'Taking of Vimy Ridge - A German machine gun casement in village of Thelus - close to my Head Quarters 50th H.A. Group', 1917 (c)

Photograph, World War One (1914-1918), 1917 (c).

A captured German concrete bunker positioned amidst the rubble of a ruined French village on the Western Front.

On 9 April 1917, four divisions of Canadian infantry recaptured the four-mile long strategic height of Vimy Ridge as part of the Battle of Arras (1917). Vimy Ridge had been occupied by the Germans since October 1914. Fortified, it commanded the flat countryside for miles around.

From an album of 253 photographs compiled by Charles William Stulpnagel (known as Swinton after December 1914), 50th Heavy Artillery Group, 1889-1920.