Canada is provided with clothing and food by England. It pays them for everything. He recognized that the United States could not have entered earlier, as their people were not favourable. Hoped the U. S. would profit by their experience and avoid their mistakes. “The lessons of the war should teach the U. S. how to use their great power to advantage and secure permanent victory and peace.” He said he knew a great deal about the U. S., as he lived in Vancouver, and was a National Guardsman, colonel of a regiment, then had a brigade, a division, and now a corps.
After our talk, we entered his Rolls Royce, and went to Vimy Ridge accompanied by G. S. O. No. 3 of the Corps, a fine intelligent fellow. We walked eight hundred yards over a long row of slats laid down for King George who made the same trip, and after passing through a trench, reached an observation tower. It had an opening about 8 ft. wide and was 20 inches in height, and was used by a sergeant and two assistants. Had powerful glasses and maps showing the country. We could see the Battle of Lens in its progress. The ground around it was pock-marked with shells. The panorama of the fight was thrilling to behold. It gave an impression of the enormity of the task to make any progress at all. We wore steel helmets and carried our gas masks with which we had practised in the auto, as we were well in the danger zone. Some shells dropped within 400 yards of us. The N. C. O. [non-commissioned officer] in charge pointed out some Boches running on the streets of Lens and also corpses lying in little gray heaps. Sixty-pounders and other shells were being hurled through the air above us right into Lens and Mericourt and in return the Germans were firing on Vimy. Two airplanes were flying right over the battlefield, with German shells exploding several hundred feet below them.
When I had started on this trip with Sir Douglas Haig as my chief objective, my wife had begged me to ascertain from Sir Douglas why he had not captured Lens. The reader will recall that, at that time, there were constant reports about the Battle of Lens, and it was very puzzling to us that, although the British seemed in complete control of the batteries around Lens, they hesitated about taking the town. Therefore, one of the first questions I put to Sir Douglas when I met him three days after my meeting with Currie, was the one entrusted to me by my wife, and in reply he explained to me that it was more efficacious to use Lens as a means of diminishing the Germans’ unused reserve than to take possession of it.