It's said that Canada was born in the blazing hellfire and soaked in barrels of blood on Vimy Ridge.
Don Ford was also born very much a child of Vimy. His father was there in that First World War touchstone battle. So was his uncle Fred. Somehow they both survived to come home to the farm and raise their families.
Canada was a vague jurisdiction, just a word on a map signifying little to the foreign mind, on
April 9, 1917.
It was barely even a nation, then, still a suckling colony of England in almost every way.
But on April 12, 1917, the headlines of the world screamed of maple leaf valour and Canuck ingenuity.
The ragtag cloister of tree hewers and hay swathers did what the established empire armies of Europe had not been able to do: defeat the heavily ensconced German forces that held that key high ground in France just 135 kilometres inland from the coast, almost equidistant to Paris, and close to the border with Belgium.
In the leadup to the Canadian assault, France lost about 150,000 soldiers trying to knock the Germans off their fortified perch.
Then the British gave it a try for several months but got outfoxed underground in the tunnels dug by both sides, and they got pounded from above by more than 80 strategically placed German artillery batteries assembled above them.
The response by British Field Marshal Julian Byng was to call in the Canadians. Never before had all four divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force been massed together for a single offensive.
They totaled almost 100,000 when assembled at the foot of the hill. They would number 10,000 fewer four days later, but they would turn the tide in that boiling military crucible.
The gathering of the Canadians was what brought Don Ford's father and uncle together on the field of battle for the first time.
Ford's father was 21 when he enlisted in 1915 and was assigned to the 29th Vancouver Battalion.
Ford's uncle Fred was older but was already a member of Winnipeg militia and that outfit wouldn't permit him to leave his home unit until 1916 when he was finally plugged into the overseas-bound 27th Winnipeg Battalion.
"They were in the same division, but the battalions were different. They would see each other once in awhile in passing, but their deployments were quite different," said Ford.
That is, until Vimy Ridge.
Ford wishes he knew more from his two forebearers about the details of their time in that battle, but according to the custom of that time, both veterans were stoic and silent in peacetime about the things seen, done and endured in war.
"They only talked amongst themselves," Ford said. "The only thing he and my uncle ever said about it was about this general and how fond they were of him, because of all the preparation efforts he put in so they would be as ready as possible. The Canadian forces were pretty poor to begin with. These weren't career soldiers, they were volunteers, and they were badly trained and badly led. Byng saw a chance to do some things with these Canadians, so training and preparation became his big thing, and he brought in a senior officer named (Lt.-General Sir) Arthur Currie, you might have heard of him, because he knew Currie thought the same way he did. It really worked. And that's why they came to be known as Byng's Boys. Byng and Currie worked tirelessly to get the Canadians ready."
What Ford didn't learn from his father and uncle, he learned from exhaustive research. Vimy Ridge became a point of historical fascination for him growing up.
He learned, for example, that the network of tunnels was so extensive that some caverns could hold 1,000 soldiers at a time, that railroad and electricity networks were part of this warren of war, and that the diggers of those elaborate tunnels required forestry divisions on the surface to shore up the earthen routes.
The digging was done by professional coal miners from the Canadian Maritimes and Wales, and they dug so deeply and carefully that they could hear the Germans on the enemy side of the excavations under the hill.
The victory partially hinged on that, said Ford, because when the time came to attack, they allies burst through the dirt walls, overwhelmed the unsuspecting underground Germans, and troops could pour through the back door of the German defenses.
"That effect was devastating for the Germans," said Ford.
Another essential development was the detonation technology on the bombs that constantly rained down on the German positions.
The first bombs would fall, strike the earth, but with such force that when they exploded most of the destructive energy went into the ground. This muted the effectiveness of the bombs and left massive craters that became a terrible impediment to the allies. The new technology allowed the explosions to happen spread horizontally across the surface of the ground, not inward. One of the benefits of this was the new ability for the bombs to clear away the German hedges of barbed wire strung across miles and miles of the landscape to keep allied soldiers at bay.
The other differences in the Canadian attack led by Byng was the mathematics and science used by the allies. Microphones were used to identify ballistics coupled by timing the sight of German muzzle flashes and the arrival of the gunshots. All the data was used to make battlefield calculations never possible before, and the allied artillery suddenly became much more accurate.
And that artillery was unrelenting. The allied side lobbed more than one million shells and bombs to soften the German defenses, and the Canadians did what no other assault squad had ever done, a technique called creeping barrage. A blanket of heavy artillery would pound the Germans across a line on the battlefield. The Canadians would move their soldiers as close to that line as possible without getting blown up themselves. The artillery would then move the line a little deeper into the German-held territory and the Canadians would surge forward, gaining ground following the advancing curtain of bombs.
It worked. It was so effective it shocked the allied commanders. Byng, Currie and another key officer, one Andrew McNaughton, got the attention of the planners and strategists of the allied forces. They and the Canadians were soon called upon for even more difficult and bloody battles that they also succeeded at, like Lens - Hill 70, Canal du Nord, and the famous Passchendaele-Ypres calamity.
Ford's father and uncle also fought together in that latter battle, and again they both survived. Uncle Fred was wounded, ending his fighting days, but both men came home safe and sound.
"Dad would say 'all I ever wanted to be was a farmer' and he was one of the lucky ones who got to do it," Ford said. And that focus on peacetime life was passed down from father to son. "There was no inclination to join the military. Dad always warned us there was no glory in it and no adventure in it. We knew enough to know he'd been through rough times."
The forging of a nation in the heat of those battles 100 years ago was not instantly realized in Canada. It took decades for those realizations to set in. Ford said he felt the shift happen, starting with the gut-wrenching dumbness of the Canadian public in the aftermath of the First World War, probably a symptom of still being a colonial afterthought of Britain.
"When I was in school - this was during the Second World War - we had this one huge history book, it was two inches thick, that covered Grade 9 to Grade 12," Ford said. "I distinctly remember there was only half a page, actually less than half a page, on the entire First World War. It was like the politicians wanted to sweep it under the carpet. It was almost as if the government of the day wanted to hide it."
As a learner from that documentation injustice, Ford is now teaching what he knows. On Sunday, when the Battle of Vimy Ridge is commemorated by the Prince George Legion and its partners, Ford will be a special guest of honour for an informational discussion on the battle's many interesting details.
The event begins at 11:45 a.m. at the City Hall cenotaph, followed by the community gathering at the Legion Hall (1116 Sixth Ave.) immediately afterwards. Ford will be the featured guest at that time.
The first bombs would fall, strike the earth, but with such force that when they exploded most of the destructive energy went into the ground. This muted the effectiveness of the bombs and left massive craters that became a terrible impediment to the allies.
The new technology allowed the explosions to happen spread horizontally across the surface of the ground, not inward. One of the benefits of this was the new ability for the bombs to clear away the German hedges of barbed wire strung across miles and miles of the landscape to keep allied soldiers at bay.
The other differences in the Canadian attack led by Byng was the mathematics and science used by the allies. Microphones were used to identify ballistics coupled by timing the sight of German muzzle flashes and the arrival of the gunshots. All the data was used to make battlefield calculations never possible before, and the allied artillery suddenly became much more accurate.
And that artillery was unrelenting. The allied side lobbed more than one million shells and bombs to soften the German defenses, and the Canadians did what no other assault squad had ever done, a technique called the creeping barrage.
A blanket of heavy artillery would pound the Germans across a line on the battlefield. The Canadians would move their soldiers as close to that line as possible without getting blown up themselves. The artillery would then move the line a little deeper into the German-held territory and the Canadians would surge forward, gaining ground following the advancing curtain of bombs.
It worked. It was so effective it shocked the allied commanders. Byng, Currie and another key officer, Andrew McNaughton, got the attention of the planners and strategists of the allied forces.
They and the Canadians were soon called upon for even more difficult and bloody battles that they also succeeded at, like Lens - Hill 70, Canal du Nord, and the famous Passchendaele-Ypres calamity.
Ford's father and uncle also fought together in that latter battle and again they both survived. Uncle Fred was wounded, ending his fighting days, but both men survived and came home.
"Dad would say 'all I ever wanted to be was a farmer' and he was one of the lucky ones who got to do it," Ford said.
And that focus on peacetime life was passed down from father to son.
"There was no inclination to join the military. Dad always warned us there was no glory in it and no adventure in it. We knew enough to know he'd been through rough times."
The forging of a nation in the heat of those battles 100 years ago was not instantly realized in Canada. It took decades for those realizations to set in. Ford said he felt the shift happen, starting with the gut-wrenching dumbness of the Canadian public in the aftermath of the First World War, probably a symptom of still being a colonial afterthought of Britain.
"When I was in school - this was during the Second World War - we had this one huge history book, it was two inches thick, that covered Grade 9 to Grade 12," Ford said. "I distinctly remember there was only half a page, actually less than half a page, on the entire First World War. It was like the politicians wanted to sweep it under the carpet. It was almost as if the government of the day wanted to hide it."
As a learner from that documentation injustice, Ford is now teaching what he knows. On Sunday, when the Battle of Vimy Ridge is commemorated by the Prince George Legion and its partners, Ford will be a special guest of honour for an informational discussion on the battle's many interesting details.
The event begins at 11:45 a.m. at the city hall cenotaph, followed by the community gathering at the Legion Hall (1116 Sixth Ave.) immediately afterwards.
Ford will be the featured guest.
