fire. Instead they were digging in and would hold despite the fire, their heavy losses, and being subjected to enfilading fire from Hill 60 and The Snout. The 7
^th
Battalion, meanwhile, had been blocked in front of a heavily manned trench in Armagh Wood while the 49
^th
Battalion fared better, gaining a section of trenches almost on its objective.
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All four battalions were badly disorganized and some men, in each case, unaware the attack had stalled out, had continued on to the final objectives only to be killed or taken prisoner.

Urquhart was out in the smoke trying to precisely locate the two 3
^rd
Brigade battalions. Finally he located the Montrealers and was led to Major A. T. Powell. Although wounded, the major said he was in command and that all the other senior officers had been killed or injured. The battalion was digging in and badly cut up.
³⁰
Once the forward line appeared stabilized, Powell passed command to Lt. R. A. Pelletier and was taken to the rear for treatment. Pelletier would be twice “blown up,” with one blast knocking him unconscious for a while. But he refused to relinquish command until the battalion was relieved.
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Once assured the Royal Montreal Regiment's position was as secure as it could be, Urquhart had set off southward along a trench running through a small wood of shattered maples appropriately named Maple Copse to find the 48
^th
Highlanders. He soon found things “in a bad state there. … Many wounded and dead in terribly mangled conditions.” At the battalion's headquarters dugout he learned “they were badly hit, losing a number of officers.”

Returning to brigade headquarters, Urquhart advised Tuxford that neither battalion was close to its final objectives. Nobody knew for sure, but in both cases some isolated groups might have got through and would now be cut off. Supporting this theory was the fact that each battalion was missing a number of full platoons. Urquhart warned that any attempt to renew the advance beyond where the forward battalions were dug in would entail crossing wide-open ground, dominated by heavy fire from commanding positions. Tuxford realized that he would have to wait until nightfall before passing his two support battalions through. But the question was whether the attempt should be made at all.
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The Canadian Scottish and Royal Highlanders, meanwhile, had spent most of the day being hammered mercilessly by German artillery. Men died or were wounded while huddling in shallow, muddy holes. At dusk, it was decided that continuing the attack was fruitless and the two support battalions were set to work digging a defensive trench with orders to meet the expected renewal of the German offensive where they stood. Casualties continued to mount as the shellfire never relented and, by dawn, the survivors were exhausted from a terrifying night spent carving some semblance of a trench out of the mud-soaked earth.

Tuxford had been busy, too, securing more men by having 1
^st
Canadian Infantry Brigade's 2
^nd
Battalion placed under his command. He planned that these fresh troops would relieve the Montreal and Toronto battalions while his other two battalions put in a renewed counterattack. But it was not to be. For the next seventy-two hours both sides pounded the other with artillery, but neither advanced. Each day, Tuxford received orders to prepare to send the Canadian Scottish forward only to subsequently receive a postponement. On June 7, Currie informed him that the attack “would now definitely be temporarily postponed.” The brigade was replaced by battalions from 2
^nd
Division's 5
^th
Brigade and moved to billets in the rear. Their rest was to be short; the battalion commanders warned that 1
^st
Division was teeing up a better-planned attack.
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Standing in support had taken an unusually heavy toll on the Canadian Scottish for such duty. Three officers had been killed and one wounded. Twelve other ranks had died, another seventy-nine been wounded, and eight reported missing. But the two attacking battalions had suffered far higher losses. The Royal Montreal Regiment reported two officers dead, fifteen wounded, and one missing. Among the Montrealers' other ranks 42 were killed, 207 wounded, and 129 missing and presumed taken prisoner. Three 48
^th
Highlander officers had been slain and nine wounded. The Toronto regiment's other ranks lost 21 dead while another 175 other ranks fell wounded. A further seventy-seven men were missing.
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Tuxford later wrote, “This action did not recover the lost trenches, it resulted in consolidating an advanced line connecting the 3
^rd
Division in a due southerly direction via RUDKIN HOUSE, with the 2
^nd
Brigade of the 1
^st
Division. This ground was entirely wide open to the enemy at the time of the advance, which also denied OBSERVATORY RIDGE to the enemy.” But the Germans still held valuable ground just two miles from Ypres that posed a constant threat to the entire salient. Field Marshal Haig ordered them expelled, but—because of his plans in the Somme—offered Canadian Corps nothing more than supporting artillery and one British infantry brigade. Perhaps, he said, the attack could be made with less infantry if they were sufficiently supported by more gunnery. Accordingly the artillery consisted of the greatest number of guns the British had ever concentrated on such a narrow front—218 in all. These guns were soon arrayed and pounding both the German incursion zone and its support lines. The Germans reported that casualties among the 26
^th
Infantry Division and 120
^th
Regiment, which held most of the disputed ground, “mounted in horrifying numbers.”
³⁵

Trained as an artilleryman, Currie carefully monitored the gun plan and added a twist of his own. At his insistence, a four-day bombardment began pounding the German lines on June 9 at intervals of twenty to thirty minutes. Each time the guns lifted, the Germans, who had taken shelter in dugouts back from their forward trenches to escape the torrent of shells, would tumble forward to man their positions only to be caught in the renewed shelling. Their losses mounted and yet no Canadian infantry came at them.

Currie would do the same thing on June 13, but this time put in the attack. With his battalions all badly depleted, Currie regrouped them into two composite brigades. On the right, 1
^st
Brigade's Brig. Louis Lipsett would attack with 1
^st
, 3
^rd
, 7
^th
, and 8
^th
Battalions, while on the left Brig. Tuxford would head for Hill 61 and Tor Top with the 2
^nd
, 4
^th
, 13
^th
, and 16
^th
Battalions. Lipsett would have just one battalion out front—the 3
^rd
—while Tuxford placed his trust in the battalions of his brigade—the 13
^th
and 16
^th
. On the far left, the 9
^th
Brigade's 58
^th
Battalion would also join 1
^st
Division's assault. This time, there would be no confusion about objective locations. Currie had acquired accurate aerial photographs of the enemy's lines and codenamed each trench with the name of a Canadian city. The front of the German line was Halifax, the next line Montreal, the following one Winnipeg with the final objective—the Canadian front line of June 2—dubbed Vancouver. In 3
^rd
Brigade's case, Vancouver included both summits of Hill 61 and Tor Top.
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