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Easter greetings from the front, 1917. Original watercolor by Karl Schmit(?) postmarked March 31, 1917. Easter fell on April 8, 1917.
Sanke postcard of German ace and recipient of the Pour le Mérite Leutnant Wilhelm Frankl. With the death of Oswald Bölcke on October 28, 1917, Frankl became Germany's leading ace. On April 6, 1917 he downed three enemy planes. Two days later, on Easter Sunday April 8 he was killed in combat with a total of 20 victories. A German Jew who converted to Christianity when he married, Frankl was expunged from the records of recipients of the Pour le Mérite by the Nazis. The medal is beneath his collar. He had also been awarded the Iron Cross, on his left breast, and the House Order of Hohenzollern beneath it.
The Mourning Father on the back steps of the Canadian Memorial at Vimy Ridge, detail. © 2013, John Shea
Detail from the Canadian Memorial at Vimy Ridge: the figure of Canada Bereft, or Mother Canada, looking down at a casket below her, mourns her dead. In the distance are the slag heaps of Lens and the Douai Plain. © 2013, John Shea
Headstones of Lance Corporal A. F. MacDougall and Private W. H. Hodge of the Canadian Corps, 54th and 50th Battalions, died March 1 and April 10, 1917, Cabaret Rouge British Cemetery. © 2013 by John M. Shea
"April 8 [1917] (Easter Sunday)Left Saulty 9 a.m., reached Basseux 11.30 (about eleven kilometres south-west of Arras). Until recently this place was only a mile or two from the line, but it doesn't appear to have been shelled. We are living in a dismantled château which must have been quite nice before the war. I am sitting with my feet out of the window of an attic under the roof, looking down on the courtyard where some officers are playing cricket with a stump and a wooden ball, and a brazier for a wicket. Glorious sunshine and pigeons flying about over the red and grey roofs. A little grey church with a pointed tower a hundred yards down the street. Three balloons visible, and the usual confused noise of guns from Arras." ((1), more)
"In February, 1917, [Wilhelm] Frankl became the acting commander of Jasta 4, which he led until his death. As leader of Jasta 4, he scored his 16th victory, but was once again transferred to the test command. Near the end of March, 1917, Frankl returned to action, and on the 6th of April, was at the peak of his flying career when he succeeded in downing three enemy aircraft during one day. Unfortunately, he met his demise two days later, over Vitry-Sailly. By a strange twist of fate, the date was on Easter Sunday, April, 1917." ((2), more)
"To-day, at dawn, our armies began a great battle, which, if Fate has any kindness for the world, may be the beginning of the last great battles of the war. Our troops attacked on a wide front between Lens and St. Quentin, including the Vimy Ridge, that great, grim hill which dominates the plain of Douai and the coalfields of Lens and the German positions around Arras. In spite of bad fortune in weather at the beginning of the day, so bad that there was no visibility for our airmen, and our men had to struggle forward in a heavy rainstorm, the first attacks have been successful, and the enemy has lost much ground, falling back in retreat to strong rearguard lines, where he is now fighting desperately." ((3), more)
"'No one cares less than I,Nobody knows but GodWhether I am destined to lieUnder a foreign clod'Were the words I made to the bugle call in the morning.But laughing, storming, scorning,Only the bugles knowWhat the bugles say in the morning,And they do not care, when they blowThe call that I heard and made words to early this morning." ((4), more)
"By nightfall [April 10, 1917], the 'Southern Operation' had been completed; of Vimy Ridge, only the Pimple remained. It had cost the Canadian Corps 7,707 casualties (including nearly 3,000 killed), plus some 400 casualties in the brigades of the 5th Imperial Division. 8,000 killed and wounded, approximately, in two days' fighting. Light losses by the standards of the time. But as George Alliston put it, 'By the 11th, we had been reinforced twice to bring us up to strength, and I'm telling you we lost a few of the best boys a mother could have—all of them A-1 kids—all in a few days. The flower of the land, you might say Just a big loss to us.' Some 4,000 German prisoners had been taken (3,400 had been counted by midnight on the 9th). But prisoners live to return home, in the end." ((5), more)
(1) Diary entry for April 8, 1917, of Siegfried Sassoon, British poet, author, Second Lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and recipient of the Military Cross for gallantry in action. Sassoon's battalion was held in reserve for the Arras Offensive. The preparatory bombardment was in progress as he wrote.
Siegfried Sassoon Diaries 1915-1918 by Siegfried Sassoon, page 152, copyright © George Sassoon, 1983; Introduction and Notes Rupert Hart-Davis, 1983, publisher: Faber and Faber, publication date: 1983
(2) With the death of Oswald Bölcke on October 28th, 1917, recipient of the Pour le Mérite (the Blue Max) Leutnant Wilhelm Frankl became Germany's leading ace. He led Jasta 4 from February, 1917 until his death two months later. On April 6, 1917 Frankl downed three enemy planes. Two days later, on Easter Sunday, as the British prepared to launch the Arras Offensive, he was killed in combat with a total of 20 victories. He was twenty-three. A German Jew who converted to Christianity when he married, Frankl was omitted from a 1938 German history of recipients of the Pour le Mérite. The Luftwaffe named a barracks after him in 1973. 'Vitry-Sailly' are the adjacent villages of Vitry-en-Artois and Sailly-en-Ostrevent, east of Arras, France.
The Jew with the Blue Max by Heinz Joachim Nowarra, page 7, copyright © John W. Caler 1967, publisher: Aeronautica John W. Caler, publication date: 1967
(3) Beginning of report by Philip Gibbs on the first day of the Battle of Arras. The British were successful that first day, after a preliminary bombardment that killed many defenders and destroyed many of their trenches and dugouts. They advanced as much as three and a half miles. In their greatest single triumph of the war, the Canadians took most of Vimy Ridge, high ground seized by German troops in 1914 that had cost many French lives since. A journalist, Gibbs was one of the five official British reporters who covered the war.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. V, 1917, p. 153, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(4) Untitled poem [Bugle Call] by Edward Thomas, killed April 9, 1917, in the Battle of Arras.
The Collected Poems of Edward Thomas by Edward Thomas, pp. 107–108, copyright © R. George Thomas 1978, 1981, publisher: Oxford University Press, publication date: 1981
(5) Britain's Arras Offensive, part of the Franco-British Nivelle Offensive, commenced Easter Monday, April 9, 1917. The Canadian Corps was assigned the task of capturing Vimy Ridge. On the first day, the Corps had largely completed its task, taking high ground that had cost thousands of French and Allied lives since 1914. 'The Pimple', Point 120, was captured on April 12.
The Battle of Vimy Ridge by Alexander McKee, page 194, copyright © 1966 Alexander McKee, publisher: Stein and Day, publication date: 1967
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