Vimy Ridge Day

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

Lest we forget! Lest we forget!

The Vimy Ridge Memorial

Today is Vimy Ridge Day. On this day in 1917, at 05.30, the Battle of Vimy Ridge began. When it ended, the Canadian Corps and the British 5th infantry division had taken Vimy Ridge during the Battle of Arras. The French and the British had tried for months to take the Ridge with no success. The Canadian Corps did it in one day, and took three more to do the mopping up. The days before the attack, the British artillery had smashed the German forward defences thanks to good air reconnaissance by the Royal Flying Corps. 

Moreover, Julian Byng had sent Canadian Commander Arthur Currie to study the French success at Verdun a few months before. Based on this they drew a few very important lessons: the aforementioned artillery supremacy, rehearsal and training of the plan (which had clear and simple objectives) and harassing fire which could be achieved by setting up batteries of Vickers machine guns for indirect fire and flexibility down to the platoon level.

When the 4 Canadian Divisions attacked, they had already moved within 150m of the enemy through a system of tunnels and sewers and before the remaining Germans could react in a meaningful way, the Ridge was already taken.

On top of their new strategy and tactics the Canadians faced a German enemy that had not adapted to Erich Ludendorff’s new Defence in Depth system that he had designed and which was used along the Hindenburg Line. German general Ludwig Freiherr von Falkenhausen was keeping his major force in the German 1st and 2nd line in accordance with the older defence doctrine. Furthermore, he kept his reserves 20km behind the front. When they arrived, the Canadians had already fortified their position and could defend the Ridge just like the Germans had the past 2 1/2 years. 

Many people believe that in a real sense Canada was born as a Nation on this bloody Ridge.  Brigadier-General Alexander Ross, who commanded the 28th Battalion (Northwest) CEF, said of the Battle, ‘I witnessed the birth of a nation’.

It has been said that the Canadian Corps went up the Ridge as English and French, Nova Scotians, Québécois, Albertans, etc, but they came down as Canadians.

Reginald Roy, a veteran of the Battle said, 

'I became a Canadian on Vimy Ridge....'We became a nation there in the eyes of the world. It cut across French and English, rich and poor, urban and rural. Vimy Ridge confirmed that we were as good as, if not better than, any European Power.'

Front Page, Vancouver Daily Sun, 10 April 1917