De-lionizing Vimy

“Give me a real victory, not just another Vimy,” said King George V. The Battle of Vimy Ridge was a small part of a bigger battle, the Battle of Arras, April 4 to May 9, 1917, in which there were nearly half a million casualties. It was basically a failure in that the line of battle did not really change.

As for being when Canada came together, consider Sergeant Masumi Mitsui, a Japanese-Canadian soldier who fought bravely at Vimy, was wounded, and received the Medal of Valour. In 1942, the police came to his home and took him and his family off to a prison camp without trial. The story is that the sergeant threw his medal on the floor.

Vern Huffman Burnaby, British Columbia