Robert Paterson's Weblog

Vimy - Rob's Visit Day 4

What a day! We left the site last night slightly stunned by what we had experienced. Never have I been so moved.

The day was perfect warm but not too hot. Sunny but not too harsh. The grass and the site were dry. The logistics of getting thousands to the site were a marvel with lines and lines of buses shuttling us in from Vimy to the site. I have never seen so many buses or policemen for that matter.

The site before the monument filled in the early afternoon with thousands of people. Many young in bandannas. The mood was electric. My sister said this must be what it was like at Woodstock - we knew that we would always be separate from all those that were not here. We were the fortunate few that would experience this directly.

After a picnic on the grass we wandered down to the main site behind the monument facing back up to the statue of a young Canada mourning her dead. It was about 2pm then. At close to 3 5,000 young Canadian came down the ridge from the south side. 5,000 people is a lot. We got a sense of the loss for the 3 days of the battle when 3,598 men lost their lives. We could imagine in looking at the 5,000, what 3,598 looked like.

Their energy was electric and I felt that these 5,000 would reverberate back into their own generation. Each would surely have 20 friends who were watching back home. I bet most will find a way to return in later life - maybe with their children.

When they had settled into the green patch in the centre the band and the soldiers arrived. The music throughout was special. A mix of pipe and brass band. I hope that there will be a recording.

The arrival of the key dignitaries took a long time - all the protocol etc. But I have to say all of them were wonderful. M Villepin opened with an exceptionally gracious speech of gratitude. Mr Harper was at his very best. His speech was without the shred of politics and was very moving. Very moving. The Queen of course was the star. Dressed in white - she shone like a pearl.

The highpoint for all of us was then the music. The lone (female) bugler. The lone virtuoso violinist. Then the most moving of all.

The band began to sing - quietly. Who had heard a band sing? The song was all about a longing  for home. Then the kids in the Charlottetown choir picked up the words with the band now playing softly, then the soloist and finally all the choir and all the band. As the song reached its climax, four jets flew low over us all. We were all stunned. All around me the crowd was weeping. It was the most incredible mass experience that I have ever been part off.

What a day!

More later

Vimy Ridge - April 9 1917

Alec's unit war diary begins today with "At 5.30 today the artillery opened as one gun and the noise and flame was awe inspiring.."

As the day ended in victory for the infantry, orders were received to move the brigade forward. It began to rain that night. They worked all night "It was a terrible night to move guns but all were in position by day light as ordered. Each battery also took forward several hundred rounds of ammunition"

No sleep for any of them now for days. On the 10, they were in action while more ammo was brought up. On the 11th they were in action while they dug in. On the 12, they had orders to move forward again to beyond the Ridge. By the 17th the 5th battery was in Farbus well into the Plain below the Ridge.

I cannot see how any of them could have slept for over a week.The pressure on the horses and the men must have been terrible. By the 17 they were short 187 horses. It meant that the horses were literally being worked to death and that the men were living doing a lot of the pulling.

The site at Vimy looks so clean and peaceful today.

More tomorrow we we return

Vimy - Rob's Visit Day 3

The weather has been lovely - sunny and warm. Yesterday we went to Ypres or as it is called today, Ieper.

With 6 people, you can't see everything, there is just too much inertia, so we picked a few things to see. We began at the Hooge Crater where we had lunch and then went on to Sanctuary Wood just down the road where there are still some preserved trenches. The owners returned to their ruined cafe and decided 90 years ago to make a business out of what was there. They still do - as we were there 4 coach loads of Canadian kids arrived!

We wandered around Ypres in the afternoon and had an early supper. I ate nothing. The Kaiser had his revenge for all my indulgences the day before and sat and watched my family tuck in. Chips are the national dish in Belgium - why do we only serve frozen in PEI?

We then went off to Tyne Cot cemetery - this is the cemetery that serves the men who fell at Passch. endaele. There are 13,000 men there. 240,000 Englishmen died in the battle. There are 966 Canadians in the cemetery. It was quite overwhelming to be there.

The cemeteries are so beautiful. I never have seen a gardener in the many times I have visited them - but they always look immaculate. Their care is itself a kind of devotion.

Finally we returned to Ypres for the nightly vigil when they play the last post at the Menin Gate. Here they have the names of over 70,000 whose bodies were never found. There were many Canadian kids there last night and  a boy spoke the remembrance words.

Today is the big day and we leave at lunchtime for Vimy.

Vimy Ridge - April 7-8 1917

The big issue only 2 days away was wire. It is hard to imagine how challenging wire could be. German wire was very heavy gage and there could be hundreds of yards thick. If infantry got caught they were doomed.

So the war diary for the 2nd Brigade on the 7th and 8th is all about wire cutting - which is the main mission for the the field artillery.

They also picked the forward observers who were going to follow the infantry and send back information to control the rolling barrage on the big day. They were located at the mouth of the Bentata tunnel. The Canadians had dug a series of tunnels, miles and miles of them, in the chalk to allow men to go forward unseen and protected. You can see one still - Grange. The rest lurk but now are visited a bit by a group who explore such things called the Durand Group. More on them later. Who are making the area safe. They found 18,000 pounds of explosive underneath the ladies washroom!!!

The infantry were always worried about the wire and had sent a liaison officer to the battery. "The infantry have been much worried over the wire..." On the 7th the 18 pounder fired 1,300 rounds each and the howitzers 200.

On the night of the 8th - they were ready. Major Alderson, Alec's commander had returned from hospital to be there for the big day. "The weather was very fine during the day with light rain during the night"

Zero hour was 5.30am on the 9th

More tomorrow

Vimy - Rob's Visit Day 2

I thought that I might die last night - 3 big meals! Dinner at the Aux Moules in Lille where I had Bone Marrow and Toast, Duck Confit et Frites and Blackcurrant Sorbet and an Armangac was the killer after Steak et Frites and Beer for lunch in Arras.

I am going to eat very little today.

In my next life I hope to be French!!!!

We spent much of the day on site at Vimy. The family went around the trenches and the Grange tunnel. What impressed them most was the shell holes that pockmark the site. Most of the area is till closed off and is full of live ammunition. I spoke to the Sky divers who did a practise jump and they told me that the one thing they did not want was to be blown into the danger area. It made us think of what it must have been like 90 years ago if today, it is still dangerous to move off the beaten track.

The restoration looks wonderful. I was last here 5 years ago and the monument looked very beaten up. It is pristine now.

I enkoyed my 15 minutes of fame on Newsworld. It was on at 11am not pm. I got the time difference wrong - sorry. It was weird talking into a camera with a earpiece and not seeing the interviewer. But they said it went well. Did any of you seee it?

Today we attempt to beat the crowds in Arras and we will go to Ypres.

Vimy Ridge - April 6th 1917

My grandfather Alec Paterson was by April 1917, a Captain in the 5th battery of the 2nd Brigade CFA attached to the 1st Division. The 1st division was commanded by General Currie and they were on the the most southern part of the sector with the longest way to go to the ridge.

Alec's brigade and battery were in Neuville Saint Vaast on April 6th. This is just back of the line and was also Currie's HQ. The 2nd brigade had 4 batteries - 3 18 pounder batteries with 4 guns and one 4.5" Howitzer battery.

This is what a gun in action would have looked like.

On April 6th preparations were in full swing. The 5th battery was in action that day "the 5th battery cleaned up all the remaining wire in front of Eisener Graben..." But Alec's job as the Battery captain was supply. The 5th battery also took delivery of a new gun that day. The key issue was ammunition.

Each 18 pounder was firing 1,500 rounds a day! There were also over 200 horses to feed and water as well as all the men.

This was still a time when horse power meant "Horse". Millions of horses died in this war. Feeding them and keeping them in water was a huge job that we can barely imagine.

The diary mentions on the 6th that the horses of the 6th battery that were clipped according to orders are dying at the rate of 3 per day owing to "overwork and exposure" Horses that were not clipped are looking fine - someone screwed up and the brigade major who is writing the diary is making a point.

More tomorrow

Arrived in Lille - On our way to Vimy

We arrived safe and sound in Lille last night. We are staying downtown at the epitome of French Culture, the Holiday Inn Express. Well its what we could get.

Lille is a great city for walking - all the downtown is car free and we had a delicious dinner at the Cafe Andre last night.

We are off to Arras for lunch and then to Vimy for the afternoon. My hope is that there will be fewer people so that we can use today's visit to have our own experience of the place itself.

I am going to be on CBC TV tonight at 11.05 pm Toronto time when I will be interviewed for NewsWorld live on my own family and for some background on the Canadian story.

More later

Where is Rob - On his way to Vimy

Got my work done and I am a free man!

Off to Toronto today and then to France tomorrow. We have rented a van and the 5 of us will drive to Lille which is about 45 minutes away from Vimy. My nephew will join us there.

I wonder if my grandfather Alec or any of the men there could ever have imagined at the time, that 90 years later grandchildren and great granchildren would walk this ground and remember them.

It's such a small place as well. They spent 4 years in an area smaller than PEI - if you rotated PEI North South.

Lille was behind the German lines throughout the war. All the key towns that know about are less than an hour away from each other. Yet advances could be measured often in yards.

Looking at the map again last night, a new perspective popped out. The signs of the trenches have long gone but there is another landmark that shows you the ebb and the flow and the tightness of the valley of death that was the front. If you look at the map (Map 53) for the area one of the things you notice are the purple blobs. They are cemetaries. Their concentration around Arras gives you a "Map" of death.

I plan to blog as much as I can. I hope that I can bring you with me.

Vimy - A poem by Stuart Larner

Stuart Larner wrote this in honour of his grandfather who fell at Vimy. His email to me said that "It was inspired by the practice of sending the bullets back from the front at the battle of the Somme. My grandfather was one of the fallen there".

Grandfather’s bullet

Inside the small gift box

A twisted nail of lead,

A claw shed from Vimy Ridge.

The field surgeon’s letter hoped

That to extract and send it home

Might undo Time and

Close things whole again.

Gran kept this final link.

His body, laid in honoured line,

Now part of the earth they’d won.

The bullet, laid on cotton wool,

A dormant seed.

 

 

Vimy Ridge 90th Anniversary - Alec Paterson

Here is my grandfather in his Major's uniform. This must have been taken after Vimy when he was promoted.

We are off in just over a week to join the 25,000 people expected to spend the day of the 9th of April remembering men like Alec. 60,000 who never returned home.

They went off in innocence. Here is a transcription of the first letter home that Alec wrote to hs parents from Salisbury plain. It tells of his trip to England. There is no expectation of what was to come. How could he know that he would survive the entire war and in so doing lose nearly his his friends and see things that no man can witness and not be changed by.

Alec came home. All his cousins were killed and his brother Hartland had lost his leg.