Mortlach-area soldier Pte. William Johnstone Milne posthumously received the Victoria Cross during the Battle of Vimy Ridge, and based on the work of historians, his exploits during that fateful day of April 9, 1917 are better known.
Reports from Canadian sources said the Scottish Canadians suffered heavy casualties in capturing the first German trenches, and when they reached the second of three enemy trench lines, resistance had stiffened.
Men rushed from shell hole to shell hole, attacking strong points with grenades and bayonets. Sources said it wasn’t hard to spot the strong points because mounds of corpses in front indicated their positions. Officers and men fell where they were hit, but the advance never slackened as junior ranks took over.
It was here that Milne won the Victoria Cross by acting on his own initiative as he had been taught. A machine gun on the left was causing fearful damage and its crew was fighting off all attempts to capture it.
“A fan-shaped heap of corpses was piling up in front of the gun when Milne leaped from a nearby shell hole, crawled on his hands and knees through the mud and managed to destroy the German position with a grenade,” Canadian historian Pierre Burton recorded in his book “Vimy.”
Laster, as resistance crumbled, some German machine guns were still firing. Here the indomitable Bill Milne clinched his hold on the Victoria Cross with a second feat of daring. Vicious fire was holding up the battalion’s advances and it came from a haystack directly in front of Milne.
“What was a haystack doing in No Man’s Land, where every other object had been ground into the mud?” Burton recorded Milne saying before his death.
Milne crawled forward and discovered that the haystack was a concrete machine-gun emplacement. His throwing arm didn’t fail him, and a Mills bomb put the gun out of action and terrified the survivors, who saw Milne charging at them. They surrendered and the Canadian advance continued.
Milne was killed later that day. He was 25 years old.
The Wishaw Press newspaper recalled Milne’s exploits in an article on Aug. 1, 1919.
“The wonderful daring and heroic conduct of the late Private William J. Milne V.C. (Canadian Infantry Battalion) in capturing two German machine guns single handed, and thus saving the lives of his comrades, will be forever recalled as one of the greatest acts of bravery yet performed on the battlefield,” the article said.
“The feeling of pride and satisfaction felt by the entire community in having the highest of all military awards conferred on one of our own townsmen is coupled with the sad remembrance of the heroic death of the young soldier who sacrificed his life after performing the acts of heroism for which he won the posthumous award.”
After enlisting in Canada on Sept. 12, 1915, Milne gave a framed certificate to his parents that recorded how he had joined the army in Moose Jaw. He was on active duty for a year and twice visited his parents.
“Private Milne’s mother recalled with pride that he was a boy who never gave her a day’s worry. He was an exceedingly cheery and good-hearted lad and this doubtless accounted for his popularity among his comrades in the army,” the article said.
His younger relatives thought he was kind, considering he sent them many gifts and souvenirs. Meanwhile, up until his death, he wrote home regularly. His last letter was to his sister Bessie to whom, with the coming “Big Push,” he sent her his personal items.
He explained that he “was not going to give Fritz any chance to get them off him” and gave her instructions if he should be killed.
His commanding officer later said, “His loss is keenly felt by all ranks, with whom he was deservedly popular. He was buried near where he fell on the battlefield and a cross will be erected to his memory.”
Since his body was never found afterward, Milne’s name was inscribed on the Vimy Ridge Monument in France, along with 11,285 other soldiers with no known graves.
