Today is the 99 th anniversary of the four Canadian division s that made up the Canadian corps storming of vimy. It was the high ground for miles around and both the British and French armies tried to dislodge the German army several times. This was the making of the country a defining moment in Canadian history. Much the same as the Anzac's at Gallipoli. The Canadian army was on the crest of the ridge watching the Germany army run away on the down slopes. After the trenches were dug this is the first time the allies saw open ground in front of them. Typical of ww1 transport was so bad there was no way to really take advantage of the broken German lines. There was one high point called the pimple that took a few more days to over run but the corps prevailed. There were two tactics that allowed the victory. One was the development of the creeping barrage. The second was the truely Interesting one evey man in the army was told the plan and the objectives so if and when the leaders got killed the men knew what to do as well they knew where the others beside them were to be and could help out with flanking fire. One other thing that was used extensively was tunnelling both under groung bombs and to bring men uo to the front behind the German front lines. My great uncle I was named after fought at vimy in the loyal Edmonton regiment. I will drive by his grave before I go home tonight. RIP. He made it through that battle and everyone up until that point he was one of the first Canadians in France. He got wounded in the fall of 17 at the third battle of Ypres. That ended ww1 for him when ww2 broke out he wanted to go back but they thought he was not in good enough shape and he served in the veterans guard. The veterans guard guarded POWs amoung other things and that was his second war job guarding the POWs at the camp in Lethbridge. The POW camp had twice as many POWs as there were people in Lethbridge there were around twenty thousand POWs there. My grandfather and great uncle drew straws to see which one of them was going to stay home and farm a d which one was going overseas.

Very cool.

Paul

http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/exhibitions/vimy/index_e.shtml

http://news.nationalpost.com/features/newspapers-that-reported-on-vimy-ridge-on-april-10-1917

The hundredth anniversary tomorrow will be the anniversary of the consolidation of the positions. I need to stop by the graveyard today to visit my great uncle s grave he fought at Vimy.

The 6th of June was the day 100 years ago the the US declared war on  Austro-Hungaria and Germany. There were already 10,000 US volunteer Soldiers who had joined the Canadian Army at war with the Huns!

wow...