72nd Seaforth Highlanders of Canada - waughfamily.ca

HISTORIC GROUND.age and steadiness. Day and night the enemy were givenno rest. They never knew at what hour a raid would bebegun. They never knew whether artillery preparationmeant a mere feint or was the preliminary for the rush ofa party of bombers. On the part of the Canadians there wasthe mud to contend with. For though the mud of VimyRidge was not the agglutinative compound of the Somme,it was still mud to be reckoned with, and men came backfrom their spells in the trenches covered with it.On February 12 Lieut.-Col. J. A. Clark left the Battalion temporarily to take his place on the British Missionto Italy. This Mission was composed of ten members, andwas 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, anddining the same night with King Victor Emmanuel. Thislatter event was a great compliment, and indicated theesteem in which the British forces were held by theItalians. The Mission then spent three weeks in visitingthe various Italian fronts.Successively, the 72nd took their turns in the trenches,relieving and being relieved by the 38th Battalion and thiswent on until February 16th, when "B"Company Putover a most successful raid, and as the operation on thisparticular occasion received the honour of being held upat 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 VimyRidge the little "snout" of German front line, stretchingtentatively out towards Ersatz crater, had attracted the attention of all officers because of the favourable raidingpossibilities which it offered. Some were for raidingmediately under cover of a burst of hurricane fire from theit im3-in. Stokes mortars. But the wise counsels of a general35