The old song sticks in my mind as I stand beside the towering statue of a cloaked and hooded woman, her eyes downcast.  Together we overlook Vimy Ridge, she depicting Canada mourning her lost sons and I to pay homage to my great uncle who lost his young life on this lonely field in France ninety years ago.

Through a grey sky, thick with heavy rain clouds, I swear I can see the shadows of soldiers climbing up the Ridge, clammy hands clenched tightly around their rifles.  As thunder rolls in the distance I hear the deafening roar of machine guns, mortars and cannons.  Dampness mingles with the putrid smell of cordite, choking the air.  But gazing hard across this pockmarked hill, I cannot possibly imagine the smells, the sounds and the agonizing fear that gripped every young man who began his ascent on April 9, 1917. 

Vimy Ridge, at a length of seven kilometres and a height of one hundred and forty-five meters, had been under German control since 1914 and was heavily fortified with trenches, tunnels and machine gun nests.  The Ridge had enormous strategic importance, with its unobstructed views for tens of kilometres.  If the allies were to gain the advantage, Vimy Ridge had to be taken.  The Canadian Corps was about to try.

Made up of volunteers, two-thirds of the Corps was British–born.  One of the soldiers was my great-uncle who had left his home in Perth, Scotland to travel to Canada, signing up with the Alberta Infantry Regiment. Family lore suggests that his mother disapproved of him joining the British army--his brother Thomas had enlisted a year earlier--so he ran away to Canada and signed up under a false name, Daniel Fowler. 

His real name was Daniel Foley.  He was one of six children from a family of poor means, an average bloke in the industrial city of Perth.  He worked in the coal mines like many of his peers, and perhaps looked to the war with a sense of adventure, a way out of his bleak destiny in the mines. 

On Easter Monday morning, April 9th, 1917, almost two years to the day after Danny had arrived in France, the battle for Vimy Ridge was set to begin. Danny had already been fighting in France for six months but this battle was different.  It was the first time that all four divisions of the Canadian Corps were to attack simultaneously. 

At 5:30 .m., it all began.  Mines exploded in no man's land, creating craters to shelter advancing troops from machine-gun fire.  Allied artillery barrages whistled overhead.  Together with his comrades from the 10th Battalion, Private Daniel Foley advanced. Only days earlier, perhaps realizing the difficulties that would be created if he died under a false name, he had confessed to his superiors and his records were changed to reflect his real identity. 

The first advance reached its initial objective in less than an hour.  There was a brief rest for the men on the ground, then another advance, and another.  After three days of steady fighting and hard-won victories, the ridge finally fell into the hands of the allied on April 12th. But Danny wasn't there to celebrate the victory.  He was killed in the first offensive. He was twenty-six years old.

In total 3,598 Canadians lost their lives in the three days of the battle and 10,602 were wounded.  In 1922, France donated two hundred and fifty acres in perpetuity to the people of Canada where now resides the largest of Canada's war monuments. 

As I stand beside the great and sorrowful stone lady I mourn those whose lives were lost.

Six and a half kilometres away, past a field where rows of corn sway quietly in the wind, I find my great-uncle's grave at Nine Elms Cemetery and crouch down to trace his name in the stone. I reflect on the path that had taken me here, to the gravesite of a man of whom I had heard very little about as I was growing up.  While both of my grandfathers saw active service during the Great War, they were among the fortunate ones to return home.  Danny seemed a forgotten soul.

My journey to honour his memory started in 2007, when my husband and I temporarily took up residence in Scotland.  There was much I didn't know about my father's clan, so I visited Perth several times seeking connection to my roots.

My quest led me to a cousin, who had researched the family tree and posted it online.  I hadn't realized until I perused the site that my great-uncle had died at Vimy Ridge.

As I learned more about this battle, Canadian pride welled up inside of me.  Iknew I had to go to Vimy, to see where my great-uncle and so many others had lost their lives.  I needed to somehow let him know that his memory would live on.

My great-uncle is a long way from his homeland of Scotland and even farther from Canada, a country he travelled to as the war broke out only long enough to sign his life away.  Danny might have made Canada his home as well, had he lived. 

In the stone wall surrounding the cemetery, there is a book in which I write: 

"To my Great-Uncle Danny:  I never knew you but I'm leaving a piece of my heart with you today."

As I close the gate of Nine Elms, a gentle rain begins to fall and the words of the famous song, Danny Boy, wash over me:

 "And if you come, when all the flowers are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
You'll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an "Ave" there for me."

© Virginia Foley