Today is the 108th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Four Canadian divisions fought together for the first time, and this event helped shape a nation. About 3,600 soldiers lost their lives, and we remember them—lest we forget.
“At 5:30 am, that call of duty and honour propelled the first 15,000 of their ranks to rise from the trenches and storm the ridge. Joined by 97,000 of their brothers over four days, they fought against a torrent of enemy fire, steadily advancing eastward to push the German line as far back as 5km.
“Where our progenitor nations had failed, a Canada united in common cause had triumphed, at great cost. A day that dwarfed those which came before in magnitude of human bravery also surpasses those which have come after in sacrifice.
“In the love we bore for them, we erected our largest war memorial atop the ridge secured by the 3,598 Canadians who fell. Its grandeur humbling the living to our nation’s sons, lying in the fields from Flanders to Picardy, etched into its stone, ‘their name liveth for evermore.’”
“Lest we forget.”
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