The Western Front January–June 1917

Scottish troops advancing east of Arras, May 1917
(© Imperial War Museum: Q 2104)

The Second Battle of Arras (9 April [Easter Monday] to 17 May 1917). Includes:

• the Battle of Vimy Ridge (9–12 April): 3,598 Canadian soldiers killed,10,602 Canadian soldiers wounded, 20,000 German casualties;
• the Second Battle of the Aisne (16 April–9 May);
• the Battle of Arleux-en-Gohelle (28/29 April);
• the Second Battle of Bullecourt (3–17 May).

Total losses: 158,000 British and Commonwealth casualties; 120–130,000 German casualties; 187,000 French casualties. It has been estimated that during April 1917 alone, “Bloody April” as it has become known, the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service lost c.151 aircraft and 316 aircrew, the highest loss rate of the First World War.

The aim of the Second Battle of Arras was twofold: to draw German troops away from the major French offensive that was planned to take place about 50 miles to the south and to capture the high ground which dominated the plain of Douai and whose key feature was the Vimy Ridge. During the run-up to the Battle, the British expended over two-and-half million shells, many more than during the preparations for the Battle of the Somme in the previous year.

 “At tea Miss Cummings & another of our Australian cadets Mackinlay who was a good talker & told us more of the actual facts of the fighting man’s life in this war than I had often, perhaps ever, heard. Some were grim: but he took the whole in a very light-hearted way. They found in the elaborate dug-outs of the German officers near Pozières the bodies of girls killed by the bombardment!”

(C.C.J. Webb, Diary entry, 21 January 1917)

Byron, Clement John  10.i.1917

Levett, Richard William Byrd  10.iii.1917

Kirby, Alister Graham  29.iii.1917

Holmes, George  9.iv.1917

Tredgold, John Clarkson  12.iv.1917

Platt, Lionel Sydney  13.iv.1917

Tyson, Alexander Baird  23 iv.1917

Rose, Ronald Henry Ivon  28.iv.1917

Hine-Haycock, Ralph Hugh  3.v.1917

Vince, William Lang  8.v.1917

Mackinnon, William  11.v.1917

Pye-Smith, Philip Howson Guy  15.v.1917

Fleming, Valentine  25.v.1917

Harper, Alan Gordon  1.vi.1917

Hudson, Alban John Benedict  7.vi.1917

Jones, Louis Guéret Walter Southwell  20.vi.1917

Whinney, John Arthur Perrott  22.vi.1917