THE CANADIAN VICTORY AT COURCELETTE : and the advance of the tanks [Main Title]

I. Canadian soldiers voting in the Canadian elections while on the Western Front, 17th December 1917.

II. Slightly jumbled film of the Canadian forces in the Battle of Flers-Courcelette. No tanks appear. Western Front, September 1916.

III. Graves and a memorial to the dead of the Canadian forces in the Battle of Vimy Ridge, Western Front, summer 1917.

(Reel 1) Albert Cathedral, mid-1916. The Canadian 6th Brigade, 2nd Division, led by Brigadier-General H D B Ketchen (past German prisoners) towards the battlefield, halts to rest at La Boisselle crossroads before entering the trench system. A kite balloon is raised to direct fire from 9.2-inch howitzers. A BE2d of the RFC is bombed-up with 112-pound, 40-pound, 20-pound and phosphorus bombs (shown in detail) before taking off. Ground crews signal to the aircraft with identification panels. The aircraft directs the fire of a 4.5-inch howitzer battery. Carrier pigeons, taken forward, return to a mobile loft. (Reel 2) A 12-inch siege howitzer, 15-inch siege howitzer and 8-inch siege howitzer battery are directed by Forward Observation Officers (FOOs) onto their targets. More 8-inch shells are brought forward, while British 18-pounders and French 75mm guns join in. The Canadians attack and prisoners from the German 45th Reserve Division come back. (Reel 3) Walking wounded, stretcher cases and prisoners filter back to the front-line dressing stations and are evacuated by ambulance or on foot. Canadian soldiers watch from a safe distance as the Germans counter-attack at the sugar factory. As they are led back the German prisoners are allowed to wash, "Fritz indulges in an unfamiliar exercise", in a nearby pond. Other Germans are shown dead, "some of the Huns who did not get out of their trench in time". The captured trenches at Courcelette are a shapeless mass. Inside a field hospital surgery is performed on serious cases. Canadian dead are buried in shrouds in a permanent military cemetery after the battle.

The memorial reads "To the Memory of the Officers, NCOs and Men of the 2nd Canadian Division and the 13th Infantry Brigade who Fell in the Capture of Vimy Ridge on April 9th 1917", and is followed by a scene of graves being tended in a military cemetery.

35mm