Shoulder patch - 3rd Infantry brigade - 1st Canadian Division

"Faithful Forever"

Gas being released from German cylinders in front line trenches

The Project Team has erected a memorial in Europe to commemorate those who earned this battle honour. Click the button to learn more.

This page describes one of the 21 battle honours won by the 15th Battalion CEF. This action is part of the Battle of Ypres, 1915.

On 22 April 1915, elements of the German Fourth Army attacked the northern shoulder of the Ypres Salient, a strategically vital position defended by British, Canadian, French and Belgian forces. There, for the first time on the Western Front, the German Army employed chlorine gas, a lethal chemical agent. Lacking any protection against the suffocating chlorine, French troops defending the sector between the Yser Canal and Poelkapelle were overrun and forced to withdraw towards Ypres. The immediate British and Canadian response to the gas attack hinged on the small village of St. Julien, situated on the Ypres-Poelkapelle road. Dangerously exposed on the open left flank of the 1st Canadian Division, the village was defended by a composite force of Canadian troops mainly from the 3rd Brigade, including No. 2 Company from the 15th Battalion (48th Highlanders of Canada).

For three days after the initial gas attack, St. Julien witnessed heavy fighting and significant damage as the Canadian garrison struggled to hold the village. On 24 April, after another devastating chlorine attack — this time concentrated against the forward Canadian trenches east of St. Julien and north of Gravenstafel Ridge — German troops occupied the village. At dusk on 25 April, the 15th Battalion had lost nearly 700 men – killed, wounded, missing or taken as prisoners of war. Most of these casualties were sustained by Nos. 1, 3, and 4 Companies during the gas attack of 24 April. These units were situated in the front-line trenches near the Stroombeek as well as the Battalion’s forward headquarters and support positions near the Stecnakker windmill and Locality C on O.L.Vrouwstraat. Many Highlanders from No. 2 Company however also fell in the battle for St. Julien.

Gravenstafel – St Julien map

The video ‘Roll Call’ of The Fallen from 2nd Ypres ‘speaks their names’ and in doing so ensures that they have not disappeared from our memory and are not truly gone.

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