"To my infinite delight, some men came marching up in the moonlight from the end of the canal. I recognized them as the 16th Battalion, Canadian Scottish, and I called out, 'Where are you going, boys?' The reply came glad and cheerful, 'We are going to reinforce the line, Sir, the Germans have broken through.'
'That's all right, boys,' I said, 'Play the game, I will go with you.'" - Canon Frederick Scott
On the 22nd the Canadian 1st Division had two battalions in reserve, the 10th and the 16th. In simple terms when a Division was in a sector they had battalions at the front, opposite the enemy, battalions a little farther back in reserve in case things went sour, and battalions in the rear areas, resting, training, and relaxing. All of these battalions rotated through these positions.
Things had gone sour, and orders quickly came for the 10th and 16th to get ready to move to the front, and both battalions moved up closer to the action. At 5 pm at the start of the battle the four companies of the 16th were actually spread apart and when the orders came to get ready to move to the front they had to assemble. It was 8 pm by the time they were ordered and moved forward. Much of the distance that they covered was through fields, as the roads were being heavily shelled and were choked with civilians and others streaming away from the action, and equipment and supplies trying to be moved forward.
By the time the 16th reached forward positions it was 10pm and it was learned that the 10th Battalion had been ordered to attack Kitchener's Wood (not named after Lord Kitchener but from the French name for it Bois de Cuisiniers) with the 16th in close support (in other words right behind them). Although it was dark the night was moonlit and the two battalions formed up some 500 metres from the edge of the woods, which could be seen silhouetted against the sky. Both battalions formed up one behind the other.
A battalion is made up of four companies and the attack was being made with a two company front, two companies of the 10th Battalion side by side standing shoulder to shoulder, followed after twenty metres by the other two companies, and followed after another thirty metres by the 16th in the same formation. It was now almost 11:30pm, and the men had removed their great coats and packs, fixed and un-fixed their bayonets, and then fixed them again. The Germans were dug in on the near side of the woods, and the two battalions were ordered to take the trench and then move on through the woods to capture it.
I'd like you to pause now to realize just what was being asked of these men, in order to understand just how impossible this attack was, and why it's success was so incredible. These men were asked to make an attack in the dark of night, over land that they had never seen or reconnoitered, without maps, through open fields against an entrenched enemy of greater numbers. And they were to do it virtually unsupported by any artillery (they were supported by one field gun firing into the woods prior to the attack every five minutes.
Canon Scott moved down the line encouraging the men, and then at 11:30 pm they moved forward.
"I passed down the line and told them that they had a chance to do a bigger thing for Canada that night than had ever been done before. 'It's a great day for Canada, boys.' I said. The words afterwards became a watchword, for the men said that whenever I told them that, it meant that half of them were going to be killed." - Canon Frederick Scott
The two battalions moved forward in silence, the sound of their bayonet scabbards slapping against their thighs the only noise. They had to cross several hedges and the noise they made then must have seemed deafening to them. The last hedge the crossed had been barb wired and must have seemed especially noisy but still they moved forward. Part way across the last open field a flare shot into the sky illuminating the scene, followed by many flares, lighting up the field like it was daylight.
And then the enemy opened up with machine gun and rifle fire.
"Bullets were ripping past. Fellows were dropping everywhere. I held my hand in front of my face to ward off the bullets."
As soon as the firing started the two battalions faltered a little and then charged towards the trench in front of them. As they closed the distance the shooting suddenly stopped, as the infantry manning the trench turned and fled into the woods. Order disappeared, some troops stopped in the trench, consolidating it and reversing the sandbag parapet to face the woods, others continued into the woods. Most of the fighting was at the point of a bayonet, a particularly nasty business. Huge dark shapes loomed ahead of them and the lost British heavy guns were recaptured. By about 1 am on the 23rd, men from the 16th and 10th and almost completely captured the woods, some moving past the woods to the open fields beyond.
Unfortunately the two battalions found themselves in an untenable situation. They were virtually surrounded by a vastly larger force, both of the their flanks up in the air. They had suffered heavy casualties and were having a difficult time digging in on the hard ground at the far end of the woods. They sent for horses to remove the British guns and unsuccessfully tried to find a Canadian Battalion on their right flank, they found only German infantry. Many officer had been killed, indeed the commander of the 10th Battalion, Lt. Col. Boyle, was killed shortly after trying to consult a map with his flashlight.
As dawn approached the remnants of the 10th and the 16th retired to the original German position at the front of the woods, occupying that trench and digging a second about 150 metres farther back. In this crowded trench the men tried to make room, heaving the dead over the parapet, digging slits in the back for the wounded. In the light they could make out their dead and wounded in the woods in front of them. Efforts to recover the wounded met with heavy rifle fire and after a stretcher party was killed the efforts were abandoned. At dawn the trenches were heavily shelled, but the expected attack never materialized and the next dawn first the 10th and then the 16th were relieved by the 2nd Battalion, sprinting across the fields to safety under fire. The 10th, although down to only 3 officers and about 150 men, were ordered to another part of the line and found themselves under fire that same day.
Later that same day the 2nd was ordered to retire from the trench at Kitchener's Woods that was taken at such high cost. Although costly, the counter attack had stalled the German advance long enough for the remaining gaps in the line to be closed. At the war's end Marshal Foch, the supreme commander of the allied forces called the attack on Kitchener's Woods "the greatest act of the war."
The Second Battle of Ypres lasted for another two weeks. In the first four days, the Canadians had suffered 2000 men killed, all in their first battle of the war. The 16th suffered a total of 439 casualties, 162 killed, 246 wounded, and 31 taken prisoner. The 10ths losses were similar. Kitchener's Woods was never granted as a battle honour, the practice was that counter attacks were not awarded those honours. Years after the war, the battalions that perpetuated the 10th and the 16th Battalions were granted the honour of a special insignia, an oak leaf with an acorn, to commemorate their actions at Kitchener's Wood. It is a unique honour amongst all of the Commonwealth.
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