The Canadians could then kill large numbers of the enemy and drive them out of the area. Heavy rains reduced the area to a swamp, grounded the RFC, which provided information on the progress of the bombardment, some guns were late arriving and others had too many defects to use for wire-cutting. German artillery observation was obstructed but the attack made the Canadian interest in the area obvious. [68], In 2009, Tim Cook wrote that the Canadians suffered 2,000 casualties during the preparations for the attack in the first two weeks of August and 9,198 casualties from 15 to 25 August, 8,677 at Hill 70 and another 521 elsewhere on the Western Front. The survivors moved so fast that when a German counter-barrage fell on no man's land three minutes later, the British were on the far side and unharmed. To make it harder for the German artillery to bombard the infantry by following the creeping barrage, the rest of the 18-pounders and some 4.5-inch howitzers were to fire a barrage 200 yd (183 m) further forward; 6-inch and 9.2-inch howitzers were to fire 100 to 200 yd (91 to 183 m) beyond the second barrage line. The slopes of Hill 70 towards Cité St Auguste are steeper. The names of Canadians who died at Hill 70 with no known graves are also inscribed on the larger memorial at Vimy Ridge. From 1916, siege batteries were affiliated temporarily to a HAG and HAGs were sent to corps as necessary. From Vimy Ridge the ground declines about 300 yd (270 m) into the Douai Plain; the valley of the Souchez river is about 22 yd (20 m) wide and flows south-west to north-east through the south of the city of Lens. One Sopwith attacked troops in Drocourt Trench, another aircraft attacked a transport column near Fouquières, then troops near Annay and in Bois de Quatorze. The enemy had been bled white, suffering an estimated 25,000 casualties, while the corps lost a little over 10,000 killed and wounded, when the prebattle losses from raids and shelling were added to the butcher’s bill. [58] In 1942, the writers of Der Weltkrieg, the German official history (volume XIII), wrote that since mid-July, the German defences at Lens and for about 4.3 mi (7 km) to the north had been under bombardment, which became more intense in August because Haig wanted a diversion from the offensive in Flanders. The battle took place along the Western Front on the outskirts of Lens in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France between 15 and 25 August 1917. The artillery neutralized 40 out of an estimated 102 German batteries in the area by zero hour, partly using the technique of predicted fire using datum points and calibrated guns for the first time, which greatly improved the accuracy of the artillery. [4], On 7 May, Haig informed the British army commanders that the French had terminated the Nivelle Offensive and the strategy of returning to a war of manoeuvre. Harassing gases were non-lethal and included tear gas to compel the opponents to wear their gas masks. Learning Kit; Books & Publications; Hack-A-Thon; Donations. The hill slopes gently towards Lens and there is a shallow depression between it and Cité St Pierre. The 23-year-old officer caught German grenades that were thrown at him, and tossed them back at the enemy. Adjacent units provided supporting artillery fire and the, The 3rd Canadian Machine Gun Company fired, Cook, T. "The Fire Plan, Gas, Guns, Machine Guns and Mortars". [15], Further north, opposite the 4th Canadian and 46th (North Midland) divisions, the German 56th Division had on 22 June, moved into reserve to substitute for a division transferred to Flanders. In this capacity, he executed an extremely successful offensive at the Battle of Caporetto in October 1917. The 15th, 50th and 2nd Canadian Heavy Artillery Group bombarded German gun positions revealed by aerial photographs, flash spotting and sound ranging, neutralization being more effective than destruction. The Attack on Hill 70 Haig ordered Sir Arthur Currie, who in June had been placed in command of the Canadian Corps, to launch a frontal assault on the city of Lens. The Canadians collected 15,000 4.5-inch and 60-pounder gas shells for the operation. The Canadian plan for 30 July used the I Corps plan for the abortive June attack as a basis; the scheduled attack to the embankment east of Avion was to go ahead, to obtain a good jumping off point for a later advance on Sallaumines Hill to mislead the defenders about preparations for an attack. Forward Observation Observers were to accompany the Canadian infantry and establish observation posts connected to the rear with telephones, wireless and visual signalling equipment to direct the artillery. [9] In May and early June, First Army units conducted eighteen raids and minor actions, moving the front line slowly eastwards over the Douai Plain. Wright Brothers National Memorial, located in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, commemorates the first successful, sustained, powered flights in a heavier-than-air machine.From 1900 to 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright came here from Dayton, Ohio, based on information from the U.S. (CBC) [33], On 9 August, six 40 Squadron Nieuport 17s made a low-level attack on the six German observation balloons along the Hill 70–Lens front and shot them down. The Canadian infantry reached the blue line, 600 yd (549 m) forward in twenty minutes and paused to dig in. The Canadians were sent to capture a city that lay half in ruins. The 4th Guard and the 220th divisions acted as Eingreifdivisionen on 15 August and with the existing divisions, conducted most of the German defence. Twenty batteries were in three Heavy Artillery Groups (HAGs) for destructive bombardment, and 18 batteries in three HAGs for counter-battery-fire, four British and two Canadian. In, Gardner, N. "Higher Command, First Army and the Canadian Corps". An attack at 12:45 p.m. met the same fate, the few Germans reaching the Canadians being bombed out. [30], By 1917, gas was delivered by shell, the substances being classed as lethal, harassing and persistent; lethal types were chlorine, phosgene and diphosgene, the phosgene types having little colour or smell. The operations were not a diversion but a means to keep the First Army front active for as long as possible, to mislead the Germans as to British intentions in Flanders. He believed that a traditional, frontal assault on Lens, followed by an Allied occupation of the city, would be futile if the Germans could simply shoot down at the Canadians from the commanding hills. First World War in ColourThe images featured within this project highlight important battles in Canada’s history, but also life on the home front, wartime industries, the contributions of women, and advances in medical and communications technologies. [7] In September 1915, the British overran the hill during the Battle of Loos but it was recaptured by the Germans. Lens, which lay inside German-occupied territory not far from Vimy Ridge, had suffered terribly in the war. Unfortunately, that is all that he found space to include on Hill 70 … The lives of many Canadian soldiers were saved by the work of Private Michael O’Rourke, an Irish-born Canadian stretcher bearer. in June 1917, following the Corps' victory at Vimy Ridge. The ruins offered plenty of cover for the Germans in the city. [56], On the right flank, a battalion of the 10th Canadian Infantry Brigade suffered many casualties to the German artillery while assembling for the attack and was met with massed artillery and machine-gun fire, near its objective. Foley wrote that the 1st Guard Reserve Division had been included in some accounts but that neither Below or other German sources from the time refer to it; Foley also wrote that Canadian sources mention the 185th Division in interrogation reports. #hill70 #graphicnovel #wwi [28], For the attack, 204 eighteen-pounders and forty-eight 4.5-inch howitzers were to fire a creeping barrage; the 1st Canadian Division front had 72 eighteen-pounders from the 1st and 3rd Canadian divisional artilleries and thirty field guns from the British, 18 from the 14th Army Brigade, Royal Field Artillery (RFA), six from the 53rd Battery and six from the 112th Battery. The fighting at Hill 70, overshadowed by the more famous Canadian battles at Vimy Ridge in April, 1917 and at Passchendaele in the fall of that year, is not as well known to many Canadians. Six Nieuport 17s of 40 Squadron moved to an advanced landing ground at Mazingarbe, about 5 mi (8.0 km) behind the front and a ground station was established on the heights west of Loos. The 2nd Canadian Division had its 36 divisional eighteen-pounders and another 76 British guns, 36 eighteen-pounders of the 46th (North Midland) divisional artillery, twelve 18-pounders of the 179th Army Field Brigade and another 18 from the 120th, 165th and 317th batteries. In Surviving Trench Warfare (1992) Bill Rawling wrote that the attack on Hill 70 cost the Canadian Corps 3,527 casualties, 1,056 killed, 2,432 wounded and 39 taken prisoner. Counter-attacks recaptured pockets of ground but the Canadians could not be expelled from I Stellung. Hill 70 is north of the city and has a flat top, giving a fine view of the city and the ground to the north and east. Mark Hutchings, chairman of The Hill 70 Memorial campaign, at his home in Kingston on Thursday with a mockup of the memorial that has been built in Loos en Gohelle, France. [6], To the north-west, on the east side of the Lens–Bethune road, is a hill about 230 ft (70 m) high with the suburb of Cité St Pierre on top. Barrel wear and general unreliability meant that about half of the 18-pounders could not be used in the preliminary bombardment. The Canadian Corps launched its bid for Hill 70 at 4:25 a.m. on 15 August 1917. [1] The Canadian Corps executed an operation to capture Hill 70 and then establish defensive positions from which combined small-arms and artillery fire, some of which used the new technique of predicted fire, would repel German counter-attacks and inflict as many casualties as possible. Thanks largely to Currie's tactical skill and prowess, the battle resulted in a German defeat and the diversion of German resources and attention away from the larger Allied campaign underway at the time at Passchendaele. Foley estimated that the Germans suffered c. 10,000 casualties; Delaney and Durflinger wrote that the lower estimates of German casualties were higher than those of the attackers, an unusual occurrence in the war. Success would trap the Germans in Lens between Sallaumines Hill to the south and Hill 70 to the north. Borglum originally envisioned a grand Hall of Records where America's greatest historical documents and artifacts could be protected and shown to tourists. He managed to start the project, but cut only 70 feet (21 m) into the rock before work stopped in 1939 to focus on the faces. The Birmingham Daily Mail started a fund in 1903 for a memorial to the 521 soldiers who had died in South Africa. Currie wished to further improve the position around Hill 70 and ordered an attack against German positions along a 3,000 yd (1.7 mi; 2.7 km) front, opposite the 2nd and 4th Canadian Divisions. Another four Canadians also received the Victoria Cross for bravery at Hill 70, the British Empire's highest award for military valour. (The German army had begun to use corps headquarters as territorial command units, rather than of a permanent complement of divisions, during the Battle of the Somme. Still, by 6 a.m., the Canadian infantry — shielded by the smoke screen of the burning oil — had captured several of its early goals. The cars of the CMMGB drove back and forth behind Canadian lines and from mid-July to early August fired 2,694,700 rounds; including the static guns about ten million rounds were fired before the Canadian attack. The Battle of Hill 70 took place in the First World War between the Canadian Corps and four divisions of the German 6th Army. [55], The operation was scheduled for the morning of 21 August, the tasks being divided between the 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade on the left and the 10th Canadian Infantry Brigade on the right. The Second Canadian Division suffered 2,724 casualties, 763 men being killed and the 4th Canadian Division had 1,432 casualties, including 381 killed. [17][a], The 6th Army was responsible for the defence of the area between Lille and Cambrai, Lens being about halfway between. One report had the 6th Army artillery in nine groups of 70–80 guns, half of them field guns and half of them heavy. [3] On 30 April, as the French hesitated to continue the Second Battle of the Aisne (16 April – 9 May 1917), the commander of the British Expeditionary Force, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, gave orders to the First Army (General Henry Horne), to advance towards Lens to gain a line from Méricourt to Sallaumines Hill, Lens and Hill 70. For the Canadian Corps, the following two days consisted largely of consolidation. Two German divisions intended for Flanders had been diverted to Hill 70 and the reinforcement plan for the fighting at Ypres had been dislocated. On the eve of the attack, the counter-batteries claimed that forty of 102 German guns had been knocked out. Haig hoped this action would divert German attention and military resources away from the
From 11 to 19 July, Canadian Corps intelligence discovered that German dispositions had changed. Many gunners became casualties after gas fogged the goggles of their respirators and they were forced to remove them to set fuses, lay their sights and maintain accurate fire. The company's filing status is listed as Active and its File Number is 8826994.The company's principal address is … To the south-east, on terrain that is 82 to 148 ft (25 to 45 m) above sea level, Sallaumines Hill rises to 180 ft (55 m). Fighting continued intermittently until 24 August but did not lead to more significant changes. The Germans had to move over about 0.75 mi (1 km) of open ground and the Canadian gun-, machine-gun and rifle fire covered the ground with corpses and wounded. German resistance stiffened as the Canadians advanced on the hill. major Allied offensive then raging at Passchendaele, in Belgium. Find your yodel. The division holding the line had orders to retire from the salient to the Avion–Lens railway if pressed. [11] On 10 June, Holland told Horne that only the capture of Hill 70 was important and suggested inflicting mass casualties by raids, bombardments and gas attacks, to create the impression that a big attack was imminent. Before the attack, the Royal Engineers bombarded the German defences with 3,500 drums (46 long tons (47 t)) of gas fired from Livens Projectors. In, "The 107th "Timber Wolf" Battalion at Hill 70", "Neglected Victory: The Canadian Corps at Hill 70", General Currie’s First Stand – The Capture of Hill 70 By Richard Laughton, Armistice between Russia and the Central Powers, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Hill_70&oldid=1007678193, Battles of World War I involving the United Kingdom, Battles of the Western Front (World War I), All Wikipedia articles written in Canadian English, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 19 February 2021, at 10:20. By the end of only the first day, 1,056 Canadians were dead, 2,432 were wounded and 39 had been taken prisoner. Horne agreed and on 11 July, Currie issued the first orders for the attack. The new position was judged to have become the main German defence line. See also: Evolution of Canada's Shock Troops and Canadian Command During the Great War. The harassing machine-gun fire was to impede the movement of German troops and supplies, with targets engaged by at least four guns. The German forces counter attacked before 9 a.m. the next day, but the Allies broke each enemy attempt to reclaim ground. 44 Followers, 42 Following, 14 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Hill 70 Memorial (@hill70memorial) [23], Hill 70 overlooked Lens and the Douai plain and Currie believed that the Germans would commit troops that they could ill-afford to lose, to regain a position that they dared not leave in Canadian possession. Horne doubted that the army had sufficient men and artillery for the task and arranged for the 46th (North Midland) Division, on the right of I Corps, to make preparations to take Hill 70 and the vicinity but only if reinforcements from GHQ were forthcoming. A brigade reserve unit was ordered to remedy the situation by attacking the Green Crassier slagheap and the mine complex at Fosse St Louis. [49], The morning of 16 August was relatively quiet, with only a few attempts made by small German parties to approach the Canadian lines. [34], By 16 July, the Canadian Corps had redeployed for the attack on Hill 70; the 1st Canadian Division had taken over from I Corps to the north-west of the hill, and the Canadian Corps occupied a line from the Souchez River northwards to just beyond Hill 70. [13], 28 June was dull, humid and storm clouds appeared in the south over the afternoon. [43], The four attacking Canadian brigades began to consolidate as soon as they reached their objectives and each brigade emplaced 48 Vickers guns in its section of the blue line. The position had three thick belts of barbed wire, a light railway for supply and eleven strongpoints with fields of fire into Commotion Trench, the final Canadian objective. [32], The Canadian Corps had 16 Squadron (BE2cs), 40 Squadron (Nieuport 17s) and 43 Squadron (Sopwith 1½ Strutters) RFC in support and the Sopwith Camels of 8 (Naval) Squadron, Royal Naval Air Service for high patrols over the battlefield. The attack was postponed and despite the mediocre state of many of the guns, the bombardment continued into August and several creeping barrages were fired to provoke German counter-barrages and reveal German gun positions. Greenhous, B.,, & Tattrie, J., Battle for Hill 70 (2017). Attacking Allied soldiers now ran from shell hole to shell hole as they tried to move forward up the hill. The 12-inch guns had the ammunition for eighty rounds-per-day-per-gun for fifteen days. [63] The Canadian attack was seen as a feint to divert German divisions from Flanders and the army group ordered the 6th Army to fight with its own resources, including the seven divisions in army reserve. The attackers suffered few casualties, took 200 prisoners and counted 280 dead German soldiers. [36] Bad weather led to the attack on Hill 70 being postponed from late July until mid-August. The Germans of the 7th Infantry Division saw the attack coming and were ready with defensive fire. Today, a peek at 'The Battle of Hill 70' graphic novel, by Robert Engen and illustrated by Matthew Barrett. [53], On the night of 17/18 August, German troops made several attempts to recapture the chalk quarry and Chicory Trench under the cover of gas. Communication between the forward units and brigade headquarters had broken down at the beginning of the attack and could not be restored due to the German bombardment, making it all but impossible to co-ordinate the infantry and artillery. The Canadian operation was only a stage in the plan, to be followed by an attack or decoy towards Sallaumines Hill. High explosive, gas and shrapnel shells were to be fired at German gun positions revealed by RFC reconnaissance photographs and the flash-spotters and sound rangers, to kill gunners and supply horses. By 6 June, the First Army had captured all the high ground in the area, except that around Lens. The capture of Avion could be replaced by a raid, to avoid the casualties of a permanent occupation. [51] The Germans stopped wave attacks and counter-attacked with dispersed groups of troops trickling forward using cover; some managed to reach the Canadian defences and fight hand-to-hand. Replacing British General Julian Byng,
The ruling principles in the conduct of these operations will be careful selection of important objectives of a limited nature, deliberate preparation of the attack, concentration or artillery and economy of infantry, combined in each case with feint attacks and smoke and gas on other positions of the front. A letter-code on white canvas sheets containing the location of German aircraft could be laid on the ground for an airborne fighter pilot to read. [31], Sixteen companies from the Canadian Machine Gun Corps with 128 Vickers machine guns and the armoured cars of the Canadian Motor Machine Gun Brigade (CMMGB) with 32 guns, under the command of the divisions were to supplement the artillery by firing a barrage over the heads of the Canadian infantry. August, 1917. If the 6th Army did not retire, the preparations by I Corps at Hill 70 would make it impossible to predict from which direction the next attack would come. No forces were transferred to Lens from Flanders or anywhere else and no divisions were sent to Flanders from 15 to 25 August. The Canadians eventually captured the heights of Hill 70, but the cost was high. [59], In 1981, Sydney Wise, author of the Royal Canadian Air Force official history, called the attack at Hill 70 "a demonstration of how a set-piece attack should be carried out". Brooke also had 38 batteries of heavy siege howitzers consisting of twenty 9.2-inch howitzers, twenty 8-inch howitzers, eighty 6-inch howitzers, 42 60-pounder guns and two 6-inch guns. The simulation of a much bigger attack on Lens was enhanced by lightning, thunder and a downpour, which began at 7:10 p.m. when the infantry advance began. "Battle for Hill 70". The adjacent brigades of the 31st and 5th divisions had been bombarded in their jumping-off trenches at 5:30 p.m. and suffered 200 casualties before the advance began. The advance began again and reached the final objective (red line) at 6:00 a.m. German resistance was determined and the Canadians used Lewis guns to pin down the German infantry as rifle and bombing sections attacked from a flank. German infantry troops were met by “fountains of earth sent up by the heavy shells” and “a hail of shrapnel and machine-gun bullets,” according to the history of the German 5th Foot Guard Regiment, and were annihilated. The Vickers guns were supplied with 20,000 bullets per gun per day, to fire day and night, to make it more difficult for German troops to repair their defences and put out more barbed wire. In May, Holland had surveyed the I Corps front, noted that the tactical value of Hill 70 and that it would be inevitable that the Germans would make great efforts to re-capture the hill. Samuel Mills was killed in action with 29th Battalion, Canadian Infantry during the Battle of Hill 70 near Lens on 21st August 1917 and with no know grave is commemorated on the Vimy Memorial. A prisoner from Infantry Regiment 22 said that two companies had suffered 90 gas casualties. In July, Currie received orders from Douglas Haig, commander-in-chief of all British-led forces in western Europe, to capture the French coal-mining city of Lens. The Canadians took over 1,100 prisoners and in their counter-attacks the Germans over 1,002 prisoners. Slowly, the Canadians captured German machine-gun posts and advanced up the hill. Contact patrols to mark the progress of the Canadian infantry were to be flown by the B.E.2c crews of 16 Squadron. The 12th Canadian Infantry Brigade anticipated the German artillery bombardment and the Canadians took cover in deep shelters in the edge of Lens, the brigade suffering fewer than 24 casualties during the first day. Sir Douglas Haig characterized Hill 70 as “one of the finest minor operations of the war.” Currie thought it one of the “hardest battles” ever fought by the Canadians, but also a success. The Hill 70 Team; Monument. The Hill 70 Memorial is a Canada Soliciting filed On April 28, 2014. On the west side of Lens is Hill 65 (Reservoir Hill) north of the Souchez, which is steep-sided and gives a fine view of the city. The plans were made less ambitious; the XIII Corps scheme was retained but the attack either side of the Souchez was reduced to the capture the German front line west of Avion and Hill 65; the Hill 70 plan was postponed. [44][c], The Sopwith 1.mw-parser-output .sr-only{border:0;clip:rect(0,0,0,0);height:1px;margin:-1px;overflow:hidden;padding:0;position:absolute;width:1px;white-space:nowrap} 1⁄2 Strutters of 43 Squadron received many hits from ground fire but only two were shot down, three crew being wounded; a German aircraft was shot down and others driven off but four more Sopwith 1 1⁄2 Strutters were too badly damaged to be serviceable for 16 August. The 7th Division suffered about 2,000 casualties before being withdrawn on 17 August, the 4th Guard Division about 1,200 from 15 to 21 August and that the 220th Division also suffered many casualties, Reserve Infantry Regiment 99 losing 474 men in four days. Formations of three Strutters were to observe an area 7,000 yd (4.0 mi; 6.4 km) wide and 1,500 to 2,500 yd (1 to 1 mi; 1 to 2 km) deep, that counter-attacking German troops would have to traverse. A second wave of afternoon counterattacks was also rebuffed. Wire cutting had been going on since 11 July but there was no time for the fifteen-day preliminary bombardment laid down in the artillery plan of 11 July. [37][41], In the 1st Canadian Division area, 4 Special Company RE fired mortars and Livens projectors against the left flank of the attack, as a deception and to shield the attack front from observers on higher ground several miles to the north. The real attack was to come from the left flank of the Canadian Corps towards Sallaumines Hill and the east end of Avion. To deceive the Germans about the place and size of the attack and to disguise Canadian preparations, the XIII, Canadian, I and XI, corps began to conduct larger raids in battalion strength, on most nights from the middle of July, along with gas discharges along the front. The Germans held on to the area until the beginning of the final German retreat in 1918. 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Up the Hill '' the names of Canadians who died at Hill 70 Tartan ; Hill 70 to the on... The left flank of the final German retreat in 1918 and half of them heavy up Hill! The advance when the Army barrage began at 7:10 p.m reserves to mount continuous, counter-attack reconnaissance patrols occasion a...
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