During the morning of April 10th, 1917, the 44th and 50th Battalions
were instructed to capture and consolidate, as an outpost line, the
Eastern edge of Vimy Ridge lying beyond Hill 145. The men of the 10th
Brigade had been in reserve while their comrades swept over Vimy on the
previous day and were anxious to get in some good work with the rest of
the Corps. There is no doubt that they succeeded.
The men of the 50th made their way to Beer Trench, and at zero hour,
3.15 p.m., went forward with a rush. Opposition was immediate and
severe. From every broken tree and battered piece of cover machine-gun
fire swept the attack, and casualties were extremely heavy; but the men
continued to push forward.
On the right "C" Company attacked, with "D" Company in close support; on
the left "A" Company, with "B" Company in support. The leading companies
found the "going" extremely hard, but for a time all went well, and
though the advance was slow, steady progress was made.
As the incessant fire thinned the waves of attacking troops, greater
difficulty was encountered in enveloping the machine-gun nests that
barred our progress. In the first stage of an attack made by determined
troops the resistance close at hand is easily swamped; but as the men
continue to push forward the innumerable obstructions and perils of the
battlefield gather against their weakening impact, fatigue slows them,
their front is broken and their connecting files are shot down; and so a
steady enveloping movement becomes a series of bitterly contested little
battles, where small parties in twos and threes fight strategic
engagements with isolated strong points of the enemy. Finally a series
of partial checks culminates in an abrupt cessation of the advance--and
a gathering company finds itself held up before an embattled
fortification whose point of vantage covers the whole local zone of
attack.
Then the real trouble begins. Time and again in the history of the war
one hostile fortification left in otherwise captured territory has
changed or materially affected the final issue of the engagement. It
may serve as a rallying-point for a determined counter-attack, or by its
wide zones of fire hamper the advance of reinforcements on the flanks,
or prevent the supply of vital munitions to a new and precarious front
line; its effectiveness is limited only by its natural position, and as
this has been selected with care and forethought by an efficient enemy,
one small but actively hostile strong-point may prove a very capable
thorn in the side of a harassed general.
On that April afternoon the 50th Battalion encountered just such a
check. It was on the left of the battalion attacking zone, and the men
of "A" Company, gradually gathering in the nearest cover, had organized
and carried out several gallant attempts to rush the position. Each time
they had been beaten back with heavy losses.
Now "B" Company arrived to reinforce the assault. Another attack was
organized, with no more success than the last; and then, as so often
occurs, a critical situation was relieved by the clearheaded bravery of
a single soldier.
Private Pattison, an engineer from Calgary, proceeded to deal with the
situation. He advanced single-handed towards the machine-gun post in a
series of short rapid dashes, taking cover on the way in available
shell-holes while deciding his next point of vantage. In a few moments
he had reached a shell-hole within thirty yards of the vital
strong-point. He stood up in full view of the machine-gunners and under
their point-blank fire threw three bombs with such good aim that the
guns were put out of action and the crews temporarily demoralized. This
was Pattison's opportunity, and he took it without hesitation. As his
last bomb exploded amidst the Germans he rushed across the intervening
space and in a moment was using his bayonet upon the unhappy enemy. He
had killed them all before his companions had caught him up.
Twenty minutes later all objectives were gained and the Canadians busy
consolidating the captured line. Pattison came unscathed through the
day's fighting, and through the successful attack on the Pimple on the
following day; but he never wore his V.C., though he was aware that he
had been recommended for the honour. He was killed on June 2nd in the
attack upon the Generating Station.
Very few men of Pattison's age now reach the honour of the Victoria
Cross, as this war has set almost too high a standard for their physical
activity. Pattison was 42 years old--a smart soldier and a good fellow.
His son, a young soldier in his father's battalion, wears the ribbon
upon his right breast, and probably will wear it on his left side too,
before this war is over.
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