CSM Abbott Ross, DCM, 18th Battalion CEF

Abbott Ross was born in North Ridge, Ontario, just outside of Essex. Ross joined the 21st Fusiliers in October 1910, where he served until the outbreak of the First World War. By this time, Ross achieved the rank of Sergeant. He enlisted immediately when the 18th Battalion Canadian Expeditionary Force was formed in late September 1914, becoming the battalion’s first recruit. After his medical examination, Ross was transferred to Woolsley Barracks in London, Ontario, where he stayed six months while the Battalion mustered its forces and drilled for combat. For most of this time, Ross enforced safety regulations as Sergeant of the Guard. By mid-April 1915, the 18th Battalion was transferred to Halifax and shipped to England on the steamship Grampian. The journey across the Atlantic nearly ended in disaster when one of the steamer’s escort destroyers rammed her by accident, creating a large hole in the hull. Fortunately, the hole was above the water line and the ship was not in danger of sinking. The troopship was towed into Boulogne, France, and the battalion boarded another ship to England. After a month training in England, the battalion was shipped to France and began its march to the frontline.

The unit had only been on the frontline for two hours when it took its first casualties: Captain E.W. Hallam and Corporal W.W. Frew, both killed by a sniper. Upon their arrival to the frontline in Belgium, the men were immediately put to work digging entrenchments, filling sandbags, and placing duckboards. The Battalion’s first two months on duty were spent completing construction and entrenchment projects. In Ross’s words, “The general routine was we would spend six days in the front lines, six days in reserve, and six days in close support.” This pattern of reserve rotation and construction duty continued for the rest of 1915.

The regiment saw its first real combat action on 27 March 1916. The Battle of St. Eloi Craters began with a massive, deafening explosion. For eleven months, British engineers tunneled underneath German positions at a depth of more than twenty meters. Once dug, the tunnels were filled with explosives. On 27 March 1916, these explosives were detonated. “With a roar that shook the countryside for miles” hundreds of German infantrymen were vaporized in gargantuan explosions, creating wide, deep craters in the ground. The 18th Battalion, along with the rest of the 2nd Canadian Division, were tasked with taking these craters. For two weeks, continuous assaults, counterattacks, and countless artillery barrages caused severe casualties on both sides. During the day, when observers had a clear view, both sides shelled each other relentlessly. At night, raiding parties would attempt to take prisoners, destroy equipment, or seize trenches. Any ground gained during the night was retaken the next day when the defenders could bring their artillery to bear. During the battle, the spring rain soaked the battlefield. According to Historian D.J. Goodspeed, the “entire battlefield was water-logged; shell holes and mine craters were ponds; and the so-called trench system was no more than a series of drainage ditches.” Hand grenades were used extensively to clear dugouts and trench lines. In one instance, a group of bombers led by Lieutenant Kerr used six hundred hand-grenades in a single engagement. Despite this bombardment, it was still necessary to take this position “at the point of a bayonet.” After more than two weeks of fruitless battle, it was discovered that neither side could tell which craters they were fighting over. Both sides withdrew from the battle and returned to their original positions. The 18th Battalion took more than a hundred casualties in the battle, the most sustained in combat since their arrival.

After this battle, the 18th Battalion was put back onto reserve duty and began recuperating from its losses. In August, the battalion participated in training exercises to practice advancing under the cover of a creeping barrage. A creeping barrage was an artillery barrage that shifted forward 100 yards every four minutes, allowing friendly infantry to walk safely behind it without being seen. The creeping barrage was one of the new tactics unveiled alongside the first use of tanks in the 18th Battalion’s next battle. To draw German forces away from the bloody siege of Verdun and relieve a beleaguered French army, British strategists devised an attack on the German salient near the Somme River. This was the Battle of the Somme, later remembered as one of the largest battles of the war and in military history. On 15 September 1916, the 18th Battalion was assigned to a large attack on the village of Courcelette. The ruins of Courcelette were situated in the middle of a large flat plain, pockmarked with craters, and littered with barbed wire. Canadian troops were to advance behind a creeping barrage along with thirty-eight Mark I Tanks and seize the south side of the village. Sergeant Abbott Ross led A Company’s No.4 platoon during the attack. He recalled that “Our [British] artillery was sending over hundreds of shells” when he noticed a large German raiding party approaching their trench. The raiding party was kept at bay by heavy machine gun and mortar fire. When the artillery barrage lifted and friendly tanks advanced ahead, Ross and his platoon went “over the top” and began their attack. According to Ross, “The tanks were a surprise to the enemy; that hundreds were killed in the first few minutes.” The 18th Battalion advanced more than a mile before encountering any real resistance. Until that point, the unit was simply steering prisoners back to the rear. The Canadians later reached the second line of German defenders, entrenched around a destroyed sugar factory. At this second line of defense, German machine gun fire intensified. While machine guns pinned down Canadian infantry, German artillery began a counter barrage. This barrage, along with the countless hand grenades thrown by German Infantry, brought the attack to an abrupt halt. The battle was fought back and forth for a week. German artillery support and the stalwart defense of German infantry prevented the attack from being a total success. The 18th Battalion returned to the rear after only a day of fighting. In this time, the Battalion seized several kilometers of ground and took hundreds of prisoners. The Battalion had 91 killed and 207 wounded, more than double their casualties for the entire war at that point. By the end of the Somme offensive, the Battalion would take 160 more casualties. Two weeks after the battle, Ross was promoted to Company Sergeant Major (CSM), replacing Joe Firth who was wounded.

After their time at the Somme, the Battalion was shifted to the rear to reconstruct their unit and train for their next operation. In February, the unit was amassed with the rest of the Canadian Corps to rehearse for what would become their biggest triumph of the war: Vimy Ridge. The Canadian attack on Vimy Ridge was in support of a main effort along the Arras salient by several French and British Armies and was meant to draw German reserves and artillery away from the other Allied offensives. Vimy Ridge had been held by the Germans for all of the war and the Canadians were not expected to be successful. The view its heights commanded prohibited any Allied advance in the area; the railway behind the ridge was also a major German supply route. Seizing the ridge would not only bolster the Allied defensive position, but it would also be the first step in any major offensive in the area. The 18th Battalion trained in the new platoon “fire and movement tactics” and familiarized themselves with the new weapons granted to infantry from January to March 1917. The Canadian infantry platoons were armed with grenades, rifles, light machine guns, and trench mortars. Each soldier would also carry his own map or sketch. Canadian troops rehearsed the attack on Vimy Ridge for three weeks. A hill with replica German trenches and similar muddy conditions was used to rehearse every step of the battle. The role of the 18th Battalion was to secure the first and second German trench lines, thus paving the way for the 20th and 21st Battalions to secure the top of the ridge.

At 5:15 a.m. on 9 April 1917, fifteen minutes before the battle was to begin, the men of the 18th Battalion drank their rum rations and made their way through the tunnels to cover their approach. The tunnels opened twenty meters from German positions. The Battalion had thirty-two minutes to secure both trench lines and repel any German counter attacks. The heavy British artillery bombardment lifted; the creeping barrage had begun. The Battalion stormed out of their tunnels and took the first German trench line completely by surprise. German infantry defending this trench only offered pockets of resistance. According to Ross, “[s]ome fought hard and some threw up their hands and quit.” After the first line was secured, Ross and the rest of the Battalion headed through no-mans-land towards the second German defensive line. Following the creeping barrage as close as possible, the men crossed no-mans-land without incident and began the brutal assault on their final objective. German defenders fought to the death, holding their trench at all costs. Dugouts were cleared with grenades and bayonets, a slow and ugly process. During the Battalion’s attack, a German machine gun began to suppress Canadian infantry from a nearby hill. Lance-Sergeant Ellis Sifton took it upon himself to clear out this machine gun. Using his rifle and bayonet, Sifton killed the Germans operating the gun and successfully defended the position from a counterattack. Sifton was killed in the process. He was later awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions, the highest award for valour in combat granted by the British government and the only one received by the 18th Battalion. With the machine gun neutralized, the Battalion’s final objective was swiftly taken. In minutes, the 21st Battalion passed the 18th and continued onto the top of the ridge. At this point, Ross took his men into Ziva cave, a nearby chalk mine, where the soldiers rested for twelve hours before the next day of fighting. By the end of 9 April 1917, Vimy Ridge was secured. The Vimy Railway had been captured and German forces were repulsed another five kilometers the next day. The 18th Battalion had completed all its first day objectives on time and with ‘relatively’ few casualties, 40 killed and 120 wounded. After Vimy Ridge, the Battalion occupied new defensive positions and repulse a vicious German counterattack. The Battalion suffered numerous gas casualties, as German artillery began to use “green cross shells” containing chemical agents that could asphyxiate a person in minutes.

In June 1917, the Battalion returned to the read to recuperate and prepare for yet another attack. In late July, talks began about the capture of a nearby German strongpoint on Hill 70. The hill overlooked the town of Lens and provided a brilliant vantage point for artillery and machine guns. Using the hill, British forces could bombard all German positions inside and approaching the city. Additionally, a major German railway ran over the hill. If severed, the German defensive positions inside the city would be compromised. To capture it, Corps Commander, General Arthur Currie planned to replicate his success on Vimy Ridge. Canadian infantry would storm the hill after intense artillery fire. They would use trench mortars, light machine guns, and hand grenades to clear pockets of German resistance along the way. Machine guns were crucial to the plan, and each company was to bring a Vickers heavy machine gun up to the hill once captured. Telegraph wires would also be run behind the advancing infantry to give them communication with Allied artillery. Using wire communication, Canadian infantry would be able to call for artillery barrages at will. After the hill was taken, the heavy machine guns and close support artillery would be used to drive off any counterattacks. The Battle of Hill 70 would also be the first battle where observation aircraft equipped with radios would be used to direct artillery. The attack was to take place on the early morning of 15 August 1917.

On 11 August 1917, the men of the 18th Battalion were billeted in the village of Bovigny to recover from a raid on German trenches the day before. In preparation for the attack, the men were deloused and given baths. CSM Abbott Ross was given fourteen days leave in England at the end of July. He had hoped that he would finally miss a battle, as he had participated in nearly every single engagement of the 18th Battalion thus far. On 14 August, Ross returned from his leave and was immediately informed that he “was just in time as we [they] had a job to do in the morning.” The Battalion’s objectives were three German trenches. The final objective was named Chicory Trench and was the most heavily defended. German tactics was to leave the first two trenches lightly defended to minimize casualties from British bombardment. At 4:15 a.m. on 15 August, the attack began. The first two trenches were swiftly cleared with minimal casualties. C Company advanced on Chicory Trench in only twenty-six minutes. The company began clearing out the final objective with grenades and bayonets. By 6:00 a.m., the trench was secured and defensive preparations were well under way. A German counterattack was launched within two hours of the trench’s capture, but it was easily repulsed with the support of defensive artillery fire. From this point on, German counterattacks were only launched at night. For two days and one night, German forces conducted numerous counterattacks and bombing raids, driving the Canadians off the trench only to lose it themselves hours later. The fight for Chicory Trench went back and forth for thirty-six hours. In this time, more than fifteen German counter attacks took place, everyone eventually repulsed.

On the dawn of 17 August, Ross and his company of sixty men were waiting in the jumping-off point for the artillery to stop and their assault to begin. They were to seize the nearby railways and use the position to flank potential German counterattacks. Suddenly, one of his platoon commanders panicked and hid himself in a dugout. As the assault drew nearer, Ross attempted to drag the man out of his dugout and stop his panic. At this the man went, in Ross’s words, “[c]ompletely berserk and jumped over the wrong bank.” The panicked officer ran away and was followed by a large portion of the company. After this mass desertion, Ross was left with only twenty-two men under his command. Despite their numbers, Ross and his men carried out the assault when the artillery stopped. According to Ross, they were on their objective “before the Germans had time to get their heads up.” Ross and what remained of his company bombed out the trench and dugouts with grenades and seized the position. During the following night, Ross and his men repulsed three German counterattacks, using the artillery to great effect. The heavy bombardment also concealed their numbers. Ross remarked that “[h]ad the Germans known how few of us there were, they would have wiped us out.” For his initiative and bravery in defending the trench Ross was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal DCM). With all objectives secured, the Battalion switched to the defensive. Over the next two days, six further counterattacks were repulsed with little ground gained or lost. By the morning of 19 August, the 18th Battalion was relieved, and German forces were totally exhausted and severely understrength. In only five days, five German divisions were destroyed. The Battalion had sustained 43 killed and 125 wounded and missing during the fighting. On the march to the rear, a heavy German shell landed on men marching in column, killing 23 and wounding another 29, bringing the total casualties for the Battalion up to 220. Lieutenant Rooney wrote in his diary that “it was an awful mess trying to sort out the pieces.” Hill 70 stayed under Allied control for the remainder of the war and the town of Lens fell shortly after.

The Battalion was given a well-deserved break after this battle. For the next two months, the men followed a program of training and sport, occasionally being reassigned to construction projects and stretcher duty. Meanwhile, a massive battle raged in Flanders outside the town of Ypres. In late October 1917, the Third Battle of Ypres, also known as Passchendaele, was dragging on seemingly with no end in sight. The battle had been initially launched to seize the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, a major German submarine base. This goal was almost immediately abandoned in favor of capturing the hotly contested Passchendaele Ridge. The massive offensive began on 31 July 1917 and continued until its completion in November. Passchendaele Ridge was the key defensive position for the German forces. The Germans had used the superior positioning of the ridge to repel every Allied assault thus far. Offensive progress was nearly impossible due to the awful terrain. The complex system of levies and drainage ditches had been ruined over the duration of the war. Years of rain, melted snow, and tidal floods inundated the sandy earth until it resembled quicksand. The deep gelatinous muck was nearly impossible to fight in. Trenches could not be constructed in it and tanks could not cross it. The transport of supplies to the front and wounded to the rear was long and treacherous. Wooden causeways had to be constructed on the mud to move to and from the frontlines. Many men and animals of burden fell off the causeways and disappeared in the mud during these trips. The water that saturated the mud and pooled in the craters was also toxic. Years of chemical attacks made the water poisonous to drink and dangerous to handle. The infantry stationed in this mud had no shelter and no escape; they simply picked a shell hole to hide in and hoped for the best.

Commander Canadian Corps General Arthur Currie was given the task of seizing Passchendaele Ridge. Using his slow and methodical tactics developed at Vimy Ridge and perfected at Hill 70, Currie forced the Germans off the ridgeline and successfully captured their HQ, a large bunker complex in the middle of the ridge. The Canadian Corps achieved this with heavy casualties, some of the highest of the war. In the early morning of 9 November 1917, the men of the 18th Battalion advanced to the frontline and relieved the 22nd and 25th Battalions. The Battalion were tasked with holding the frontline for as long as possible. As Ross put it, “[t]here was nothing to do but watch the enemy and wait for [their] relief.” Neither side could attack through the open mud, instead they resorted to shelling and air attacks. In the first hours, a heavy German artillery barrage killed six and wounded a dozen more. This same barrage buried Abbott Ross in the mud, who was luckily dug out by Lieutenant McGamon. When Ross escaped the mud, he jokingly remarked to his men that they “didn’t need a new C. S. M. yet.” Later the next day, Ross and Lieutenant Smith toured the position, visiting the soldiers in an effort to boost morale. The visits were soon interrupted when a German spotter plane began to strafe them with machine gun fire, which was quickly followed by German artillery fire. Ross and Smith took cover in a nearby cellar and waited for the plane to leave and the bombardment to stop. The Battalion was eventually relieved on 13 November. During their four days on the frontline, the Battalion took 45 killed and 92 wounded. Of the original 100, only 24 men in Ross’s company left Passchendaele “under their own steam.” The others were killed or badly wounded. These casualties were not heavy in comparison to the other Canadian units stationed at Passchendaele. However, it was a high price to pay for only four days of passive defense.

The defense of Passchendaele was Ross’s last major engagement of the war. In late July 1918, he was relieved from active service and transferred back to the 4th Reserve Battalion in England. He spent the next four months as a CSM enforcing discipline inside the 4th Reserve Battalion. He was slated to return to France in November to replace the 18th Battalion’s Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM). However, the Armistice was signed and hostilities officially ended before he returned. In late December, Ross boarded the RMS Carmania and began his journey home. The ship arrived in Halifax on 1 January 1919. At the end of January, Ross received his discharge papers in London, Ontario. He spent over 33 months in active service in the trenches of the Western Front. Ross spent the rest of his life in the Windsor area.

Story by Calvin Barrett, Canada Summer Jobs 2022 participant
with The Essex and Kent Scottish Regiment Association

Sources:

• War Diary, 18th Battalion, 2nd Canadian Division, 1917-1918.
• Duty Nobly Done, The History of The Essex and Kent Scottish Regiment by Sandy Antal and Kevin R. Shackleton, 2006 – Chapter 6-8
• 18thbattalioncef.blog