Rum Ration Podcast Episode 22 – Nine Days of Hellfire: The Battle of Hill 70

Westmount, Quebec – 11 October 2025: In this riveting episode of the Rum Ration Podcast, your hosts, two former RMR members (Rejoy Chatterjee and Colin Robinson), take you back to August 1917. The Western Front is bogged down in blood and mud. The French Army is reeling from mutiny, Passchendaele is already a quagmire, and German U-boats are choking Britain’s lifelines. Into this chaos steps a newly knighted Canadian commander, Sir Arthur Currie—already earning a reputation as one of the war’s finest tacticians—with the confidence to push back on his orders and suggest a smarter plan that would save lives.

Instead of a costly frontal assault on the city of Lens, Currie proposed striking Hill 70, the high ground just north of it. The gamble worked. Over ten days of brutal fighting, including 21 German counter-attacks, the Canadian Corps held firm, inflicted massive losses, and cemented its reputation as an elite fighting force—earning six Victoria Crosses along the way.

Private Raymond Duval of the RMR, who would go on to earn the Military Medal for his actions during the battle, recorded in his diary on August 15:

“Things were popping plenty here and casualties were again being sustained all too frequently.” 

Duval’s wartime diary, published in 1954 and available online via the RMR Foundation, offers day-by-day insights into life at the front and is an invaluable window into the experience of the ordinary soldier. We encourage you to check it out at https://royalmontrealregiment.com/history/duval-diary/ 

The Royal Montreal Regiment was there—through gas, shellfire, and relentless pressure—earning a place among Canada’s proudest battlefield moments.

Available now at rumration.ca or wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Amazon, Pocket Casts, Spotify, and YouTube).