Produced by Geetu Melwani, Graeme Mackreth, David Clarke and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) S.O.S. STAND TO! [Illustration: 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 THE LADS WHO SERVED WITH ME IN THE "SACRIFICE BATTERY," AND WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES THAT THOSE BEHIND MIGHT LIVE, AND, ALSO, IN BROTHERLY AFFECTION AND ESTEEM TO MY BROTHERS, GORDON AND BILLY, WHO ARE STILL FIGHTING THE GOOD 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 of Canada's overseas forces is to lay before the reader an outline of the movement of our Division as it may be gathered from the performance of my own specific duties, with especial reference to the battles of Ypres (the 2nd), Givenchy, Sanctuary Woods (Ypres 3rd), the Somme and Vimy Ridge. Very little attention or space has been devoted to the detail of initiatory camp life, drill, rations and the like; even had I the space to do so, those features have been liberally covered by a number of earlier writers; besides, I am of the opinion that the average reader is more concerned with the desire to be imaginably transported as nearly as possible to the heart of the struggle,--to live in his own mind the strain and turmoil of the individual soldier in the desperate conflict which now rages, the decision of which will determine whether democracy or military autocracy shall be the predominating factor in the governments of the peoples of the earth. INTRODUCTORY The devastating rush of the gray-clad hordes of Huns into the peace-loving lands of Belgium and France has demonstrated conclusively that to win this or any other war the one thing necessary is superiority in artillery. Without this, an enemy sufficiently strong in numbers and other equipment, can drive ahead, overcoming and crushing all obstacles. The average lay reader is too apt to lose sight of the supreme importance of this arm of the service, to which all other movements are subsidiary; the dash of the charge by the infantry over the top, magnificent in its appeal, submerges to a degree the real factor upon which success or failure of the charge depends, i.e., the blazing of the trail by the guns. Little thought is devoted to the man who, with hell bursting on and around him, has to get his shell home in a certain number of seconds so that the charge can be made.