After The Battle 159 - Battle of the Reischswald

BATTLE OF THE REICHSWALD

No. 159

£5.00

NUMBER 159

LONDON STOCKIST for the After the Battle range: Foyles Limited, 113-119 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0EB. Telephone: 020 7437 5660. Fax: 020 7434 1574. E-mail: [email protected]. Web site: www.foyles.co.uk United Kingdom Newsagent Distribution: Warners Group Publications PLC, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH Australian Subscriptions and Back Issues: Renniks Publications Pty Limited Unit 3, 37-39 Green Street, Banksmeadow NSW 2019 Telephone: 61 2 9695 7055. Fax: 61 2 9695 7355 E-mail: [email protected]. Website: www.renniks.com Canadian Distribution and Subscriptions: Vanwell Publishing Ltd., 622 Welland Avenue, St. Catharines, Ontario Telephone: (905) 937 3100. Fax: (905) 937 1760 Toll Free: 1-800-661-6136 E-mail: [email protected] New Zealand Distribution: Dal McGuirk’s “MILITARY ARCHIVE”, PO Box 24486, Royal Oak, Auckland 1345, New Zealand Telephone: 021 627 870. Fax: 9-6252817 E-mail: [email protected] United States Distribution and Subscriptions: RZM Imports Inc, 184 North Ave., Stamford, CT 06901 Telephone: 1-203-324-5100. Fax: 1-203-324-5106 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.rzm.com Italian Distribution: Tuttostoria, PO Box 395, 1-43100 Parma Telephone: ++390521 29 27 33. Fax: ++390521 29 03 87 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.tuttostoria.it Dutch Language Edition: SI Publicaties/Quo Vadis, Postbus 188, 6860 AD Oosterbeek Telephone: 026-4462834. E-mail: [email protected]

CONTENTS THE BATTLE OF THE REICHSWALD NORTH AFRICA Western Desert Battlefield Tours GERMANY The International Tracing Service UNITED KINGDOM The Kingsclere Massacre NEW BOOK The Desert War Then and Now

2 41 44 48 54

Front Cover: This Sherman on display outside the Groesbeek Liberation Museum commemorates the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry for their part in the liberation of the Netherlands and the Reichswald battle. (Karel Margry) Back Cover: A field cemetery at Sidi Rezegh where fierce battles raged for days in November 1941 — pictures from The Desert War Then and Now. The old tomb of a holy man still stands, exactly the same as it did seven decades ago. Acknowledgements: The main text for the Battle of the Reichswald story is taken from The Victory Campaign (Volume III of the Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War) by Colonel C. P. Stacey (Roger Duhamel: Ottawa, 1960) published by authority of the Canadian Minister of National Defence. For help with the Reichswald story, the Editor would like to thank Martijn Bakker, Marco Cillessen, Coert Comans, Fenny Visscher and Colonel Nick Lock. Our thanks also to Kathrin Flor of the International Tracing Service. Photo Credit Abbreviations: IWM — Imperial War Museum; LAC — Library and Archives Canada; NIOD — Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, Amsterdam; USNA — US National Archives.

2

IWM BU1719

© Copyright After the Battle 2013 Editor: Karel Margry Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. Ramsey Published by Battle of Britain International Ltd., The Mews, Hobbs Cross House, Hobbs Cross, Old Harlow, Essex CM17 0NN, England Telephone: 01279 41 8833 Fax: 01279 41 9386 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.afterthebattle.com Printed in Great Britain by Warners Group Publications PLC, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH. After the Battle is published on the 15th of February, May, August and November.

The ‘Veritable’ offensive was extensively covered by the photographers of the Army Film and Photo Unit (AFPU). Sergeants Norman Midgley, Harry Ames and ‘Slim’ Hewitt covered the operations of the 15th (Scottish) Division; Sergeant Albert Wilkes went with the 53rd (Welsh) Division and Sergeant Johnny Silverside and Ken Higgins accompanied the 51st (Highland) Division, while Sergeants Charlie Crocker, Jimmy Christie and Arthur Jones stood ready to cover the actions of the follow-up divisions later on. Captain Colin McDougall and Lieutenant Michael Dean covered the two Canadian divisions. Above and opposite: On the morning of February 8, Sergeant Hewitt pictured men of the 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, part of the 15th Division’s 227th Brigade, moving into battle near Groesbeek. The Churchill tanks are from the 3rd Scots Guards. OPERATION ‘VERITABLE’ Planning for what later became Operation ‘Veritable’ — a south-easterly push between the Maas and Rhine rivers from Nijmegen in the Netherlands through the Reichswald forest and into the German Rhineland — was first begun by Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Horrocks’ British XXX Corps in early October 1944, after the failure of the Arnhem airborne venture. The outline plan made by XXX Corps (known as ‘Wyvern’) was handed over to the Canadians when they relieved that corps in the Nijmegen area in early November. At Headquarters First Canadian Army, the tacit assumption was that the operation (then known as ‘Valediction’) would be undertaken by Canadian II Corps. On December 6 Field-Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, commander of the British 21st Army Group, visited Lieutenant-General Harry Crerar, commander of the First Canadian Army, and discussed his army’s future operations. There is no actual record of the discussion but the following day Crerar’s plans section recorded that it was understood that Montgomery desired that ‘Valediction’ should be ‘under the control of British Second Army’, and that the Americans should take over from his army group the area south of Roermond (then held by XXX Corps). That same day, December 7, at a conference at Maastricht, attended by the Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and his two principal land commanders, Montgomery and Lieutenant-General Omar N. Bradley of the US 12th Army Group, the question of future Allied strategy for the war in north-western Europe was argued out. It was agreed to keep up the pressure on the enemy through the winter. The main attack was to be north of the Ruhr. This was now again to be entrusted to Montgomery’s 21st Army Group, with an American army under command. Just before the conference, on the outskirts of Maastricht, Montgomery had met General Horrocks and discussed the opera-

tion to break through the Reichswald position south-east of Nijmegen with him. Horrocks said he would need five divisions — the number indicated in the ‘Wyvern’ plan — if he was given the task; and after the conference, Montgomery telephoned to say that he would get them and that he was to start thinking out the operation. That same evening Montgomery telephoned Crerar and said he had had a talk with the Supreme Commander and that the Americans would take over the southern part of the British front. Having thought over the Reichswald operation, Montgomery now considered that the Canadian Army should have the responsibility for it. The target date was January 1, 1945. Crerar’s memorandum of the conversation proceeds: ‘I would need another corps for this, and XXX Corps, including up to four infantry and one armoured divisions, would be at disposal. Whether I decided Canadian or XXX Corps to do [the operation], XXX Corps would require to be brought in on right of Canadian Army for future reasons.’ Although Montgomery had courteously left the formal decision to Crerar, in the circumstances he had described logic demanded that XXX Corps should conduct the offensive; and at a conference at Headquarters First Canadian Army later that evening it was explained, ‘First Canadian Army’s offensive will, initially, be undertaken by British XXX Corps.’ The code-name ‘Valediction’ was now changed to ‘Veritable’. Detailed planning for ‘ Veritable’ continued through the second week of December, with close consultation between British and Canadian headquarters. Following a conference with Montgomery on December 9, Crerar issued a preliminary directive to Corps Commanders on the 10th. On the 14th he sent an amended directive. The initial phase was to be the business of XXX Corps. Subsequently Canadian II Corps would come in on the left. However, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division was to take part in Phase 1 under XXX Corps.

IWM BU1716

On February 8, 1945, the First Canadian Army launched Operation ‘Veritable’, a massive offensive designed to conquer the northern half of the German Rhineland and obtain positions favourable for a later assault across the Rhine. From jump-off positions near Nijmegen in the Netherlands, British XXX Corps (operating under Canadian command) launched three British and two Canadian infantry divisions in a concentrated assault towards the southeast and into Germany. Their area of operations was narrow and constricted by the Rhine river in the north and the Maas river in the south. Prime obstacle to their advance was the Reichswald

Forest, an impenetrable area of dense woodland right on the Dutch-German frontier, stretching some 14 kilometres from east to west and eight kilometres from north to south. Through it ran the northern spur of the daunted Siegfried Line, its defensive fortifications anchored on the towns of Kleve in the north and Goch in the south. In two weeks of grim and costly fighting, the British and Canadians battled their way through and past the forest, overcoming mud, rain, floods and fierce German resistance. By February 21 they had emerged from the woods, broken through the Siegfried Line and captured both Kleve and Goch.

THE BATTLE OF THE REICHSWALD Montgomery issued his own directive on ‘Veritable’ on December 16. The general concept was thus stated: ‘Before we can begin to develop successfully large-scale operations across the Rhine we must clear the enemy completely from the west of the river, and must join up with the American Ninth Army coming up from the south; we must in fact be in undisputed possession of all territory west of the Rhine from inclusive the general line Orsoy-Venlo northwards.’ On the morning Montgomery issued this directive, the Germans launched their major counter-offensive in the Ardennes in a final great gamble for victory in the West. Throughout the critical battle in the Ardennes, in spite of commitments there and the threat to the northern front, neither Montgomery nor Crerar lost sight of the requirements of their Rhineland offensive. On January 16, in conference with Crerar, Montgomery outlined his plan ‘to get Allied forces across the River Rhine, north of the Ruhr, in strength’. This plan, presupposing clearance of the Rhineland, could only be carried out with extensive American assistance and, at the time of the discussion, the

question of whether the US Ninth Army would be left under Montgomery’s control had not been decided. However, this difficulty had been resolved when, five days later, Montgomery issued a formal directive announcing his intention of destroying ‘all enemy in the area west of the Rhine from the present forward positions south of Nijmegen as far south as the general line Jülich-Düsseldorf, as a preliminary to crossing the Rhine and engaging the enemy in mobile war to the north of the Ruhr’. The enemy’s situation was described in precisely the words used in the earlier directive issued the day the battle began in the Ardennes. Following the pattern then outlined, Montgomery visualised converging attacks by the First Canadian and US Ninth Armies. The target date for ‘Veri-

By Colonel Charles P. Stacey table’, the Canadian operation, was February 8; but that for ‘Grenade’, the American one, could not yet be fixed. Commencing on January 18, British XXX Corps, 51st (Highland) and 53rd (Welsh) Divisions and ancillary formations had returned to General Crerar’s command for ‘Veritable’. When the Army Commander addressed his senior officers on the 22nd, he noted that the concentration of ‘most of the additional forces required for the operation’ was well advanced. The overall plan for ‘Veritable’, he pointed out, had not been materially changed during the

ATB

Right: Without farms or roads to identify the location, matching up photos in the rolling countryside around Groesbeek is difficult. The Argylls jumped off from positions along Wylerbaan, the road linking Groesbeek with Wyler further north. This is the view from that road, looking east across the fields towards Germany and the Reichswald. The silver-steel column on the right is the Veritable Memorial, erected in 1990 and commemorating that this was the starting point for Montgomery’s great offensive. 3

CANADIAN OFFICIAL HISTORY

month-long delay imposed by the emergency in the Ardennes, but remained as he had outlined it in December. He emphasised how vital it was to achieve surprise — chiefly by the elimination of ‘prolonged preliminary bombardment’ and the substitution of ‘really overwhelming fire’ from the air and the ground as the operation commenced, or was about to commence. He reminded his hearers of the consequence of ‘keeping the initiative, maintaining the momentum of the attack and of driving on, and through, the enemy without let-up’. And finally he directed them to ensure that ‘all ranks taking an active part in the operation are adequately briefed and that all obtain a clear appreciation not only of what is expected of them, but of the importance of the contribution which each man can, and must, make’. 4

Although the push through the dense Reichswald forest was the most daunting part of ‘Veritable’ (a task for which the 53rd Division, in close co-operation with its assigned supporting armoured units, had organised extensive special training in forest fighting in its staging areas around Helmond in the weeks prior to the operation to discover the best methods to overcome the problem), the operation entailed more than a push through the woods. In the north, where the Germans had flooded nearly all of the low-lying area stretching between the forest and the Rhine river, the Canadians had to resort to amphibious operations in order to carry their attacking units to the isolated village objectives. However, most important of all was the opening of the roads that led north and south of the forest, to Kleve and Goch respectively, which were needed to gain the open country beyond where armoured exploitation could take place. The most vital task fell to the 15th Division which had to open up the narrow corridor to Kleve, requiring a rapid push between the inundated area in the north and the forest in the south. On January 23 Field-Marshal Montgomery indicated that preparations by the US First Army for an offensive towards Bonn might have a delaying effect on ‘Veritable’ and ‘Grenade’, since the latter could

not begin until the Ninth Army had been brought up to a strength of 12 divisions. However, he assured General Crerar that he would have six days’ warning of any postponement of ‘Veritable’. In the interests of

IWM BU1774

Getting all the troops, guns and supplies for ‘Veritable’ concentrated into the constricted area around Nijmegen was a major logistical operation, particularly because there were only two good roads leading into it from the south; one across the Maas bridge at Grave, the other across a Bailey bridge built over the Maas at Mook. The heavy traffic wreaked havoc on these and all other roads, especially when it began to thaw, and thousands of pioneers — 50 engineer companies, three road construction companies and 29 pioneer companies — were employed to maintain them. Sergeant Higgins pictured Dutch civilians helping to repair the damage to a road in Nijmegen made by the passage of tanks on February 8, the first day of the offensive. As they work, an endless column of wheeled transport continues to roll past on their way to the front.

surprise, ‘no forward assembly of formations concerned’ would begin until February 2. Lieutenant-General Willam H. Simpson, commanding the Ninth Army, was requested to make every possible effort to launch ‘Grenade’ by the 15th. General Crerar issued his own directive on Operation ‘Veritable’ to the commanders of the British I and XXX and Canadian II Corps on January 25. One week later he was advised that DDay had been confirmed for February 8. It would go in whatever the weather. ‘The Cin-C considered that the urgency was so great that it was undesirable to delay the operation, even by 24 hours, in order to obtain air support.’ This presumably reflected a SHAEF directive issued the same day which instructed Montgomery to mount ‘Veritable’ ‘at the earliest date and not later than February 8’.

Engineers and Royal Canadian Engineers for the maintenance of routes and bridges. But maintenance depended, in turn, on the weather, and this proved fickle. Although cold weather and firm ground persisted throughout most of January — the temperature sank to 5° Fahrenheit on the 26th — a thaw set in at the end of the month, and routes soon deteriorated under the heavy traffic. By February 5 a section of the Turnhout-Eindhoven road was ‘impassable even to Jeeps in four-wheel drive’ and the Chief Engineer at Army Headquarters commented ruefully, ‘We have had every disadvantage possible in weather with the highest flooding in 14 years in November, the lowest water level ever recorded in January, a severe frost followed by very rapid thaw, bad icing conditions and now another flood.’ For a time, nearly 50 companies of engineers, plus three road construction companies and 29 pioneer companies, were fully employed in maintaining the roads in the British-Canadian sector.

ATB

THE ADMINISTRATIVE FOUNDATION While senior commanders and their staffs hammered out final details of the operational plan, a great administrative ‘build-up’ provided the sinews for ‘Veritable’. The wide scope of these requirements can only be suggested here, but their importance to the success of the operation can scarcely be exaggerated. Basically, there were three essentials: rations for the troops, ammunition for their weapons and what military terminology described as ‘POL’ — that is, petrol, oil and lubricants for their vehicles. Since the strength of First Canadian Army was to rise as high as 449,865 during the operations, with civilian labour, prisoners, etc, raising the total number of mouths to feed to 476,193 at its peak, the problem of supplying rations alone was no small one. From the outset a heavy burden fell upon the Royal Army Service Corps and Royal Canadian Army Service Corps for the actual movement of supplies, and on the Royal

The same houses still stand along Graafseweg, the main road into Nijmegen from Grave. 5

assembly areas, accommodation was at a premium: in one instance Canadian engineers found a troop of heavy guns located in a bridging dump, using a shelter made of pontoons. (‘It was arranged that the guns would cease fire when loading was in progress in the dump.’) Special arrangements were also necessary to control the flow of reinforcements. A particularly heavy burden fell on the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps; but with the single exception of spare parts for certain amphibious vehicles, all demands were met and the supplying of stores was ‘smooth and rapid’. The organisation for the great offensive was the result of admirable teamwork — not only within the Army, but between the Army and other Allied formations. On the morning of February 7 General Crerar was preparing to move his Tactical Headquarters from Tilburg to Uden, in readiness for battle on the following day. With all preparations completed, the Army Commander found time to address a gathering of war correspondents on the background of ‘Veritable’. These were his concluding words: ‘This operation may be protracted and the fighting tough and trying. All ranks are quite confident, however, that we will carry through to a successful conclusion, the great task which we have been given the responsibility, and the honour, to fulfil.’ THE BATTLE AREA As it made ready to launch its Rhineland offensive, the First Canadian Army, not for the first time, faced a difficult and disagreeable battlefield. In the succession of directives and orders which were issued at all levels from army group down to battalion, the oft-repeated phrase ‘to destroy the enemy between the Maas and the Rhine’ defined the battle area. At his final objective, the line XantenGeldern, General Crerar could contemplate a front of 20 miles between the two rivers. But 40 miles downstream, where the Army’s present front line crossed them, Mook, on the Maas, was only six miles from Nijmegen, on the Waal. To reach their forward assembly areas in the restricted space about Nijmegen, all formations of XXX Corps

except the two Canadian divisions already in position had to cross the Maas, as well as the Maas-Waal Canal two miles west of Nijmegen. The movement would require a strict schedule of traffic control over the bridges at Mook, Grave and Ravenstein. Within these natural boundaries General Crerar faced other limitations on manoeuvre. Although both river beds had been regulated into single, navigable channels, each was flanked by a wide flood plain in which backwaters, marsh and abandoned channels provided effective obstacles to movement. These flats were subject to inundation when

IWM BU1779

MARTIJN BAKKER

Among other commitments two road construction companies of the RCE, with pioneer labour and civilian assistance, maintained the Eindhoven–’s-Hertogenbosch route forward to the Maas, while sappers of First Canadian Army Troops constructed a permanent bridge across the river at Mook. Fortunately, the completion of a railway bridge over the Maas at Ravenstein on February 4 enabled trains to reach railheads around Nijmegen. This had the double effect of absorbing some of the strain of moving supplies by road and of enabling stone to be brought forward to help the engineers in maintaining the roads. The RCASC also arranged for bulk shipments of petrol to be brought forward by rail in order to build up the reserves of fighting formations. Expressing available stocks in terms of operational mileage, the Deputy Director of Supply and Transport at Headquarters First Canadian Army noted on February 7: ‘The target of 150 miles for XXX Corps in Army Depots was reached today and holdings include 200 miles for I Corps, II Corps and Army Troops and 153 miles for XXX Corps.’ Meanwhile, a total of 2,318,222 rations for the troops had been accumulated. Likewise, a vast quantity of ammunition had been collected in forward dumps. As the Army Commander put it: ‘If the ammunition allotment for the operation, which consists of 350 types, were stacked side by side and five feet high, it would line a road for 30 miles. The total ammunition tonnage, provided for the supporting artillery from DDay, to D plus 3, would be the equivalent in weight to the bomb-drop of 25,000 medium bombers.’ To mention one category alone, there were 1,471 rounds of high explosive available for each 25-pounder, plus 206 rounds per gun normally carried in the regimental ‘first and second lines’ (that is, with, or immediately available to, the guns). Apart from these essentials, the multifarious requirements of ‘Veritable’ affected all branches and services of the army. The Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps produced detailed plans for the evacuation of wounded, casualties requiring specialist care, ambulance control, blood banks and medical stores. With troops crammed into the limited

Left: Artillery support for ‘Veritable’ was of an unprecedented scale: 24 field regiments (the divisional artillery of seven British and Canadian divisions, plus four regiments from corps artillery), 18 medium regiments, five heavy regiments, one super-heavy regiment and two anti-aircraft brigades taking part — a total of 1,034 guns. Three of the five Army Groups Royal Artillery, each comprising several medium and heavy 6

regiments, were placed on the far side of the Maas, the 3rd and 4th AGRA west of Cuijk and the 9th AGRA south of it. Sergeant Higgins photographed one of the 155mm guns of the 59th Heavy Regiment, part of the 3rd AGRA. Right: Martijn Bakker helped us out by finding the location at De Hostert in the village of Groot-Linden, two kilometres north-west of Cuijk. Trees obscure an exact comparison but the farm remains unchanged.

BRITISH ARMY ON THE RHINE

The Germans had worked feverishly to increase the fortifications in the Reichswald sector. These mainly consisted of field works: trench systems, anti-tank ditches, wire obstacles, machine-gun excessive rainfall, such as had prevailed that winter, produced an unusually high water level in the rivers. Along the Maas, rising ground restricted the flooding to about 1,000 yards on each side of the main stream; but in the Rhine and Waal flats the spread of the water was contained only by the winter dykes which stretched almost without interruption from the vicinity of Wesel down to Nijmegen, in general from one to three miles back from the river. Breaching these dykes would substantially increase the inundation; when this happened, the water in places encroached almost halfway to the Maas. The greater part of the country between the rivers was open and gently undulating, largely arable, with a number of small woods. In general it was well suited to armoured warfare. But just inside the German frontier the western end of this rolling plain was blocked by a large irregular forested area, some eight miles from west to east and four miles wide. This was the Reichswald. A dozen miles to the east the approach to Xanten was barred by the Hochwald and the Balberger Wald, which together formed a smaller belt of woods from one to three miles deep, extending six miles from north to south. The trees in these state forests were mostly young pines growing from four to seven feet apart. Each wooded area was divided into rectangular blocks by narrow rides, and there were occasional clearings where cutting had not been followed by replanting. Two paved roads crossed the Reichswald from north to south, converging on Hekkens, midway along the southern edge of the forest. None ran from west to east, so that military traffic in that direction would be dependent upon one-way tracks along the sandy rides, only some of which had been roughly metalled to make them passable for heavy timber trucks. Most of the Reichswald was level or gently rolling, but a curving ridge of high ground ran from Kleve through the northern and western portions, pivoting on the Brandenberg, a 300-foot hill in the north-west corner of the forest.

posts, mortar pits, and field, anti-tank and flak guns, backed up by a sprinkling of concrete Westwall bunkers to the north and south of the forest. There were hardly any bunkers in the forest itself.

On either flank of the Reichswald topography again favoured a defending force. From the south-eastern angle of the forest the River Niers flowed westward across the rolling plain to enter the Maas below Gennep. Swollen by flooding and with its bridges blown, it formed a highly defensible obstacle. To the north a corridor of cultivated land about a mile wide ran between the edge of the woods and the NijmegenKleve road (which marked the southern limit of the Waal flood plain). Towards Kleve this avenue narrowed considerably and was crossed by a number of low spurs which stepped up to the main Materborn ridge overlooking the city. Beyond Kleve the gap opened to give space to three roads which, diverging to the south-east and south through the widening plain, led to Calcar, Üdem and Goch. Besides the NijmegenKleve highway a second axis of advance was offered by the paved Mook-Goch road, which ran along the southern edge of the Reichswald, crossing the Niers at Kessel. At Gennep a road branched off to the south to follow the right bank of the Maas to Venlo. THE ENEMY’S DEFENCES The Germans had laid out their defences in a businesslike manner, exploiting the advantages of terrain favourable to themselves, and concentrating their strength where the country seemed most inviting to an attacker. They depended on three main fortified zones, each extending southward from their secure Rhine flank. The foremost ran across the western face of the Reichswald from Wyler on the Kleve road to the Kiekberg woods east of Mook, turning thence south-eastward to pass through Gennep and continue along the east bank of the Maas. In the First Canadian Army’s sector this formidable outpost to the main Siegfried defences was based on a double series of trenches, covered in front of the Reichswald by an anti-tank ditch. Villages and farmhouses had been converted into strong points, and connecting trenches from

front to rear linked the whole into an elaborate defence system which extended in depth 2,000 yards or more from the forward mine fields to the rear field works along the edge of the forest. The strongest parts of the line were about Wyler and the Kiekberg woods, where the two main roads were defended in considerable depth with road-blocks, dug-in anti-tank guns and short stretches of antitank ditch. In the floodable area north of the Nijmegen-Kleve road the defences were relatively light. About three miles to the rear of these positions the northern end of the Siegfried Line constituted the second defence. The main belt crossed the Reichswald just east of the lateral road from Kranenburg to Hekkens. It then skirted the southern edge of the forest to Goch, where it turned south again to cover the approaches to Weeze, Kevelaer and Geldern. North of the Reichswald the corridor leading to Kleve was guarded by a succession of trench systems which reached back to positions on the high ground about Materborn. These were extended to the north by a system of field works which had been constructed across the flood plain from Donsbrüggen to Düffelward on the Alter Rhein. In addition a line recently developed about two miles east of the forest linked Kleve with Bedburg and Goch and completed the circle of all-round defence about the Reichswald area. Work on this end of the West Wall (the actual German name for what the Allies called the Siegfried Line) had never been completed, so that instead of the formidable concrete to be found farther south there were only field fortifications — described by the German commander in that sector as ‘a haphazard series of earthen dugouts’. The only concrete works were bunkers for sheltering personnel, and these were concentrated mainly in the Materborn area. The strongest parts of the line in the Canadian sector were to be found about Goch (which was protected on three sides by anti-tank ditches) and, as might be expected, in the 7

IWM BU1770

8

The attacking forces included two brigades equipped with the heavy Churchill tanks, the 6th Guards Tank Brigade supporting the 15th Division and the 34th Tank Brigade assisting the 51st and 53rd Divisions. These Churchills photographed by Sergeant Ames at the entrance to Groesbeek must belong to the 34th Tank Brigade (the Guards tanks approached the start line via a different route further east), but to which of its component battalions (107th Royal Armoured Corps, 147th RAC or 9th Royal Tanks) is impossible to say. The triangle on the turret only indicates that it belonged to an A Squadron. of February its strength was 10,000, the majority green troops inadequately armed and equipped. This would have allowed Fiebig to man his forward line with seven battalions only, but on February 6 he was given Fallschirmjäger-Regiment 2 from the 2. Fallschirmjäger-Division. This wellequipped formation of 2,000 men recently drafted from the Luftwaffe he placed between the western tip of the Reichswald and the Maas. Next to them came the three regiments of the 84. Division: across the face of the forest Grenadier-Regiment 1062; Grenadier-Regiment 1051 covering the corridor to the north, and Grenadier-Regiment 1052 guarding the Rhine flats on the extreme

right. Fiebig held in the rear area the Sicherungs-Bataillon Münster (a small unit of elderly men normally employed on guarding static installations), and Magen (Stomach)-Bataillon 276, composed of personnel whose chronic digestive ailments ill fitted them for any active part in the defence. (Fiebig told interrogators that he had chosen the Magen-Bataillon in preference to an Ohren (Ear)-Bataillon, who were too deaf to hear ‘even the opening barrage of an attack’.) The only German armour in the Reichswald area was some 36 self-propelled assault guns of schwere PanzerjägerAbteilung 655. Fiebig’s total artillery resources numbered about 100 guns.

ATB

defile north of the Reichswald. Here a concentration of fire positions which ran from the edge of the woods at Frasselt to the main Nijmegen-Kleve road was guarded by an anti-tank ditch which continued northward through Kranenburg and crossed the flood plain between Mehr and Niel to end at the Alter Rhein. The enemy’s third major barrier in the Canadian Army’s path began at the Rhine opposite Rees and ran southward in front of the Hochwald and Balberger Wald to Geldern and beyond. This ‘Hochwald Layback’ consisted of two and sometimes three lines of entrenchments, from 600 to 1,000 yards apart. Between these lines (except west of the Hochwald) ran an anti-tank ditch; and each trench system was further protected by a continuous belt of wire. In recent months the Germans had attempted to bind these various defence positions into a single network in which a penetration at any point could be effectively sealed off. This aim had been best achieved in the Reichswald area, which had been split into a series of self-contained boxes enclosed by stretches of trench, ditch or river. Farther east, the emphasis had been on transforming the towns and villages between the West Wall and the Hochwald Layback into individual islands of resistance, each encircled by elaborate trenchworks and anti-tank ditches. At the beginning of February the Reichswald sector of the German front was held by Generalmajor Heinz Fiebig’s 84. InfanterieDivision, which formed the right wing of the LXXXVI. Armeekorps (under General der Infanterie Erich Straube) and indeed of General der Fallschirmtruppen Alfred Schlemm’s 1. Fallschirm-Armee. Straube’s left wing was the 180. Infanterie-Division which was deployed along the Maas. Across the Rhine was the LXXXVIII. Armeekorps, of the 25. Armee, with the 2. FallschirmjägerDivision as Fiebig’s immediate neighbour. The 84. Division brought no brilliant record with it into the Reichswald defences. Formed in Poland early in 1944 from the remnants of worn-out infantry divisions and large replacement units, it had been virtually destroyed in the Falaise Pocket. It was reconstructed in September, and at the beginning

The house at the intersection of Nieuwe Weg (the main road from Nijmegen) and Wylerbaan (leading off to the left) is today the Oude Molen Restaurant.

IWM BU1771

Shortly afterwards, Sergeant Ames photographed a group of Churchills, with a troop of M10 tank destroyers in the Allied appreciations of these dispositions proved remarkably accurate. As to reserves available at short notice to the 1. FallschirmArmee, General Crerar’s headquarters foresaw the possibility of the 7. FallschirmjägerDivision being east of the Reichswald, and farther afield the 15. Panzergrenadier-Division, or its equivalent, which might be on hand within six hours of the assault. Actually part of the 7. Fallschirmjäger-Division was at Geldern, having been gradually edged that far north by General Schlemm, who claims to have vigorously opposed the view held at Heeresgruppe H that the Allied attack would be made in the Venlo area. Generaloberst Johannes Blaskowitz, the commander of Heeresgruppe H, was holding his armoured reserve, the XLVII. Panzerkorps, at Dülken, a dozen miles south-east of Venlo. Its two divisions, the 116. Panzer and the 15. Panzergrenadier, had been badly mauled in the Ardennes battle and according to the corps commander, General der Panzertruppen Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz, were at little better than 50 per cent strength and could jointly muster no more than 90 tanks. As possible reinforcements for the whole front facing the three northern Allied armies, FieldMarshal Montgomery’s intelligence staff estimated on February 4 that Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt, the Oberbefehlshaber West (C-in-C West) might be able to assemble up to 11 panzer and panzergrenadier divisions. Most of these, however, he would be forced to retain in the south to meet the American threat between Roermond and the Ardennes, or to send eastward to the Russian front.

background, all waiting in the forward assembly area on the edge of Groesbeek for the offensive to begin.

THE PATTERN OF ‘VERITABLE’ The number and the expected strength of the enemy’s lines of organised defences had led General Crerar to plan Operation ‘Veritable’ in distinct phases, with intervening pauses to allow him to regroup his assault forces and move forward his supporting artillery. His instructions to his corps commanders on January 25 confirmed that the operation would be carried out as originally outlined in his directive of December 14. Naming the target date as February 8, he laid down as a basis for planning the following principal phases and objectives: ‘Phase 1: The clearing of the Reichswald and the securing of the line Gennep-Asperden-Kleve. ‘Phase 2: The breaching of the enemy’s second defensive system east and south-east of the Reichswald, the capture of the localities Weeze-Üdem-Calcar-Emmerich and the securing of the communications between them. ‘Phase 3: The ‘break-through’ of the Hochwald ‘lay-back’ defence lines and the advance to secure the general line GeldernXanten.’

The initial assault and the completion of the first phase would be the responsibility of Lieutenant-General Horrocks’ British XXX Corps; thereafter, at a time to be settled by the Army Commander in consultation with Horrocks and Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds, Canadian II Corps would be committed on the left. Lieutenant-General Sir John Crocker’s British I Corps, strung out along the lower Maas, had the task of keeping the enemy deluded into expecting an offensive against northern Holland. Horrocks was faced with the necessity of blasting his way through three strong German defence lines. ‘There was’, he said later, ‘no room for manoeuvre and no scope for cleverness.’ With the low-lying area on his left flank flooded by the Germans, and the Mook-Goch road on his right completely dominated from the southern edge of the Reichswald, his only promising axis of advance lay north of the forest, along the road through Kranenburg. The key to a successful breakthrough was the ‘Materborn Gap’ — the narrow neck of high ground between the Reichswald and the town of Kleve. Given favourable going over frozen

ATB

Right: The picture was taken from a firstfloor window of a factory building that stood along Nieuwe Weg, a short distance back from where the previous photo was taken. The view is southwest, across the valley that cuts through Groesbeek, towards the upper village. The few houses that occupied the vale in 1945 stood along De Dries, an area which is completely filled with new housing today. From the locality we can infer that these Churchills must again belong to the 34th Tank Brigade. 9

IWM BU1781

The movement of the various assault formations to the jump-off area followed an intricate timetable, units being fed in according to a strict traffic schedule. Sergeant Higgins pictured the congested scene on one of the main roads to the battle area, with carriers moving ‘up’ and empty lorries moving ‘down’.

10

decision of SHAEF that ‘Veritable’ would definitely commence on the 8th ended the possibility of waiting for good flying weather. The air forces assigned to the operation included heavy bombers of RAF Bomber Command and the US Eighth Air Force, medium bombers of No. 2 Group of the Second Tactical Air Force, and fighter bombers of Nos. 83 and 84 Groups and the US Ninth Air Force. To achieve the close co-ordination essential to the gigantic effort a representative authorised to make decisions on behalf of Bomber Command was attached to No. 84 Group during the planning and execution of the operation. Requests to SHAEF for the support of the Eighth Air Force were channelled through HQ Second Tactical Air Force. The air plan provided for both preplanned and impromptu air support. Before the ‘Veritable’ D-Day, railways, bridges and ferries leading to the battle area and elected enemy supply dumps would be bombed, care being taken not to indicate the actual point of attack. Heavy bombers of the Eighth Air

ATB

ground, Horrocks hoped to break through this gap before it could be closed by German reserves and to flood the plain east of the Reichswald with troops before enemy reinforcements arrived. It might even be possible ‘with any luck . . . to seize the bridge over the Rhine at Wesel intact’. However, the Wesel bridges were among the targets of the Allied air forces. The Corps plan provided for the initial assault to be delivered on the seven-mile front between the Maas and the Waal by five infantry divisions — from right to left the 51st (Highland), the 53rd (Welsh), the 15th (Scottish) and the 2nd and 3rd Canadian. The first four would attack simultaneously at 10.30 a.m. on D-Day; the 3rd Canadian Division’s operations on the northern flank would not start before evening. When the Scottish Division in the centre had secured the Materborn feature it was Horrocks’ intention to bring forward the 43rd (Wessex) Division and the Guards Armoured Division from corps reserve and pass them through the gap to debouch into the open country south of Kleve — the 43rd directed on Goch and the Guards on Üdem. The assaulting formations would be supported by unusually large artillery resources, for Horrocks was determined to blast a way into the German defences with gun-fire. However, the guns, in the interest of surprise, would not fire until the morning of the attack. The fire plan was required to provide for an immense though brief artillery preparation programme which would prevent any enemy interference with the initial assault; complete saturation of the German defences and the destruction or neutralisation of their concrete emplacements; then immediate supporting fire for the attacking infantry and armour, and the employment of the medium and heavy guns in such a way as to cover the deep penetration to the Materborn feature without involving the batteries in any major moves. Weather permitting, ‘Veritable’ was to benefit by air support on the maximum scale. Planning for the air operations was carried out by Headquarters No. 84 Group RAF in conjunction with Army and Corps Headquarters. Because of the unreliability of the weather and the impossibility of forecasting conditions more than 24 hours ahead, it was originally agreed that D-Day might be postponed one day to allow for the provision of air support. On February 1 however, the

Force would attempt to put out of action the rail and road bridges across the Rhine at Wesel. On the night of February 7/8 the towns of Kleve and Goch were to be completely destroyed by Bomber Command. Cratering in these cities was to be accepted as unavoidable; but this was not the case in a number of villages and small towns in forward areas which were selected for attack by night intruders using incendiary and antipersonnel bombs. On D-Day itself the main air task was the destruction and demoralisation of the enemy in the defences barring the northern corridor. The question of whether to accept cratering here posed a special problem. The military plan demanded that the bombing of these positions be followed by rapid exploitation by mechanised forces, but the RAF warned that cratering was inevitable if a type of bomb was used sufficiently heavy to deal effectively with the concrete installations on the Materborn Ridge. Horrocks agreed to accept the possibility of shallow cratering on the Materborn feature, but not at Nütterden; there enemy troops in the open would be attacked with airburst bombs. In submitting the air plan to the Second Tactical Air Force the commander of No. 84 Group, Air Vice-Marshal Edmund Hudleston, stressed the significance of the Nütterden and Materborn targets. He defended the apparently uneconomical employment of medium and heavy bombers against these defences, pointing out that fighter-bombers were heavily committed on other tasks, and that ‘any effort which demoralises the enemy and at the same time raises the spirits of our own assaulting troops’ would not be wasted. As the battle developed it would be the task of No. 83 Group to deal with any countereffort by the Luftwaffe and to isolate the battlefield by maintaining the programme of interdiction in the enemy’s rear areas across the Rhine. No. 84 Group would operate over the battlefield itself, providing reconnaissance, close support, and ‘protection of ground forces’, and striking pre-arranged targets — enemy headquarters, communications and ammunition reserves. Since ‘Veritable’ had to be a frontal attack, it was imperative that every effort be made to gain surprise. The cover plan was calculated to keep the enemy’s eyes on British I Corps over in the west. To be effective it required the most careful concealment on the real battlefront. Here security measures had been stringently enforced during the vast

Although the official caption identified the location as Groot Linden, a village south of the Maas river, we found it was in fact in Beers, one village further back on the route towards the Bailey bridge at Mook. A new bypass road now carries the N321 past the village while the old road has been slightly re-aligned. This is Broekhofsestraat, looking east towards St Lambertus Church.

IWM BU1782

The 51st (Highland) Division, the right-hand (westernmost) of the five assaulting infantry divisions, attacked on a one-brigade front, the 154th Brigade leading off and the 153rd and 152nd Brigades passing through in turn. Sergeant Silverside approached the battlefront with the 5th/7th Gordon Highlanders, which was detached from the 153rd Brigade to reinforce the 154th for the start of the operation. Here they move up from their assembly area near Boxmeer to the jumping-off line at Groesbeek along a hollow road. A column of Fordson WOT2 15cwt lorries and a Weasel light amphibious tracked vehicle are using the road as well, the supporting heavy armour having been assigned another route through the woods lest they churn up the road. administrative build-up. No daylight movement was permitted east of the ‘s-Hertogenbosch-Helmond Canal except for reconnaissance parties, and these, with formation patches removed from battledress, had to cross the Maas in Canadian vehicles accompanied by Canadian liaison officers. As the assaulting formations moved from their places of concentration to the forward assembly area a Special Traffic Office employing 1,600 men maintained rigid controls along all roads. To keep the roads clear for the arriving formations, no 2nd Canadian Division vehicle was allowed to move during darkness without the signature of a brigadier. An elaborate camouflage programme was devised to hide from hostile eyes the large concentration of artillery in the areas east and south of Nijmegen, and the huge quantities of stores, ammunition and petrol involved in the pre-battle dumping programme. Obviously dummy gun-positions were erected, the dummies being quietly replaced by real pieces as the build-up proceeded. A camouflage pool of specialist officers from Headquarters 21st Army Group directed the siting of ammunition in unrecognisable groupings which simulated hedgerows, kitchen garden plots and irregular patches of scrub. The Allied air forces were warned that the area about Arnhem and Nijmegen was closed to all aircraft up to 16,000 feet and that violations would draw intense anti-aircraft fire. Such were the infinite pains taken to deceive the enemy. ‘Odd though it may seem’, remarked General Horrocks afterwards, ‘we did achieve surprise.’

FIRST CANADIAN ARMY GOES INTO GERMANY The offensive opened early on February 8. Luckily, the weather was favourable to air support. During the night the waiting troops had heard up to 779 heavies of Bomber Command roaring overhead on their missions of destruction against Kleve and Goch. (Only 434 actually bombed, evidently as the result of weather. Goch was hit considerably less heavily than had been intended.) Then 95 Stirlings and Halifaxes from No. 38 Group RAF unloaded more than 400 tons of bombs on Weeze, Üdem and Calcar. The flashes of the explosions and the fires which they started could be plainly seen by the soldiers in their assembly areas west of the Reichswald. At five in the morning the artillery preparation began. The artillery support for Operation ‘Veritable’ had been planned as a major battlewinning factor. The concentration of fire which fell on the German 84. Infanterie-

Division that day was probably not equalled on a similar front during the entire war in the west. It was calculated that 1,034 guns — one-third of them mediums, heavies and superheavies — were engaged in the bombardment. Seven divisional artilleries, five Army Groups Royal Artillery, and two antiaircraft brigades struck this massive blow, which was designed to harass the enemy’s headquarters and communications, silence his batteries and mortars and smash his troop positions, destroying his forces and demoralising survivors. In five bombardments during the day an average weight of more than nine tons of shells was to burst on each of 268 targets. The cannonade was augmented by four divisional ‘Pepper Pot’ groups, which swept the front continuously with the co-ordinated fire, at relatively short range, of all available tank guns, anti-tank guns, light anti-aircraft guns, medium machine guns and heavy mortars. Rocket salvoes from the 12 projectors of the 1st Canadian Rocket Battery saturated 13 targets in and about the German forward positions. At 7.40 a.m., after a smoke-screen had been laid down across the whole front, there was a brief lull in the firing. As expected, these combined warnings lured the enemy into manning his guns and bringing down his defensive fire against an expected attack. The virtual silence that covered the battlefield for ten minutes enabled sound-rangers to locate one hostile battery and 19 mortar areas. Then the bombardment thundered out anew, and it seemed as though every hostile position must be completely smothered. ‘It was good to see and hear’, wrote The Calgary Highlanders’ diarist, ‘especially to any of the old timers, as so many times we have gone in and would like more support than we got.’ The preparatory programme reached its climax as the barrage opened, and new notes were added by the sounds of armour grinding forward and aircraft roaring overhead. Afterwards dazed German prisoners told interrogators a grim story of disorganisation — communications totally disrupted and gun-crews unable to man their guns until the barrage ceased. They said that the prolonged strain of the bombardment had created ‘an impression of overwhelming force opposed to them, which, in their isolated state, with no communications, it was useless to resist’. H-Hour was 10.30 a.m. The covering barrage was to begin slowly on the opening line at 9.20, thickening up to its full intensity from 10 o’clock onwards. At H-Hour it would begin to move. Smoke-shells mixed with the high explosive built up a protective white screen which blanketed the north-western edge of the Reichswald and effectively con-

ATB

Right: Karel Margry, who took the comparisons for this story, found the photo had been taken along Mooksebaan, which leads through the woods from Mook to Groesbeek. Operational orders show this to have been the main route ‘up’ from the Bailey bridge at Mook to the forming-up areas for both the 51st and 53rd Divisions. Four kilometres further on, the troops will emerge from the woods and reach the open countryside around Groesbeek, from where they will move into the assault. 11

IWM BU1698

Right: The ruined farmhouses of Grafwegen have since been rebuilt. 12

The main axis of advance of the Highland Division was the narrow country road that ran from Groesbeek through Grafwegen, a small hamlet located right on the DutchGerman frontier and right on the edge of the Reichswald forest. Even with tanks being forbidden to use the road, the unmetalled track quickly collapsed under the heavy traffic. Sergeant Christie pictured vehicles passing the frontier barrier post, swung open on the left-hand side of the road.

ATB

cealed the assault battalions of four divisions as they emerged from the woods behind Groesbeek and advanced down the forward slopes to their start-lines. If the enemy took this smoke as prelude to an attack, after his earlier experience he was reluctant to retaliate. As a deception measure the start lines across the front were being held by all the battalions of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division except the two taking part in the attack. At 10.29, as a line of yellow smoke-shells indicated the final minute before the barrage lifted, infantry and tanks began passing through the 2nd Division’s positions to advance into Germany. Except on the right flank (where the 51st Division was supported by pre-arranged concentrations on the estimated main enemy localities in that sector) the barrage, which was 500 yards in depth, advanced in blocks of 300 yards every 12 minutes. The same yellow smoke-signal one minute before the end of each block enabled the attacking troops to move with confidence immediately behind the curtain of fire and thereby reap the maximum advantage. The guns had done their work so well, and so completely was the enemy surprised, that the initial attack met only light opposition. The stiffest resistance was on the right, where in the opening phase the 51st (Highland) Division, commanded by Major-General Thomas Rennie, had the mission of capturing the south-west corner of the Reichswald and opening the Mook-Goch road. The 154th Highland Brigade had varying success. On its left the 1st Black Watch had taken its objective, the northern end of the Freudenberg ridge, by two o’clock, but other troops were held up at Bruuk, 500 yards short of the frontier. The unexpected opposition came from a battalion of Grenadier-Regiment 1222 (of the 180. Infanterie-Division), hurriedly thrown in on the previous evening. The momentum of the advance was restored only when a battalion from the 152nd Brigade, the 7th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, was passed through and drove forward into the forest. On the division’s right flank, the 153rd Brigade captured the Pyramide height and St Jansberg at the edge of the Kiekberg woods. By four next morning, the whole of the Freudenberg was secure, and Highland infantry had penetrated a further 200 yards south-eastward into the Reichswald.

IWM B14631

H-Hour was 1030 hours. Sergeant Midgley pictured infantry and Churchills going into the attack behind the rolling artillery barrage.

ATB

IWM B14411

The sign stood on what is today Alte Grafwegener Strasse, just a few yards from the edge of the great forest. Although the farmhouse has gone, boundary-post No. 593 between Holland and Germany still pinpoints the spot.

Above: Dark, damp and muddy, the Reichswald had no surfaced roads leading through it from west to east, only narrow sandy rides which divided the forest into blocks of tightly planted fir trees. Despite constant sniping and machine-gun fire and the appalling mud, the Highland Division made slow but steady progress through the dense woodland. On the 10th Sergeant Silverside pictured men of the 2nd Seaforth Highlanders moving along one of the rides behind a troop of Crocodile flame-throwing tanks. These were from A Squadron of the 1st Fife & Forfar Yeomanry. Right: This is a classic photo from the Reichswald battle and we very much wanted to identify the spot where it was taken. The Seaforths were part of the follow-up 152nd Brigade and entered the forest along the divisional main axis (‘Club Black Route’) around 1600 hours on the second day, passing through the 5th Camerons at dusk. Held up by Spandau fire only about 500 yards further on, they were ordered to consolidate their position and stay put until morning. At 1130 the following day they attacked on a one-company front, assisted by the Crocodiles, their objective being the Hekkens-Kranenburg road about two kilometres further on. It was during this attack that Silverside took his photo. The ride that was the main divisional axis is the one that enters the forest just north of the Grafwegen road. Today, this fivekilometre-long track has been surfaced — one of just two metalled tracks through the forest — and is called Kartenspielerweg.

Restricted to Forestry Service vehicles only, Karel hiked up its length to take this comparison. From this point, the HekkensKranenburg road is about a kilometre on.

ATB

IWM B14454

Men of the 5th/7th Gordon Highlanders pass the ‘Reichs-Grenze’ (Reich Frontier) sign at Grafwegen, a picture Sergeant Silverside found too good to miss. The Gordons got into the edge of the forest just as darkness fell and they had very stiff fighting there.

13

IWM BU1747 IWM BU1748

Right: While the 51st Division had only to fight its way through the Reichswald as far as Hekkens, the 53rd (Welsh) Division on its left had the unenviable task of having to advance through the entire length of the forest. Crossing the start line outside Groesbeek, the 71st Brigade advanced a thousand yards against little opposition and secured a footing in the forest at which point the 160th Brigade passed through. AFPU Sergeant Wilkes photographed men of the latter’s lead battalion, the 6th Royal Welsh Fusiliers, as they entered the forest, accompanied by their armoured support: the Churchills of C Squadron of the 9th Royal Tanks. All the Flail mine-clearing and Crocodile flame-throwing tanks supporting the 53rd Division had hopelessly bogged down immediately on leaving the start line and only the sturdy Churchills were able to follow the infantry to the edge of the forest. C Squadron of the 9th Royal Tanks was the only tank unit to actually enter the forest on the first day, struggling all evening and into the night through the dense woodland to reach the forward infantry position in time for the attack through the German second defence line which was launched at 2300 hours.

14

Anticipating problems with getting supplies forward, the 34th Tank Brigade had applied for 20 gutted carriers (Bren carriers converted into armoured trailers) and ten armoured sledges to carry extra fuel and ammunition. The carriers were not available but the sledges were obtained on D minus 1. All were towed forward by the 9th Royal Tanks who were to drop a number of them on the edge of the forest to be picked up by their colleagues of the 147th RAC who had supported the first-wave attack. The engineers seen on the right, detailed to maintain the track, were from the 244th Field Company, RE. Note the D7 armoured bulldozer in the background.

ATB

In the adjacent sector of the 53rd (Welsh) Division, under by Major-General Bobby Ross, the mud which was hampering the advance across the entire corps front bogged at the start-line the Flails detailed to clear the mines ahead of the assaulting tanks and infantry. But the commander of the 34th Tank Brigade had already resolved to expend up to a squadron of tanks, if necessary, in getting the infantry to the edge of the Reichswald; and fortunately the extent of the mine fields proved to have been greatly overestimated. Churchill tanks mastered the heavy going where others with narrower tracks had failed, and supported the 71st Brigade’s attack across the open valley in the face of virtually no opposition. The armour found the anti-tank ditch narrow enough in places to negotiate unaided, and by two o’clock the 1st Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry had seized the commanding Brandenberg and the 71st Brigade was in control of the north-west angle of the forest. From this base the 160th Brigade sent two battalions — the 6th Royal Welsh Fusiliers and the 1st East Lancashires — forward through soaking rain which emphasised the unreality of the artificial moonlight. With meagre support — for of all the supporting arms only one tank squadron of the 9th Royal Tanks had survived the sodden tracks forward — the infantry steadily worked through the northern edge of the woods. There were few enemy checks. By shortly after midnight both battalions had crossed the Kranenburg-Hekkens road and were astride the Siegfried defences.

Although forest rides all look the same, this is the exact same track as it is today. We established this from the map references given for the axis of advance of the 6th RWF and 9th RTR in the operational orders and unit war diaries. It is the track that continues into the forest from Ketelstraat on the Dutch side of the border. Like the 51st Division axis, it has today been surfaced with a thin layer of asphalt, but only for the first kilometre or so. Traces of German trench systems abound on either side of it. This is the view looking east into the forest.

ATB

During the war Kranenburg’s main street was called Adolf-Hitler-Strasse but now it is just Grosse Strasse. Although at first sight the houses all appear to be new, careful scrutiny shows that most of them are in fact the same ones that were there in 1945, having been carefully repaired. This is the eastern end of the village.

ATB

IWM B14432

The 15th (Scottish) Division, commanded by Major-General Colin Barber, in the centre of the corps front was charged with breaching the Siegfried Line north of the Reichswald and capturing the high ground overlooking Kleve — the ‘Materborn feature’. Assaulting side by side, each with one battalion up, the 46th and 227th Highland Brigades had trouble with mines; only one Flail reached the start line. Yet by keeping well up to the barrage, by 6.30 p.m. the infantry had taken their initial objectives — Kranenburg, on the Nijmegen-Kleve highway, and the Galgensteeg ridge, which projected from the north-west corner of the Reichswald and overlooked the main Siegfried defences. By this time the 46th Brigade’s route forward from Groesbeek was all but impassable, for it had had to take the weight of both brigades when the 227th’s axis farther north broke down completely early in the afternoon. Thus a special armoured breaching force from the 44th Lowland Brigade was delayed several hours, struggling in the darkness and rain with a miserable track jammed with traffic stranded along its entire length. The force was finally turned on to the main Nijmegen-Kleve road after a passage had been bulldozed through Kranenburg. The attack, which was to have started at 9 p.m., did not get under way until four next morning. On the Scottish Division’s left the 2nd Canadian Division had the tasks of capturing Den Heuvel and Wyler and opening the Nijmegen-Kleve road to just short of Kranenburg. With the bulk of his forces spread across the corps front to screen the impending attack from the enemy, Major-General Bruce Matthews gave this assignment to two battalions of the 5th Brigade. A small trian-

IWM B14409

Right: The 15th (Scottish) Division, attacking on the left of the Welsh Division, had the task of opening the main road to Kleve, which leads through a narrow defile between the forest on the right and the Rhine river flats on the left. The village of Kranenburg was the main objective of the right-hand 227th Brigade in Phase 1 of the attack. The 10th Highland Light Infantry, passing through the Argylls shortly after noon, had a hard task reaching the town, getting embroiled in an anti-personnel minefield, but they completed clearing it during the early evening. The following morning, Sergeant Midgley pictured infantry and transport moving out towards Kleve. A log barricade that blocked the main street has already been bulldozed aside. Note the damage to the houses from the previous day’s artillery bombardment.

Left: A Bren-gun team of the Highland Light Infantry pictured guarding a side street. Right: The men were squatting beside

the Evangelische Kirche (Evangelical Church), which stands on the corner of Grosse Strasse with Mühlen-Strasse. 15

IWM B14427 ATB

Sergeant Hewitt could not resist photographing this group of Highland Light Infantry rolling a wooden Swastika sign down the village street. They are Privates H. McIvor of Glasgow, W. Harton of Durham and D. Mills of Dumbartonshire. As he noted in his caption, they intended to use the sign for firewood.

The Hotel zur Post is still in business today. The building on the far left is again the Evangelische Kirche.

ATB

IWM B14402

gular area south of the highway about Wyler was regarded as the northern anchor of the enemy’s front line, and its early seizure was essential to the rapid advance of the 15th Division beyond Kranenburg. In order to surprise and seal off the force defending Wyler, Brigadier William Megill avoided the direct approach from the north-west, and instead ordered his left battalion to by-pass the town and cut the highway beyond, thence attacking Wyler from the rear. So effective was the counter-battery and counter-mortar preparation on the 5th Brigade’s front that there was virtually no reply from the enemy, and the two assaulting battalions formed up without a single casualty. Keeping well up to the barrage The Calgary Highlanders struck eastward through Vossendaal to the main highway, about half a mile beyond Wyler. Mines were the chief obstacle; the Highlanders suffered 24 casualties from Schü-mines, which the enemy had cunningly laid in visible rows on the ground interspersed with others hidden below the surface. A Company now advanced down the road and by midday had made contact with a battalion of the 15th Division on the outskirts of Kranenburg. On The Calgary Highlanders’ right Le Régiment de Maisonneuve found that the bombardment had greatly simplified their task. They occupied with little difficulty the shattered remains of Den Heuvel (where an officer counted 46 enemy dead in a small area, ‘without examining slittrenches’) and cleared to the apex of the brigade’s triangle at Hochstrasse. While sappers of the 7th Field Company RCE began work on the highway west of Kranenburg, The Calgary Highlanders’ C and D Companies turned back towards Wyler. The former, on the left of the road, ran into stiff fighting in which the company commander and a platoon commander were killed. To keep the operation moving the Commanding Officer committed B Company, and after supporting fire had been called down on the objective, B and D pressed on into Wyler, reporting it clear by 6.30 p.m. Early plans had called for the roads forward to be open for traffic by four o’clock, but with the delay in taking Wyler it was nine before the sappers could report all routes free of mines. The operation had cost the battalion 67 casualties, including 15 killed. The Maisonneuves lost two killed and 20 wounded. The brigade had taken 322 prisoners, most of them having been trapped in Wyler. On XXX Corps’ watery northern flank the 3rd Canadian Division’s part in ‘Veritable’ did not begin until 6 p.m. Major-General Daniel Spry’s task was to secure the left flank of the 2nd Canadian and 15th Scottish

Sergeant Midgley, who had teamed up with Hewitt to cover the 15th Division’s operations, pictured the same group, now resting the sign against a house and having a quick brew. 16

Karel discovered that this picture was taken just yards from the previous one, outside the house standing on the corner of Grosse Strasse and Mühlen-Strasse.

ATB

LAC PA191213

Meanwhile, taking over the advance from the Highlanders, the 2nd Gordons advanced to the next village, Nütterden, two kilometres further on, which they secured by 1000 hours. That same day, a Canadian Army photographer, Lieutenant Michael Dean, pictured some of the Gordons triumphantly holding a captured Swastika flag and a village guild standard outside the local pub.

Wilhelm Vinck’s Restaurant, with its distinctive leaded windows, remains unaltered at the village crossroads. Looking for the location where this photo was taken, Karel was initially misled by the official Canadian caption which labelled it as being in Kranenburg. Unable to find it there, he was lucky to later come across it in Nütterden.

614 TO KL EVE

646 615 605 616

617

NI JM EG EN

LVR-AMT FÜR BODENDENKMALPFLEGE IM RHEINLAND

TO

618

623 606 621 607 622 608 609 624

625

Nütterden formed the very northernmost end of the Siegfried Line and was in fact the only locality north of the Reichswald where concrete bunkers had been built. They all formed part of the so-called Geldern-Stellung, which covered the 100kilometre stretch from Brüggen in the south to Kleve in the north and had been constructed between August 1939 and May 1940. However, of the 18 bunkers in the Nütterden sector, only one was a ‘fighting bunker’ (No. 646, a Regelbau Type 107 casemate with two machine guns), all the others being large personnel shelters of the Regelbau 102V type, with a capacity to billet 30 men. The Gordons had little problem capturing the casemates, taking some 200 prisoners in the process. All the bunkers in the Nütterden area (except No. 604, which lay two kilometres away to the north-east) are marked on this modern survey map prepared by the Rheinisches Amt für Bodendenkmalpflege (Rhineland Archaeological and Cultural Heritage Office) in 1997. (Compare with the Allied defence overprint from 1945 on pages 6-7.)

ATB

626

With the post-war German authorities having put a great effort into removing as many fortifications of the Siegfried Line as possible, today only two of the 102V bunkers at Nütterden survive. This is No. 617, located in the village churchyard on Antoniusweg, north of the main road. 17

ATB

The Church of St Peter and Paul makes for an easy comparison. Only in the initial stages of the 7th Brigade’s attack could the advance be made on dry ground. The Regina Rifle Regiment, attacking under artificial moonlight, and supported by tanks of the 13th/18th Hussars

(from British 8th Armoured Brigade), seized the south end of the Quer-Damm, and by eight o’clock had cleared Zyfflich, a mile to the east, digging about 100 prisoners out of its cellars. B Company of the 1st Canadian

ATB

IWM B14431

Divisions and clear the area between the Nijmegen-Kleve road and the river. This would be done by the 7th Brigade on the right and the 8th on the left as far as the antitank ditch from Donsbrüggen to Düffelward, at the edge of the main Siegfried Line. The 9th Brigade was then to break through these defences and advance east to the Spoy Canal, which led from Kleve to the Alter Rhein. The effects of the sudden thaw and the heavy rains were more apparent on the 3rd Division’s low-lying sector, the Waal flats, than anywhere else on the whole corps front. Drainage ditches that would normally have carried off the excess water were too badly damaged by gun-fire to function effectively. The Waal had been rising steadily since February 3. Records covering 34 years showed that only six times in that period had the February peak level at Nijmegen exceeded 12 metres. Yet on D plus 1 of ‘Veritable’ the river was to pass this height, and to continue to rise to a top of 12.69 metres on February 17. Earlier in the winter the Germans had breached the main dyke at Erlekom, four miles east of Nijmegen, and on the 6th water began pouring through this gap. Two days later the mile-long Quer-Damm just inside the German frontier, weakened by the enemy’s digging of defence positions, collapsed before the pressure of the rising floods. Through the break water began pouring eastward towards the villages of Zyfflich and Niel. By D-Day most of the 3rd Division’s area of operations was submerged. On February 3 ‘soft-going’ plans had been substituted for those previously made. This meant principally that the infantry would ride to their objectives in amphibious vehicles (the British 79th Armoured Division provided 114 Buffaloes), and would be largely deprived of armoured support.

IWM B14425

Right: A column of stationary Kangaroo armoured personnel carriers at the western entrance to Kranenburg, photographed by Sergeant Hewitt. The Kangaroos were from the 49th APC Regiment and the official caption only says they were carrying troops of the 15th Division. However, from the timing of the photo — daytime on February 9 — they must be the 8th Royal Scots of the 44th Brigade. According to the divisional plan, this battalion was supposed to have passed through the 2nd Gordons at about 0700 that morning to clear the wooded area north-west of Kleve but, owing to the bad state of the roads and the appalling traffic congestion on the divisional axis, they only reached Kranenburg at 1000 hours.

Left: Some time later, Hewitt pictured the same Kangaroos carrying the 8th Royal Scots rolling through the town. Their new orders were to still to pass through the 2nd Gordons at Nütterden but now they were to turn right shortly beyond, pass in front of the 6th Royal Welsh Fusiliers on Hingstberg, and capture the high-ground area known as Esperance about a 18

kilometre west of Kleve. The difficult operation was completely successful, the leading company reaching the objective at 1500 hours and the whole battalion being established there about two hours later. Right: Looking back west in the centre of Kranenburg. The spire of the Evangelical Church was replaced by a more modest tower after the war.

Scottish, after two unsuccessful attempts to capture a strongpoint at the north end of the Quer-Damm, finally took it at first light on the 9th. The battalion’s remaining rifle companies, embarking in Buffaloes from the Wyler Meer, set course by compass through the darkness for Niel, two miles east of Zyfflich. Communications failed, and shortly after midnight the CO, Lieutenant Colonel Des Crofton, headed towards the objective with his command group in two amphibians. But Niel was still in German hands, for the Scottish A and D Companies through faulty navigation had become engaged with a group of houses 1,500 yards to the south-west. Crofton’s party ran into point-blank fire from houses on the western outskirts. Two officers and two men were killed, and the CO and his Intelligence Officer were among the wounded. Day was breaking when A and D Companies arrived to clear the village. On the division’s left flank two Buffaloborne companies of the North Shore Regiment, leading the 8th Brigade’s attack, quickly secured the main dyke west of Zandpol and by 9 p.m. had reported the village itself free of enemy. Farther south Le Régiment de la Chaudière, forced at times to wade through three feet of water, occupied Leuth early on the 9th, opening the way for the brigade’s next phase of operations. ‘Veritable’ had made a good beginning. On the first day of the battle XXX Corps had broken through the enemy’s strong outpost screen and closed to the main Siegfried defences. It had inflicted severe losses upon the ill-fated 84. Infanterie-Division. Taking more than 1,200 prisoners and killing a good many men besides, it had virtually destroyed six German battalions. There was encouraging news from prisoners who had helped to dig trenches in the Reichswald that the main defence line contained no concrete works. The problem now was how to exploit our gains before enemy reinforcements arrived in strength. The rapid deterioration of the maintenance routes forward was seriously impeding deployment of General Horrocks’ formations. Particularly disturbing was the flood situation; between 1 p.m. and midnight of the 8th the water level north of the Nijmegen-Kleve road had risen 18 inches.

IWM B14444

Right: With the 15th Division now running 11 hours behind schedule in its capture of the Materborn high ground near Kleve, General Horrocks was anxiously waiting for news of that feature having been taken because he wanted to release his reserve force, the 43rd (Wessex) Division, and push it through the bottleneck there into the more-open country beyond to exploit towards Goch. On receiving news that the Scots had taken possession of Materborn, at mid-afternoon he ordered the 43rd Division forward from Nijmegen. As Horrocks later admitted, it was his ‘worst mistake of the war’ for not only was the passage through the Kleve bottleneck far from secure but the one route to it, through Kranenburg, had badly deteriorated and was jammed nose to tail with transport of the 15th Division. Included in the 43rd Division column were two regiments of the 8th Armoured Brigade, the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry (The Sherwood Rangers) and the 4th/7th Dragoon Guards. Late that afternoon (February 9) Sergeant Wilkes pictured a column of Shermans moving up to join the offensive. Judged by the timing they are most likely from the 4th/7th Dragoon Guards. The lead tank is a Sherman Firefly armed with a 17-pounder gun. THE SIEGFRIED LINE IS BREACHED On February 9 low-hanging clouds and heavy rain which persisted well into the afternoon put a stop to the hitherto excellent Allied air support and indicated still worse going across the waterlogged fields and along the churned-up tracks of the Reichswald. The 2nd Canadian Division, having completed its limited task, had been pinched out of the battle, leaving four divisions to continue the advance during the next 24 hours. Pursuing its sweeping manoeuvres over the flooded Waal flats, the 3rd Canadian Division, whose sector now covered more than half the corps front, took its village objectives one by one. In the 8th Brigade’s advance next to the river the North Shore Regiment found that enemy resistance lessened as the flood waters deepened. The New Brunswickers met little opposition in capturing Kekerdom, and from there Brigadier James Roberts sent the previously uncommitted Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada forward to establish themselves without difficulty in Millingen. The capture of Niel had given The Royal Winnipeg Rifles a base from which to extend the 7th Brigade’s operations eastward. During the afternoon A and B Companies occupied Keeken and C Company pushed on to the Customs House on the Alter Rhein, an operation which the brigade diary termed ‘quite sticky with a good bag of PWs’. In Brigadier Jock Spragge’s right sector the Regina Rifles found Mehr free of enemy troops. Its capture ended the 7th and 8th

Brigade’s tasks. Indeed, the rising water virtually cut off the battalions on their objectives, where they had to exist as best they might until Buffaloes became available to evacuate them. It remained for the 9th Brigade to complete the 3rd Canadian Division’s role in the first phase of ‘Veritable’. But while the northern tip of the Siegfried Line had still to be overcome, before the second day of the battle ended the main defences had been penetrated by two of the divisions attacking south of the NijmegenKleve road, and on the corps’ right flank the Highland Division’s 153rd Brigade had cut the important Goch road at two points between Mook and Gennep. Units of the 6th Canadian Brigade holding Mook could see the 1st Gordon Highlanders working southward across their front clearing out the area between the Kiekberg woods and the Maas, and on several occasions were able to assist with information about enemy movements. Meanwhile the 152nd Brigade, passing through the 154th, had fought forward through the southern half of the Reichswald as far as the Kranenburg-Hekkens road, just short of the main entrenchments. Farther north the 53rd Division had measured off substantial gains. Attacking at 8.30 a.m. from the positions gained during the night, the 4th Welch and 2nd Monmouths of the 160th Brigade, supported by Churchills from the 9th Royal Tanks, pushed two miles eastward to the Stoppelberg, a circular mound 300 feet above sea level and the highest point in the Reichswald, the 2nd Monmouths capturing

ATB

Right: They are in fact on the outskirts of Groesbeek, turning into Wylerbaan from Nieuwe Weg. This is the same junction where Sergeant Ames photographed the Churchills moving up on the first day (see page 8). The road sign ‘Wyler-Grenz’ indicates that Wyler lies on the Dutch-German frontier. However, before the column will reach that village, they will turn right onto the 15th Division’s northern axis (‘Skye Route’), which will take them to Kranenburg and on to Kleve. 19

ATB

Most of the fighting took place along Linden-Allee, the thoroughfare running through south-western Kleve. This was just on the edge of the area which had been left in ruins by the RAF bombing of the city. Hewitt took this shot at the crossroads of Linden-Allee with Hoffmann-Allee (on the left) and Hagsche Strasse (away on the right), looking back in the direction of where the British force had entered the town. The Sherman is firing into the city. KOSB battalion commander as ‘a remarkable display of skill and endurance by the drivers of the APCs’.) By eight o’clock the KOSB had cleared Schottheide, 500 yards to

the east; shortly afterwards the 2nd Gordon Highlanders, advancing along the main road from Kranenburg, were on the outskirts of Nütterden. There was no sign of the battal-

ATB

IWM B14506

the hill after sharp fighting. The stiffening enemy resistance was evidence of the arrival of strong reinforcements, as were the determined counter-attacks launched against the 1st East Lancashires holding the Kranenburg-Hekkens road. These were beaten off with the aid of eight Churchill tanks of the 147th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps which had mastered the almost impossible roads forward. Before the day ended the 6th Royal Welsh Fusiliers, exploiting beyond the Stoppelberg, had reached the north-eastern edge of the Reichswald overlooking Materborn, whence supporting tanks found attractive targets in traffic on the Kleve-Hekkens road, now the enemy’s main lateral communication through the forest. But it was in the corridor between the northern edge of the Reichswald and the flooded Canadian sector that the most spectacular progress had been made. The 15th (Scottish) Division’s original plan to advance by leapfrogging its brigades and battalions in successive phases was frustrated by the appalling conditions of mud and traffic congestion on the routes forward. Day had broken by the time the 44th Brigade’s Special Armoured Breaching Force had bridged the anti-tank ditch at three of five planned crossing places east of Frasselt. At 6.15 a.m. the 6th King’s Own Scottish Borderers, borne in Kangaroos of the 1st Canadian Armoured Personnel Carrier Regiment, began to cross. (Their eight-hour journey forward from Nijmegen was afterwards described by the

BELL ARCHIVE

Right: Leading the 43rd Division’s column was the 129th Brigade Group. Having pushed through the ‘traffic jam of huge and bewildering proportions’ at Kranenburg-Nütterden, the brigade — with the 4th Wiltshires in the lead riding on the decks of the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry tanks — missed a turning on approaching Kleve in the dark and drove straight into the south-western part of town which was strongly held by the Germans (and supposed to be captured by the 15th Division, not the 43rd). Not realising its mistake, the brigade pushed forward and by the early morning was being engaged by enemy infantry supported by SP guns. Confused fighting developed and the brigade went into an entrenched position with all-round protection where it fought the whole of February 10 and the following night. Somehow, Sergeant Hewitt managed to get forward to the 129th Brigade area on the 10th and take action shots. Here a soldier of the 4th Wiltshires takes cover under the ruins of a building as the machine-gunner of one of the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry Shermans fires at German snipers.

Left: One of the Sherwood Rangers’ Shermans and a Humber armoured car at a crossroads. Note the churned-up state of the road. Right: Karel was much surprised to find that the WeinAusschank pub had survived the ravages of war and was still 20

standing unaltered on the corner of Linden-Allee and Merowinger Strasse. This spot is right on the edge of town, just where the K15 road descends down into Kleve and becomes the Linden-Allee.

ATB

Crocker’s picture was taken at the western end of Kranenburg, where Grosse Strasse opens up to the market square on the right. difficulty. The KOSB, climbing once more into their Kangaroos, headed along the muddy tracks for the Bresserberg feature, less than half a mile from the city. They reached their goal with a scant half-hour to spare; at 5 p.m. they had to fight off elements of the 7. Fallschirmjäger-Division moving up

to occupy the position. In the evening the 15th Division’s reconnaissance regiment reported that the Germans in Kleve seemed disorganised and unlikely to offer resistance. But south of Kleve its patrols seeking a route eastward found their way blocked by a coordinated defence in Materborn village.

ATB

IWM B14638

ion which had been detailed to exploit these gains. Accordingly, the Borderers went forward again in Kangaroos to capture the Wolfsberg and the Hingstberg — a pair of knolls between Nütterden and the forest. These were taken about mid-morning with the assistance of a squadron of Churchill tanks from the 4th Grenadier Guards (from 6th Guards Tank Brigade); and the clearing of Nütterden by the Gordons completed the second phase of the division’s attack. The operation was now 11 hours behind schedule and it was imperative to carry out the final phase — the capture of the Materborn heights overlooking Kleve — before the Germans further reinforced these key positions. Since there was no hope of bringing the 46th and 227th Brigades forward in time as planned, the division commander, General Barber, was compelled to order the Lowland Brigade to push on still further. The 8th Royal Scots seized the Esperance hill, the nearer of the brigade objectives, with little

IWM B14536

Right: Meanwhile, back at Kranenburg, a serious problem was arising, posing a severe threat to the Allied supply line. Two months previously, on December 2, 1944, the Germans had blown the Rhine dykes, which had resulted in the flooding of much of the polder land along the river. Torrential rain, which began four days before the offensive, caused the level of the floods to rise even further. Then on February 8, in response to the opening of ‘Veritable’, German engineers blew the sluices of the Quer-Damm north of Wyler. Shortly thereafter the dam gave way under the pressure and the flood level began to rise an inch every hour, leading to the entire stretch of the Wyler-Kranenburg road — XXX Corps’ main axis north of the Reichswald — to slowly disappear under water. By February 11, when Sergeant Crocker took this picture, the flood in Kranenburg was six inches above the roadway although vehicles could still pass through. The lead Jeep is a stretcher ambulance of the 86th Field Regiment (Hertfordshire Yeomanry), a unit equipped with Sexton self-propelled 25pounder guns. Attached to the 15th Division for ‘Veritable’, after taking part in the opening artillery bombardment on the first day, it moved to new firing positions south-west of Kranenburg on the 9th and then to a location in the northwestern corner of the Reichswald, close to Kleve, on the morning of the 11th.

Left: By the 13th the water was three feet deep, and amphibious vehicles were the only means capable of supplying the forward troops via this route. On the 15th Sergeant Christie pictured a Weasel and DUKW making their way back from Kranenburg along the submerged road. (To alleviate the problem, Allied engineers opened a ferry service at Wyler, using four Class 9 and Class 40 rafts to carry tanks, guns and vehicles across the flooded area. From the 14th, other supply

columns avoided the floods by going around the southern edge of the Reichswald and then taking the road through the forest from Hekkens to Kleve — a long detour but at least a dry one.) By February 15 the floods had reached their peak, the water level gradually subsiding thereafter. Right: The farm and shed on the left side of the K44 (Nimweger Strasse) still stand, as does the house further along. The view is looking east towards Kranenburg. 21

ATB

IWM B14601

22

A few metres further down the road the troops have reached the junction with GruftStrasse. There seems to be little enemy opposition at this point, as some of the men are standing out in the open in the middle of the street.

ATB

THROUGH THE MATERBORN GAP XXX Corps had done well in taking virtually all its objectives for Phase 1 of ‘Veritable’ in the first two days. The vaunted strength of the West Wall was found to have been much exaggerated, but this was discounted by the atrocious conditions of mud and flood with which the attackers had to contend. Yet they had struck the enemy a telling blow. It was estimated that the 84. Infanterie-Division had at best only six battalions left out of 14. By the second night the count of German prisoners stood at more than 2,700. The tasks for Phase 2 were to capture Goch, Üdem and Calcar and open the MookGennep-Goch road. It was imperative that Goch and Kleve should be secured with the least possible delay, for both were vital to Allied communications, as the enemy must recognise. On the 9th First Canadian Army Intelligence forecast his intentions thus: Kleve being ‘all but lost’, ‘If he has forces available either from the Hochwald or from across the Rhine, he will be tempted to try to regain Kleve or at least seal it off. If he cannot do so then he must hold Goch, and also cover the nearest crossings of the Rhine.’ It was an accurate appreciation. As late as 12.30 p.m. on February 10 Generaloberst Blaskowitz, the commander of Heeresgruppe H, received from OB West a signal emphasising the incalculable consequences of a break-through to the Rhine and the necessity of holding Kleve at all costs. For the first time the German High Command now appears to have recognised the First Canadian Army’s offensive as a strategic move demanding the commitment of all available reserves of men and equipment. Allied security measures had been effective. OB West’s Daily Intelligence Reports reveal that up to now the main Allied attack had been expected at the bend of the Maas north of Roermond, where the British Second and US Ninth Armies were believed to be preparing a strong two-pronged offensive against the Duisburg-Düsseldorf sector. (General Schlemm later claimed that he personally expected the big blow to come through the Reichswald, but was assured by his senior that there was no evidence of large Allied concentrations in the Nijmegen area.) Three days before ‘Veritable’ was launched a memorandum from OB West’s Chief Intelligence Officer to key staff officers at Headquarters Heeresgruppe H (who had perhaps questioned this interpretation) suggested that Allied activities west of the Reichswald

Kleve down Tiergarten-Strasse. Again, the series of pictures that he took on that grey morning belong to the classic images of the Rhineland campaign and we have often wondered what they would look like today. Right: TiergartenStrasse is the continuation of the main road leading into Kleve from Nütterden. The grand villa on the right is today the Villa Nova Restaurant.

IWM B14602

Left: Meanwhile the battle for possession of Kleve continued. Early on February 11, the 2nd Gordons were ordered to capture and clear the city up to the line of the Spoy Canal, which runs just east of the city centre. The Scottish infantrymen were supported by Churchill tanks of the 3rd Scots Guards (from the 6th Guards Tank Brigade). Sergeant Wilkes accompanied the force as they methodically advanced into western

The house on the corner was pulled down after the war to make way for the widening of Gruft-Strasse. The houses further along Tiergarten-Strasse remain as before.

BELL ARCHIVE ATB

Moving with the same force as Sergeant Hewitt was Press photographer Bill Warhurst of The Times. He took this shot of Scottish soldiers at the same junction, but on the opposite side of the street. The advance appears to have stopped . . . as has the stray goat hiding behind the road sign!

After the war, the villa seen in the wartime picture was demolished in order to enable a new road to be cut through to form part of the northern ring-road around Kleve.

IWM B14603

ATB

were intended ‘to deceive us regarding the real centre of gravity of the attack’. A subsidiary offensive by Canadian formations in the Reichswald area might precede the main effort. With impressive assurance the memorandum concluded, ‘The appreciation that the main British attack will come from the big bend of the Maas is being maintained now as before.’ In the German intelligence picture British XXX Corps was labelled ‘whereabouts unknown’. The opening of the offensive on February 8 brought no change of mind. It was thought that evening that the attack had probably been carried out by the 2nd and 3rd Canadian Divisions, supported by the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade. The main blow was still expected to fall south of Venlo. Even when the 51st and 53rd Divisions were identified in the Reichswald on the 9th, German Intelligence clung to the belief that the bulk of the British forces was earmarked for the main assault from the Maas bend. The enemy had already taken steps to delay the start of this operation, steps which in fact were to hamper the Allied advance severely. On February 9 units of the US First Army, having captured some of the Roer dams intact, reached the important Schwammenauel Dam to find that the Germans had jammed open a sluice gate. There followed a rise of from three to four feet in the level of the Roer, which caused the river to overflow its banks across the whole of the US Ninth Army’s front and produced a lesser rise along the Maas in the First Canadian Army sector. The timing and scale of this action could not have been better from the German point of view. Complete demolition of the dam would have released an uncontrollable, but brief-enduring, tide to sweep down the Roer valley. As it was, the flood level, which was high enough to stop the Ninth Army’s assault, was to maintain itself for two weeks. Operation ‘Grenade’, originally scheduled for February 10, had to be repeatedly postponed, and Generalfeldmarschall von Rundstedt, the Oberbefehlshaber West, was free for the time being to concentrate upon the operations developing on his north-eastern flank. On the evening of the 8th Heeresgruppe H had given Schlemm permission to commit the 7. Fallschirmjäger-Division (Generalleutnant Wolfgang Erdmann). Arriving piecemeal by battalions it had taken up positions on the left of the 84. Infanterie-Division between Asperden and the Maas. Late on the 10th von Rundstedt decided to move up his armoured reserve and to place Headquarters XLVII. Panzerkorps in control of the battle.

Left: Moving across the street, Hewitt pictured the same infantrymen, who are keeping cover while maintaining a watchful eye on the road ahead. Kleve was defended by remnants of the 84. Infanterie-Division, reinforced in the nick of time on February 9 by Fallschirmjäger-Regiment 16 of the 6. Fallschirmjäger-Division. Above: Seventy years on, the fence to the front garden of No. 52 remains as a reference point. 23

IWM B14608

Continuing the advance, the tank/infantry force moves into Minoriten-Strasse.

24

instructions to pull off the main road at Nütterden between 8 and 10 a.m. on the 10th, to enable the 15th Division’s 227th Brigade to move up and carry out its original task of securing the wooded area north-west of Kleve and clearing the city itself. But events were to emphasise the impossibility of successfully operating two divisions on a single axis — particularly an axis which in places was under water. About daybreak the 129th Brigade, leaving the impassable Bresserberg route, swung north to the south-west edge of Kleve, where it became heavily involved with Fallschirmjäger-Regiment 16, newly arrived

ATB

On the Allied side divisional tasks for the third day of ‘Veritable’ were as follows. While the 51st Division continued to mop up east of the Maas, and to free the southern route to Goch, in the north the 43rd (Wessex) Division would be brought forward to pass through the 15th Division and capture Goch, Üdem and Weeze. The Scottish Division would then clear Kleve and push mobile columns eastward to Emmerich and Calcar. For the next 48 hours the focal point of the battle was to lie in the narrow Materborn Gap between the Reichswald and the heavily bombed city of Kleve. The XXX Corps plan had contemplated a quick break-out into the plain east of the forest by the 43rd Division. To this end Phase 1 of the corps operation had included with the ‘capture of the Materborn feature’, the opening of exits through which the 2nd Household Cavalry Regiment might pass. However, the 15th Scottish Reconnaissance Regiment had made little headway with this assignment. The Materborn Gap, in spite of the 44th Lowland Brigade’s notable advance, was by no means under control. Yet the need of debouching quickly into the open country while the enemy was off balance was so pressing that when General Horrocks heard that the Materborn feature had been seized he at once ordered the 43rd Division into the battle. ‘In point of fact’, he said afterwards, ‘this was a mistake on my part because 15th Division had only just got their claws on to the Materborn feature and had not succeeded in dominating the complete gap. It would have been much better if I had held back 43rd Division, but I did not want to lose the opportunity of breaking through the gap.’ Since the afternoon of the 8th the Wessex Division had been waiting in the southern outskirts of Nijmegen on one hour’s notice to move, and at 6 p.m. on the 9th its 129th Brigade took the road to Kranenburg and Kleve. Major-General Ivor Thomas’ plan was to advance eastward from Nütterden through the neck of the Reichswald, bypassing Kleve and pushing forward to the villages of Hau and Bedburg in order to secure the fork of the roads to Goch and Üdem. The 214th Brigade followed the 129th, with

from the 6. Fallschirmjäger-Division’s area west of Arnhem. Under pressure from three sides the brigade adopted a posture of allround defence and fought on through the whole day and the following night. Meanwhile the inevitable traffic jam had occurred when the 227th Brigade attempted to pass through the 214th at Nütterden. The congestion lasted till dusk, so that once again the 44th Lowland Brigade was the Scottish Division’s only formation in action that day. By capturing the prominent Klever Berg the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers extended the brigade’s hold on the Materborn feature northward to the road from Nütterden; but a planned advance into Kleve was abandoned when the 129th Brigade’s unexpected presence on part of the objective prevented the 15th Division’s artillery from giving the necessary support. At the end of a frustrating day there was promise of confusion giving place to order on the morrow. Relieving the 129th Brigade, the Scottish Division would clear Kleve with two brigades, while the 43rd Division resumed its delayed advance to the south-east. Early on February 11 the Lowland Brigade took over the southern suburbs of Kleve from the 129th and began working northward through the rubble of the town, encountering determined opposition. By late evening the 227th Brigade had come in on the road from Kranenburg and was clearing the north-eastern half of Kleve. The capture of Materborn village that afternoon by the 214th Brigade had finally opened the gap. Fighting forward against sternly resisting paratroopers, this brigade took Hau by daybreak on the 12th. Here however the advance was checked. To bar the way to the south the enemy had established a defensive line along the Eselsberg ridge which linked the woods about Moyland with the detached Forest of Kleve, east of the Reichswald. This was less than he had hoped to do. As the XLVII. Panzerkorps moved westward during the night of February 11/12 to its assembly area at Üdem, its commander, General von Lüttwitz, carried orders from General Schlemm to launch a counter-attack through the 84. InfanterieDivision to recover Kleve and the heights west of the city. But by the morning of the 12th, when the attack was to have been

Apart from the ivy now covering the wall on the right, the passing of the years has seen little change.

BELL ARCHIVE

launched, British forces had advanced southeast from Kleve as far as Hau and in the eastern Reichswald were threatening the KleveGoch road. In these circumstances, and because of his shortage of tanks (not more than 50 actually on the ground) von Lüttwitz decided to attack westward into the Reichswald, where the Allied superiority in armour and artillery would be less effective. The assault would be made with the 15. Panzergrenadier-Division (Generalleutnant Eberhardt Rodt) on the left and the 116. PanzerDivision (Generalmajor Siegfried von Waldenburg) on the right. Von Lüttwitz planned that after reaching the KleveHekkens road he would concentrate all his forces in a drive northward towards the Materborn heights. The effort had failed. Scheduled to begin at 6 a.m., the German attack did not get under way until half past nine. By that time units of the 43rd Division were pushing south-eastward towards Bedburg and southward along the Goch road. The German blows could not halt the momentum of the British drive. The Wessex Division’s historian reports three counter-attacks launched against the 7th Somerset Light Infantry, ‘only to wither away in the fire of the infantry, the tanks and the guns’. By evening the XLVII. Panzerkorps counter-attack had collapsed. Both its divisions had suffered heavily, and of the 84. Infanterie-Division only Grenadier-Regiment 1052 could now muster any appreciable strength. Striving to put together a defensive line which would halt the Allies, von Lüttwitz hurried in from across the Rhine a regiment of the 346. Infanterie-Division, committing it east of Bedburg under Fiebig. An operation order of the 116. Panzer-Division dated February 13 reveals that this division now had the remnant of the 84. Division under command; and that it was to ‘break off the attack south of Kleve’ and take up a defensive line running from Erfgen through Hasselt to the west edge of the Tannenbusch (the Forest of Kleve). The assault on this new position by the 129th Brigade on February 13 was the beginning of a bitter five days’ struggle by the Wessex Division to gain control of the relatively high ground overlooking Goch from the north-east. While progress in the centre of the XXX Corps front was thus bitterly contested, things had been going better on the wings. The most significant advance was on the right, where the 51st Division was endeavouring to open up the Mook-Goch road, now to be the main Corps axis. On February 10 the 153rd Highland Brigade, clearing the widening triangle between the Reichswald and the Maas, entered Ottersum, and during the night sent the 5th Black Watch across the Niers river in assault boats to capture Gennep. The town was a valuable acquisition, for British Second Army was now able to begin bridging the Maas here in order to relieve

IWM B14613

Right: Continuing into Kavariner-Strasse, the force entered that part of Kleve flattened by the RAF. The town had been bombed twice, first on October 7, 1944, by 351 aircraft and then on the night preceding ‘Veritable’ (February 7/8) by another 315 bombers, leaving Kleve the most destroyed town of its size in Germany. The Churchills advancing with the Gordons were from the Scots Guards’ ‘Left Flank’ under Major John Mann. (Traditionally, the regiment’s three fighting squadrons were known as ‘Right Flank’, ‘Left Flank’ and ‘S’ Squadron.) Here they are turning from Kavariner-Strasse into Grosse Strasse.

Shortly afterwards, Eddie Worth, a war photographer with Associated Press, pictured a 6-pounder anti-tank gun emplaced at the same junction. On the left, rising above the ruins, is the Schwanenturm (Swan Tower), part of the 11th-century Schwanenburg hill castle that dominates the city and is the hallmark of Kleve. During the raid of October 7/8, a Halifax bomber had crashed into the tower, the resulting explosion seriously damaging the whole castle.

ATB

Right: Completely reconstructed, Grosse Strasse — Kleve’s main shopping street — has now been pedestrianised. The Schwanenburg was partially rebuilt in 1948-53, with further restoration an ongoing project since 1986. 25

Left: By the afternoon, the Gordons had not only cleared all of their sector but also captured an almost intact bridge across the Spoy Canal. This was the Neue Brücke, giving access to the eastern half of Kleve. Eddie Worth pictured troops sprinting across the span and into the bridgehead. The Schwanenturm rises in the background.

BELL ARCHIVE

the traffic bottleneck downstream at Grave. (The flood from the Roer dams seriously delayed the work.) On the 11th Hekkens, the troublesome southern anchor of the main Reichswald defences, was taken in fierce fighting by the 154th Brigade, supported by the full Corps artillery. Two nights later the same brigade, crossing the swollen Niers south of Hekkens in Buffaloes, established a bridgehead west of Kessel, capturing high ground from which the enemy had been directing fire upon the new Corps axis. On the night of the 14th/15th Kessel was taken. In the Reichswald itself the 53rd Division continued mopping up pockets of resistance. The worst opposition came from German self-propelled guns firing down the open rides, for there was no way of approaching these with armour. On the 12th the Welshmen successfully fought off the vigorous counter-attacks launched against them by the 15. Panzergrenadier-Division as the main blow of the XLVII. Panzerkorps’ mis-timed effort. ADVANCE THROUGH THE FLOODS On the inundated flats beside the Rhine preparations for the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s attack on February 10 were prolonged into the afternoon as new transport difficulties arose hourly. Supporting artillery could not get forward, and at 4.30 a.m. the two assaulting battalions crossed the startline in Buffaloes without the pre-arranged

ATB

BELL ARCHIVE

ATB

Left: A modern apartment block now lines the canal on the city side; the spire of the restored Schwanenturm can be seen beyond it.

Left: A short distance up Herzog-Strasse, the street leading from the bridge to the railway station, Worth pictured Private M. Bain pulling down a Swastika flag from a house while his 26

companion with the Bren, Private J. R. Holliday, keeps a watchful eye for snipers. Right: They once stood here beside the house on the corner with Bahnhof-Strasse.

ATB

barrage. On the right The Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders had slight opposition. In little more than an hour they were in Donsbrüggen, where they met the 2nd Gordon Highlanders, who had had to force their way forward through barricades of treetrunks which the enemy had skilfully felled across the main Kleve road. Pushing on towards the Spoy Canal, by midnight the SD&Gs had a company in Rindern, where fighting continued until daylight. Farther north The Highland Light Infantry of Canada were stopped outside Düffelward by machine-gun fire from pillboxes which covered the only approach. Next morning they took the town without loss and headed for the canal. By mid-afternoon of the 11th the Glengarrians, having mopped up Rindern, had reached the west bank. At its northern end the Highland Light Infantry occupied Wardhausen in the early evening, and before midnight the two battalions held the whole line of the canal. An early-morning message from the 3rd Canadian Division on February 11 reported that water was still the ‘greatest enemy’. The human antagonist here was the muchreduced Grenadier-Regiment 1052, whose parent 84. Division could now muster fewer than 1,000 fighting men. With Kleve lost there was no great incentive for a sacrificial defence of the scattered ‘island’ villages in the flooded river flats. There were withdrawals in the dark, and although General Fiebig’s post-war recollections include the establishment of a temporary line through Griethausen and Kellen on the west bank of the Alter Rhein, both these places were in fact taken on the 12th without opposition — the former by The Highland Light Infantry of Canada and the latter by Brigadier John Rockingham’s reserve battalion, The North Nova Scotia Highlanders. The 9th Brigade was now the only formation of General Spry’s ‘Water Rats’ to remain fully committed in the flooded area. Because of the reduced enemy resistance and the increasing difficulties of maintenance the 7th Brigade had been withdrawn to Beek on the 11th, and the positions held by the 8th were being turned over to a single battalion. On the afternoon of the 12th the 7th Brigade relieved the Scottish Division’s 227th Brigade in Kleve, which was now free of any organised resistance. Although, in the words of one unit diarist, ‘Kleve had been “Caenned” almost into oblivion’, the deep cellars beneath nearly every house had sur-

replaced it with a Bailey bridge, this picture being taken from the city side of the canal. Right: Looking towards the presentday bridge from the corner of Gasthaus-Strasse today.

IWM B14513

Left: Just a hundred metres south of the Neue Brücke lay a second bridge across the Spoy, the Alte Brücke. This had been destroyed by the RAF bombing but Royal Engineers soon

Meanwhile, the 8th Royal Scots, supported by tanks of the 4th Grenadier Guards, cleared the southern half of Kleve, taking over from the 129th Brigade Group of the 43rd Division (which now could move on to carry out its original task of advancing on Goch). Sergeant Hewitt pictured Churchills of the Grenadiers moving down TriftStrasse, a side street off Linden-Allee leading south out of the city. The debris and destruction are evidence of the severe bombing meted out to the city.

ATB

Right: Karel found the comparison at the beginning of the street, close to its junction with Linden-Allee. The first two houses have been repaired and the next two rebuilt. 27

BELL ARCHIVE

With Kleve taken, the Allies prepared to break out south to Goch and east to Calcar. Blocking the way towards the latter town was Moyland Wood, a forested spur stretching eastwards from a point just east of Kleve to just south of the village of Moyland. It was a difficult obstacle, stoutly defended by paratroopers from Fallschirmjäger-Regimenter 19 and 21. After the 2nd Glasgow Highlanders and 9th Cameronians from the 15th Division had taken a bloody nose in three days of savage fighting in the woods (February 14-16), the 3rd Canadian Division took over and it was the turn of the Regina Rifle Regiment and the Winnipeg Rifles to give it a try. Canadian Army photographer Captain Colin McDougall pictured the Winnipeg Rifles as they prepared to move out from Kleve on their way to the battlefront.

CANADIAN II CORPS ENTERS THE BATTLE By the end of the first week’s fighting the gains south of the Reichswald made it possible for General Crerar to deploy First Canadian Army on a two-corps front. Until now the restricted lines of advance had limited the role of Canadian II Corps to protecting General Horrocks’ left flank. An apprecia28

tion by Crerar’s headquarters on February 1 had foreseen the capture of Goch and the opening of adequate maintenance routes for XXX Corps south of the Reichswald as ‘an essential prelude to any take-over by Canadian II Corps’. If there were a likelihood of the battle becoming ‘loose’ at this stage, the appreciation went on, XXX Corps should continue to drive from Kleve on Calcar and Üdem until it was possible to switch the maintenance of the thrusting division (the Guards Armoured) from the northern to the southern axis. However, should things become ‘sticky’, the route through Kleve and the responsibility for the advance to the south-east ought to be turned over to Canadian II Corps.

ATB

vived the attentions of Bomber Command, and gave the Canadians comfortable billets and adequate protection from the occasional shell which the enemy still dropped into the city. The entire area between the Rhine and the Kleve-Calcar railway was now under water, for on February 11 German engineers, acting on instructions from the 1. FallschirmArmee, had blown the sluice-gates of the Spoy Canal and breached the western dyke of the Kalflach Canal near Huisberden. This action nullified efforts by the engineers of the 3rd Canadian Division to reduce the flooding by piercing the main dyke at Nijmegen, where the level of the Waal was now below that of the water imprisoned within. On February 12 the 16th Field Company RCE blasted a 100-foot gap which they subsequently enlarged to 300 yards. The flow into the river began at a rate of some 13 knots, and on the 15th Canadian engineers reported a general decrease in the flood level as far east as Kranenburg. But there was to be no large-scale relief. The new breach east of Kleve was letting in as much water as was being drained off, and outside the dyke the river was rising towards its highest level of the winter. The Nijmegen-Kleve road was under water; but since the evening of February 10 four ferries, built by the 2nd Field Company RCE, had been carrying priority traffic around the flooded portion from Wyler to a point 300 yards east of Kranenburg. When Field-Marshal Montgomery visited the 3rd Canadian Division on the 15th, he toured the area in a convoy of amphibious vehicles.

Operations had definitely been ‘sticky’, and so far there had been no opening for the armoured division, which was still in corps reserve at Nijmegen. Goch had not yet fallen, and the important bridge over the Maas at Gennep which was to provide General Horrocks with a new maintenance route was still under construction. (It was finally opened for traffic on the 20th.) On February 14 the Army Commander lunched with Lieutenant-General Simonds and instructed him to take over XXX Corps’ left sector at noon next day. He ruled out for the time being a proposal by Simonds that his corps might be given the task of securing a crossing over the Neder Rijn (Lower Rhine) just west of Arnhem and exploiting up the Rhine’s right bank, judging such a project, attractive though it might seem, ‘of secondary importance to the immediate responsibility of completing what we have set out to do in Operation “Veritable”.’ Thus maximum pressure upon the enemy would be maintained on a wide front by employing formations not hitherto committed in the battle. General Simonds was given as his main axis the road running south-eastward from Kleve to Üdem, while XXX Corps, shifting to its right, would operate along a centre line KleveGoch-Weeze-Kevelaer. General Horrocks now carried out some necessary regrouping. He was reinforced on his southern flank by the 52nd (Lowland) Division, which arrived from British VIII Corps in the Venlo area and took over the 51st Division’s right front, leaving the 51st to concentrate on attacking Goch from the north-west. Farther to the left the 43rd Division, in heavy fighting by each of its brigades in turn, broke through the German defences east and south of the Forest of Kleve, completely overrunning the 15. PanzergrenadierDivision. By the evening of February 16 an armoured column of the 214th Brigade had cut the Goch-Calcar road, and a brilliant night attack without reconnaissance by the 4th Somerset Light Infantry gained a 1,000yard front on the ridge overlooking Goch. When the drive ended the brigade had captured 1,000 prisoners. The advance had outflanked the Forest of Kleve, from which the enemy had been largely driven by a carefully co-ordinated fire-plan to which the 1st Canadian Rocket Battery contributed. On the 17th the 130th Brigade cleared the forest without difficulty. The way was now open for the 15th (Scottish) Division to pass through the 43rd and assault Goch from the northeast.

The Canadians had formed up in Brabanter Strasse, a side street from Linden-Allee, in the south-western part of the city. Karel chanced upon the spot when he crisscrossed Kleve in search of another comparison.

BELL ARCHIVE

The German defenders in Moyland Wood had just been relieved by the fresh Fallschirmjäger-Regimenter 17 and 18, and the Canadians made as little headway as the Scottish. It was not until another six days of bitter and costly fighting that the Canadians finally secured the wood and captured Schloss Moyland, the 18th-century moated castle just north of the Kleve-Calcar road that gave the wood its name. Lieutenant Dean pictured troops of the Régiment de Maisonneuve at the shell-battered castle the following day. Louisendorf area three miles south of Moyland; while on its left The Regina Rifle Regiment, with one tank squadron, was to clear the woods closer to Moyland — those lying east of the lateral road, and forming a kind of peninsula to the main wooded area. The attack on the right went well. Kangaroos carried the Winnipeg Rifles through heavy shelling and rocket-fire to their objective, which they consolidated by five o’clock. Suffering remarkably few casualties, the battalion took 240 prisoners. On the left, however, the Reginas quickly ran into difficulties. Close to their start-line they came under heavy flanking fire from the left, although that part of the forest had been reported cleared by the 46th Brigade. The Reginas

ATB

CLEARING MOYLAND WOOD In the meantime, on the Wessex Division’s left, troops of the 15th Division had been meeting stubborn opposition in the woods west of Moyland. On the 13th the 46th Brigade, advancing along the KleveCalcar road, had reached Hasselt, a village north-east of Bedburg. Moyland, two miles to the south-east, was the objective for the 14th, but because the ground on either side of the highway was flooded, Brigadier Henry Cumming-Bruce had shifted his axis 1,000 yards to the right. He sent one battalion, the 9th Cameronians, along a secondary road nearly a mile south of the highway, and another, the 2nd Glasgow Highlanders, along the pine-covered ridge between. This forested area, consisting mainly of small conifers which formed no real obstacle to armour, extended for three miles from Bedburg to a point south-east of Moyland, from which village the wood derived its name. After a promising beginning the brigade’s attack slowed under heavy artillery and mortar fire, and the two battalions became involved in close and bitter fighting in the woods. By the morning of the 16th they were holding positions as far forward as the lateral road which crossed the ridge at a neck of the forest south-west of Moyland. The brigade’s bitter struggle for Moyland, which all were to agree (writes the divisional historian), ‘had been the worst experience they had endured since the campaign began’, was to last for three more days. On February 15 the 3rd Canadian Division took over the 15th Division’s front, at the same time reverting under the command of Canadian II Corps. The 46th Brigade came under General Spry that evening as the rest of the Scottish Division went into XXX Corps reserve to prepare for the assault on Goch. On the narrow front between the inter-corps boundary and the flooded Rhine flats, General Simonds had little room for deployment. Canadian formations could at first be fed in only one brigade at a time, and on the afternoon of February 16 the 7th Brigade entered the battle. Its task was to pass through the 46th Brigade and open the way to Calcar. The Royal Winnipeg Rifles, supported by two squadrons of Churchill tanks from the 3rd Scots Guards, was directed to seize hilly ground in the

spent the rest of the day securing the woods west of the lateral road, ousting members of Fusilier-Bataillon 346 and of Panzergrenadier-Regiment 60 of the 116. PanzerDivision. These fell back to the ‘peninsula’, whence their machine-gun fire effectively barred any crossing of the lateral road. As the Reginas’ C Company pushed forward along the southern fringe of the wood one of its platoons was counter-attacked and cut off. A renewal of the attack on the morning of the 17th achieved little. Heavy artillery and mortar fire disorganised the Regina companies at the edge of the wood. The enemy’s shells were being detonated by the treetops, resulting in a particularly deadly airburst. During the day, however, the 7th Brigade’s reserve battalion, the 1st Canadian Scottish, advanced under heavy fire across the open country on the right flank to capture high ground overlooking Heselerfeld and Rosskamp — farmsteads about half a mile south of the Calcar end of Moyland Wood. With the 7th Brigade’s southern flank thus secured General Spry decided to seal off the eastern end of the woods and then clear north-westward to the Moyland lateral road. Brigadier Spragge ordered an attack from the south, and at 12.30 p.m. on the 18th The Regina Rifle Regiment moved northward across the Bedburg road. Using Wasp flamethrowers B Company gained a footing among the trees, throwing the enemy back 200 yards, but D Company, trying to pass through, was halted by vigorous counterattacks from the right flank. The Germans in the woods kept up a devastating machinegun fire, and from across the Rhine their heavy artillery shelled the Canadian positions continuously. Nevertheless one of D Company’s platoons, commanded by Lieutenant Warren Keating, seized the central crest, and A Company, working north-westward, reached its objective on the lateral road. There the attack stayed, for the Reginas were too exhausted to exploit in the face of the terrific enemy fire. For five hours, until reinforced by the rest of D Company, Keating’s handful fought off repeated counter-attacks in hand-to-hand combat. At the end of the third day of the battle for the woods the battalion’s casualties totalled more than 100.

Schloss Moyland was the estate of the noble family of Steengracht van Moyland (who during the war had split loyalties, one member becoming Secretary of State in the German Foreign Office while another served as a Commando captain with the Free Dutch Forces!). In the weeks following its capture it served as the divisional headquarters, first of the 43rd Division, then of the 3rd Division, during which time it was visited by Winston Churchill on March 24 (see After the Battle No. 16). Gutted by fire in 1956, its lay abandoned for 30 years, when a complete restoration was started. Today it houses a renowned museum of modern art. 29

ATB

30

IWM B14673

The Germans were continuing to move in fresh troops. The stern resistance encountered by the Regina Rifles came from a battalion of the 6. Fallschirmjäger-Division newly from North Holland. On February 16 Generalleutnant Hermann Plocher’s divisional headquarters had relieved the 84. Infanterie-Division between the Kleve-Calcar road and the Rhine. At first Plocher had only the remnants of his FallschirmjägerRegiment 16 (which had been fighting hard since February 10), elements of the 346. Infanterie-Division and some companies of the 7. Fallschirmjäger-Division; but he was temporarily reinforced shortly by the strong Fallschirmjäger-Regimenter 19 and 21 of the last-named division. Then, on the night of February 17/18, his own FallschirmjägerRegiment 18 began arriving at Calcar, to be followed shortly by Fallschirmjäger-Regiment 17. On Plocher’s left flank the 116. Panzer-Division was being slowly pushed back, leaving the Moyland area as a stubborn salient on which for several more days the waves of Allied attacks were to break in vain. The failure to drive the enemy from Moyland Wood was seriously delaying Canadian II Corps’ planned advance. The 2nd Canadian Division was still uncommitted; its 4th Brigade had been in the Kleve area since the evening of February 16, waiting to relieve the 7th Brigade. Accordingly the Corps intentions for the 19th were for the 4th Brigade to pass through the 7th’s battalions and seize objectives beyond the Goch-Calcar road, which the 43rd Division had cut near Goch on the 16th. While the 5th Brigade relieved the 46th Scottish Brigade in the western part of Moyland Wood, the 7th was to complete clearing the eastern end. The strength of the German defenders still holding the wood seems to have been seriously underestimated. The 7th Brigade’s commander, Brigadier Spragge, gave the brigade’s task to the Canadian Scottish, who were directed at the same time to improve their positions to the east and south by gaining more of the high ground overlooking Calcar. In these circumstances the attack against the wood was made by one weak company. Since its advance on the 17th the battalion had suffered heavily from the enemy’s shelling and mortaring, and C Company attacked northward on the morning of the 19th with only 68 men. These crossed the Bedburg road and reached their objective near the wood’s south-eastern tip with few casualties, but immediately came under a holocaust of fire followed by a counter-

Crossing the street and turning to look in the opposite direction, Midgley pictured the same column passing a sign pointing the way to Goch.

ATB

IWM B14675

Left: While the 15th Division was battling for Moyland Wood, on February 13 the 43rd Division began the drive on Goch, passing down the eastern edge of the Reichswald forest. Sergeant Midgley pictured troops and transport of the division moving through a misty Kleve on their way out towards the new objective. Above: The picture was taken at the three-way junction of Römer-Strasse (left), Gruft-Strasse (upper right) and Hohenzollern-Strasse (lower right). The house on the left has been replaced but the others remain as they were in 1945.

Hohenzollern-Strasse is today named Ring-Strasse.

IWM B14666

Armoured support was again provided by the 8th Armoured Brigade. Here two of their Sherman Fireflies rumble past the bombed-out ruins of the Hindenburg-Oberschule as they turn into Hohenzollern-Strasse to join the 43rd Division column. THE GOCH-CALCAR ROAD During the past three days Brigadier Fred Cabeldu’s 4th Brigade had also been engaged in one of the most bitterly fought actions of Operation ‘Veritable’. It had been intended that the brigade should launch the 2nd Division’s re-entry into the battle with the capture of a prominent hill a mile south-east of Calcar, but this target had been successively replaced by more-limited objectives as the flanking threat from Moyland Wood persisted. Finally on February 18 General Simonds ordered an attack for noon next day to seize a zone of high ground, 1,000 yards deep, extending north-east along the Goch-Calcar road for 3,000 yards from its intersection

with the Bedburg-Üdem road. The operation would be on a two-battalion front, Brigadier Cabeldu placing The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry on the left and The Essex Scottish Regiment on the right, with The Royal Regiment of Canada in reserve. Each assaulting unit would be supported by a squadron of the Fort Garry Horse, who thus established their claim of being the first Canadian armour to fight in Germany. Because the attack was to be made across open country, the 1st Canadian Armoured Personnel Carrier Regiment provided enough Kangaroos to lift two rifle companies from each battalion. The fire-plan included support by the machine guns and mortars of the Toronto Scottish Regiment and by 14 field and seven

ATB

attack which virtually wiped out the company. Only nine men escaped. The battalion’s northern flank, left open by this disaster to C Company, was quickly sealed by the regimental carriers and a troop of Sherman tanks from the Fort Garry Horse. The remaining Canadian Scottish companies made little headway towards Calcar, and during the evening had to beat off six counter-attacks by Plocher’s paratroopers. A Scottish outpost established south of Heselerfeld was overrun. The battalion’s casualties for 18 and February 19 totalled 140, including 53 taken prisoner. Meanwhile the advance of the 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade on the right had improved the 7th Brigade’s chances against Moyland Wood, where the crust of the enemy’s defences had so far shown no sign of cracking. There was a change in the command of the brigade on the 20th, LieutenantColonel Allan Gregory, the Reginas’ CO, taking it over temporarily. A very carefully co-ordinated attack by The Royal Winnipeg Rifles was planned for February 21. The whole wooded area east of the Moyland lateral road was divided into belts 300 yards wide, each to be successively saturated from west to east by a timed programme of fire from divisional artillery and mortars, while from the southern flank the battalions’ antitank guns and medium machine guns of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa provided close support over open sights. At 10 a.m., as fire over the first sector lifted, A and C Companies of the Winnipegs, each accompanied by two tanks of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers Regiment, moved through the Regina Rifles and entered the angle of the wood south-west of Moyland. The flamethrowers with the infantry (a well-planned system of refuelling kept three Wasps continually with each forward company) terrified the Germans and bolstered the morale of the attackers. In spite of mounting casualties, both from machine-gun fire and from the shells bursting among the treetops, the Winnipegs pressed forward, methodically clearing the woods sector by sector, aided by the tanks. In the final stage C Company had been reduced to a strength of 42, while A Company had no officers and only 25 men left. D Company, coming in with three tanks, completed the task, clearing the eastern end of the wood. This company’s success owed much to the skill and inspiration of its commander, Major Hugh Denison, who went from one platoon to another, keeping his men moving in spite of increasing casualties, and led the assault on the final enemy position. Throughout the Winnipegs’ advance low-flying rocket-firing Typhoons of No. 84 Group, taking advantage of the first good flying weather in five days, gave valuable aid by strafing enemy positions. Mines laid across the eastern exits from the wood prevented Allied tanks from supporting further infantry advance, but Denison organised D Company’s defences at the edge of the trees; they repelled two sharp counter-attacks during the night. Thus the obstacle of Moyland Wood had been overcome at last. The 3rd Division’s fighting there indicates once more what an unpleasant task the capture of a forest area held by a determined enemy can be. It had been very costly; the 7th Brigade’s three battalions had suffered 485 casualties during the six days February 16-21. The heaviest toll fell upon The Royal Winnipeg Rifles, with 183; of these, 105 (26 of them fatal) were in the final victorious attack of the 21st. The Canadian Scottish had 168 casualties, The Regina Rifle Regiment 134. But the 6. Fallschirmjäger-Division had pulled its front back to the line Calcar-Hönnepel. Early on the 22nd the 5th Brigade’s Régiment de Maisonneuve entered Moyland village unopposed and captured the castle of the same name. The road to Calcar was open.

The Hindenburg-Oberschule was Kleve’s grammar-school for boys. Rebuilt in the early 1950s it is today named the Freiherr-von-Stein-Gymnasium. It was only when he found this comparison that Karel realised the picture had been taken at the same junction as the two previous photos taken by Sergeant Midgley. 31

ATB

NIOD 73309

Right: Windmill De Reus still stands along Ottersumseweg. Part of the Nijmegen-Mook-Goch road, in 1944 this was in fact the main road south of the Reichswald and the principal axis of the Highland Division in its advance on Goch. The junction in the foreground leads left to Nijmegen and right to Gennep. 32

Just outside Gennep, Silverside pictured a lone infantryman bringing in five German prisoners on the 12th.

ATB

medium regiments, plus two heavy batteries. (These were from the divisional artilleries of the 2nd and 3rd Canadian, and the 15th, 43rd and 53rd Divisions, and the 5th Army Group Royal Artillery.) Rain during the night of February 18/19 further softened the sodden fields over which the advance had to be made. By mid-morning the 4th Brigade units were forming up in The Royal Winnipeg Rifles’ battalion area. The start-line was the road running northeast through the Louisendorf crossroads; the other axis of the crossroads formed the interbattalion boundary. Promptly at midday the guns opened fire, taking the enemy by surprise. The barrage rolled forward at armoured pace as the Kangaroos, led by the tanks, headed straight for their initial objectives, 2,500 yards away. But the heavy going took its toll, and on each sector several personnel carriers and Shermans bogged down close to the start-line, while on the left flank a number of tanks fell victims to mines. Heavy fire from a screen of 88mm guns along the Goch-Calcar road forced the Kangaroos to drop their troops short of their goal. The Carrier Regiment in all had seven vehicles knocked out, although three of these were later recovered. The leading RHLI companies, though suffering heavy casualties, managed to fight across the road to within 200 yards of their objectives — the Schwanenhof and Ebben farmsteads. On the right the Essex Scottish, whose targets were the buildings at Göttern and Brunshof, had some elements there at 1.45 p.m. But half an hour later they reported a counter-attack coming in. It was the first of a series of heavy blows launched by infantry and armour against their front and southern flank. The Essex fought back grimly and by half-past four had put A and D Companies on their objectives. The Royal Regiment of Canada had now reached their reserve positions, 1,500 yards to the rear of the main road. By six o’clock more than 100 prisoners had been sent back, most of them from Fallschirm-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 12 (an

in storm boats and took the town without much difficulty. However, heavy fighting broke out immediately to the south of it, which lasted for the next four days. On the 12th, Sergeant Silverside pictured a platoon of the Black Watch rushing the next house up the main street under cover of smoke. Right: The junction of Zandstraat and Picardie today, seen from the former. The troops were running towards the Stadsherberg pub which is still in business today.

IWM B14625

Left: Meanwhile, on the other side of the Reichswald, having broken out into the open countryside south of the forest, the 153rd Brigade of the 51st Division on the night of February 10/11 attacked and captured the town of Gennep, an important objective as this was where an extra Bailey bridge across the Maas river was planned to ease supply of the ‘Veritable’ offensive. The 5th Black Watch, followed by the 1st Gordons, crossed the Niers river, which shielded Gennep from the east,

ROYAL ENGINEERS

independent reconnaissance unit formed the previous October for duty with the II. Fallschirm-Korps). Then the enemy’s effort redoubled as the XLVII. Panzerkorps sent a fresh formation into the fight. Most opportunely for General von Lüttwitz, the Panzer-Lehr-Division (Generalmajor Horst Niemack) had arrived the previous evening at Marienbaum, midway between Calcar and Xanten. Badly mauled in the Ardennes, its ranks had since been filled with young replacements of little training; nevertheless, as it was about to show, it was still capable of fierce fighting. It seems to have had only 22 tanks actually ready for action on February 19. Higher authority had decreed that it might be used for short counter-attacks, but not for holding a line of defence. The situation seemed made to order, and about 8 p.m. on the 19th it was committed against the Canadians holding the farms along the Goch-Calcar road. It appears that a battle-group of the Panzer Lehr attacked on the RHLI sector, and 116. Panzer-Division units against the Essex. Since the Fort Garry tanks had withdrawn at nightfall to re-arm and re-fuel, for the moment the Canadian infantry was without armoured support. Throughout the night successive waves of Germans, supported by heavy artillery and mortar fire, drove against the 4th Brigade’s positions, inflicting severe losses. Towards midnight the Essex CO, Lieutenant-Colonel John Pangman, who had previously been out of communication for some time, reported that the situation around his tactical headquarters on the road north of Verkält was ‘touch and go’, with ‘enemy tanks and infantry all about’. About the same time the RHLI reported, ‘Heavy infiltration of enemy infantry and tanks around B and C Companies.’ At this critical juncture the 2nd Canadian Division commander, General Matthews, released the 6th Brigade’s Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada to Brigadier Cabeldu, who was thus able to use the Royal Regiment, strengthened by one and later two companies of the Camerons, to maintain his forward line. Cabeldu ordered the Royals to reinforce the Essex Scottish. D Company went forward, but returned on finding the Essex headquarters ‘held by enemy tanks and infantry’. At 1.35 a.m. Lieutenant-Colonel Denis Whitaker of the RHLI sent word that his C Company had been overrun and that he was mounting a counter-attack. All the men ‘left out of battle’ were called forward to bolster the defences; and by morning the battalion’s counter-effort had restored its positions. Aid came with the arrival of a company of the Camerons, and a troop of Fort Garry tanks moved up in time to help beat off a strong daylight counter-attack. Meanwhile Brigadier Cabeldu had been organising an attempt by the Royal Regiment (Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Lendrum) to recover the lost positions of the Essex Scottish and rally B and C Companies’ survivors, who were sheltering in scattered slit trenches. Preceded by heavy artillery fire, the attack went in at 9.30 a.m. After an hour’s stiff fighting contact was established with Lieutenant-Colonel Pangman, who was holding out with the remnant of his headquarters in a farmhouse cellar. But so deadly was the enemy fire that it was 2 p.m., after a second Royal attack had been mounted, before carriers could reach the spot to evacuate the wounded and the weary headquarters staff. During the afternoon stragglers from the Essex trickled back; but it was not until next morning that A Company, which had been written off as lost, re-appeared, having held its ground for 36 hours with only 35 fit men and some wounded. Altogether the twoday battle cost the Essex Scottish 51 killed, 99 wounded and 54 taken prisoner. The Royal Regiment had had 64 casualties.

By February 17 Goch had been surrounded by British forces from three sides, the 43rd Division having secured the escarpment that overlooked the city from the north-east, the 53rd Division having emerged from the Reichswald and reached positions to the north, and the 51st Division having reached the north-western approaches. Siegfried Line bunkers defended the city from the west, while a double anti-tank ditch protected it from the north and north-east. The attack to capture the town was to be launched from the north-east by the 44th Brigade of the 15th Division, through the line held by the 43rd Division. During the night of the 17th/18th, engineer teams from the latter division would secure crossing-places over the outer ditch. Armoured breaching teams, comprised of AVRE bridge-layers from the 284th Assault Squadron, RE, escorted by Churchill tanks of the 4th Grenadier Guards, would then open two crossings over the inner antitank ditch after which two battalions from the 44th Brigade — the 6th KOSB and the 8th Royal Scots, mounted in Kangaroos — would cross over and enter the town. Their attack was to be followed up by one from the 53rd Division, and together the two divisions would clear the part of town that lies north of the Niers river. The 51st Division would assault from the north-west later in the day and clear the southern half of town. Panzer-Lehr’s effort was almost spent. Shortly before 6 p.m. on the 20th a final attack came in on the RHLI from the northeast. Cabeldu at once sent forward the reserve Fort Garry squadron and previously uncommitted elements of the Cameron Highlanders, and within two hours the Germans were beaten back. The important Goch-Calcar road was now secure, the 2nd Division had a firm base from which to mount further operations and the success here helped the 7th Brigade to win Moyland Wood. In seizing their objective and then holding it so doggedly against the enemy’s best efforts, The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry had suffered 125 casualties. With the aid of their supporting weapons they had accounted for a good share of the brigade’s estimated toll of 11 German tanks and six 88mm SP guns. (No less than seven tanks were credited to the 18th Canadian Anti-Tank Battery’s C Troop.) The Panzer-Lehr-Division, having lost 46 men captured and evidently a considerably larger number killed and wounded, was withdrawn on the night of February 21/22 to the area west of Üdem, and shortly sent to the Mönchen-Gladbach sector to oppose the US Ninth Army. The 4th Brigade had had sad losses (the combined casualties of its own three battalions and The Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada for February 19 and 20 numbered just 400), but it was pleased with itself, and it had reason to be. The brigade diarist wrote: ‘All units have done an exceptionally fine job of fighting, and the RHLI “fortress” is an outstanding example of a well planned and executed operation and of the ability of our troops under good leadership and by sheer guts and determination to take and hold difficult ground against the enemy’s best.’

THE CAPTURE OF GOCH Operation ‘Veritable’ was drawing to a close, although not more than half its second phase had been completed. A new offensive effort was now being organised. On the XXX Corps front the final act of ‘Veritable’ had been the struggle for Goch, which was a bulwark of the German defence system east of the Reichswald. Divided in two by the River Niers, the town of 10,000 inhabitants was guarded on all sides except the south-east by an inner and an outer anti-tank ditch, about 1,000 yards apart. By February 17, three divisions were closing in on Goch — the 53rd (Welsh) and the 43rd (Wessex) from the north and north-east, and the 51st (Highland) from the north-west. General Horrocks planned a full corps operation to take the town. Using crossings over the outer ditch seized by the Wessex Division’s 214th Brigade, the 44th Lowland Brigade (15th Division), moving up from Kleve by Kangaroo, was to assault on the 18th between the Goch-Kleve railway and the Calcar road, while the 51st Division cleared that part of Goch lying south of the Niers. West of the railway the 53rd Division would mark time on the high ground, ready to commit one or more brigades at short notice. The operation went on as planned. During the night of February 17/18 the 214th Brigade established seven crossings over the outer ditch, about 2,500 yards from the heart of the town. The 44th Brigade’s assault began early next afternoon with two battalions, aided by special equipment of the 79th Armoured Division, advancing on separate axes, the 8th Royal Scots Fusiliers on the right and the 6th KOSB on the left. They met heavy machine-gun fire, but by midnight 33

ATB

IWM B14759

ATB

Above: The 15th Division attack went in at 1500 hours on February 18. This may look an unexciting photo but it shows in fact one of the two SBG bridges placed by the AVRE bridge-layers across the inner anti-tank ditch in Lane 4. This lane followed the line of Pfalzdorfer Strasse and led straight into Goch. However, at first both bridges were unusable, one because its AVRE jammed its release mechanism and so could not separate from its bridge, and the second because its AVRE slid into the ditch. It was not until midnight that a crossing on this axis had been made practicable at which point the 6th King’s Own Scottish Borderers mounted in Kangaroos were able to use it to penetrate into Goch. Right: Looking towards Goch on Pfalzdorfer Strasse today at the point where the anti-tank ditch crossed it in 1945. The house on the right is still there, albeit with a new house added alongside it.

Left: Sergeant Hewitt pictured two Scottish soldiers escorting six German prisoners of war back to the rear. Goch was defended by units from Fallschirmjäger-Regimenter 19 and 20; parts of Flieger-Ausbildungs-Bataillon 45; a battalion from the 15. Panzergrenadier-Division, and a local Volkssturm battalion, 34

No. 304, this garrison being reinforced at the last minute by Fusilier-Bataillon 190, a bicycle-mounted unit from the 190. Infanterie-Division. Right: Karel pinpointed the spot further along Pfalzdorfer Strasse where a new house has now filled in the open space.

ATB

IWM B14797

Left: Klever Strasse, coming into town along the railway line from the north, was the main axis used by the 53rd Division to fight its way into Goch. Here a Daimler Dingo scout car from the 42nd Assault Regiment, RE, passes the heavily-camouflaged water tower of the municipal waterworks, just north of the station. The photograph was taken by Sergeant Hewitt on

February 23. Two squadrons of AVRE tanks were employed in the Goch operation, the 284th from the 6th Assault Regiment assisting the 15th Division and the 222nd from the 42nd Assault Regiment helping the 51st. Right: The waterworks buildings along Klever Strasse have been modernised but the original water tower survives.

both had consolidated bridgeheads over the inner ditch. On the other side of the Niers the Highland Division’s 153rd Brigade, attacking as planned at 11 p.m. on the 18th, had entered the southern part of the town. Rubble from bombing having stopped the tanks, the infantry had close street-fighting all next day and the following night. By then, the 44th Brigade had cleared its sector as far as the river and taken 600 prisoners; while the 71st Brigade (of the 53rd Division) had moved up to secure the factory area in the north-west corner of the town. The garrison commander, Oberst Paul Matussek (who had been wounded by shrapnel), surrendered to a platoon of the 5th Black Watch on the 19th, but confused fighting was to continue south of the Niers for another 48 hours. Early on the 19th, headquarters of the II. Fallschirm-Korps, commanded by General der Fallschirmtruppen

IWM B14834

Right: Troops and transport of the 53rd Division move into Goch in force, photographed by Sergeant Jones on the 25th. Note the bomb damage to the houses, caused by the heavy RAF raid on the town on the night of February 7/8.

ATB

Eugen Meindl, had taken over the front on both sides of Goch, with the 7. Fallschirmjäger-Division and what was left of the 84. Infanterie-Division under command. But Meindl’s attempts to strengthen the garrison by moving Fallschirmjäger-Regiment 21 over from the Moyland sector to rejoin its parent formation south of Goch came too late to be effective. By the evening of February 21 the battered town was free of German troops. East of Goch the Scottish Division’s 227th Brigade had captured Buchholt on February 20. Farther north, in the Wessex Division’s sector, the 214th Brigade kept pace by seizing the village of Halvenboom, some 1,000 yards south of the Calcar road, thereby helping to shield the right flank of the hardpressed 4th Canadian Brigade. Left: The same view, looking north along Bahnhof-Strasse today. The latter is the continuation of Klever Strasse and, with so many buildings in this part of town having been pulled down for redevelopment after the war, Karel was quite surprised to find that two of the original houses had been retained among the new constructions. 35

BELL ARCHIVE

Although the Allies generally regarded Goch as a lynchpin position in the Siegfried Line, in actual fact the bunker strength in this northern sector of the Westwall was not nearly as dense as it was further south. In all, between Hekkens and Kessel on the southern fringe of the Reichswald and Gaesdonk south-west of Goch — a distance of over 20 kilometres — there were only 20 concrete casemates, and a mere three of them were ‘fighting bunkers’ (Regelbau Type 107s equipped with two machine guns). All the others were Type 102V large personnel shelters. The three Type 107 bunkers were all located just west of Goch, covering the approach roads from Hervorst, Asperden and Hassum respectively. All were easily captured by the 51st Division on the 18th and 19th, the supporting AVRE tanks first blasting them with their Petard mortars, enabling Crocodile flame-throwers to approach, after which the German occupants quickly surrendered.

Bill Warhurst of The Times photographed one of the bunkers soon afterwards.

609

631

633

603

634

604 636

637

bered per regimental sector, and Nos. 631 to 638 in this sector are Type 102V shelters and 603, 604 and 609 Type 107 casemates.

None of the Type 107 casemates survives today, all having fallen victim to the German post-war campaign to erase all traces of the Westwall, but three of the Type 102V shelters in the area remain to this day. This one (No. 636 — not on the map) is located in a copse along Zum Horn, just north of the village of Kessel. 36

Another one stands along Hassumer Strasse (the L177) at its junction with Grenz-Weg. Type 102V shelters were often placed in close proximity to farm buildings, in this case the farm at No. 188. (As it happens, and quite confusingly, it carries the same number — 636 — as the Zum Horn bunker in the adjoining sector.)

ATB

ATB

ATB

Allied defence overprint showing the Siegfried Line defences immediately to the west of Goch. Westwall bunkers were num-

638

A third Regelbau Type 102V (No. 638) survives next to the farm at No. 389 Boeckelter Weg, two kilometres southwest of Goch. Today the A57/E31 Boxmeer to Duisburg motorway runs just past the city and the farm and bunker are immediately below an overpass which now carries the old road across the highway.

ATB

IWM B14779

ATB

Above: Having overcome the Westwall bunkers, shortly after midnight on the 18th/19th the 51st Division penetrated the part of Goch south of the Niers. All four bridges over the river inside the town were assumed to have been blown, so the operation of the Highlanders’ 154th Brigade unrolled independently to that of the 15th and 53rd Divisions on the north bank. It took the 5th Black Watch, the 5th/7th Gordon Highlanders and the 1st Gordons 48 hours of stiff house-tohouse fighting before the town was finally cleared, with more combat developing at the Thomashof farm just south of the town. All three battalions suffered heavy casualties, including the 1st Gordons having a whole platoon captured by the enemy. Here, a supporting Crocodile flame-thrower from A Squadron of the 1st Fife & Forfar Yeomanry is passed by an ambulance Jeep and Lloyd carrier on Mühlen-Strasse, the main street leading into the southern part of town from the west. Right: The houses destroyed by the RAF bombing have been rebuilt and only the one with the tall roof in mid-distance remains.

Sergeant Christie pictured some more of the supporting armour in Mühlen-Strasse: a Churchill from the 107th Regiment RAC and a Valentine Mk XI OP tank.

Few original houses remain on this side of the street and only the steeple of the St Maria-Magdalena-Kirche links the present with the past. 37

BELL ARCHIVE

few of the inhabitants remained, 30 of them being killed. There were however heavy casualties among the Russians, Italians and Dutchmen who had been brought into the deserted city as forced-labour workers to dig the local defences. They were quartered in two schools, both of which were hit, and nearly 200 of them died. This is the junction of Mühlen-Strasse and Markt in the heart of town, with the Maria Magdalena Church on the left, pictured by Associated Press photographer Eddie Worth from a light aircraft shortly after the end of battle.

Troops of the Highland Division marching into town along MühlenStrasse approach Markt. The wrecked house on the corner on the right can be seen in the centre of the aerial photograph.

Goch has completely recovered from its wartime devastation and is today again a bustling provincial town. This is the view from Mühlen-Strasse towards the corner with Markt-Strasse.

ATB

BELL ARCHIVE

The heavy bombing raid by 464 RAF bombers — 292 Halifaxes, 156 Lancasters and 16 Mosquitos of Nos. 4, 6 and 8 Groups — on the night preceding the start of ‘Veritable’ (February 7/8) had completely obliterated the centre of Goch. The raid was aborted after 155 aircraft had bombed because heavy smoke from the blazing inferno was causing meaningful control of the bombing to become impossible, but by then two-thirds of the town lay in ruins. The civilian population had been evacuated by the German authorities the previous December and only

38

ATB

BELL ARCHIVE

‘A British soldier who trod on a mine during mopping-up operations in Goch is carried through the wrecked streets to a field ambulance’, reads the wartime caption to this picture taken on February 23.

courtyard in front of the hospital, and had returned the fire, driving the enemy out of the church and into the hospital building. As soon as his reserve platoon, led by Lieutenant Ian MacDonald, arrived, he ordered them to follow him into the building to clear the ground floor. It was obvious that all the Germans had taken refuge in the large area of the hospital cellars. When the stone trick did not work, real grenades were used, without immediate effect. Only after some Sten-gun fire down the main cellar steps was there any sign of movement: a rather shaken German lieutenant came up with his hands aloft, shortly followed by a major bearing a white flag and closely behind him a colonel who was OC Troops in Goch and some 18 soldiers. The German colonel [Oberst Paul Matussek] had been wounded by one of the grenades and was sent back on a stretcher. It was daylight by this time and as the German colonel was carried away by his own men and their escorting Jocks, the D Company men saluted him, and this gesture persuaded more enemy to come out of the surrounding buildings in surrender. MAJOR JOHN McGREGOR, 5th BLACK WATCH

ATB

BELL ARCHIVE

Most of the houses were in ruins from the heavy bombardment and many had cellars which were frequently found to be occupied by Germans. One method previously used was to open the cellar door and toss down a grenade, but that proved messy, if effective, and so a new technique had been adopted, said to be from an idea by Sergeant Maxie MM, of D Company. Instead of a grenade, a large stone was tossed down the cellar steps which invariably had the desired effect of producing a scramble of Germans anxious to surrender. Goch posed another problem; some houses had empty cellars but determined enemy were dug in in the gardens behind the buildings. It was a very dark night and, in making his way forward to catch up with his leading platoon, Major Alec Brodie, the OC of D Company, overshot the side street and with his Company Runner, Private McInnes MM, a tough Dundonian, found themselves approaching a group of shadowy figures. Expecting that they were some of C Company, Major Brodie called out. There was a moment of silence, then words in German and bullets flew. The major and the corporal did a very fast move back down the street where they found the correct turning and their lead platoon. This platoon had been fired upon from the church and the

The contrast 70 years later is remarkable as the photo was taken here on Markt, and the men are walking towards the junction with Mühlen-Strasse. The same corner house seen in the previous pictures can be seen in the centre background.

An RAF photographer was present, his caption reading ‘A wounded British soldier being put on a Jeep by his comrades’.

The drama of yesterday is in complete contrast to the everyday scene of townspeople shopping today. 39

ATB

Left: British troops march back up Mühlen-Strasse with the Maria Magdalena Church towering above the wasteland of ruined houses on the right. The convent hospital, the building with the two smaller towers in the centre background, survived the devastation surprisingly intact, only to be pulled down in the post-war reconstruction of Goch, the site being used as a car park today. Right: New houses and shops again line the northern side of Mühlen-Strasse. The bombing of Goch had a peculiar, long-delayed aftermath. Forty-eight years after the war, on the night of May 23/24, 1993, the spire of the Maria Magdalena suddenly collapsed. No cause could be established but it is assumed that it was due to structural damage incurred during the RAF raid of 1945. Reconstruction of the church took ten years, being completed in 2003. Operation ‘Veritable’ had gone slowly. Ground conditions could scarcely have been worse; and the enemy, fighting on the soil of Germany and in the valley of the Fatherland’s great river, had resisted with fierce determination. The Roer flooding had prevented the US Ninth Army from launching the converging attack which had been

planned, and the Germans had been able to concentrate their resources on the First Canadian Army’s front. By February 20, the Allies had clawed their way forward between 15 and 20 miles from their start-line; but the enemy still maintained an unbroken front, and the ‘Hochwald Layback’ was still before them.

ATB

The capture of Goch marked the end of the two-week battle of the Reichswald. XXX Corps ‘intentions’ for February 21 in general required formations only to ‘maintain present positions’. The 51st (Highland) Division was mopping up south-west of Goch to link up with the Afferden area, which the 52nd (Lowland) Division, moving along the right bank of the Maas from Gennep, had finished clearing on the 18th after some bloody fighting for the strong Kasteel Blijenbeek, ancient guardian of the frontier. The weight of the First Canadian Army’s effort was now to be shifted to the left, and the primary responsibility of General Horrocks’ northern wing was to protect the flank of the Canadian II Corps as it launched a new offensive designed to complete the clearing of the Rhineland (Operation ‘Blockbuster’).

Most of the British dead from the ‘Veritable’ offensive lie buried in the Reichswald War Cemetery (above). Located in the heart of the forest alongside the Kleve to Hekkens road, and the largest CWGC cemetery in Germany, it contains the graves of 7,954 Commonwealth soldiers and airmen, 176 of them unidentified. Other British casualties from the Reichswald battle rest in the smaller CWGC cemeteries at Mook (311 graves) and Milsbeek (210 graves), both south-east of Nijmegen in the 40

Netherlands. Canadian casualties lie in the large Canadian War Cemetery at Groesbeek (2,619 graves), which also contains the Groesbeek Memorial to the Missing which commemorates over 1,000 Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave. German dead from the Reichswald battle are buried in the Kriegsgräberstätte Kleve-Donsbrüggen, just west of Kleve, which holds 2,381 graves, including some 400 victims from the bombing of Kleve on February 7/8 and 200 foreign slave labourers.

WESTERN DESERT BATTLEFIELD TOURS Steve Hamilton was exploring the Western Desert before most battlefield tour companies even existed and in 2005 launched Western Desert Battlefield Tours, originally in Germany although he is now based in the UK with an office in Tripoli. His initial interest in the desert war was formed through his grandfather’s service with the 50th Royal Tank Regiment (23rd Armoured Brigade). Acknowledged as the unofficial historian of the 50th RTR, Steve wrote their history (published by Lutterworth Press in 1996). His grandfather had been a pre-war soldier in India and later a tank driver in North Africa but was killed in April 1943. Steve would later meet the tank crew and stand on the exact spot at Wadi Chaffar where his grandfather was killed. Steve lived in Germany for 15 years, and this period gave him the opportunity to make friends with many former members of the Afrikakorps and he still considers his best tours are those that include guests from both sides. (Steve is now an honorary member of the Afrikakorps.) Since first walking the sands of the Western Desert, Steve has made over one hundred visits to the battlefields of North Africa. In 2005 he found the Swastika-marked graves of over 20 German soldiers in Tunisia and in 2008 in Libya he discovered a forgotten battlefield cemetery east of Tobruk containing the remains of more than 30 soldiers. He visited the headquarters made famous during the raid on Rommel of 1941 and in April 2010 discovered one of the caves used by the raiding party (see After the Battle No. 153) and the graves of two Italian soldiers reputedly killed in the fire-fight close to the beach. Right: Lance Corporal Patrick Clifford of C Squadron of the 50th Royal Tank Regiment was killed on April 9, 1943 at Wadi Chaffar in Tunisia. Fifty years later Steve Hamilton, the founder of Western Desert Battlefield Tours, visited his maternal grandfather’s grave in Sfax War Cemetery (Plot 13, Row F, Grave 7). 41

The desert today: unfenced minefields.

Smashed German Iron Cross gravestone at Bardia.

The Western Desert has changed very little since the war; nevertheless, most visitors to North Africa are not ready for the harsh brutality and the ‘nothingness’ where great armies spent three years fighting each other. Every yard of sand between Alexandria and Tunis is ‘Hallowed Ground’ and should be treated as such. Steve says that there is nothing quite like the feeling of driving down a well used track and seeing a land mine just a few feet away. For example, the main road to Siwa in Egypt runs directly through a minefield, as does the track to Bir Hakim in Libya. Faded slogan in the German HQ at Gambut: ‘Up those Skirts, It’s Mothers’ Day in Africa!’

The spot where Lieutenant-Colonel John Cairnes, the Officer Commanding No. 50 Royal Tank Regiment was killed on March 22, 1943. 42

Over the years Steve experienced many adventures, from finding some small forgotton relic to getting his vehicle bogged down at Alamein, or ditched in Tunisia, to being arrested on the Egyptian-Libyan border while trying to find a long-forgotten battle position. For Steve, going to the North African battlefields is more than a job and more than a hobby; it is a passion. He gets a great deal of satisfaction helping people connect with their own or loved one’s war experiences, and his ongoing interest in uncovering lost history or unknown facts is unlikely to fade. ‘Every tour is an adventure of discovery’, says Steve, ‘and I never fail to get caught up in one of those special “battlefield moments” with participants.’ Contact details: Website: www.western-desert.de E-mail: [email protected] Above: The group standing on top of the Alamein memorial in 2011 are veterans from the Desert Rats. Included is Len Burrett who as a radio operator to headquarters of the 7th Armoured Division at Bug Bug took the first battle order of the desert war. Mohamed Omar el Mukhtar, now 88 years old, was an officer serving with the Libyan Arab Force (Freedom Army) attached to British and Commonwealth forces during the 1941/42 siege of Tobruk. After the war he moved to the old Italian town of Barce, when in 1963 an earthquake destroyed most of the town. Sadly for Mohamed, during the earthquake he lost his war medals that were awarded to him by the British Goverment for his war service. Western Desert Battlefield Tours was able to obtain replacement medals for Mohamed and these were presented to him by Steve Hamilton on April 7, 2009. As a footnote, Mohamed is the only son of Omar el Mukhtar the legendary ‘Lion of the Desert’ who fought the Italians for over 20 years before being captured and executed in 1931. Right: Omar el-Mukhtar, son of Libya’s legendary hero, had lost his British war medals but Steve gave him a replacement set in April 2009.

Vestiges of the battle at Wadi Zig Zaou which have fortunately escaped the scrap man for over 70 years. 43

BELL ARCHIVE

THE INTERNATIONAL TRACING SERVICE AT AROLSEN With the defeat of Germany, one huge problem facing the Allies was the resettlement of the many millions who had been subjected to the extensive movements of whole populations that had taken place throughout Hitler’s Europe. Some people had been removed from their homes to be used as forced labourers while others had fled the advancing armies. Hundreds of thousands more were imprisoned in concentration camps. For administrative purposes the military authorities defined that those found within their own country were to be referred to as refugees but those found outside were to be known as displaced persons, or ‘DPs’. In all, in May 1944 it was estimated that there were at least 11 million refugees or displaced persons in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, Denmark, Norway and Germany.

Many of these would be nationals from Eastern European countries. Reciprocally, many hundreds of thousand western European citizens had been shipped off to Eastern Europe, especially Poland. In the case of enemy refugees and displaced persons, it was the Allied policy to place the responsibility for their care and repatriation on the shoulders of the Germans themselves, but that Allied nationals would be handled by Allied military commanders until the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), established in November 1943, could take over. When the Allied armies entered the concentration camps it was realised that the camp records would be vital in trying to reunite broken families right across Europe and fortunately the Nazis had kept quite meticulous files

on their prisoners. Those records which had escaped destruction were first taken to Höchst in the American Zone 40 kilometres south of Frankfurt, but moved in January 1946 to a former school at Bad Arolsen — a spa town west of Kassel conveniently situated near the junction of the US, British and French Zones. Here the tremendous task of trying to reunite families began, the work being shared between the German Red Cross, working on behalf of German nationals, and for other nations by the Central Tracing Bureau set up under UNRRA. Due to the Cold War, Soviet participation in operations ended in 1947 when UNRRA wound up and the Soviets refused to recognise its successor, the International Refugee Organisation. From then onwards there was only limited information exchange with Moscow and its allies.

1957

GOOGLE

2012

Top: This photo, passed for publication by the SHAEF Field Press Censor on April 6, 1945, shows French prisoners of war released by the US Ninth Army, consulting a map to find their way home. Above left: By checking a map of the period we were able to pinpoint the road junction just west of Drensteinfurt although as the presentday map (left) shows, it has since been transformed into a major crossroads. 44

INTERNATIONAL TRACING SERVICE

BAD AROLSEN

The upheaval caused by Germany transporting hundreds of thousands of civilians from one country to another right across Europe presented a huge problem for the Allies in 1945. In January 1946 the Central Tracing Bureau was established under

dren had been traced out of the 300,000 missing at the end of the war. By 1968, the Arolsen archive comprised 28 million index cards covering around seven million individuals with all the problems of names being duplicated or mis-spelt. The ITS is supervised by an international commission comprised of representatives from participating countries. Originally there were eight member countries but today there are 11: France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland (but no longer Denmark or Norway), Germany and Italy, Britain and the United States, and Israel, Greece and Poland. Under the Bonn Agreements of 1955, access to the archive was restricted with a total ban on the publication of any data that might harm the former victims or their families. However, as a result of pressure being brought to bear by both families and researchers, following high-level negotia-

tions in Washington between the German Justice Minister and the director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, in May 2006 the 11-member countries of the International Commission decided that the ITS archive, then covering 26 kilometres of shelving, should be made available for public inspection. However, with the decline in the number of formal requests for tracing, the International Committee of the Red Cross acknowledged that the original purpose of the archive had changed with the passing of the years. Consequently, in May 2011, the ICRC decided that it would withdraw from the management of the International Tracing Service from December 31, 2012. In future the ITS was to work in conjunction with German Federal Archives marking the evolution of Arolsen from a purely tracing service to a documentation centre for research and education.

INTERNATIONAL TRACING SERVICE

INTERNATIONAL TRACING SERVICE

At the time the local barracks at Mengeringhausen were being used as a home for DPs but as additional space was required for the increasing number of records being sent to Arolsen, which included files from the Gestapo and SS, more and more of the barracks was taken over. In 1949, the headquarters of the tracing bureau was established in the main building but when in 1952 the barracks were required by NATO for Belgian troops, a new purpose-built records centre was constructed in three months at Nos. 5-9 Grosse Allee. In 1955 the decision was taken by the Allied High Commission for Germany to hand over the day-to-day running of the archive to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Under a new name – the International Tracing Service (ITS) – by 1965 over a quarter of a million cases had been investigated and 127,000 German chil-

the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in a school house at Bad Arolsen in the US Zone of Occupation but ideally situated for access to the British and French zones (see After the Battle No. 142, page 25).

However, as more and more records arrived at the school (left), storage became a problem so progressively additional buildings were taken over at the local barracks at Mengeringhausen until NATO suddenly announced in 1952 that it required the complex to house a force from Belgium. Consequently, a new headquarters building had to be constructed, fortunately being completed within three months. In 1955 the International Committee of the Red Cross took over the International Tracing Service but now, after 57 years, the level of enquiries has fallen due to the gradual disappearance of the witnesses. Therefore in December 2012 the Red Cross handed over management to the German Federal Government. Today a staff of 300 continues to manage the archive, much of which has been digitised. A museum has now been established in the barracks and visitors are offered guided tours, available by appointment on the first Tuesday of every month. 45

INTERNATIONAL TRACING SERVICE

George Jaunzemis finds his picture as a young boy in the ITS archives. CASE FILE ONE: ‘After 66 years I feel relieved. I can find peace now’, George Jaunzemis says. The 70-year-old never knew his mother, his real name or where he was born. As a four-year-old he was separated from his biological mother in the confusion of the postwar period. Georg grew up in New Zealand with Anna Jaunzemis, a woman who pretended to be his mother but wasn’t. ‘I’ve always suspected it’,

Jaunzemis relates. ‘She just didn’t behave like a mother. She was distant, never hugged me. And whenever I confronted her, she got angry.’ Anna, a native Latvian, never wanted to talk about the past, let alone the Second World War. In actual fact George was born in Magdeburg with the name Peter Thomas on October 18, 1941. His mother Gertrud had fallen in love with a Belgian prisoner of war and later forced labourer Albert van der Velde. Immediately after war’s end they got married and the family moved to Belgium but Gertrud had no entry permit so, as a German, she was sent to a detention camp. Anna Rausis, a 46-year-old Latvian woman, took care of the child, named him George and, after staying in various DP camps, emigrated to New Zealand in 1949. There she changed her surname to Rause and later to Jaunzemis. For years Albert and Gertrud van der Velde searched for their missing son and even the Allies tried to help via the files of the Central Tracing Service. Throughout his childhood Jaunzemis was troubled by the uncertainty of his origins. ‘Everyone had a family but I had no one to go to. Life is lonely without family roots.’ In 1978, after Anna’s death, his search began in earnest but it was not until 1997 that he had his first breakthrough. ‘That year I went to Latvia for the first time. In Riga I encountered difficulties using the name Jaunzemis instead of Rause but in the end I found out that Anna had left Latvia on her own in October 1944. However there were no records concerning the birth of a George Jaunzemis in Riga in November 1941.’ After having met his wife in Latvia in 2000, Jaunzemis moved there for good and intensified his search but ‘for seven years, my investigations went round in circles and I had the feeling it wasn’t going anywhere. The International Tracing Service was my last port of call. In collaboration with the city of Magdeburg, the Latvian and the Belgian Red Cross Societies, the ITS was able to establish the true identity of George Jaunzemis, alias Peter Thomas, and to trace some of his relatives. ‘First I thought that this would be impossible but then it all fell into place.’ In May 2011, he visited his birthplace Magdeburg and met his family for the first time — two cousins and a nephew. ‘I’m happy to have a family even though it still feels a bit strange as so much time has been lost.’ Jaunzemis’s mother Gertrud died in Belgium in April 2009, just six months before Peter approached the ITS. His father Albert sent a message in early 2011 that ‘he wouldn’t want to talk with me yet he felt sorry for me. Soon afterwards he died.’ Jaunzemis says that he isn’t ready yet to make plans for the future as first of all he has to come to terms with what happened. But he is considering a change of name as ‘my friends already call me Peter’.

The story about the search for my mother shows how much the ITS can mean for an individual person. It is a place of vigilance, of remembering and knowing.

For a long time I have been searching for traces of my father. I finally know that he has not abandoned me.

DAGMAR NABERT, GERMANY

(Antoine’s father died during an air raid in Leipzig)

ANTOINE JULES BUKOVINSZKY, FRANCE

(Dagmar is the daughter of a Russian forced labourer)

We, the children and grandchildren, feel an inner duty to find out more.

SARA LEBER, CANADA (Sara’s mother survived Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps)

INTERNATIONAL TRACING SERVICE

FREDDY DE SCHUITENEER, BELGIUM (Freddy’s grandfather, a member of the Resistance, was interned in Breendonk transit camp and in Dachau concentration camp) CASE FILE TWO: Renate Bauer was the child of a forbidden relationship between a French prisoner of war and a young German woman from Waltershausen in Thuringia. ‘Their love was betrayed’, she says, ‘and the Nazis deported my father to a prison camp before I was born in May 1944.’ After the end of the war he returned to France without any knowledge of the child while Renate grew up in the belief that her father was dead. But at some stage in her life she wanted certainty and began the search. ‘Due to her language problems, my mother couldn’t communicate his proper name or place of birth’, 67-year-old Renate explained. In the end, the crucial piece of evidence came from the archive of the French Ministry of Defence in Caen following a request from the ITS. The name of her father was André Balussaud and he had died in 1999, but with the help of the ITS Renate was able to trace her family in France. At the first meeting with her half-brothers and -sister they swapped photos and read André’s notes from the time of his imprisonment. In November 2011, Renate was invited to address a conference at the International Tracing Service about the significance of tracking down family members. ‘There was no more doubt’, she told delegates. ‘It felt good to be sitting in my father’s house and to be able to visit his grave. Their loving acceptance of me into the family, and meeting their partners and children and grandchildren, has given me, after 65 years of uncertainty, a new and grounded sense of life.’ 46

The ITS helped me to find first answers to my questions. It was impossible for me to put these questions to my parents while they were alive.

Renate Bauer with her half-brother Jacques.

These documents mean a lot to me. They are the only keepsake of my uncle. I was very moved to see his signature. AGNIESZKA CZUCHRYTA, POLAND (Agnieszka’s uncle was imprisoned in Buchenwald concentration camp. The ITS located his grave in Udestedt/Thuringia)

Thank you for replying to my enquiry about the fate of my parents. It is wonderful news that so far had been unknown to me.

INTERNATIONAL TRACING SERVICE

CASE FILE THREE: Brigitte Kolberg was born in December 1939 in the Lebensborn home ’Pommern’ in Bad Polzin. She did not know her father’s name until she was 16. ‘I have been searching my family roots and information ever since’, the 72-year-old says. ‘I always asked where my father was but for my mother Elfriede this topic was taboo.’ After her mother died, Brigitte discovered her birth certificate, correspondence with the Lebensborn home, and evidence attesting to her father’s initial refusal to accept fatherhood, paying maintenance for her nevertheless. ‘At last I knew the name of my father: Franz Heidemann.’ Her wish to meet him was so very strong that a few days later she ended up on his doorstep in Lüneburg. ‘We looked so much alike and he recognised me straight away.’ Her mother Elfriede was unmarried and a member of the Nazi Party. When she fell pregnant she found refuge with the Lebensborn organisation. This was financed and run by the SS with the intention of increasing the birth rate of Aryan children and to prevent abortions of illegitimate pregnancies. If admission was granted, the women were allowed to spend the time of their pregnancy and a few weeks following the birth at a Lebensborn home. The first time Brigitte stumbled across the subject was during her internship at the children’s and maternity hospital in Steinhörig, unaware that this particular hospital had been the first Lebensborn children’s home (see The Third Reich Then and Now, pages 308-309). ‘After the death of my mother, my grandparents and my father, I had no family left and had to find other ways to learn about details of my childhood.’ During her years of research, Brigitte tried to understand what had happened. ‘I wanted to know the background, merge myself in the past, and understand why so many women followed this ideology.’ She also met other Lebensborn children during her years of dealing with the subject. ‘Communicating and exchange amongst ourselves is important’, she emphasises, ‘and educating the younger generation.’

Brigitte Kolberg: ‘For my mother, the subject was taboo’.

It is at once strange and terrifying that the scrupulous German administration that extended to the camps should also aid the reconstruction of the fate of a prisoner today. GISELA HILMAR MAROHN, GERMANY It is the first time that I have received news about my uncle’s fate. I cannot express how important this is for me and how grateful I am for your efforts. GILA BENJAMINI, ISRAEL

(Lillian’s parents emigrated to Australia)

(Gila’s uncle was murdered in Majdanek concentratrion camp)

INTERNATIONAL TRACING SERVICE

LILLIAN PATTERSON, AUSTRALIA

Ghizela Kardos with her daughter Eva.

CASE FILE FOUR: Holocaust survivor Ghizela Kardos says that the worst thing was not that her parents and her brother died in the gas chamber; ‘it was that they robbed us of our human dignity’. She was born in Sapinta, Romania, on March 18, 1924 and her Jewish parents raised her and her five siblings in the faith. ‘“God sees everything”, my mother drummed into us, “therefore you shall not lie”. But after Auschwitz I lost my faith.’ When the German troops occupied Hungary in March 1944, the extermination of the Jews began. After the liquidation of the ghetto in Grobwardein (today Oradea), Ghizeia and her family were deported to Auschwitz. ‘After four days crammed together in rail carriages we arrived’, the 88-year-old recalls. ‘Josef Mengele selected women, men and children and he selected my family. I never saw my parents again.’ For two days she was kept in Auschwitz with her younger sisters. ‘Our heads were shaven. We had to take a shower and were given grey prison uniforms. Then we were registered. Overnight the Nazis took our families and our identity.’ The next day the young women were called up — they had been selected for a labour battalion of the German Army. ‘At the beginning of August we were transported to Stutthof concentration camp where we were registered and given the prisoner numbers 55028, 55029 and 55030.’ With the approach of the Red Army the Germans evacuated more and more prisoners via the Baltic and on January 25, 1945 the camp commander ordered the final evacuation. Ghizela and her sisters were forced on a death march to Lebork in Pomerania. ‘I had a high fever, but as the oldest sister it was my responsibility to look after the younger ones.’ On March 13 the three sisters were liberated by the Red Army. ‘It was my second birthday’, she says smilingly. The young women returned to their homes and tried to build new lives. In 1947 Ghizela married Stefan Kardos who himself had been deported as a forced labourer under the Nazi regime. Their daughter Eva was born on April 28, 1947. ‘There is hardly any family left behind for her’, Ghizela says, ‘as I lost almost all my relatives under the Nazi regime.’ 47

USNA

THE KINGSCLERE MASSACRE month, while one of the worst incidents involving hundreds of men took place in Bristol in July.

By Matthew Spicer In the American build-up in Britain, a huge Quartermaster Depot was established at Thatcham in Berkshire, its extent even including Newbury racecourse. Private estates were requisitioned to provide quarters in the surrounding area for the men, who were mostly black soldiers. Above: This is Camp Kingsclere, home of the 98th Engineers Regiment, just south of the village (which, due to post-war county boundary changes, is now in Hampshire), the occasion being an award ceremony which took place there on a dull cloudy January 7, 1943. Fist Lieutenant Vernon G. Adams, left, of Kittaning, Pennysylvania, and Sergeant Ernest Johnson of Birmingham, Alabama, stand in front of the Colour Guard awaiting the arrival of General John C. H. Lee to award them the Soldier’s Medal for rescuing a British soldier from a burning munitions store. Left: Sergeant Johnson is congratulated by General Lee, who had been appointed to head the Services of Supply in the British Isles in May 1942.

ATB

USNA

Troops from the United States first arrived in the United Kingdom in January 1942, initially to Northern Ireland but then direct to the mainland. Apart from the US Army Air Force that was to be based mainly in East Anglia, the majority of ground troops were stationed in the south and the south-west of the country. The Americans brought with them their own laws, enshrined in the Visiting Forces Act of 1942, and also their own customs, one of which was segregation. Although the British authorities were reluctant to admit it, following the build-up of US forces to these islands in late 1942, there was a mini-crime wave, much of it as a result of altercations between black and white soldiers. Whilst the vast majority of the crime was not serious, there were a number of murders and rapes, the latter also being punishable by death under US military law. In all, 12 US servicemen were executed for murder and six for rape in Britain during the war (see After the Battle No. 59). Several riots took place like that at Bamber Bridge in Lancashire in June 1943 (see After the Battle No. 22); Hook Norton, Oxfordshire, in April 1944; and Blandford, Dorset, the following

With no precise location, we had to check out a number of estates in the area before we found Camp Kingsclere — here at 48

Andrew Balding’s training stables at Park House. We timed our visit in October 2012 for reasons which will become clear later.

Right: General Lee had already set up a transportation service (which in July 1942 became the Transportation Corps) but he concluded that this should be separate from the Quartermaster Corps. Sydmonton Court (now the home of Andrew Lloyd Webber) was taken over for the troops manning the large QM Depot G-45 at Thatcham. NEWBURY

KINGSCLERE

SYDMONTON

police soon arrived and, apart from the soldiers not having passes, they were also in breach of regulations as they were wearing field jackets instead of Class A uniform. Disputes with the MPs quickly arose at which stage the men were ordered at gunpoint to return to barracks. As he left, one of the black soldiers warned the MPs that ‘We’re

going but we’ll be back’. A truck picked them up together with other stragglers, and on the return journey there was general agreement that they should get their guns and go back to town. The feeling was to get their own back on ‘the little MP who caused all the trouble’ the discussion focussing on whether he should be killed or merely beaten up.

ATB

ATB

In October that year, in the little village of Kingsclere — then in Berkshire but now Hampshire — another riot ended with three deaths yet all these incidents were largely played down in the national press, possibly because of the racial element, but also, perhaps understandably, as the deaths of millions of people had put into context those due to crime. Just outside Kingsclere, in the nearby village of Burghclere, lies the Sydmonton Court estate which had been turned over to the US military authorities in 1943. The troops stationed there were all black and employed at Depot G-45 at Thatcham. Although the vast majority of English people hated the racism that was practised against black soldiers by their white colleagues, the troops at Sydmonton had unfortunately become a local nuisance. The men had a fearsome reputation in the area, and young girls were warned from going too near to the depot and the woods that surrounded it. Locals began to suffer burglaries; then a petrol station was held up and, most serious of all, two local girls claimed they had been raped. On October 5, 1944, the 3247th Quartermaster Service Company, an all-black unit under Captain H. Williams, and stationed in Tavistock, Devon, moved 150 miles by rail that day to their new camp at Sydmonton which they reached at around 4.20 p.m. For the trip, each man was carrying his personal weapon, a .30 M1 Carbine marked with his name, although the guns were not taken from them for safe-keeping in the armoury until 10.45 p.m. Having only just arrived, no passes were issued to the 3247th men that evening but military police were still ordered to patrol the local pubs in and around Kingsclere, with instructions to arrest any men without passes and return them to their barracks. Between 6.30 and 7 p.m., after finishing their evening meal, a large party of soldiers left the depot without authority and proceeded in separate groups to visit public houses in the area around Burghclere, the three pubs at Kingsclere being the Bolton Arms, the Swan and the Crown. Military

THATCHAM

On Thursday, October 5, 1944, the 3247th Quartermaster Service Company was relocated from Devon to Sydmonton Court. After the long drive the men were no doubt in need of a drink so after their evening meal at 6 p.m. several groups of black soldiers began walking the two miles to Kingsclere. Left: The first pub they reached was the Bolton Arms which had been serving ale since the 15th century when it was then owned by Lord Bolton, the Marquis of Winchester. Now it is a private house.

Right: A few hundred yards further up lay the Swan where a few more soldiers stopped off for a pint. However, none of the men had a pass that evening and military police were soon on their way. Each pub was visited and as most of the soldiers were not in Class A uniform, they were promptly ordered back to camp. A truck picked up the men at various points but the soldiers were incensed by the action of the the MPs. Their tempers were not improved when Privates Ernest Burns and Percy Oree were ordered into the truck at gunpoint. 49

ATB

Private Willie Crawford with some companions had made his way back to Sydmonton by bus but there he joined the others and heard about their grievances, and that a group of them were intent on returning to Kingsclere armed with their carbines. The ten men were Corporal John Lilly, Pfcs James Agnew, John Lockett and Willie Washington, and Privates Ernest Burns, Willie Crawford (although he claimed he was unarmed), Hildreth Fleming, Herbert Lawton, Herbert Moultrie and Percy Oree. The group, some of whom were already

where they began looking for the MPs. At the Crown, as a black military policeman, Private First Class Jacob J. Anderson, emerged from the left-hand door followed by another MP, the shout went up: ‘Here they come!’ One of the soldiers promptly fired, hitting Anderson who ’bent over with his hands over his stomach’. He staggered for 150 yards down North Street before collapsing in a front garden. Following this first shot, the occupants of the pub all ‘hit the floor’ as the group outside fired a volley through the windows and

entrance. One bullet struck another black MP, Private Joseph W. Coates, in the head as he was sitting at a table and another hit Mrs Rose Napper, the wife of the licensee, in the neck. As the shots rang out, a local policeman, Sergeant Tom Dudman, rushed to the inn. The alert was raised at Sydmonton Court and Basingstoke and Newbury police stations were also informed. For the next few hours the surrounding countryside and villages were scoured by a combination of military police, soldiers and the local police.

ATB

ATB

By the time the men were back in their barracks it was just after nine. Some of the men were already drunk from their earlier time at the Crown, whilst some were just plain angry that they had been asked to leave. The mood was for revenge and to teach the MPs a lesson. Since the men were not placed under any restrictions at the barracks, they simply walked back to Kingsclere. A number of them were so drunk that they failed to make it and simply collapsed in the lanes but at 9.45 p.m. nine of them reached the village

the worse for wear from the earlier drinking session, then proceeded to Kingsclere. On the way there was a discussion as to whether they should kill the MP who had caused all the trouble or if he should just be beaten up. Crawford and Fleming checked the Bolton Arms and the Swan without success, being told that the MPs had just left. So the group continued up Swan Street to Newbury Road where the Crown Hotel lay directly opposite St Mary’s churchyard with its memorial to the fallen of the village in the First World War.

The Crown has two separate bars — a public bar and a saloon bar — each of them being accessed by a different door. 50

Both bars were being refurbished when we called in October 2012 . . . 68 years after the event.

ATB

exclaimed “Here they come”, Anderson put on his flashlight, and Lilly ordered “Drop your guns”. One of the military police said “Disband rifles” and one of accused fired a shot which evidently hit Anderson, who “bent over with his hands over his stomach”. Following the first shot, the occupants of the pub “all hit the floor” as the group outside fired a volley of shots through the windows and the portion of the building over its entrance. One of the bullets which came through the window struck a colored military policeman in the head as he was sitting at a table and another struck Mrs Rose Amelia Napper, wife of the licensee of the Crown, in the neck as she was standing at her husband’s side.’

At the subsequent trial, Frederick Napper, the landlord of the Crown, said that ‘just before 10 o’clock everything was quite quiet when all of a sudden there was a loud burst of gun-fire. My wife, Rose, who was standing by the side of me, got down on the floor and I tried to get her up, then found she had been shot. She had received a bullet wound in the lower jaw.’ One military policeman, Private Joseph W. Coates lay nearby, shot

in the temple. Pfc Jacob J. Anderson, the second MP shot in the breastbone outside the pub, ran down North Street (left) before collapsing in the front garden of No. 12. Joyce Doig was on her way home when she heard a call for help from under the runner beans. Calling her father Fred Digweed, a St John Ambulance man, he found Anderson mortally wounded. Right: The runner beans have now gone to provide off-street parking at No. 12

ATB

ATB

The official record explains what happened next: ‘The group then proceeded to the Crown Hotel and remained outside in the front while Crawford and Fleming entered and upon inquiry were informed that the military police were “on the other side”. Fleming thereupon stepped outside to the street followed by Crawford, who noticed that the other accused had moved to a position about ten feet from the left-hand door of the “pub”. At this point, about 2200 hours, Jacob J. Anderson, a colored military policeman, emerged from the left-hand door of the pub, evidently followed by another colored military policeman. Accuseds’ rifles were pointed at the two, who were also armed with rifles. Someone

51

The General Court-Marshal was held at Thatcham in a room adjoining the mess at the depot. An additional charge was ‘that acting jointly, and in pursuance of a common intent, [they] did unlawfully and wrongfully engage in, and become part of, a disorderly and riotous assembly of soldiers’. Police Constable Amess of the Hampshire Joint Constabulary had searched the scene of the crime and found a number of fired cartridge cases in the churchyard facing the pub. To assist the US authorities, a ballistic expert from the Metropolitan Police Laboratory at Hendon, Mr Henry Walls, was asked to examine 33 expended cases. He was able to prove that 15 had been fired from the carbine belonging to PFC Willie Washington; seven from the weapon that had been issued to Private Herbert Lawton, and six from that of PFC James L. Agnew. Five cases could not be confirmed as being fired by any specific carbine although they could have come from those issued to Lockett, Moultrie or Oree. None were fired from the weapons of Burns, Crawford, Fleming or Lilly.

On November 8, a General Court-Martial under the Presiding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Leon H. Ashjian, and six officers, plus Captain William Parkes as the Law Member to advise on legal matters, was convened in nearby Thatcham in the depot in Station Road. The prosecution claimed that there was a clear intent to kill, which had been formed at Sydmonton, and that even those who did not take a weapon or fire one, were equally guilty of murder, if they knew that any one of them, had travelled to Kingsclere to kill. The difficulty facing the prosecution was that there was no proof that the men actually fired their respective weapons since other men’s fingerprints were also found on the guns. Private Crawford was the only one of the accused to give a statement to the court. He admitted that he did not have a pass that night but that he ended up in town with the others.

ATB

CHARLIE HOYE

Mrs Napper was taken to Newbury Hospital and at first the doctors were hopeful that she could be saved, but the bullet had destroyed her windpipe and although a tracheotomy was performed, she died of asphyxia in the early hours of the morning. Mr and Mrs Napper had run the Crown inn for many years and were well liked by everyone in the village. When Mrs Napper was buried in the village on the following Tuesday, there were several hundred mourners. Included in the floral tributes was one from Sydmonton Court. At the depot all the returning men were placed under close arrest but, as the investigation proceeded, it became obvious that it was going to be very difficult to prove who had fired the fatal shots and what had been the intention of the men firing the guns. Ten servicemen were finally charged with murder: Corporal John W. Lilly, PFC James L. Agnew, PFC John E. Lockett, PFC Willie Washington, and Privates Ernest Burns, Willie J. Crawford, Hildreth H. Fleming, Herbert Lawton, Herbert Moultrie and Percy D. Oree.

Depot G-45 had been built by the US 332nd Engineer General Service Regiment next to the main live station at Thatcham where a number of sidings were available. After the war the site was handed over to the British Army (left), later becoming a base for 52

the Royal Logistics Corps, but this was closed in 1999 and demolished. It has now been developed as a housing estate (right). (Another American facility simply called The Hut Camp lay further up the road close to the Broadway. It, too, has disappeared.)

MARY HALE

ATB

In the company of several hundred mourners, Rose Napper was laid to rest in the cemetery at Kingsclere (left) which lies on the western outskirts of the town. The two dead military policemen were buried in adjoining graves (Nos. 22 and 23) in

On the following day the President announced that nine of the men had been found guilty of murder in the second-degree. He said that under the circumstances each man would be sentenced to imprisonment at the US Penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, for the rest of their natural lives, but it is quite clear from the evidence that had they been tried by a British court, they would have been sentenced to death. The men may not have genuinely intended to kill, but under English law their actions were so reckless, that this per se would have constituted murder. Private Lawton, on the other hand, was only convicted of being absent from barracks for an hour without permission. He was sentenced to two years confinement in the 2912th Disciplinary Training Center at Shep-

ton Mallet, although on May 30, 1945, Lawton faced a further General Court-Martial at Shepton Mallet, now accused of four assaults with intent to commit a felony, viz, murder, upon Privates Frank Brown, Isaac Williams, Clarence Higgins and Mr Frederick Napper. An important feature of the new trial was that the Law Member in the earlier courtmartial had committed a serious error and defence council pleaded the case of double jeopardy in that Lawton had already been tried for the same acts. However, the court refused to accept the argument as the present charges were for ‘separate and distinct offences’. Legal arguments continued until June 21 when Lawton was sentenced to be dishonourably discharged and confinement with hard labour at the US Penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, for 40 years!

GOOGLE EARTH

‘On the way there the boys say the reason they were taking their rifles was because they wanted to talk to the MPs and no-one had any intention of killing. They wanted to talk to the MPs and the only way to talk to them was to disband them of their rifles. I had to go inside the pub to see if the MP was there because I was the only one that did not have a rifle. I goes in the first pub and there was not anyone in there. I goes in the second pub and they were not in there. As I got to the last pub, and as I goes in there, I left the boys standing out by a ‘phone booth. I went on one side of the door and the guy told me the MP was on the other side. As I goes in the door to tell the boys the MP was on the other side I saw an MP, one with a rifle and one with a flashlight. He goes up to the boys and flashes his light on them. The other MP was almost in front of me. He came out later than the other MP. The MP backed out with the flashlight and dropped the light. The next thing I heard was a single shot. He backed up against the wall again. The next time I heard a volley of shots and I heard this MP at that time holler and put his hand up against his stomach and against the wall he fell. At that time I dropped to my knees because I was in between the fire, but just to the right of it. I crawled and then I ran.’ Crawford said that the general feeling at Sydmonton was to kill the three MPs in the pub, but that he only went along for the fun and did not have a rifle. He said some of the men were drunk and he did not take it that seriously. He said the most he thought might happen was a fight. However unlike English law that only has one degree of murder and one punishment, US military law provided for either first- or second-degree murder with different punishments. Accordingly, Lieutenant Richard Dudley, who defended all ten men, argued that the so-called ‘intent to kill’ was mere words, and that when the men fired it was not to kill but to scare the MPs. He described the shooting of Mrs Napper as ‘tragic accident’ but not a case of first-degree murder. Prosecuting, the Trial Judge Advocate, Lieutenant Myron L. Borowiak, said that he conceded that the law of ‘common intent’ was rightly very tightly interpreted by courts, and where men’s lives were at stake the prosecution would accept a merciful outcome. He pointed out that even were the men to be found guilty of first-degree murder, the death penalty was not necessarily mandatory.

Plot N, Row 9 of the US Military Cemetery at Cambridge and, after the war both were repatriated to the United States. PFC Anderson now lies in a family grave in Georgia while Private Coates is buried in Arlington National Cemetery (right).

Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennysylvania is one of America’s most notorious prisons having at different times incarcerated Al Capone, the Teamsters President Jimmy Offa and Soviet spy Alger Hiss. It was opened in 1930 as the Northeastern Penitentiary. The nine men convicted at Thatcham were returned to be dishonoroubly discharged and to be confined with hard labour for life. Herbert Lawton, found not guilty, was given 40 years for being absent without leave for the short period preceeding the riot and murders. 53

Then and Now . . . German Panzers roll through ‘Marble Arch’ which marks the border between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica.

THE DESERT WAR THEN AND NOW For those readers wanting to visit the battlefields of the Desert War, Jean Paul Pallud has done it all for you in his latest book The Desert War Then and Now. Tracing the history from the beginnings of civilisation in North Africa, and on through the period of Italian colonisation of Libya, ‘JP’ begins his account of the desert war in June 1940 when the first shots were fired at the 11th Hussars as they ventured into Libya. It proved to be the opening move of a campaign which was to last for three years, the first round being the capture of Cyrenaica by the Western Desert Force. When the Afrikakorps led by Rommel joined in the following February, Axis forces finally reached the border with Egypt in the summer, so trapping the Tobruk garrison.

Over the next few months, the campaign ranged back and forth across the desert until the Axis forces advanced deep into Egypt to El Alamein in the summer of 1942. With British fortunes at their lowest ebb, changes in command led to Montgomery launching his offensive at El Alamein in November 1942. Thus began the subsequent advance of the Eighth Army over a thousand miles to Tunisia, resulting in the final round-up of the German and Italian forces in May 1943. Alone, armed only with his camera, Jean Paul retraced the route just prior to the civil war which broke out in Libya and the uprising in Egypt in 2011, so he was fortunate to capture the locations before another conflict left its trail of death and destruction.

In Bardia, Jean Paul found that the mural painted by Private John Brill in April 1942 was restored by Italian artists in 2009. 54

By Jean Paul Pallud Although the campaign in 1940-43 was dominated by armour, nevertheless the Allies lost over 250,000 men killed, wounded, missing and captured and the Axis 620,000 including a huge batch of over a quarter of a million men captured in Tunisia in May 1943. Those who never came home to Britain, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, France, the United States, Germany and Italy lie in military cemeteries scattered across the barren landscape of a battlefield that has changed little in over 70 years. The Desert War Then and Now with over 2,000 illustrations is not to be missed.

The name Tobruk became world famous when the Australian garrison held out for months while surrounded by Axis forces in the summer of 1941. With hundreds of photos taken there by British and Australian photographers, and then by the Germans when Rommel finally captured the town in June 1942, Tobruk was naturally one of the focal points of Jean Paul’s visit to North Africa. The Western Desert Force first took Tobruk from the Italians in January 1941, these Matilda tanks being pictured entering the town just as Italian sailors were being marched away to a POW cage.

Tobruk boomed in the 1960s when a major oil terminal was constructed on the bay, many of the old Italian buildings being demolished during the redevelopment. Fortunately, low-level oblique photos taken by the RAF in 1942 enabled Jean Paul to pinpoint where particular buildings had stood and to take comparisons even when nothing remained to link the present day with the wartime past. This was the case with this photo that had been taken at the western end of Tobruk’s main street where the large Italian building in the background had simply disappeared.

Another of Jean Paul’s objectives with his book was to walk in the steps of the two main opponents in the Desert War: Rommel and Montgomery, there being many photos of both taken in Tripoli, Benghazi, Tobruk, Bardia and Sollum. Left: In April 1941, one week after its re-capture, Rommel drove into Bardia, the easternmost town in Cyrenaica. Right: Whereas most mosques in Libya have been rebuilt and enlarged since the war, Jean Paul found this particular one virtually unchanged. Restrictions on photography in the days of

Colonel Gaddafi were oppressive and when taking comparisons in Bardia, Jean Paul was challenged by a security official who wanted to know why he was taking such an interest in this particular part of the town. ‘Tourists normally stop briefly’, said he, and take one or two photos before driving away but you look suspicious.’ Thankfully Jean Paul’s explanation and travel permits were accepted and he lived to fight another day . . . and complete his amazing account of the campaign in North Africa. 55

THEN

NOW

5 9

9

770306

No. 159

154097

£5.00