63 The Royal Canadian Legion MANITOBA & NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO COMMAND www.mbnwo.ca DELHAYE, Leopold “Leo” (continued) By noon, the Canadians had captured most of the ridge. Before dark they had also taken Hill 145 and had accomplished what everyone else said could not be done. They dug in on the lower east slope in the bitter cold waiting for a counter attack that never came. By the end of the battle it had cost them 10,000 casualties - one quarter of whom never went home. Some were lucky however. Leo saw a soldier step on a land-mine get shot straight up into the air and drop back down untouched and unaware of what had happened. Upon his return to Sylvan, Manitoba, he learned that it had been a man from that area. The fighting continued to the Battle of Arleux - Loop. The 2nd Brigade was assigned the task of eliminating the village. The 8th Battalion moved into the front line on the night of April 26, 1917 with 27 officers and 714 men under Major Mackenzie. The artillery opened the attack at 4:25 AM on April 28 and the assault companies moved in right away. The 8th Battalion was hit by considerable machine-gun and rifle fire. They were up against the 73rd Fusiliers of the German 111th Division noted for their ferocious counter-attacks. The company in the centre was held up by the heavy rolls of barbed wire and lost all their Officers. The rolls of wire were made of heavy tempered steel as high as a house and 80 feet thick with barbs five inches long. The enemy awaited the Canadians behind the wire. The artillery totally demolished the village and the 8th got into the village in record time. Street fighting followed among the ruins with the enemy fighting to their last 100 men. The 2nd Brigade collected another 300 prisoners after the surrender, however it cost them 1,000 casualties, 300 of them “Little Black Devils” with 50 dead. Their strength was reduced to 435 men and the 8th was withdrawn from the line. Leo was wounded by a gunshot wound in the left foot on April 29, 1917. The Battle ended successfully on April 30, 1917. From the book “The Militia of Manitoba 1883-1979”, Bruce Tascona writes “Throughout the war, the 8th Battalion held the proud honour of never having lost a trench. The 8th Battalion participated in every major battle that the Canadian Corps took part in”. By June 15, 1917, Leo was back in England in the military hospital at Ramsgate where he remained until the end of August. He was then sent to Epson and on December 3, 1917 to Liverpool, England. After his return to Canada, he was honourably discharged on April 8, 1918 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Leo returned to his homestead after the war remaining there until 1928. After his marriage to Anna Coppens in 1927, he sold his homestead and worked out for several years. They moved to Fisher Branch with their two daughters, Therese (Mrs. Tim Vandersteen) and Alma (Mrs. Paul Vandersteen) in 1930 and started a business – a rooming house and butcher shop. Leo’s wound left him with a slight limp and for many years he kept pulling splinters of shattered bone from his foot. He always listened to the Armistice Day services on November 11 on the radio but when the bugler played the ‘Last Post’ for the two-minute silence, he could never remain in the house. He always walked out with tears in his eyes, remembering his friends. As Pierre Berton wrote in his book “Vimy”, when Commanding Officer Currie questioned why men fought, he replied, “They did it for their closest friends – the half-dozen private soldiers with whom they slept, ate, laughed, worked and caroused, the men in their own section whom they could and would not let down because in moments of desperation and terror their virtual existence was woven together as tightly as whipcord.” On October 3, 1941, Leo tried to enlist in the Canadian Field Force at Winnipeg, Manitoba for World War II. He claimed to be 49 years of age, actually, he was 59 years old and medically unfit for service. When told he was too old, Leo told the Medical Officer that, ‘he’ (the Medical Officer) was just as old and in the Army. Leo passed away in Deer Lodge Hospital on November 24, 1959. He had belonged to the General McNaughton Branch 134 of The Royal Canadian Legion. His medals include: the British War Medal, the Victory Medal and One Gold Stripe.
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