Battle of Neuville-Vitasse (1918)

In the final months of the First World War, on the night of 8 June 1918, the Germans attempted a vicious attack in the sector defended by the 22nd Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, in the area of Neuville-Vitasse, France. After an intense artillery bombardment, a three-pronged German attack was launched. At the post defended by Joseph Kaeble’s machine-gun section, the resistance was truly heroic. Kaeble repelled the enemy, before dying of his wounds the next night. He was the first French Canadian soldier to be awarded (posthumously) the Victoria Cross.