By
August of 1918, the Great War in Europe had been dragging on for more than four
years with no end in sight. Those
years of trench warfare, attacks and counter-attacks had yielded small gains
along the front in northern France. In
the spring of 1918 the allied command started making plans for an aggressive
offensive along the western front. On
August 8th,at 4:20 a.m. one of the largest assaults of the war was
launched along a 20 kilometer section of the front. That assault was to become known as the battle of Amiens.
The battle started with an opening barrage of artillery fire directed at
German big gun positions, followed by a charge of Infantry.
The allied ground forces
consisted of 22 divisions of infantry, using French, British, Australian and
Canadian troops. One of the
Canadian Infantry men involved in the so called "Big Push" was Private
Bernard Golden Miller.
Bernard was born in 1893, the son of Charles and Sarah Miller of
Kingsville, Essex County in Ontario. After
growing up in Kingsville, Bernard decided to strike out on his own and moved to
Wallaceburg, Ontario.
On March 24th,1914 Bernard was initiated into Freemasonry as a
member of Pnyx Lodge No. 312 on the register of the Grand Lodge of Canada in the
Province of Ontario. Brother Golden
was passed to the 2nd degree on April 20th
and raised to the sublime degree of a Master Mason on May 10th,1914.
With the outbreak of the Great War in Europe Brother Golden enlisted with
the Canadian Expeditionary Forces and was assigned to the 20th
Battalion of Canadian Infantry, 1st Ontario Regiment with the rank of
private.
The 20th Battalion was assigned to one of the Canadian
Divisions that took part in the August 8th offensive near Amiens.
That offensive proved to be a turning point for the allied forces in the
Great War. The German forces were
smashed. The Battle of Amiens was
the start of the end for Germany in the Great War.
The victory of that battle was never seen by
Private Brother Miller. During the
first day of the attack, on August 8th 1918, he made the supreme
sacrifice for his country.
Brother Private Bernard Golden Miller was laid to
rest at the Crucifix Corner Cemetery, Villers-Bretonneux, France.
