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“It was a turning point. And to think there was no monument there before, it was just unbelievable.”

Photo by Steph Crosier / Kingston Whig-Standard

Another Canadian victory in northern France months earlier, its Easter 1917 battle against dug-in German forces on wind-swept Vimy Ridge, is often cited as a nation-defining moment in the war for Canada, the first time all four divisions of the young country’s army overseas fought together.

The feat had eluded both the French and the British.

Vimy Ridge is marked by a sweeping, two-spire Canadian memorial that opened in 1936. It’s also featured on the back of the $20 bank note.

Hutchings, diverging from the narrative about Vimy’s nation-forging profile, said he noticed during a family trip to the region in 2008 there was no memorial at the site of the lesser-known battle for Hill 70, a 10-day fight that history records as a strategic victory for the Allies that inflicted heavy German losses.

The Hill 70 volunteers began a memorial fund in 2011, rallying financial support and gifts-in-kind for the project from donors across Canada. They drew support from such luminaries as former governor general David Johnston and Sarnia-born astronaut Chris Hadfield.

The project also received contributions from the governments of France and Ireland.

The Battle of Hill 70 doesn’t live in the Canadian consciousness like Vimy or Passchendaele, Hutchings said, despite six Canadian soldiers earning the Victoria Cross, the highest military honour, for their bravery during the battle. (Two of the six were born in Ireland, accounting for its support of the project.)