In the great Canadian advance of September the 15th, in which our morning and evening attacks drove the Germans from the Sugar Refinery, Courcelette, and many more strongholds and intricate systems of defence, the 49th Battalion supported the Princess Patricia's and the 42nd Battalion on the extreme left of our frontage of aggressive operations. These battalions advanced the line to the left of Courcelette, keeping abreast of the units that assaulted and occupied the village and mopped up its crowded dug-outs and fortified houses. Their activities were devoted entirely to the subjection and occupation of strong trenches and trench machine-gun posts. They moved irresistibly forward, cleaning things up as they went. They reached and occupied their final objectives--with the exception of a length of trench about 250 yards in extent, which remained in the hands of the enemy until the following day. But the defenders of that isolated section of trench could not retreat, for the head of their communicating trench was blocked, they dared not attempt a rearward flight on the surface and they were flanked right and left by the Canadians. So the matter rested for the night, with no more stir than an occasional exchange of bombs across the flanking barricades. On the afternoon of the 16th, a party of bombers from the 49th Battalion undertook to clear this offending piece of trench and so make possible the consolidation of the entire frontage gained in the previous day's offensives. Here is where the ex-homesteader from Spirit River steps into that high light which illuminates more frequently and glaringly the feeble activities of the music-hall stage than the grim heroics of the battle-field. Private John Chipman Kerr, as first bayonet-man, moved forward well in advance of his party. He twitched himself over the block in the communicating trench in less time than he had ever taken to negotiate a pasture fence on the home-farm. He advanced about thirty yards into the hostile position before a sentry took alarm and hurled a grenade. Kerr saw the grenade coming and, in the fraction of a second at his disposal, attempted to protect himself with his arm. He was partially successful in this, for when the bomb exploded it did no more than blow off the upper joint of his right fore-finger and wound him slightly in the right side.