72nd Seaforth Highlanders of Canada - waughfamily.ca

SEAFORTH HIGHLANDERS OF CANADAing that a party of the enemy in the sunken road wereholding up the advance, seized a Lewis gun, and racingacross the open under a storm of point-blank machine gunfire, took up a position in the same road on the flank ofthe enemy, and swept the thoroughfare with a hail of bullets. Under this deadly enfilade the enemy had to choosebetween surrender or anihilation. Those Boches who remained about 50 threw down their arms.At about 10:45 a.m. the Battalion passed through theGreen Line, at which imaginary boundary it will be remembered, they were to have come into action. Owing tothe interruption which has been described, valuable timehad been lost, and the barrage, moving .at its steady, preordained rate, had now left the attacking troops behind.Nothing daunted by the lack of covering fire from theartillery, the 72nd plunged into the fight for their final objective, the Blue Line, which lay along the extreme heightof land to the N.E. of Bourlon Wood.The machine gun and point-blank artillery fire of theenemy had now become terrific. The Boche, seeing his holdon the high ground slipping from his grasp, fought withdesperate tenacity. "Sacrifice" batteries of 77mm. guns*poured a devastating fire into the 72nd as they fought theirway up the slope. If any point of that fierce resistancecould be called more severe than the rest, it was on theleft flank in front of "C"Company. About 1,000 yards inadvance of the Green Line lay a nest of German gun-pits,from which point an intense machine and field gun fire hadbeen sweeping the advance. As the attackers approachedthis position, the full attention of the defenders was concentrated upon them. Skillfully, despite a fire whichthreatened to anihilate his Company, Capt. W. C. Ross,M.C., worked his men to within striking distance. At arange of only 50 yards, the German gunners continued towork their guns against the heroic attackers, and only onewho has "been through the mill" can know the numbing*German field guns.