The Cees are now on line!
I have to confess. There are certain things that one learns the hard way and websites for old guys seems to be one of those....You might notice that the C page loads and looks a lot nicer and loads a lot faster than the T-Z page. Sigh.... Apparently its all in the way one goes about constructing the page. It has only taken me about 40 hours of struggling and cursing the IT gods before I discovered how easy it can be. One just needs to go with the flow..... War Diaries - 1917 5th Canadian Siege Battery Apl 15th - Nil 31st Battery, 9th Brigade April 15th - The enemy’s heavy artillery has been most active. Particular attention was paid to VIMY RIDGE. There was however, a marked absence of shelling by the smaller calibres. O.O. 63 issued to-day gives the new zone boundaries as follows – RIGHT – T.19. central - T.14. Central – N.34.1. 0.0 LEFT – S.24.1.7.9 – T.8.Central – T.3.6.4.0 The 32nd Battery did not get its last gun into position until noon to-day. The roads were knee deep in mud and jammed with traffic; often there were no roads at all but a series of shell craters. At times the horses belly deep in mud were unable to make any progress except with the aid of several detachments manning wheels and drag ropes. On several stretches of the shell torn road, the guns travelled on their side as often as they did on their wheels but nevertheless the battery arrived in position with no casualties either to personnel or equipment. The 45th Battery moved forward to-night to their advanced position. 58th Battery, 14th Brigade
April 15th - Usual Church Parade in TIN TOWN. Two NCO’s to LARKHILL on Gun Courses. The Rs are now on-line! I can always use any additional info or photos that you may have.
president.vcrgunners@gmail.com War Diaries - 1917 5th Canadian Siege Battery April 14th - Very little doing today 60 Rounds being fired on trenches in M36b 25.00 and M31c30.10. 31st Battery, 9th Brigade April 14th - The enemy to-day shelled his old stronghold VIMY. All Battery Commanders go forward to-day reconnoitring forward positions in VIMY and its environs. The 32nd Battery has been ordered to move into its forward position to-night. The remaining batteries will probably go forward to-morrow night. Our zone on our trenches is now T.8 Central to T.1.d.0.0., As this outranges our guns we are laid on a “Resistance Line” which runs from VIMY STATION thence along VIMY DEFENCES and thence to LA CHAUDIERE. 58th Battery, 14th Brigade
April 14th - Cold rainy day. DUKE inspected lines at 12.20 NOON. The three 18 Pr. Batteries in PARK at BATTY GUN DRILL, the HOW BATTY at the O ? work across HASLEMERE RD. H.R.H. and retinue were aminatographed. GR. BULLEN C.L. 58th BATTY awarded 28 days detention on 13.4.17 by R.C.M. for absence without leave. CPL ATKINSON to WOOLWICH. NominalTechnology is a wonderful thing. When it works properly....... or if the operator knows its limitations! The original Nominal Roll page became unwieldy (it became slower and slower and required numerous reboots to refresh itself). I believe that it was a simple case of putting too many pieces of information on one page.
Solution? - I've created multiple pages for the nominal rolls and the website seems to be responding faster! Check them out here: War Diaries 1917 5th Canadian Siege Battery Apl 13th - No entry. 31st Battery, 9th Brigade April 13th - Enemy has withdrawn from VIMY. By 11 o’clock this morning our Infantry were holding it, and by afternoon our men were seen in the vicinity of VIMY STATION. At present everyone is engaged in the pleasant past time of “FIND THE HUN”. Reports have been coming in all day that he has been seen in large numbers in various places, but usually ten minutes later another report comes in stating that our patrols are at these points. There is however, no doubt but that the enemy is now well back towards AVION. Our line to-night would appear to be roughly LE CHAUDIERE – VIMY RAILWAY STATION and thence southerly along the railway. 58th Battery, 14th Brigade
April 13th - Section training and cleaning up for H.R.H. DUKE OF CONNAUGHT tomorrow. War Diaries 1917 5th Canadian Siege Battery Apl 12 - No entry 31st Battery, 9th Brigade April 12 - The enemy are now holding the line FLIT and FLICKER FLOWER TRENCHES _ PETIT VIMY, thence along FILLIP and eastern side of BOIS DE LA FOLIE. O.O. 62 orders us to take part in Artillery support for the attack and capture of the above line. Visibility has been extremely poor to-day, and observations of movement in the back area has been impossible. On the whole to-day has been most quiet. 58th Battery, 14th Brigade
April 12 - An ? of 2 Lbs hay per horse for 175 horses of BDE to load during ? days. 18 men struck off strength on transfer to T.M.s and 6 men to D.A.G. 5th Canadian Siege Battery Apl 11th - At Noon we fired 40 Rounds on Vimy Station in T19d 92.80. and then switched to La Chaudiere firing 20 Rounds into this place. A very good shoot on Hostile Battery S26 at S12d 49.15 was carried out during the afternoon by aeroplane observation. 199 Rounds were fired, the airman reporting that three gun-pits were totally destroyed and two other badly damaged. 100 Rounds were fired into BLIGHTY TRENCH and 78 on roads in S18a. During the night we fired 96 Rounds in an intense bombardment on houses and North West portion of T19a. S4d 0.9 to S4b 0.1 tp S11a 9.3 ½. 31st Battery, 9th Brigade April 11th - The enemy Artillery has at last apparently recovered from his hasty retirement and is in action again. For the first time since our capture of the RIDGE, he has shown aggressiveness. For two hours this afternoon our front line in S.29.b., S.23.c., and S.23.1., was heavily shelled with 77mm., 4.1., and 5.9s. For this shelling we vigorously retaliated on BLOATER and FLOWER TRENCHES. A number of hostile batteries were located by our F.O.O.s to-day and promptly reported to the Counter Battery Group and took them on and in the instances obtained direct hits, Addenda The 32nd & 33rd Btys moved to advanced positions in A.2.c to-night. 58th Battery, 14th Brigade
April 11th - A small skeleton scheme in conjunction with Inf. was worked out today. Additional names have been placed in the Nominal Roll. There's a lot of Ss out there....
War Diaries - 1917 5th Canadian Siege Battery Apl 10 - From 5.00 a.m. to 6.30 a.m. we fired 50 Rounds on a machine gun emplacement in S16a 0.9 with fairly good results, there were no direct hits but much material damage was caused to the emplacement. At 7.a.m. plane went up to direct us on hostile battery S26 at S12d 8.15 First few rounds were mostly A’s and B’s but after 16 Rounds plane gave C I on account of a shortage of petrol. About 1.p.m. troops were seen massing for a counter-attack in T13b and d, we immediately switched and fired 40 Rounds into them, Troops were also seen massing in S17b and 18a, these were also dispersed by artillery fire, in which we fired 20 Rounds. 4.55.p.m. plane went up to direct us on (Z4, but we had only fired one round before a heavy snow snowstorm came on, forcing the plane to land. During the night we kept up continuous fire at slow rate on tracks through S17d tp T13c also tracks through S17d to T7b. 31st Battery, 9th Brigade April 10 - A bombardment was carried out at 6.45 a.m. on enemy trench from S.29.b.4.8 to S.23.d.9.2. This is a new partly dug trench which the enemy were holding with a garrison of 50 men. Our shoot had the desired effect as the Infantry sent out a patrol shortly afterwards and found the trench deserted. NOTE: Attached hereto are letters regarding our part in this affair. – Appendix “C”, At 10.20 a.m. in the neighbourhood of two hundred of the enemy were seen advancing in open order T.14.c and T.20.a. When they reached the vicinity of VIMY STATION they were badly cut up by the Heavy Artillery. Throughout the day our Observation Officers reported Infantry massing in various places. Those within range were effectively with by our 18-Pdrs and 4.5 How Batteries; those further back were engaged at our request by Heavy Artillery and heavy casualties inflicted. 58th Battery, 14th Brigade
April 10th - The usual training carried. Use is being made of miniature range belonging to Infantry. The weather is only fair. |
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