We stopped off in Arras to visit the war memorial in town and to locate the name of Robert Smith Bennie. He was born August 18, 1896 in Chatham, Ontario. Prior to joining the Royal Flying Corp on July 4, 1916 he was a school teacher in Leamington, Ontario. He was lost on June 5, 1917 and is remembered on the wall at the Arras Memorial, which commemorates those who have no grave. Robert's name was inscribed on a tall pillar, just as soon as you enter the memorial. The Flying Services Memorial commemorates over 1,000 men of the Royal Naval Air Service, the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force, who have no known grave. We looked around the memorial for a little while and then headed off to Vimy Ridge.

We started off by visiting the monument, which is a tribute to all Canadians who risked or gave their lives for freedom and peace in the First World War. The monument is enormous, resting on a bed of 11,000 tonnes of concrete, reinforced with hundreds of tonnes of steel. The monument itself is made of limestone and the figures adorning it were sculpted on site. The steps on the west side are flanked by a statues of a female and male mourner. On the east side, overlooking the Douai Plain, is the sorrowing figure of a woman that represents Canada – a young nation mourning here dead. Carved on the walls of the monument are the names of 11,285 Canadian soldiers who were killed in France and whose final resting place was then unknown. We walked around from the west side of the monument, around to the east, surveying the panels with thousands of names inscribed on them. Standing next to the mourning statue on the west side, you get a clear view over the Douai plain and can see why it was such a strategic point to hold. At first, we thought that the Canadians had attacked from the plain. But upon seeing the pockmarked ground leading up to the monument, and the trenches on the west side, it was evident that they had attacked from the opposite side. We then walked down the steps on the east side and away from the monument to be able to see it in its entirety. It is an impressive monument in its simplicity and seems to capture a mixed sentiment: the taking of Vimy Ridge was a victory and highly symbolic, but the war was extremely costly for Canada, with 66,000 Canadian service personnel killed in the first World War.

The national historic site of Vimy Ridge sits atop Hill 145. This hill is the highest point on the 14 km long Vimy Ridge and during the war, it was a highly significant part of the German defence system. It was highly strategic earlier on in the war, but when the Canadians took the ridge in 1917, we learned that it wasn’t extremely significant in terms of being a strategic victory. It was however, a very symbolic and morale lifting victory for the Allied forces. It is often referred to as the moment when Canada, as a nation, was forged. This doesn’t downplay the considerable risk, planning, bravery and execution involved in taking the ridge. Two earlier attempts by the Allied forces had failed in 1914 and 15, resulting in heavy casualties, partly because the German defensive positions were highly fortified.  "At daybreak on April 9, 1917, all four divisions of the Canadian Corps (aided by the British 5^th Division and a considerable number of artillery units), fighting together for the first time, stormed the ridge. Preceded by a perfectly-timed artillery barrage, the Canadians advanced and, by mid-afternoon, had taken all their objectives except Hill 145, which was captured the following day. The hard-fought victory was swift, but did not come without cost. Out of 10,602 casualties, 3,598 Canadians gave their lives". Some of the reasons why the Canadians succeeded when others had failed was due to the use of tactics by General Byng and Currie, that were considered radical at the time - they seem so perfectly logical and obvious that it is no surprise that so many lives were wasted under the command of other generals. Here are some of those “radical” tactics they used: gave nearly each of their soldiers a map of the area and ensured that they knew the objectives well in advance (as opposed to the morning of), trained for six months in advance and rehearsing the manoeuvres and timing expected in a near replica of the terrain, gave authority to frontline units and troops to make decisions on their own if separated from communications with headquarters.

After visiting the monument, we went over to the information center and were just in time for a guided tour of a part of the underground tunnels, subway and restored trenches. We walked about eight meters below ground level into a Canadian tunnel that ran for nearly two kilometers. We visited only about a hundred meters of the tunnel system but it definitely gave us an idea of what it would have been like. These tunnels were connected to the communication trenches in the rear and the front-line trenches. It was in these tunnels that a large number of the troops amassed, out of sight of the Germans, the night before the battle. These tunnels were also used to transport ammunition (shells, bullets) to the front line, conduct night raids, “eavesdrop” on the Germans by digging perilously close to their front lines, and to dig “subways”. We saw one of these original “subways”, which were essentially tunnels dug sometimes thirty meters deep, under the German lines, at the end of which mines were placed. The tunnels we walked through have all been reinforced with concrete today but originally, they were just carved out of the limestone and in some places, supported by wooden beams. We saw the room where “runners” slept between communicating messages between the front and rear lines. We also got to see some original pumps from WWI that were used to supply fresh water to the tunnels and also glass isolators that held communications lines. These isolators kept the communication lines off the walls and from short-circuiting due to water. The guide at one point also turned off all the lights (except the emergency ones) to demonstrate how dim the tunnels would have been. We then headed back up and out of the tunnels, leading directly into one of the front-line trenches. We took a brief walk through the trenches and at one point, you could see the German front-line, only 10 meters away! With the tour completed, we toured the very informative visitor’s center for a while and then headed to our campsite for the evening.