At noon on April 17, 1916, the 24th Battalion was relieved by the 26th. The terrible strain to which the troops were subjected at this time necessitated that these, too, should have relief. The 26th were in turn relieved by the 29th Battalion of the Sixth Brigade in the night of April 18-19, 1916. On the next day the defense collapsed. Crater 6 was held by Lieutenant Myers and forty men on the left, and Lieutenant Biggs occupied Crater 7 on the right. The Germans shelled the crater so heavily in the afternoon that only a few of the defenders were left alive. Then the Germans advanced. Lieutenant Biggs appears to have allowed his few men to surrender, but Lieutenant Myers fought to the last. Five men who tried to get away across the fire-swept country escaped, though only one man was unwounded. They were the sole survivors of the garrison. All the others were killed or taken prisoner. Thus the craters which the Canadians had clung to so long were lost. That they were untenable was the German view, for no attempts were made to occupy them. On the 20th Major Tait of the 29th on reconnoissance with a small party found Crater 6 demolished around the edges, and within a mass of mud full of dead bodies. No further efforts were made by the Canadians to reoccupy the position. Crater 1, which had been held throughout the fighting of the 19th, remained definitely in their hands. On May 28, 1916, General Alderson took over new duties and was succeeded by General Sir Julian Byng, commander of the 3d (British) Cavalry. When the storm broke on June 2, 1916, the struggle began southeast of Ypres, which lies in a depression, a ridge curving around southwest to Mount Sorrel. From ruined Hooge, beyond a mile of green water meadows, Zouave Wood is seen running up one of the greatest gaps in the ridge. This gap isolates Hooge from the system and through it the Germans could view the British trenches in the plain. To the south the slopes are covered by Sanctuary Wood and crowned by Hills 61 and 62, and beyond Mount Sorrel completing the fighting area. Between Sanctuary Wood and Mount Sorrel is a bare tongue of higher ground, Observatory Ridge, running due west into the British positions toward Zillebeke village. Such was the position occupied by the Third Canadian Division on the first day of June, 1916, as viewed from the rear. They held the high ground, a plateau, and were determined to retain it. The First Canadian Division was on the right of the Third. The Second Division was farther south at St.-Eloi, and was not called on until later in the action.