Topic: The Field of Battle
Personnel of the 1st Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery (R.C.H.A.) with a 25-pounder Howitzer field gun during field exercises, Barham, England, 10 April 1942.
Photographer: C.E. Nye. Mikan Number: 3397506.
From the Library and Archives Canada virtual exhibit "Faces of War."
Unidentified signaller receiving the order to fire a 5.5-inch gun of a Medium Regiment of the Royal Canadian Artillery (R.C.A.) south of Vaucelles, France, 23 July 1944. Photographer: Ken Bell, Mikan Number: 3396144. From the Library and Archives Canada virtual exhibit "Faces of War."
Sergeant E.F. Offord, 4th Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery (R.C.A.), piling empty shell cartridges, Ossendrecht, Netherlands, 23 October 1944. Photographer: Ken Bell. Mikan Number: 3202165. From the Library and Archives Canada virtual exhibit "Faces of War."
An "Uncle" Shoot
Artist at War, Charles Comfort, 1956
Just as night was closing in on us again, … an "Uncle" barrage, eighty-one rounds, charge three. … a Divisional shoot, every available gun … The first fifteen minutes would be a concentration, the second a timed creeping barrage.
I selected a vantage point and waited for the order. At 1730 hours, in the almost complete darkness, the night was cracked open with fire and super thunder. Never had I heard or seen such infernal theatre. There were moments of continuous arc-like brightness under the black sky. Oratino, on its crag, was side-lit like Klingsor's castle in a Gordon Craig setting. At one instant the image of its sky-line registered black on the retina, the next it was white like a photographic negative. The valley seemed like a garden of blinding flamejets, rocked by the deafening volcanic crashes of creation. The muzzle-brake on the guns split the flame of the burning propellant into long fiery tridents, blue-white tongues of flame. This indeed was the mad, reckless energy of war … a percussion cacophony of death that outstripped any other audible experience. The gunners worked like demon puppets, no word of command passing between them, only a continuous dance of galvanic action. Passing ammunition … locking and opening the breach … ramming home the charge … jerking the trigger lanyard … all done in the dark or by the flash of neighbouring guns. No language sacred or profane had power or force in the situation. Command Post officers watched every movement. The command had been given; there was nothing to do but wait for it to be carried to its completion. … At 1800 hours, as suddenly as it started, the violence ended. The de profundis silence which followed was like a numbed vacuum, the sort of dark sepulchral silence that must have preceded the happenings in Genesis. But gradually distant voices swam into the field of consciousness again. Gunners laughed and lit cigarettes. Sergeants counted spent shell cases and reported expenditures. The "Uncle" shoot was over.
Gunners of the 2nd Medium Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery (R.C.A.), loading a 5.5-inch gun, Netherlands, 2 April 1945.
Photographer: Colin Campbell McDougall. Mikan Number: 3209132.
From the Library and Archives Canada virtual exhibit "Faces of War."
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