S.O.S.
STAND TO!
Patching up the "Pipped"
S.O.S.
STAND TO!
BY
SERGEANT REGINALD GRANT
1ST FIELD ARTILLERY BRIGADE, 1ST CANADIAN DIVISION
ILLUSTRATED
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON 1918
Copyright, 1918, by D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America
DEDICATION
IN HUMBLE, REVERENT SPIRIT I DEDICATE THESE PAGES TO THE MEMORY OF THELADS WHO SERVED WITH ME IN THE "SACRIFICE BATTERY," AND WHO GAVE THEIRLIVES THAT THOSE BEHIND MIGHT LIVE, AND, ALSO, IN BROTHERLY AFFECTIONAND ESTEEM TO MY BROTHERS, GORDON AND BILLY, WHO ARE STILL FIGHTING THEGOOD FIGHT AND KEEPING THE FAITH.
REMARK PREFATORY
The general purpose and scope of the rehearsal of my three years'personal experience while in the artillery arm of the First Division ofCanada's overseas forces is to lay before the reader an outline of themovement of our Division as it may be gathered from the performance ofmy own specific duties, with especial reference to the battles of Ypres(the 2nd), Givenchy, Sanctuary Woods (Ypres 3rd), the Somme and VimyRidge.
Very little attention or space has been devoted to the detail ofinitiatory camp life, drill, rations and the like; even had I the spaceto do so, those features have been liberally covered by a number ofearlier writers; besides, I am of the opinion that the average reader ismore concerned with the desire to be imaginably transported as nearly aspossible to the heart of the struggle,—to live in his own mind thestrain and turmoil of the individual soldier in the desperate conflictwhich now rages, the decision of which will determine whether democracyor military autocracy shall be the predominating factor in thegovernments of the peoples of the earth.
INTRODUCTORY
The devastating rush of the gray-clad hordes of Huns into thepeace-loving lands of Belgium and France has demonstrated conclusivelythat to win this or any other war the one thing necessary is superiorityin artillery. Without this, an enemy sufficiently strong in numbers andother equipment, can drive ahead, overcoming and crushing all obstacles.
The average lay reader is too apt to lose sight of the supremeimportance of this arm of the service, to which all other movements aresubsidiary; the dash of the charge by the infantry over the top,magnificent in its appeal, submerges to a degree the real factor uponwhich success or failure of the charge depends, i.e., the blazing of thetrail by the guns. Little thought is devoted to the man who, with hellbursting on and around him, has to get his shell home in a certainnumber of seconds so that the charge can be made.
Neither is it generally known that the percentage of loss in units isgreater in the unit known as the sacrifice battery than in any otherbranch of the fighting machine.
Therefore, I may be pardoned if I feel a certain human pride in the factthat it was my honorable lot to serve in this unit nearly a score oftimes during my work over there, and I can account for my failure to beseriously injured (a dislocation or a little gassing is comparativelytrivial) to nothing other than, as my Major emphatically expressed it,"