Sergeant Victor Alvus Arding

Victor Arding was born in Reading, Berkshire on October 19, 1890. He and his wife, Florence Catherine, lived on West River Street. They attended St James Anglican Church. Victor was employed as a fireman at Ritchie and Ramsey Paper Mill in New Toronto. He enlisted in Toronto with the 75^th Battalion (Mississauga) on July 22, 1915. Before the war, Victor had seen service with the 12^th Royal Lancers in both India and South Africa, during the Second Boer War, and in India.

Sergeant Arding was decorated for his bravery on the night of September 8, 1916, during the Battle of the Somme. A party of soldiers was sent out to explore wire entanglements and observe the enemy’s trenches. They were fired upon by German machine guns, and two officers fell on the edge of the German trenches. Their party were able to drag them back to a shell crater. When German flares died down, the soldiers were able to crawl back to their trenches, leaving the officers behind.

Victor Arding was one of six soldiers who volunteered to rescue the two abandoned officers. Under heavy artillery fire, they reached the crater but found that the officers’ bodies had been removed by the Germans and they had to return to safety empty handed. Nevertheless, Sergeant Arding and five others were awarded the Military Medal for their courage.

Two months later, Arding moved with the 4th Canadian Division to the Somme sector. On November 18, 1916, the 75th Canadian Infantry Battalion led a brutal attack on Desire Trench near Courcelette, France, during the Battle of the Ancre. Operating in horrific conditions of freezing mud and snow, the battalion suffered massive losses, including 104 deaths and over 200 casualties. Tasked with capturing the heavily fortified Desire Trench, the battalion advanced through mud and blinding snow. The operation was one of the bloodiest days for the battalion during the First World War. The 75th Battalion suffered 248 casualties, with 104 men killed in action and 71 having no known grave. Both Victor and his brother John were killed. He was 26 years old; his brother was 32. This attack marked the conclusion of the five-month-long Battle of the Somme. Neither brother's body was recovered or identified following the chaos of the artillery barrages and deep mud at the Somme. Today, both Sergeant Victor Alvus Arding and Corporal John Arding are commemorated side-by-side on the walls of the Vimy Memorial in France. The Battle of the Somme came to typify the futility of trench warfare in World War I.