NEWSPAPER
The Globe (Toronto)
BACKGROUND
The war effort to date
VIDEO ARCHIVE
On-the-spot with GWO
ACCOUNTS
Soldiers at the front
MAP COLLECTION
SITE CREDITS

RESOURCES:
NEWS: April 12, 1917

On April 12 the final battle of the Vimy offensive was fought over a small, heavily fortified wood called the Pimple, the highest point of the ridge.
GWO, Neuville St. Vaast - from Special Correspndant Randolf Wilson
The Germans, strengthened with fresh troops from the Prussian Guards, must have realized that this was their last chance to hold Vimy.

Our 10th Brigade attacked in a blinding snowstorm and the Germans surrendered in just a few hours. Later, according to Lieutenant Irving Findley, "one German officer of the Prussian Guard, who was taken prisoner in the scrap, said that the defeat at Vimy Ridge was one of the hardest blows they had received in the war."

The Easter offensive on Vimy has cost the Germans almost 20,000 casualties plus 4,000 prisoners and 150 captured guns. It seems very unlikely now that the Germans will attempt to retake the Ridge.

This Canadian victory represents the deepest advance by the British-led forces to date and the success of the new Canadian approach to conducting trench warfare.