72nd Seaforth Highlanders of Canada - Electric Scotland

HISTORIC GROUND.
age and steadiness. Day and night the enemy were given
no rest. They never knew at what hour a raid would be
begun. They never knew whether artillery preparation
meant a mere feint or was the preliminary for the rush of
a party of bombers. On the part of the Canadians there was
the mud to contend with. For though the mud of Vimy
Ridge was not the agglutinative compound of the Somme,
it was still mud to be reckoned with, and men came back
from their spells in the trenches covered with it.
On February 12 Lieut.-Col. J. A. Clark left the Bat
talion temporarily to take his place on the British Mission
to Italy. This Mission was composed of ten members, and
was commanded by Brig.-Gen. T. H. Crampton, Lieut-Col.
Clark being selected as the sole Canadian representative.
The Mission assembled at Paris and proceeded to Udine,
at that time Italian G. H. Q., arriving on February 16, and
dining the same night with King Victor Emmanuel. This
latter event was a great compliment, and indicated the
esteem in which the British forces were held by the
Italians. The Mission then spent three weeks in visiting
the various Italian fronts.
Successively, the 72nd took their turns in the trenches,
relieving and being relieved by the 38th Battalion and this
went on until February 16th, when "B"
Company Put
over a most successful raid, and as the operation on this
particular occasion received the honour of being held up
at the army schools of instruction as a model of its kind,
some further mention may be in order.
From the Battalion s first tour on the battle-scarred Vimy
Ridge the little "snout" of German front line, stretching
tentatively out towards Ersatz crater, had attracted the at
tention of all officers because of the favourable raiding
possibilities which it offered. Some were for raiding
mediately under cover of a burst of hurricane fire from the
it im
3-in. Stokes mortars. But the wise counsels of a general
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