Vimy Ridge, 9–12 April 1917

The battle, stage by stage

1. Winter 1916–17 to 8 April 1917

   Tunnels, mines and the "week of suffering"

   Vimy Ridge, a 14-kilometer escarpment above the Douai plain, had been in German hands since 1914; French attacks in 1915 pushed the line back at terrible cost and briefly reached the crest in May 1915, but could not hold it. The Canadian Corps, all four divisions together for the first time under the British general Sir Julian Byng, took over the sector in late 1916. Through the winter they built trench models, rehearsed, and with British tunneling companies dug 13 subways by Veterans Affairs Canada's count — the Grange Subway, 1,230 meters long and about 8 meters deep, was built by British (Royal Engineers) tunneling companies helped by Canadian infantry working parties — lit and piped for water, to bring the assault waves up to the front unseen. Mines were laid under the German line. More than 980 guns and heavy howitzers were massed behind the ridge, and from 2 April more than a million shells fell on the German positions; the defenders called it 'the week of suffering.' Facing them were three German divisions of the Sixth Army: from north to south the 16th Bavarian, the 79th Reserve and the 1st Bavarian Reserve.

2. 9 April 1917 (Easter Monday), 5:30–7:10 AM

   Zero hour: the Black Line

   At 5:30 AM, in sleet and snow driven from the northwest at the Canadians' backs, the guns opened and mines went up under the German line. About 15,000 infantry in the first waves climbed out and walked behind a creeping barrage that lifted forward on a timetable. Most of the German forward garrison was still underground or dazed; the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Divisions reached the Black Line, the German forward position, on the timetable, within about half an hour (Nicholson); reports confirming it reached First Army between 7:10 and 8:25 AM. Lance-Sergeant Ellis Sifton of the 18th Battalion (2nd Division) earned the Victoria Cross, posthumously, charging a machine gun that was holding up the first rush at the German front trench. On the left, the 4th Division's 11th Brigade ran into machine guns on Hill 145, the highest point of the ridge, that had survived the bombardment, and many units lost the barrage; at Old Boot Sap, by one account, about 100 of the 54th Battalion's 350 attackers were killed.

3. About 7:30–9:30 AM

   3rd Division on the crest; 4th Division held up

   The 3rd Division's 7th and 8th Brigades reached their final objective, the Red Line at the western edge of the Bois de la Folie, at about 7:30 AM, and held a mile of the crest; the 1st and 2nd Divisions took the Red Line, which included the Zwischen-Stellung and Les Tilleuls, by about 9:25 AM. Private William Milne of the 16th Battalion (1st Division) earned the Victoria Cross, posthumously, attacking German machine-gun positions; Captain Thain MacDowell of the 38th Battalion (12th Brigade) also won the Cross on 9 April. But Hill 145 still held, and its fire, with that from the Pimple to the north, swept the 4th Division's line and the 3rd Division's left.

4. About 11:00 AM–4:20 PM

   Thélus, Hill 135 and Farbus Wood

   Fresh brigades passed through: in the south the 1st Brigade, and in the 2nd Division's sector the 6th Brigade and the British 13th Brigade, attached from the 5th Division, took the Blue Line — Thélus and Hill 135 — by about 11 AM, then after a pause the Brown Line, the German second position, from midday onward (Nicholson). By its war diary, the 3rd Battalion reached Farbus Wood and by 4:20 PM held it with a captured battery. From the eastern slopes the Canadians looked down on the Douai plain, the first Allied troops to do so since 1915; patrols reached the railway embankment. More than 3,000 prisoners were taken on the day. German reserves gathered around Vimy village and the east of the ridge.

5. 9 April evening – 10 April 1917

   Hill 145 falls

   Late on 9 April two companies of the 85th Battalion (Nova Scotia Highlanders), the 4th Division's only immediate reserve and never meant to assault, attacked the strongpoint on Hill 145 without a barrage — it had been canceled — covering themselves with Lewis guns and rifles, and carried it; the battalion lost 47 killed and 122 wounded. On 10 April, at 3:15 PM, the 10th Brigade's 44th and 50th Battalions cleared the reverse slope beyond the summit, taking about 200 prisoners at a cost, by First Army reports, of more than 300 casualties between them. Private John Pattison of the 50th earned the Victoria Cross. Parts of the German 111th Division came up toward Vimy as reinforcements. The Canadian National Vimy Memorial now stands on Hill 145.

6. 12 April 1917, 5:00 AM

   The Pimple

   Byng ordered the 10th Brigade to take the Pimple, the knoll at the north-west tip of the ridge above Givenchy. At 5 AM, after a bombardment and behind a barrage of 96 field guns, the 44th and 50th Battalions, with the 46th in support, attacked in a snowstorm through mud that was waist-deep in places, against men of the 5th Guard Grenadier Regiment (4th Guards Division), sent up to reinforce the 16th Bavarian Division; by about 8 AM Corps headquarters was told they had reached their objectives. North of the Souchez river the British 73rd Brigade of the 24th Division took the Bois-en-Hache, so that the Germans could not fire into the Canadians from the flank. The whole ridge was now in Canadian hands.

7. 13–14 April 1917

   Aftermath

   The Germans abandoned the eastern foot of the ridge and fell back to a new line through Avion, Arleux and Oppy; Thélus, Farbus, Givenchy, Willerval, Vimy and La Chaudière were in Canadian hands by 13 April. The Canadian Corps lost 10,602 men, 3,598 of them dead (killed and died of wounds; Veterans Affairs Canada); German losses on the ridge are usually put at about 20,000, with more than 4,000 taken prisoner. The success was won as part of a British offensive at Arras that soon stalled. Vimy came to stand for Canada's coming of age; the memorial on Hill 145, unveiled in 1936, bears the names of 11,285 Canadians killed in France who have no known grave.