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105 The Great War has often been called the gunner’s war. “The artillery conquers and the infantry occupies,” was how one French general dismissed the infantry.1 Glib remarks like that are always too simplistic, but there was no doubt about the importance of artillery in shattering enemy defences and, by 1917, working in conjunction with other arms, primarily the infantry, to achieving victory on the Western Front. At the Battle of Vimy Ridge, the role of artillery was essential in shooting the infantry onto its objectives. Several weeks of pre-battle fire annihilated the enemy defences, cleared barbed wire, and forced defenders to their protective dugouts. A week before the battle the rate of fire increased and was augmented by heavier guns. This plunging drumfire saturated the enemy front, further clearing obstacles for the infantry, killing the enemy, and reducing the survivors to a quivering mass. On the morning of 9 April 1917, the day of battle, the artillery provided a complicated and innovative creeping barrage. This moving wall of flame and shrapnel fell in front of the advancing infantry and passedthroughtheenemylines,destroyingstrongpointsbutalsoforcing the defenders to find refuge in their dugouts. Without the protection of the barrage, the attack on Vimy would have been little more than a frontal assault against the massed guns of entrenched enemy positions. Yet the gunners offered more than simply a creeping barrage. As part of their destructive fire plan, the new Canadian counter battery office (CCBO) systematically gathered and processed intelligence on enemy batteries, waiting to unleash concentrated fire to stop the opposing guns from launching a counter-barrage that could stop or slow the Canadian infantry assault against the ridge. The Canadian gunners, in the words 6 The Gunners at Vimy “We are Hammering Fritz to Pieces” TIM COOK 106 TIM COOK of Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew McNaughton, the first commander of the CCBO, aimed to “exploit gun power to the limit for the purpose of saving the lives of our infantry.”2 Through improved tactics, doctrine, and weight of shells, the gunners at Vimy took and saved lives on the way to victory. The image of the deadly machine gun, firing in methodical arcs as it mowed down troops, remains central to the popular memory of the Great War. But the artillery was the true killer, causing an estimated sixty percent of all wounds.3 The crash of high explosives, whirling shrapnel and shell splinters proved early in the conflict that artillery would decide the fate of empires. Artillery fire wreaked havoc on those caught in the open. Shrapnel shells exploded downwards in a shotgun-like blast, spraying the front with hundreds of lead balls. High explosive shells exploded like dynamite, killing through the force of a blast that could collapse lungs and kill a man without leaving a mark. The explosive charge that shattered the shell casing also created jagged shell splinters. The irregular wounds caused by artillery fire were deadly; a victim was three times as likely to die from a shell fragment wound to the chest as from a bullet wound to the same region.4 Yet the gunners were themselves vulnerable to small arms fire, and after several battles where crews took crippling casualties firing over open sights, the guns were withdrawn behind the thickening trench lines. Increasingly they began to fire indirectly on their targets from several kilometres away, sight unseen. The fire was inaccurate at first, but it could still be deadly against troops in the open. Even when guided by forward observers, a lack of communication ensured that gunners were slow to react to changing circumstances. Throughout 1915, British and Canadian gunners continued to be plagued by an insufficient supply of shells. Except in extraordinary circumstances, gun teams were often limited to five or ten shells a day, restrictions that neither inspired confidence nor improved skills. Shell shortages were compounded by difficulties with fuses. To clear barbed wire, shells needed to explode on contact with the wire. But in 1915 and 1916, the fuses were often not sensitive enough to detonate on contact, and the shells buried themselves in the ground before exploding. The infantry suffered accordingly as they were held up on the uncut barbed wire and mowed down by enemy machine gunners. As General Officer Commanding, Royal Artillery (GOC RA) for the Canadian Corps from late 1915 to 1916, Brigadier-General Henry Burstall realized his gunners had to improve. He encouraged experimenting with new techniques...

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