From: Pte. Wallace Pattenden, who was wounded on April 9, writing to his mother, Mrs. Thos. Pattenden, of Minesing Station, described how he was wounded as follows:

It was on Monday, April 9, at 5.30 in the morning we started our big drive at Vimy Ridge and I got mine ( my wound) about 6.30 a.m. I crawled into a shell hole and another fellow was standing near so I got him to cut my sleeve open and see if I was hurt very badly. He took my field dressing from my tunic and bound my wound up. I lay there for a few minutes, watching the Germans running across to our men with their hands up, yelling, 'Have mercy, Kamerads.. I was in the bombing (grenade) section and when I was hurt I had 16 bombs on me, four days' rations and my rifle ammunition. The bombs would weigh one lb. each and I carried them about seven miles after I was hit as there were so many bad cases that the ambulances were full.

From: Pte. Harvey Bell, writing to his brother in Craighurst, on April 16, about the Vimy Ridge fighting:

I have been in the trenches for six days. We moved up on Saturday, April 7th, and spent Easter there and celebrated it on Monday in the way of a a big Canadian victory, which you have no doubt read about in the Toronto papers. It sure was some initiation for yours truly, but I got through it without a scratch. We were relieved again the following Friday night. We were in for days without either a wash or a shave and practically no sleep, but I didn't mind it. We were well fed, in fact I rather enjoyed it for we drove Fritz out of one of his very strongest points on the whole line. From our last position, a shell hole on the top of a captured hill, we could see for many miles behind Fritz's line and could also see smoke rising from villages away in the distance, which evidently he was destroying before he left there. We could also watch our troops advancing over level, open country without even having to fire a shot or without any resistance. Just then we were relieved by troops and a welcome relief I assure you. We met troops going to relieve our infantry battalions that were following the Germans.

From: Pte. Jos. H. Gilchrist, writing to S. J. McMorran on April 18, published in the Examiner May 17:

Just a few lines to let you know that I am still on terra firma and going strong. I guess you will be reading the papers these days, and reading the stirring paragraphs of the big fighting over here and the grand part the Canadians have taken in it. Well, they well deserve the praise. The ground they had to take was something of a task which none could have accomplished but men who had an idea of the task ahead of them, of the maze of trenches, of wire entanglements, machine gun positions and other numerous obstacles, villages and woods staring them in the face, with dangers that lurked therein, unknown to anyone except the enemy. But we carried them all before us and our artillery barrage which paved the way was something grand yet awful to see. Everything was torn asunder or levelled flat by it. The enemy, who admit that they expected an attack, were completely surprised thinking it was one of our numerous raids which we have been carrying on all winter, went into their deep dugout to wait until our shell fire was over.

But when the barrage lifted, our troops were upon them before they had time to get out of their underground holes, so they were either taken prisoner or killed. We were very lucky as to casualties, one killed and one slightly wounded. Our battalion advanced close to three miles and would have been going yet if the flanks could have kept up. We were five hours ahead of the time allotted to us to go that far and then we sat in shell holes a few yards behind our barrage waiting for it to lift from one trench to another.