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Show TRIP'DVERTHE TOP' Angus Urquhart Describes Raids and Battles on French Front. TROOPS DECIMATED Germans in Mass Drives Slaughtered at Fight of Hill Seventy. One of the (mist Interesting tellers that have cume. out of tlie. Kuropean war to IiImmI.s on this fill'- of the. water has jn.st tjt-OM ree'-iv'l ly Murdo'-li 1J. Cr'iu-liart, Cr'iu-liart, inlftimoiiiil.iin manager of the Ki-v-slono Oil company, with headquarters in Denver, who Is now at the Hotel Utah. The, letter, from a cousin, Annus, was written at the Jlaplc Leaf club, Con-nauKlit Con-nauKlit I'lace, London, and In part is as follows: I nm here on a fourteen-day leave. It is Kreat to he back to civilization once more after a year in the trendies. To tell all my experiences for the last year would fill volumes. The life in the trenches Is not monotonous, whatever else it may he. Tho first real adventure T took part in was on the first (lay of April. That was my first trip "over I he top." We were gettins ready for the Vimy , Kemp, April 9. Our company was gtven the job of getting a prisoner. We wanted tfi know if Fritz was wise. They railed for thirty volunteers. They ;,'ot over a hundred. As I was a .bomber, 1 was one of tho thirty We lined up in the advance trench just before daybreak. We were travel-inn travel-inn li','ht, as the job had to be done in' a iiurrv. We must finish and get hack before Fritz could recover from tin; surprise. I had six Mills bombs .and a Stoke shell. , W e had about forty yards to go to his front line. I was all atremble with excitement until we got the word to go. Once I was over the parapet 1 was all right. Our artillery opened up a small barrage. That made the Germans lake to their dugouts. Before they could come out we were on top of them. We had them like rats in a hole. We soon cleared their trenches ''with bombs. We got one prisoner. That was all we wanted. We went lor tho dugouts then. That is where the "Stokes" came in handy. A Stoke shell exploding down a dugout leaves -nothing in It alive and it destroy the dugout! We fixed eleven dugouts in this way. Some of t lie dugouts hold over a hundred men. We must have got an awful lot of them. It was i short, but furious. In fifteen min-; min-; utes from the time we started we were back. We only had' one man killed and six wounded. They didn't get time to pull themselves together. ; It Is stunts like this that make them uate us Canadians so. They never .know what we are going to do next. : Easter Monday the Day. Then came the big day, Easter Monday. We all expected it was coming com-ing on Sunday, but we found out Fritz was wise to it. When nothing came on Sundav he relaxed his watch. At 5::;ii n. m. our artillery opened up on a. thirty-mile front. It was the grandest grand-est sight 1 ever saw or ever expect Mo see again. A line of men. extending extend-ing as far as one could see on either .-side, advancing as steadily amid that hell of artillery and machine gun fire as if thev were practicing extended order on parade. The Hun had no chance. He nad to leave the ridge, although it was defended by his best troops" and although he had nearly three vears in which to fortify It. To give you an Idea how muddy it was, one man in every section was given a rope to pull his mates on top of ibo ruud with. -0-:t of our ur.x--.-on v.e i.a.l h-.-i in. in :!;u ..a.-..all.'-.. w.di.-li was coi.M'l!'i:is lue ad- va nta.L-e g:i in' -l. The n'-N't good scran T was in was a midnight raid "li t:.e ijerman !.n'-s in front of Avion. June T'-e whole brigade w. lit over, anil took thr-e lii:-s of it ren- l:'--. and went through -.lie Jin.. to a -lepra of aoont 8 khj yards. Wo ii!!i--t--d r-ejt lo-ses, gor a lot o' p:':S',r-.ei s ai.-i mai-inne guns. We held the ti es tor tuo bonis and then I, eat it b i--k. Just before be-fore -!;i-!i:-h! the ijerurins Ole-ne-l a he-iv barrage on their own trendies, ti.ink'na '' -vero tii'-i -. It v.aa nenr-lv nenr-lv twi tv.fmtr Louis i'Ciure Fritz o-'ap'a-d "them again. T'n'-y were so ba-llv smashed up tint he conidn t bold them. so he withdrew to tin; otn er hi-ie of the town, a distance o: ov-r a nnle. Then ram.: the Hill ',( s-'rap in front of l.oos, in Au-'usi. That was another an-other hard blow lor Frilz. I believe laar was the iie-t 'iiance we will e...- have o:" killing eloiir.ans. it ws a tee.iilai- slaughter. He made ten counter-attacks in one da v. We s:u;ph- riiov.'-d them down. We even c-iigiiT reinlurreir.ents coming up in (fj-uiiii. with their oni-ers on horseback, horse-back, under our machine-gun and rifle (ire. They li in n't .1 hmk we could sec- them It 'was great shooting. Move to Ypres. W held the line in front of Merri-court, Merri-court, to the null I of Lens, till the lust of September, when we moved to Ypres. That name has always , meant much to (he Canadian, bul never so much as it does now. 'pres is where the fust Canadian contingent contin-gent got their baptisms. That is wb'-ro they saved the day and kept the C'-rmans from breaking through. When Frilz first used gas those lads won against awful odds. We went In to the right of Ypres. Our task was to, take the heights of I'asschendacle. . . 'f ile Australians had tried and failed. There were three low ridges to take. The hollows between t he ridges are in places below be-low the sea level and, as it is not far to ttie coast, you can Imagine what they are like. We had to go through mud and water to our hips in places. ' The Germans had the tops of the ridges fortified with what we call pill boxes, some of them are about tiffy feet square, made, of steel and concrete. The sido facing us is about six feet thick The back about six inches. So that after we take them they are no good to us. Fritz can put an S-pounder clear through the back, while our 60-pounders 60-pounders bounce off the front. They are strongly garrisoned with machine gun troops, so you can imagine what they are like to take. v uen we looiv over me line m b were -just in front of Waterloo farnj. So you see our battleground was the same on which Wellington- fought Napoleon over a hundred years ago. "We took all our objectives and held them. My battalion made two trips In. We went ovor the top the first trip and held the line for three days the last trip. Another fellow and J were all that came out of my section sec-tion of twelve. At Vimy three of us came out. So you see I have been very fortunate fortu-nate again. I really never expected to come out the last night at Yrpres. My mate and I were sent out to meet the relief and guide them in. We met them at Waterloo, two miles back. About half way in Fritz dropped four heavies in the midst of t lie platoon we were guiding. My mate was killed and about half the platoon was wiped out. The man ahead and 'behind me were killed. I was thrown clean into a shell hole, without a scratch on me. It was a few minutes before I could pull myself my-self together and go on with what was left of the party. It is not luck that saves a fellow. Fritz got wise to our relieving that night somehow. Didn't he shell that road out something some-thing awful? I thought it was going to be the last of me. |
