72nd Seaforth Highlanders of Canada - Electric Scotland

SEAFORTH HIGHLANDERS OF CANADA
in the rear of the 3rd before the attack and it
peaceful surroundings
was in the
of a wheatfield that the 72nd found
itself awaiting zero hour. As may be imagined, in an at
tack on such a huge scale the importance of each unit
keeping perfect direction is a primary essential. To en
sure this the Battalion was led by the Scout Officer, Lieut.
H. C. Whittaker, with two patrols of eight men each and
two signallers equipped with visual signalling apparatus.
While the work of this officer and his scouts will be more
fully dealt with later, let it here be remarked that during
the whole advance Lieut. Whittaker, by means of map and
compass, kept perfect direction over some fifteen miles of
absolutely strange country and exposed, by virtue of his
working in front of the Battalion, to particularly intense
fire the whole time.
As the first streaks of dawn became visible through the
fog that had crept up during the night, the atmosphere
became charged with an almost electrical tension. The big
"hush-hush" attack was straining at the leash.
Crash !
Almost as one gun the artillery from the Somme
The attack had
to below Montdidier took up the barrage.
commenced. The 72nd was assembled in the midst of a
battery of 9.2 howitzers the noise mlay be better im
>and
agined than described. The flashes of the guns showed the
tanks crawling through the fog. As far as could be de
termined through the heavy mist, the country seemed alive
with them. At about 6:30 a.m. the Battalion commenced
the advance, following the 3rd Division. The stream of
prisoners coming back seemed to denote that all was going
well, and at 8 :30 a.m., after moving for two hours through
a heavy fog, the Battalion arrived at its jumping-off point,
south of Demuin on the Luce River. Three hours later
the 4th Canadian Division took up the advance, and swept
through the 3rd Division on the "Green Line" in its final
drive for the old Amiens defense line five miles beyond.
As the sun at length broke through the fog on the morn-
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