On Easter Monday (April 9th), 1917, in a mixture of recurrent rain and
driving sleet, the Canadian troops took Vimy Ridge from the Germans.
When it is said that the Canadians "took" this ridge the literally
correct phrase is used. No other word expresses the historic incident
so well. The Canadian battalions took Vimy Ridge; and Lance-Sergeant
Ellis Welwood Sifton, of the 18th Battalion, from Ontario, was one of a
few men whose deeds on that tremendous day won for them the highest mark
of admiration their fellows could offer for valour. He gave his life for
the award.
The taking of Vimy Ridge was an operation which involved practically
every Canadian unit. It was a scheme the authors of which hardly dared
to hope would be so completely carried out, for the ridge was the pivot
of the German millions on the whole western front. It was an
eight-thousand-yards-long fortress, deemed by its occupants to be
impregnable, a bastion of inestimable strength and importance, an inland
Gibraltar.
British and French armies had tried several times to wrest it from the
German grasp. The Germans had met their smashing blows, had quivered
under them--but had continued to hold the ridge. On the morning of that
Easter Monday they held it, arrogant as ever. In the evening they were
gone!
The slopes of Vimy were a maze of trenches of superb construction,
fashioned to withstand the pounding of any artillery. The dug-outs were
vast, fortified underground chambers--some capable of sheltering entire
battalions--where enemy shells could not find the occupants. Its
machine-gun fortresses were formidable as miniature battleships.
To familiarize themselves with the difficulties which an attack on this
ridge would involve, the Canadian Divisions went into strict training
for weeks behind the lines. Battalion commanders were called in
conference to the headquarters of their brigades, brigadiers to their
divisions, divisional commanders to corps; the results of these
deliberations were made known to regimental officers; officers lectured
the non-commissioned officers, the non-commissioned officers passed it
on, as non-commissioned officers do, to the rank and file. All ranks
trained.
At 5.30 on the fateful morning the 18th Battalion was in position on the
right wing of the 4th Brigade front. The dawn was dull, uncertain,
depressing. Heavy clouds lay over the battlefield and a biting
north-west wind scudded across the waste lands.
With the first crash of the barrage which fell on the German front the
waves of assaulting troops rose out of their trenches like gnomes of the
night and started for the enemy lines. The 18th Battalion assaulted on a
three-platoon frontage in four waves. Before them the fire-edged barrage
swept on, destroying with the completeness of a flaming guillotine.
The first German line was gained and captured with very small loss to
the attackers. The Germans were stunned and demoralized by the hurricane
of explosives which was being hurled at them. They called "_Kamerad!_"
and were dispatched, still meek and submissive, to a safer place.
But at the second line, after the barrage had swept over it, the first
opposition of importance was met. Here small parties of machine-gunners,
tucked away in their concrete fortresses, had escaped the terrible
shelling and as the Canadians advanced they enfiladed the waves of men
as they passed.
One such nest stemmed the advance of "C" Company. Men began to fall, hit
by the unseen enemy. The others peered around in the gloom, trying to
discover the nest. Lance-Sergeant Sifton saw it first. The barrel of the
gun showed over a parapet.
Sifton did not wait to work out an elaborate attack, for there was no
time to lose. He rushed ahead, leaped into the trench, charged into the
crew, overthrew the gun and turned on the gunners with his bayonet.
Before they had time to resist, every one of the Germans was out of
business. With the demolition of the machine-gun, the advance of the
18th Battalion moved on.
Sifton's men hurried up to support him, but before they reached the
position a party of Germans advanced on him from down the trench. He
attacked them with bayonet and clubbed rifle and held them off till his
comrades jumped into the trench and ended the unequal fight. But none
noticed a dying German, one of Sifton's victims, who rolled over to the
edge of the trench, picked up a rifle and took careful aim.
That was how he died--the man from Ontario, of whom it was stated in
official phraseology that "his conspicuous valour undoubtedly saved many
lives and contributed largely to the success of the operation."
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