Vimy Ridge Memorial

Canadian National Vimy Ridge Memorial

The Canadian National Vimy Ridge Memorial is a stunning piece of artwork and a landmark that looks over the Douai Plain and the Artois Region. The Vimy Ridge National Historic Site is visible for miles away, it towers over the landscape, the white granite monument is visible from the Notre Dame de Lorrette - France's largest National cemetery, which contains 40,000 French dead.

Notre Dame de Lorrette - France's largest Cemetery

This entry will showcase the Vimy Monument;  created by Walter Seymour Allward. Designer and Architect Allward was a renowned Canadian artist. Allward created monuments for the War of 1812, Boer War (South African War), Bell Telephone, Stratford War Memorial (1922), Brantford War Memorial (1933), and the Peterborough Citizens' Memorial (1929).

New Canadian $20 tender
Credit: Bank of Canada & Global TV

Allward was a busy artist, while he was busy designing the Brantford and Peterborough Memorial, Walter Seymour Allward was also busy working on his latest commission from the Canadian Battlefields Memorials Commission in 1925 - Vimy Ridge. Allward and his labourers spent 11 years constructing Canada's largest Great War monument, on ground that many Canadians consider sacred. In the next few years Canadians will become very familiar with Allward and Vimy Ridge; Allward's work is now on the $20 tender.

 

Walter Allward posing infront of his incomplete Vimy Ridge Monument
Credit: Library and Archives & mapleleafup.ca

Aerial view of Vimy Ridge dedication, 1936.
Credit: Library and Archives & mapleleaf.ca

Early 1930s - Laying foundation.
Credit: Library and Archives & mapleleafup.ca

Inscribing names of 11,000 Canadian soldiers that died in France with no known grave.
Credit: Library and Archives & mapleleafup.ca

Progress on the monument.
Credit: Library and Archives Canada & mapleleafup.ca

Early 1930s - In 1922 France donated 245 acres, centred on Hill 145 to Canada.
Credit: Library and Archives & mapleleafup.ca

Laying the base of the 24 foot tall monument base.
Credit: Library and Archives & mapleleafup.ca

Vimy Ridge - Advanced Dressing Station RR Station

Here is a photograph of the Advanced Dressing Station - RR Station located in the Vimy Sector. 

It is hard to image this bombed out structure being a house of refuge for wounded soldiers; but during the Battle of Vimy Ridge, hundreds of stretcher bearers, medics, and captured Germans POWS, would process wounded soldiers in this building. 

Stretcher bearers would go around the battle field and retrieve wounded men and bring the soldiers to the ADS to be assessed, bandaged (and at times provide amputation ) and receive basic medical care before being sent further back for more complex medical treatment.

21st Battalion (Eastern Ontario) - 21 November 1914

Panoramic photograph of the 21st Battalion (Eastern Ontario) taken in Kingston, Ontario on 21 November 1914.

The 21st Battalion was raised in October-November 1914 and was sent overseas in May 1915. The 21st Battalion was attached to the 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade, 2nd Canadian Infantry Division. Unit would become a premier fighting force of the Canadian Corps in the Great War, taken part in many of Canada's historical battles. 

Notable Battle Honours: 

St. Eloi Craters, Courcelette (Somme), Vimy, Hill 70, Passchendaele, Amiens, and the 100 Days.

Visit

http://21stbattalion.ca