Papa Mauro at Vimy Ridge

What follows is an excerpt from Reflections in Black and White -- the memoir of my Great Grandfather, Giovanni Battista Mauro (known to us as 'Papa'). He lived a full and fascinating life, leaving us a family treasure in the form of this record. One of the many adventures for this Italian immigrant was his time in the Canadian Army on an overseas expedition to engage in the Great War under the Union Jack. I think about his experience every year at this time, and relive it by reading this particular chapter.

Transcribed by permission of his granddaughters (thanks Mom and Leslie).

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Lt. Wood enjoined us to remember our part to be taken in the attack. 5:30am was to be “zero hour”, or, the time set to attack. We were told to keep our eyes to the right of us, where a green flare was to be sent up at the Canadian command headquarters. The flare was to be the ultimate signal to all Canadian troops to 'jump over the top.'

The flare, too, was the signal for our artillery to lift their barrage from the first German front trench and to bombard their second trench for 20 minutes. Here the 1^st wave of the 42^nd battalion would jump in to no-man's land and they would split up into two lines, or waves, some 30 feet apart. Here (speaking for our Lewis gun section) in single file, we would follow close to the advance line of soldiers. When they came close to our barrage, ahead of them, they stopped and we did the same, laying prone on the ground and keeping our eyes on the enemy positions in case of a counter-attack. After we had reached the 3rd German defence positions, or trench line, our section was to disengage ourselves and take our gun and ourselves to the rear and report to the 7^th brigade headquarters for reassignment.

Now the lieutenant said, “Did I make myself clear? Are there any questions you would like to ask me? Very well, but remember that from the time I leave you at your battle stations you are on your own. Good luck to you all.” Then he remembered something; “Ho yes,” he said, “ is there any one of you that would want a little more rum?” Most of us did; why not, at a time like this?

We moved off from here and, speaking for myself, I was in a happy mood. Was it the strong rum ration I'd had? I am sure now that it was. It's an old truth that says 'many a hero is made from the spirit out of a bottle.' Patriotism becomes a little foggy in times like these, but no one could top the English in knowing how to handle their army and navy in the approach of a battle. A tot of rum bolsters one's conviction in the belief of his invincibility.

With this speculation on my mind, and in pitch darkness, we found our way in to our front line trench amongst the crowded ranks of the 42^nd battalion. As directed, our section kept on squeezing our way through the crowded trench until we came upon the left flank of the Princess Pat's. In fact, it was three members of their pipe band stationed there that took our eye. Amongst all the roar of our artillery and of bursting shells, these three kilted soldiers were tuning and warming up their bag-pipes in readiness to play us 'over the top.'

We waited here for perhaps a half hour and we couldn't help noticing that with hundreds of our artillery smashing at the German lines there wasn't even an occasional enemy shell fired in response. Our fire had been directed at them for these last 96 hours without let up. If they stood at their posts expecting us, by now they were in bad need of rest, and perhaps they were doing just that, resting in their well-built and secured, deep concrete underground quarters. The German soldiers didn't live in such rat-holes as our dug-outs.

As we waited here, the first signs of dawn became visible on the right of us. Our eyes locked steadfast in that direction for the go-ahead. Suddenly, a green flare bursted away up in the sky, and like an electric impact we all came to instant action. The artillery raised their sights and lifted the barrage to the 2^nd German defence line and all of us jumped over the top, to where it was no-man's land just a moment before.

As planned, our section behind Pte. McIntosh. As mentioned before, we were all loaded like mules. Besides our regular battle order equipment, three spare men on the Lewis gun carried two magazines loaded with 48 cartridges in each magazine (or cylinder). In case of no.1 or no. 2 men on the gun becoming casualties, each of us was trained to handle and fire this light machine gun, but it was of extreme importance that each of us stayed in the proximity of the gun with two loaded spare magazines, so that the Lewis gun could be operative at all times. Now as soon as we got past the 1^st enemy defence line and found no enemy opposition to act on, we here waited for our artillery barrage to lift in to the enemy's 3^rd line before we could go any further, or else we would walk in to our own artillery fire. We were all laying prone on the ground when Charly Hill, the 4^th man on the gun noticed that the no.5 man, Pte. Miller, was missing. Here, Acting Cpl. McIntosh jumped up and went in search of Miller. In a few minutes, he was back carrying the two spare magazines that Miller was supposed to be carrying. We asked what happened to Miller. “Nothing happened to Miller,” he said, “I found him slumped in a shell hole crying like a baby and holding the little finger of his left hand. He scratched his hand on the barbed-wire as he came over the top, and then he collapsed. I tried to bring him along but he refused to move. I figured we were better off without him, but I felt like shooting him.” This was the same Miller that was on my first outpost with me, and we had to do all his turns at keeping an eye on the enemy while he stayed curled up in a funk-hole. It takes all kinds.

When the 20 minutes was at an end our barrage lifted again to the 3^rd enemy defence positions and again, we advanced in to and past their 2^nd line of defence. We were really very surprised that so far we didn't encounter any opposition. No doubt, that in other sections to our right and left of our battle front, there was a lot of hand to hand fighting going on, but in our particular sector and a veritable strong-hold, the enemy must have been fast asleep under their concrete shelters. (As it turned out to be, we on the Vimy Ridge sector, actually caught the enemy unaware of our actual attack; we surprised him while he was taking a rest from a long protracted vigil at his outposts. So the plan for a long exhaustive bombardment had paid off at Vimy Ridge.

We achieved our objective as planned by the High Command and captured all three of the German defence positions right to the edge, or ridge, of the Vimy hill. Like a Cecil B. Demille epic picture, everything went according to plan and on schedule. We of the Lewis gun didn't even have to fire one shot.

As soon as our Lewis gun section reached the enemy 3^rd line we disengaged ourselves and walked away, to report at headquarters of our 7^th brigade. The wonder of all this was that, contrary to our expectations, we never encountered any enemy, never fired a shot or being fired at, and all of us, except Pte. Miller, reported at brigade for reassignment.

At brigade headquarters, (down underground), we came upon 5 German prisoners. One of them, a man of around 35 years of age, spoke very good English. He was a former waiter in one of London's best hotels. Now that he was captured he was extremely happy and more than willing to tell us 'how the enemy' was caught bu surprise. 'As our artillery kept up an intermittent bombardment for 4 days and 4 nights, the German commanding officer in the area came to the conclusion that as we hadn't made a move to attack on Sunday, we perhaps wouldn't attack now, and his men were exhausted and needed sleep, so he ordered them to their bunkers, and then we came.' So far so good.

Strange as it seems now, all the time I took part in the Vimy engagement, apart from seeing a young lieutenant of the Princess Pat's laying on the ground seriously wounded, I can truly say that, on the sector we were at, there didn't appear to be any casualties within the first hour of action. Nonetheless, we had a good many casualties in the Canadian zone. A few minutes after our arrival at brigade headquarters, our own Cpl. Nelson showed up and, leaving Pte. McIntosh with the gun, he ordered the 3 of us to go out with stretchers and help bring in the wounded laying on the ground to the left of our positions; here Pte. Ranshaw and I made off with a stretcher and went out on the battlefield to pick up wounded soldiers, our own first. The enemy wounded would have to wait their turn until all our own men were taken care of.