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ARCHIVED - Canada and the First World War
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Map - Donald Fraser - We were there
BarrageMap [Showing Boundaries and Objectives for Assault on Vimy Ridge]. -- Scale [1:10,000]. -- [s.l.]: 1st Field Survey Company, [1917].
All 850 Canadian guns, plus another 280 from the British 1st Army, began firing at precisely 5:30 a.m. on April 9, 1917. The heavy guns concentrated on German gun emplacements, ammunition dumps and key communication nodes. The field artillery fired for three minutes on the front German trenches and then began to lift the barrage forward, 90 metres at a time, every three minutes, in order to allow Canadian troops to advance behind its protective curtain. Because the topography of the ridge varied considerably from north to south, allowances had to be made in the barrage pattern where the infantry might have more difficulty keeping up with the advance.
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