Black Yesterdays: The Argylls’ War—a brilliant book by Robert L. Fraser, PhD—is a narrative of the Canadian soldiers in Europe who served with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. The entries are all first-hand recollections of the men in the battles woven together with the official War Diary.
The Argylls came in to relieve the Lincoln and Welland Regiment, and would endure the same terrible punishment for several days of being commanded to send small groups of soldiers against a massed German army with tanks and heavy artillery in place. This was a strategy of the High Command to keep the large German force in place so they wouldn’t move south and battle against the American troops who weren’t as advanced as the Canadians. Our troops were sacrificed to protect the Americans.
The following excerpts, from pages 211-222 of Black Yesterdays, document that experience in Tilly, in the words of the men who fought there.
Continue reading “The Argylls in Tilly”