Hero Fund Blog

As every Canadian schoolboy knows, the Battle of Vimy Ridge was fought between Canadian and German troops in 1917, as part of the larger Arras offensive.  4,000 Canadians were lost in taking the Ridge, taking with them 20,000 Germans, with an additional 4,000 falling into allied hands.  As the story goes, this battle was a pivotal moment in the history of our country, marking the first time all four Canadian divisions, under a Canadian commander (Arthur Currie), fought together. Most do not know however, that since 1922, the site of the battle itself is Canadian soil. On 16 June, 2010, Canadian Hero Fund Volunteer Alain Bartleman returned home, and paid tribute to the men who fell near that small town.  

The Vimy memorial towers over the surrounding landscape. It is a white monument in a green landscape, surrounded only by immaculate lawns across which a sturdy wind blows constantly. On the hills leading up to this site, thick forest obscures the modern roadways that connect the sleepy town of Vimy to the rest of France. One reaches the monument from these roads, either  labouriously walking up, grateful for the poplar shade, or zipping along after hitching a ride from a friendly local for whom the words “lest we forget” are more than just a November 11 platitude. A ride ensures through hauntingly beautiful forests- maple and pine, mostly- where the sun shines through the loose canopy and upon the rolling and craterous fosses, long since covered with swaying grass. This is a quiet place, where only the occasional rumble of a diesel motor and the schiffoning sound of the wind through the trees disturbs the peace of the lonely wanderer.

The commemorations themselves are sparse. Warnings to keep off the grass and out of the forest (for fear of unexploded munitions) mark the signs of civilization, as do the immaculately kept lawns near the monument itself. Otherwise, aside from a small cabin structure, the area is almost entirely left to nature. Crickets and cicadas buzz, birds chirp, and the area has the feel of the outskirts of any small town where gravel roadways link into well kept highways.  Fluttering maple leaf flags, dotting the landscape, are the only signs of our presence.

Tours, offered daily and available in English or French, are led by young men and women  who have volunteered to spend their summer at the site, taking tourists into the bowels of the Canadian tunnels. This system- at times only 25 meters away from the German lines- offers a glimpse of the nightmare that was the First World War. Dark, cramped, and chill, overlooked by the forests above, and with the constant sound of a drip of water always only a few meters away, the tunnels remind of us the hellish tribulations men endure in war.  For up to 36 hours at a time, standing row upon row, Canadian troops waited in these tunnels as the barrage crashed overhead- nearly 3,000 shells falling every minute- before storming the ridge. Within these tunnels, men ate, slept, worked and died, often with mud up to their ankles and in perpetual darkness.

I went here, shortly after restoration work was done upon the monument, to take in the sights and to remind Canadians that the rest of the world still bears tribute to our efforts. The valour of these men must not be allowed to fade with time. 

- Alain Bartleman