From the News

Dated: December 25, 1918

Writing from the war zone, Captain George Black said:

This was the first big battle the boys had been in and we were going strong on the evening of the second day, August 9, 1918.

I had to be brought out. It was hot stuff. Open warfare. No trenches. Fighting in open fields, along roads and hedges, through woods, over hills and valleys, thousands of men, artillery, cavalry, airplanes, giving the Hun swine simply hell.

The Canadian Motor Machine guns were placed about the center of the front. Canadian Corps on our left, Australians on their left and the French on our right. We were "a link between the most advanced cavalry and the leading infantry," as the order put it, and I can tell you that old line had to stand some strain.

Our casualties might have been heavier, for the Roche was tightening up and meeting his reinforcements sent in to stay the rush, for rush it was. Preparations for the show had been made with great secrecy, and the Hun was taken by surprise. Our artillery barrage opened up promptly at 4.20 a.m., August 8th, and smashed his trenches and his front line. Our infantry and tanks followed close under the barrage. The Boche had little come back. It was a case of beat it, be killed or taken prisoner. It seemed but an instant till the roads were crammed with Hun prisoners coming back with a Tommy's bayonet close behind them, though in many cases bunches of them were brought back without any urging. They never hesitated to lay hold and carry out our wounded - if they did [hesitated] they never had another chance. They were for the most part a tough looking lot of cattle.

The Canadians really did not want to take prisoners, but they grabbed the Huns so fast that there was no time to attend to them otherwise without stopping, and that was not in the programme, while the advance could be kept moving.

Now, I'm not going to attempt a history of this war, nor could I give you an adequate description of this battle. It had the thrillingest thriller of Walter Cramer's reels backed off the map, and I wish I could have stayed to see a few more scenes.

The Yukon boys acted just as I knew that they would. It was not their first time under fire by any means, but the first time they've gone right out in the open with no protecting trenches - set up their guns under direct enemy machine gun and artillery fire; stuck to it till they made him quit and themselves advanced as opportunity offered. The long training and thorough knowledge of machine gun tactics, coupled with their own nerve and determination, made their work all that could be desired.

It fairly made me weep to see our old friend, Jack MacLennan , out there with his four guns and half battery calmly writing me reports with a fountain pen - he'd lost his pencil - with machine gun bullets kicking up the dirt all around him and whizzbangs just missing him and them. Lieut. Goodwin was in command of the other half battery and working cooly under the same circumstances. My headquarters were in the edge of a small wood, just abreast of the battery. Mr. Hun quite correctly surmised that there would he something doing in that wood. Infantry and tanks were massing there to tear into him while we strafed him with the machine guns, so he annointed us with shrapnel and machine gun searching fire.

It was not only uncomfortable, but decidedly unhealthy. He knocked down a lot of trees, some of which fell across the main Amiens-Roye road, and a little squad of axe men under Corporal Dick Armstrong promptly beat it out and removed those trees so that when the time came for our cars to advance they could do so unimpeded by those trees, anyway. Of course the Boche didn't fire at them. Oh, no! But luckily he didn't get any of them. I can't remember who were in that squad, otherwise I'd give you their names. I was too busy except to make general mental notes. Why I didn't get my block knocked off or get pulverized into hash instead of only a measly machine gun bullet slipped through my thigh I'll never understand. Well the tanks started ahead, the infantry right behind them; the Hun began to go; the battery to move ahead when I sustained a puncture.

MacLennan worked over to where I was to see what was up and then hurried ahead with his guns. The last I, saw of the boys they were all going forward again. When I got into our brigade headquarters, not very many hundreds of yards in the rear, Lieut. Radford , much to his delight, got orders to go up at once to take over Lieut. Goodwin 's half of the battery, who would act as Senior Lieutenant, and take over the battery on my departure.