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 shrapnel, H.E., machine-guns and rifles, continued to check and slay
the Germans. The men who went up with him from his former firing
position fell, one by one, crawled away or lay still in death. But the
Lance-Corporal continued to fire. The pressure of his finger did not
relax from the trigger until he was shot dead.
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