Strategy and Success at Amiens

What they call “The Last Hundred Days” was started with the Battle of Amiens and I was there. It was highly secret. The Battle of Amiens was the biggest surprise that anybody had in the war. The Battle of Amiens was, I think it was August the 8th, 1918, I’m not hundred percent sure of that date but I think that’s what it was. They sent a radio crew up to around Ypres front which was a hundred miles further north and filled the air full of fake messages as though there was a battle going to take place, you know, and then all these things were floating around and they know the Germans would pick them up. And they filled the air full of this so the Germans were expecting an attack on the Ypres front and they hit them down on Amiens front which was a hundred miles further south and they went over the top at 4 o’clock in the morning and they went eight miles that day. Now the battle order, La Luce River ran here and the French were on the other side of La Luce River. Then there was the 2nd Canadian Division that I was in and then the 3rd Canadian Division, then the Australian Division and then the 151st Highland Division which was a crack division of the British troops, these were all crack troops, you see. The Canadians captured 27,000 prisoners and the whole thing of 45,000 prisoners besides all the ones that were killed, an awful lot killed besides that. So that’s why Ludendorff said it was a black day for the Germans. The Last Hundred Days they called it and the Battle of Amiens started that and the Canadians were in almost continuous battle from then until the Armistice Day.