Vimy Ridge and Arthur Currie

April 15, 1917

Dear Mary,

In this letter, I’d like to tell you about a man I’m grateful to have met. He is a very capable man that I can look up to. In September while we were still in Belgium, a new commander took over our division. Ever since, we learned lots of great strategies from him and have been fairly successful in battles due to his wise decision making.

His name is Arthur Currie. I’m proud to say that he’s the first Canadian commander we’ve had yet. All of our four Canadian divisions joined together as the Canadian Corps and with the British, I believe that we were only able to capture the strategically important Vimy Ridge with the help of Major-General Arthur Currie. He continually trained us so that we were able to more or less perfect a tactic we call the ‘creeping barrage.’ Basically, a large amount of artillery would be fired and we, the infantry unit would stay right behind walking at a 100 yard per 3 minute pace. Constantly rehearsing the pace was a very tedious task but it definitely paid off in the end. He focused on teaching us things like how to better target and fire the enemy’s artillery and managed to get us close to the enemies before the attack for more effective results. Because of that, we impressively destroyed most of the Germans’ guns before the battle had begun and then were able to quite easily take their first three trenches. 

 Each division had separate orders to carry out and things went according to plan for the most part with the exception of regrettably having 3000 of our men killed and thousands of others badly wounded. Considering how well we did with Currie’s help, I think we actually suffered less casualties than there could potentially have been. It was then on April 12 after winning the battle of Vimy Ridge, did I truly recognize Major-General Currie’s ability. Because of him, we won the battle and I believe that us Canadians will now be better recognized for our competence. When all of the Canadian divisions worked together, we were victorious and proved our worth as an independent nation. To be completely honest though, I didn’t respect this man as much before because of his seemingly demanding personality but I’ve come to realize that he actually knows what he’s doing. Even though his training is rather intense, it is such an honor to have him as one of our higher-ups. So Mary, I just wanted you to know, that there are also good leaders here that force us into shape and know how to ready us for battle. I hope that this can somewhat reassure you so that you can have more confidence in my strengths and abilities. I yearn for the day that I can come back home but you should know that I also have pride in being a soldier now. I’ll continue to work hard just like my commanders when things get tough. So please keep being patient and be tough for me too. 

                                                                                Yours truly, James Carter                                                    
(Sources: 

• http://www.vimyridgetour.ca/about-vimy/history-of-vimy-ridge
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Currie#Vimy_Ridge
• http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/exhibitions/guerre/athur-currie-e.aspx)