Canadian Expeditionary Force Study Group

1. Library and Archives Canada
2. CEFSG War Diary Transcription

Nicholson - The P.P.C.L.I. in the Ypres Salient 1915, page 88

The Battles of Ypres, 1915 were to continue for three more weeks, but in these later phases the only Canadian battalion engaged was Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. The unit had crossed to France as part of the 80th Brigade of the 27th Division, and from 7 January to 23 March 1915 had served in the St. Eloi sector. In this period its most significant operation had been a small local attack carried out by upwards of 100 Patricias on 28 February. At a cost of sixteen casualties (five of them fatal) they inflicted an unknown number of casualties on the Germans and destroyed thirty yards of enemy trench."° On 9 April, as the division relieved the French 17th Division in the Ypres Salient, the Patricias occupied positions in front of Polygon Wood, three miles south of the 2nd Canadian Brigade’s right at Berlin Wood. During the bitter fighting on the northern flank the battalion was under repeated bombard­ments, and suffered 80 casualties. On the withdrawal of Plumer’s Force on the night of 3-4 May the Patricias fell back to Bellewaarde Ridge, half a mile north­east of 1-looge on the Menin Road . Here on 4 May, before there was time to develop their unfinished, shallow trenches, they suffered 122 casualties in the shelling and machine-gun fire that accompanied the enemy’s follow-up.