The sixty of us chosen to execute the raid were taken twenty miles to the rear for a week’s instruction practice. Having only a slight idea of what we were going to try to do, we felt very jolly about the whole enterprise, starting off. We were camped in an old barn, with several special instruction officers in charge. We had oral instruction, the first day, while sappers dug and built an exact duplicate of the section of the German trenches which we were to raid. That is, it was exact except for a few details. Certain “skeleton trenches,” in the practice section, were dug simply to fool the German aviators. If a photograph, taken back to German headquarters, had shown an exact duplicate of a German trench section, suspicion might have been aroused and our plans revealed. We were constantly warned about the skeleton trenches and told to remember that they did not exist in the German section where we were to operate. Meanwhile, our practice section was changed a little, several times, because aerial photographs showed that the Germans had been renovating and making some additions to the trenches in which we were to have our frolic with them. We had oral instruction, mostly, during the day, because we didn’t dare let the German aviators see us practicing a bomb raid. All night long, sometimes until two or three o’clock in the morning, we rehearsed that raid, just as carefully as a company of star actors would rehearse a play. At first there was a disposition to have sport out of it. “Well,” some chap would say, rolling into the hay all tired out, “I got killed six times to-night. S’pose it’ll be several times more to-morrow night.” One man insisted that he had discovered, in one of our aerial photographs, a German burying money, and he carefully examined each new picture so that he could be sure to find the dough and dig it up. The grave and serious manner of our officers, however; the exhaustive care with which we were drilled and, more than all, the approach of the time when we were “to go over the top,” soon drove sport out of our minds, and I can say for myself that the very thought of the undertaking, as the fatal night drew near, sent shivers up and down my spine. A bombing raid--something originated in warfare by the Canadians--is not intended for the purpose of holding ground, but to gain information, to do as much damage as possible, and to keep the enemy in a state of nervousness. In this particular raid, the chief object was to gain information. Our high command wanted to know what troops were opposite us and what troops had been there. We were expected to get this information from prisoners and from buttons and papers off of the Germans we might kill. It was believed that troops were being relieved from the big tent show, up at the Somme, and sent to our side show in Belgium for rest. Also, it was suspected that artillery was being withdrawn for the Somme. Especially, we were anxious to bring back prisoners.