No. 168
£5.00
NUMBER 168 © Copyright After the Battle 2015 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. LONDON STOCKIST for the After the Battle range: Foyles Limited, 107 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0DT. 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: Milistoria s.r.l. Via Sofia, 12-Interporto, 1-43010 Fontevivo (PR), Italy Telephone: ++390521 651910. Fax: ++390521 619204 Dutch Language Edition: SI Publicaties/Quo Vadis, Postbus 188, 6860 AD Oosterbeek Telephone: 026-4462834. E-mail:
[email protected]
ST MALO BREST
LORIENT
QUIBERON ST NAZAIRE
NANTES
One basic requirement set by the Allied planners for the success of Operation ‘Overlord’ was to obtain sufficient port capacity on the European mainland to support the forces needed to defeat Germany. High on the list of vital objectives for the Americans was the Brittany peninsula with its five good harbours: Saint-Malo on its northern shore, Brest on its western tip, and Lorient, Saint-Nazaire and Nantes along the south coast. However, as Allied planners assumed that the Germans would strongly defend these ports and destroy them in the process, they developed contingency plans for the construction of an entirely new port in the Quiberon Bay, along Brittany’s south shore between Lorient and Saint-Nazaire. Although by July 1944 the Allies had grown increasingly reluctant to undertake the huge engineering work necessary to develop the Quiberon port area, even so at the beginning of August the Allies still felt that they needed Brittany with its port facilities.
CONTENTS 2 30 41 50
Front Cover: An M18 tank destroyer from Company B of the 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion fires at a German strong point down Rue Duret from its junction with Rue de Kerfautras in Brest on September 12, 1944. Signal Corps photographer Sergeant William Dunn took this photo a few minutes after he had pictured another M18 of Company B in the same street (see page 21). Brest is quite a large city, with hundreds of junctions all looking much the same, and the location could only be established thanks to local expert Ronan Urvoaz. Back Cover: Demise of a Siegfried Line bunker, April 2014. Retracing a trip he made to the Siegfried Line defences around Goch back in 1969, your Editor-in-Chief Winston Ramsey happened to arrive just as one of the bunkers that he had seen 45 years earlier was in the process of being demolished. A Regelbau 102V personnel shelter, it stood in the grounds of a farm on Boeckelterweg in the village of Boeckelt south-west of Goch. Here Winston contemplates the passage of time at the heap of concrete debris. (Karel Margry) Acknowledgements: The Editor would like to thank the Marine Nationale (French Navy) for allowing Jean Paul Pallud to visit the arsenal at Brest and take comparison photos. He also extends his appreciation to Herlé Babert, Yannick Creach and Ronan Urvoaz for their expert support. For help with the German Concentration Camps Factual Survey story, he thanks the Geoffrey Donaldson Institute and Hans Houterman. Photo Credit Abbreviations: ECPAD — Médiathèque de la Défense, Fort d’Ivry; IWM — Imperial War Museum; USNA — US National Archives.
2
ECPAD
THE BATTLE FOR BREST UNITED KINGDOM The Ministry of Food Home Guard WAR FILM German Concentration Camps Factual Survey FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF My Return to the Siegfried Line
The port of Brest has been the French fleet’s main base in the west since the 17th century. The military harbour and Arsenal occupied the Penfeld river for nearly three kilometres from its mouth. As the river valley is deep and narrow, with steep banks, the narrow terraces on each side only have room for long and slim workshops so other parts of the Arsenal were located on the plateau above. At the Salou bend, two kilometres up river, two covered slipways allowed shipbuilding and 32 vessels were launched here during the First World War. The yard later built several large ships, including the four 10,000-ton cruisers of the Suffren class launched in the late 1920s and the battleships Dunkerque and Richelieu in the late 1930s. (The latter ships were too large for the Penfeld yard so they had their bows attached at Laninon, that part of the Arsenal outside the river.) Above: In early 1916, French photographer Georges Dangeureux took this shot of the battleship Carnot moored in the Salou. Launched in 1894, the old warship was withdrawn from service in 1907 and used as a floating barracks in Brest throughout the Great War. In 1915, its two 305mm guns were removed to be used as railway guns, and she was finally dismantled in 1922. After the United States declared war against Germany in April 1917, Brest became the principal port for the movement of the American Expeditionary Force from the US to France.
ECPAD
In the first week of August 1944, American armoured forces reached the outskirts of the port city of Brest, beginning a siege that would last for six weeks and ultimately involve three American infantry divisions in a slow and costly battle against a determined German garrison. Above: A landmark feature of pre-war Brest was the Pont National, a high-level swing bridge linking the two parts of the city east and west of the Penfeld. Inaugurated in
1861, it was first named the Pont Impérial in honour of Emperor Napoléon III, being renamed the Pont National after the establishment of the Third Republic in 1870. Though rising 22 metres above the river, it was not high enough to enable large warships to pass underneath, so it was built in two halves that could swing open. The two parts, each 52 metres long and weighing 750 tonnes, could be opened and closed by four men in 15 minutes.
THE BATTLE FOR BREST Brest was a Roman fortress built at the estuary of the Penfeld river although it lapsed into insignificance until the building of the castle there in the 13th century. The English King Edward III maintained a garrison there for over 50 years in the 14th century. During the 16th century several attempts were made by both English and Spanish forces to gain control of Brest and to destroy the French fleet based there. When in 1594 Spanish forces erected a fort at Crozon, on the south side of the estuary, an English army of 4,000 men with a fleet of ships under Sir Martin Frobisher was sent to expel them. It was the subsequent rise of France as a naval power under Richelieu and Colbert in the 17th century that resulted in the development of Brest as a naval base and arsenal. Vauban built the first dry dock on the site of the present Tourville dock and considerably increased the fortifications. An Anglo-Dutch expedition sent to destroy both base and fleet in 1694 was repelled with heavy loss in Camaret bay. Both naval and commercial ports grew originally within the confines of the deep and winding estuary of the Penfeld river, and both expanded beyond it in the 19th century, the commercial port to the east and the naval
port to the west. In the Laninon area, two large dry docks and a submarine base were built during and after the First World War and a new quay was completed there in 1939, together with the construction of a seaplane
By Jean Paul Pallud base and a number of submarine berths along the quay.
ATB
Right: Wrecked by Allied bombardment during the battle for the city in September 1944, the span was replaced by a vertical lift bridge completed in 1954. 3
wide. The main entrance to the commercial port (the Passe de l’Ouest) also has a width of 300 metres while a narrower passage (the Passe de l’Est) is 122 metres wide. The city of Brest originally lay on the slopes of hills on both sides of the river but in the 19th century it spread over several neighbouring communities, among them Recouvrance and Saint-Pierre-Quilbignon on the west, Lambézellec to the north, and SaintMarc over on the east. During the German offensive in the West in 1940, Brest was captured on June 18 by the
leaders of the 5. Panzer-Division although British troops had carried out demolitions to most of the harbour facilities before they evacuated the city. The Kriegsmarine wanted to base its U-Boats in the ports along the Atlantic coast of France and Vizeadmiral Hans Stobwasser, who was already tasked to restore the arsenal at Lorient, was quickly transferred to Brest as Oberwerfdirektor. Before the end of the year he had the harbour facilities restored to working order whereupon preparations for full U-Boat deployment began.
ATB
ECPAD
To provide protection for the roadsted — the Rade Abri — breakwaters were built in the 19th century, enclosing both the Laninon naval basin and the commercial port. The longest breakwaters — Jetée Ouest, 600 metres long, and Jetée Sud, 2,200 metres long — lie on the west side of the harbour, off Laninon, with Jetée Est — 900 metres long — on the eastern side. At its northern end the latter joins the 760-metre-long Digue du Sud which protects the commercial port. The entrance passage to the Rade Abri between the Jetée Sud and the Jetée Est is 300 metres
Following the German capture of Brest in June 1940, and to protect the harbour against enemy air raids, the Germans erected a series of barrage balloons along the breakwaters, the ones shown here being located at the junction of the Jetée Ouest and 4
Jetée Sud off the harbour’s west side. Hundreds of steel cylinders containing the hydrogen used to inflate the balloons were stockpiled along the jetties. Right: The Marine Nationale (French Navy) allowed Jean Paul to enter the mole to take his comparison.
ATB ATB
ECPAD
ECPAD
Left: Oberwerfdirektor (Chief Shipyard Director) Hans Stobwasser and his engineers quickly brought the docks back to running order, and the following November a German PK photographer pictured the dockyard area from above the river. In the foreground is the Tourville dry-dock, or Bassin No. 1, and in the far background, across the Penfeld, are the engineering workshops on the Capucins plateau. The large crane was used in the fitting-out and arming of warships and was able to lift 150 tons. Above: The crane survived the battle in 1944 (see page 29) but was later dismantled although its large concrete base remains. Jean Paul purposely arranged to take his comparisons on the 70th anniversary of the final German surrender at Brest — September 20, 2014 – which also coincided with French National Heritage Day when the French Navy organise an open day for visitors to tour the Arsenal.
ECPAD
Above left: In November 1940 Generalfeldmarschall Walther von Reichenau, then commander of the 6. Armee, came to inspect the Arsenal and the Kriegsmarine establishments at Brest. Vizeadmiral Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière, the Naval Commander Brittany, (second from right) received him on the quay below the Château. Above right: The office building that originally stood there has gone, the plot being used today for a car park. In the background, the old bridge over the deep cutting leading to the railway tunnel has also disappeared. Right: The Kriegsmarine took their guests for a sight-seeing tour up the Penfeld in a motor launch, this picture being taken just after the vessel had made a U-turn upstream of the Salou bend. Von Arnauld de la Perière is wearing the coveted Pour le Mérite, awarded to him in October 1916 after a year of remarkable successes as captain of the U-35. He later commanded the U-139 and his record of sinkings — 194 ships and 453,716 GRT – made him the undisputed submarine ace of all time. On February 24, 1941, a few weeks after these photos were taken, von Arnauld was killed in an aircraft crash at Le Bourget airfield near Paris. 5
ATB
ECPAD
Led by their captain, Oberleutnant Adalbert Schnee (with white cap), and his two officers, Oberleutnant Joachim Zander (second left) and Oberleutnant Wolfgang Leimkühler (fourth left), the crew of U-201 parade through Brest on September 30, 1941, having returned from a successful 17-day patrol in the Atlantic. They had sunk six ships, hence the six victory pennants flown on the mast. Among them was HMS Springbank,
VII boats, while the two flotillas at Lorient were equipped with the larger Type IX. The 12. U-Bootsflottille based at Bordeaux had the long-range submarines for operations in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean. Brest ranked fourth in the list of the mostimportant U-Boat bases for the number of patrols carried out during the war, with 351 between August 1940 and September 1944, exceeded only by Kiel, Lorient and SaintNazaire. The construction of a bunker to shelter the U-Boats while they were being serviced was
begun in January 1941 at the western end of the Rade Abri, where the French seaplane station lay. The bunker was 333 metres long, 192 metres wide and roughly 17 metres high comprising two structures. The first provided five ‘wet’ pens, labelled A to E, and eight dry-dock pens, 1 to 8, while the second section had two dry-docks (Pens 9 and 10). The roof above the first structure was 3.60 metres thick and that above Pens 9 and 10 was 4.30 metres. A second layer of concrete was poured over most of the roof increasing the thickness to 6.20 metres – nearly 20 feet.
ATB
BUNDESARCHIV BILD 101II-MW-6059-08
Moving in from Kiel, the 1. U-Bootsflottille under Korvettenkapitän Hans Cohausz started to operate from Brest in June 1941. The new 9. U-Bootsflottille was established under Kapitänleutnant Jürgen Oesten in October that year but it took some months of preparations before a first U-Boat — U-213 — was attached to the flotilla for operations. These commenced in April 1942. Both flotillas operated Type VII U-Boats, the principal submarine of the German force. The two flotillas at Saint-Nazaire and the one at La Pallice also operated mainly Type
a fighter catapult ship of over 5,100 GRT escorting convoy HG-73 from Gibraltar to Liverpool. Above right: The house number visible in the photo — No. 100 — served as a good clue for there are few streets in Brest having such a high number, and it proved to be Rue Anatole France in Recouvrance, the western part of the city, although the intervening years have significantly changed the spot.
Work began on the construction of a U-Boat bunker in Brest in January 1941 and in September the first submarine, U-372 under Kapitänleutnant Heinz-Joachim Neumann, entered the first pen to be completed (see After the Battle No. 55). Left: Sometime in 1942, PK photographer Hasert pictured 6
the crew of another U-boat leaving the bunker through the main access on the western side. The slogan above the entrance reads ‘Durch Kampf zum Sieg’ – ‘Through battle to victory’. Right: Another comparison courtesy of the Marine Nationale.
ECPAD
ECPAD
From the spring of 1941 the Germans began taking measures to organise the defence of France against attack from the sea. Sites along the coast for gun emplacements and pillboxes were surveyed and construction approved but as most of the labour force and available materials had been earmarked for the construction of the U-Boat pens, which were a priority, work on other fortifications proceeded at a slow pace and very few had been built by the end of the year. The actual building of the ‘Atlantikwall’ gained speed in the spring of 1942 after Hitler issued his Führer Directive No. 40 concerning the conduct of the defence of the West. This decreed that the defences along the coast should be organised in such a way that any invasion attempt could be smashed before the actual landing or certainly immediately after. As far as Brest was concerned, several coastal batteries were constructed on each side of the inlet to command the approaches. Two heavy batteries were designed to engage warships at a range of well over 20 kilometres. The battery at Keringar, just east of Pointe de Saint-Mathieu north of the inlet, possessed four 28cm guns while four 22cm guns were emplaced on the Crozon peninsula north-west of Camaret. In addition,
To command the approaches to the Rade de Brest (the bay giving access to the port), the Germans constructed a powerful long-range battery at Camaret-sur-Mer on the Gouin peninsula, south of the inlet. Comprising four captured 22cm French Schneider modèle 1917 guns (renamed Kanone 532(f) by the Germans) and having a range of over 22 kilometres, it was manned by Heeres-Küstenartillerie-Batterie 1274. Each gun was mounted in a large concreted circular platform with ammunition storage bunkers and crew shelters at the rear. The whole installation measured 70 by 30 metres.
ATB
ECPAD
ATB
Right: The two southern positions have gone but the two in the north still remain, lost in thorny vegetation. The concrete pit measures 7.5 metres in diameter.
Left: There were numerous other batteries and strong points built all along the coast to oppose any seaborne landing. This casemate for a 10.5cm gun was built on the Pointe de Kermorvan, on the northern side of the bay, to protect the entrance to
Le Conquet harbour due west of Brest, the old Vauban redoubt being used as quarters for the gun crews. Right: The promontory is now a nature reserve with vehicles prohibited so visitors now have to walk for about a kilometre to reach the battery. 7
USNA
Another long-range battery was built at Keringar, north of the inlet. Known as Batterie ‘Graf Spee’ and manned by the 7. Batterie of Marine-Artillerie-Abteilung 262, it had four 28cm SK L/40 guns
with a range of over 27 kilometres. Due to lack of time and resources, only one of the four guns was emplaced in a casemate, the other three being installed on open circular platforms.
medium batteries armed with 15cm or 16.4cm guns in reinforced concrete casemates were constructed to deal with smaller ships at closer range. In the meantime, batteries and strong points were built all along the coast to counter any landing attempts, the Germans making the best use of many of the existing French batteries in the sector, installing new guns and building new casemates. However, all these defences faced attacks from the sea and at first nothing was done to defend Brest against a possible threat from inland. Construction of inland defences facing east had barely begun when the American assault came in August 1944 resulting in some of the coastal guns being redeployed out of their casemates to face the attackers.
ATB
ATB
Right: Jean Paul had to make his way through a field of high maize before he was able to reach the spot. The old casemate has now found a new use as a shelter for horses.
USNA
Left: The battery fire-control post was housed in a huge fourfloor bunker. Above: Still belonging to the Marine Nationale, the bunker had been conveniently cleared for the 70th anniversary of the battle. 8
USNA
ENTER THE THIRD ARMY At noon on August 1, 1944, as American armoured columns were breaking through south of Avranches, the US 12th Army Group, under Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley’s command, became operational. At the same time Lieutenant General Courtney H. Hodges assumed command of the US First Army, and Lieutenant General George S. Patton’s US Third Army came to life. The ‘Overlord’ plan had designated Brittany as the stage for the Third Army’s initial operations. The peninsula of Brittany was important to the Allies because of its ports: Saint-Malo, less than 40 miles west of Avranches; Brest, on the western extremity of the peninsula; Lorient and Saint-Nazaire, along the southern seashore; Nantes, 30 miles east of the estuary of the Loire river; and the many small harbours and beaches useful for discharging cargo. General Eisenhower stated that ‘the ideal situation would be to obtain the entire coastal area from Le Havre to Nantes. With such a broad avenue of entry we could bring to the Continent every single soldier the United States could procure for us.’ On this assumption, the Americans had planned to use the Quiberon Bay, on the south coast of Brittany between Lorient and Saint-Nazaire, as a major port area. There, four existing ports, an excellent rail and road network, hard beaches with gentle gradients, and sheltered anchorage for ocean-going vessels made the area attractive although it was doubted that the ports could be used immediately after capture for the Germans were certain to defend them with determination and destroy the facilities in the process. In spite of this, Allied logistical planners were still interested in the major ports of Brittany, Brest in particular. Possession of the latter would enable personnel and vehicles coming directly from the United States to be landed there without waiting for the Quiberon Bay complex to be built. Also, with Brest in Allied hands, convoys could sail the area without hindrance from German warships based at the port. Bradley’s orders to the Third Army were to seize Rennes and Fougères, then turn westward to secure Saint-Malo, the Quiberon Bay area, Brest, and the remainder of Brittany, in that order, so Patton decided to launch two armoured columns into the peninsula. While the 4th Armored Division was to drive through Rennes to Quiberon and cut the peninsula near its base, the 6th Armored Division was to go all the way to Brest. Meanwhile, a third column, a provisionally activated Task Force A commanded by Brigadier General Herbert L. Earnest, comprising the 15th Cavalry Group, the 6th Tank Destroyer Group and the 159th Engineer Battalion, was to secure the vital railway line that runs along the northern shore of Brittany. In this advance, Patton’s armour could count on much valuable help from the Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur (French Interior Forces, FFI) as it possessed a force of over 20,000 armed men in Brittany. Even before the invasion the Allies had planned to promote intensified FFI activities in the area, and the first parties from the Special Air Service (SAS) — the Free French of the 4ème Bataillon d’Infanterie de l’Air (known to the British as 4th French Parachute Battalion) – had been dropped on the night of June 5/6 to pave the way for setting up two support bases, ‘Dingson’ near Vannes and ‘Samwest’ in the Duault forest. More SAS parties followed and the FFI forces were progressively built up around these cores of trained leaders while more weapons, ammunition and supplies were parachuted to them. On July 29, 12th Army Group assumed command of the FFI forces in Brittany and immediately placed them under the control of Third Army. On August 3, a coded mes-
The US Third Army became operational on August 1 under Lieutenant General George S. Patton, pictured here at his army command post in an apple orchard at Néhou, a small village in the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy. sage was sent through the BBC to order them to begin guerrilla activities on a large scale and Colonel Albert Eon, the designated commander of all the FFI in Brittany, parachuted with his staff during the night of August 4/5. At the same time, 150 men were dropped near Morlaix to capture and preserve the large railway viaduct that overlooked the town. The following night, ten gliders landed between Vannes and Lorient to bring in Jeeps, weaponry and ammunition. German forces in Brittany were ill-pre-
pared to counter the Third Army offensive. Of the 100,000 men stationed in Brittany at the beginning of June, two-thirds had been moved to Normandy: the 3. and 5. Fallschirmjäger-Divisions; the 77., 275. and 353. Infanterie-Divisions, and two mobile Kampfgruppen from the 265. and 266. InfanterieDivisions. Thus on August 1 the German forces in Brittany amounted to no more than 30,000 men with an additional 50,000 naval and service personnel spread between the various ports.
Patton soon launched three armoured columns into Brittany. The 4th Armored Division was to cut the neck of the peninsula; the 6th Armored Division was to advance all the way to Brest, while a provisional Task Force A, made up of cavalry reconnaissance and tank destroyer units, was to secure the railway line along the peninsula’s northern shore. 9
10
The original caption to this photograph would have us believe that these tanks of the 6th Armored Division are passing through Landivisiau, 35 kilometres north-east of Brest, on August 14, together with a car and lorry loaded with FFI fighters. army’s Chief-of-Staff, to hit the roof. He replied immediately, sending a copy to VIII Corps, stating that Wood’s orders were that the 4th Armored must advance westward to take Vannes and Lorient, not eastwards. The leaders of CCA reached Vannes on the evening of the 5th and the FFI, who had already captured the local airfield, guided them swiftly into the town. On the morning of August 7, both combat commands had reached the outskirts of Lorient. Combat Command B tried to force a way into the town but the Germans were ready and the command suffered over 100 casualties and lost 20 vehicles. The next morning, VIII Corps ordered Wood to ‘take a secure position and merely watch developments’.
TAKE BREST! Meeting Major General Robert W. Grow, the 6th Armored Division commander, on the afternoon of August 1, Patton told him that he had bet £5 with General Bernard Montgomery, the commander of the British 21st Army Group, that American troops would be in Brest by Saturday night so simply directed him to ‘Take Brest!’ At first light on August 2, the whole of the 6th Armored Division was pushing steadily to the west with Grow getting the feeling that he ‘owned all roads in Brittany’. In the afternoon of August 3, however, to Grow’s surprise, VIII Corps radioed: ‘Do not bypass Dinan and Saint-Malo’. Confirmation arrived that the division was to take Saint-Malo.
ATB
RENNES, VANNES AND LORIENT On August 1 the 4th Armored Division moved out southward in the direction of Rennes. Orders from the VIII Corps were only to take the town but when the Third Army took control, Patton instructed Major General John S. Wood, the division commander, to push on beyond to the Atlantic coast to cut the neck of the Brittany peninsula. Wood’s forces raced southward and Combat Command A (CCA) reached the northern outskirts of Rennes that evening. However, reinforcements sent by Fahrmbacher had arrived just in time and although Thunderbolts bombed the German defences of the city, the full-scale American attack launched in the late evening failed. Having lost 11 tanks with 20 men taken prisoner, CCA withdrew and Wood radioed that he needed additional infantry. The VIII Corps commander, Major General Troy H. Middleton, agreed to attach the 13th Infantry Regiment (from the 8th Division) to Wood’s command and provided four truck companies to move them quickly from Avranches. Wood was anxious not to get relegated to a subsidiary role in Brittany so on the morning of August 3 he positioned his combat commands in a wide arc west of Rennes, eager to be in a position to drive eastward at once. Faced by a fait accompli, Middleton accepted the manoeuvre but ordered Wood ‘to secure Rennes before you continue’, presumably toward the east. Reluctantly, Wood halted and turned his forces to block the escape routes south and east of the city. When the 13th Infantry arrived on the afternoon of the 3rd they quickly entered the north-eastern outskirts of the city. The situation for the encircled German garrison was now hopeless and, having destroyed installations and supplies, they pulled out at 4 a.m. on August 4. Marching in two groups along small roads and across fields, Oberst Eugen König and his 2,000 men avoided clashing with the Americans and they reached SaintNazaire safely on August 9. Meanwhile Wood had convinced Middleton that the Allied command was ‘winning the war the wrong way’ — that the 4th Armored Division ought to march eastward in the direction of Angers — so the VIII Corps orders for August 4 confirmed this arrangement. A copy of the order was sent as a matter of routine to the Third Army, which caused Major General Hugh J. Gaffey, the
USNA
With the 319. Infanterie-Division immobile on the Channel Islands, the XXV. Armeekorps was left with the 2. Fallschirmjäger-Division and the static 343. InfanterieDivision near Brest; those elements remaining of the 265. Infanterie-Division at Lorient and Saint-Nazaire, and a regiment of the 266. Infanterie-Division near Morlaix. The corps commander, Generalleutnant Wilhelm Fahrmbacher, knew it was impossible to hold the whole of the peninsula with these forces so he planned to concentrate his defence on the major harbours that he knew would be the Allied main objectives. At the end of July, elements of the 77. Infanterie-Division and the 91. InfanterieDivision were pulling out of the Cherbourg peninsula so Fahrmbacher ordered a Kampfgruppe (a unit about the equivalent of battalion strength under Oberst Rudolf Bacherer) from the former division to return and hold the Sélune crossings south of Avranches, while a small force was despatched from the latter unit to Rennes. Making plans to stop the Americans from entering Brittany, on August 1 Generalfeldmarschall Günther von Kluge, the German C-in-C in the West, asked for permission to move the 319. Infanterie-Division from the Channel Islands to the mainland but Hitler refused, instead agreeing that the 2. Fallschirmjäger-Division could push east from Brest.
However, as is so often the case with wartime captions, the location given was incorrect, and it was only the existence of the First World War memorial in the picture that finally enabled Jean Paul to trace it to Rostrenen, over 75 kilometres south-east of Landivisiau! The memorial has since been moved to another spot nearby.
USNA ATB
Delighted to have received ‘a cavalry mission’, Major General Robert W. Grow, the 6th Armored Division commander, later recalled how exhilarating it was to advance all the way to Brest, ‘with no boundaries to worry about, no definite enemy information, in fact nothing but a map of Brittany and the knowledge that resistance was where you found it’. Signal Corps photographer Pfc Sam Gilbert pictured these trucks carrying ammunition forward to the battlefront.
Morning mist had just lifted when Jean Paul took this comparison on the D764 just west of Carhaix, some 75 kilometres east of Brest . . . exactly seven decades later.
ATB
USNA
On the morning of August 4 the division was in the process of developing an attack plan for action against Dinan when at around 11 a.m. Patton arrived unannounced at the wheat field near Merdrignac where the division headquarters was located. The general appeared to be controlling an outburst of anger with difficulty. ‘What in hell are you doing sitting here?’, Patton demanded of General Grow who had just come out of his tent. ‘I thought I told you to go to Brest.’ Grow explained that his advance had been halted. ‘On what authority?’, Patton rasped. ‘Corps order, Sir’, Grow said. The division’s Chief-of-Staff then handed Patton the signal which had been received from Middleton. Patton read it, folded the paper and put it into his pocket. ‘And he was a good doughboy, too’, Patton said quietly as though talking to himself. Then he looked at Grow. ‘I’ll see Middleton’, he said. ‘You go ahead where I told you to go.’ The 6th Armored Division immediately resumed its advance westward, by-passing pockets of resistance and leaving the task of keeping the lines of communication open to the FFI. However, as the division advanced farther west into Brittany, communication problems became more and more acute and VIII Corps headquarters, 100 miles to the east, was only vaguely aware of developments at the front. By the morning of August 6 the HQ had no idea if the division had taken Brest or if it was heavily engaged and in need of help. That afternoon, his patience gone, Middleton rapped out a message to Grow. ‘This headquarters has no information as to your present positions’, he wrote. ‘Radio this headquarters at once.’ Actually, by the evening of August 6, CCA and CCB were in the vicinity of Brest. Confident that a show of force might bring the German garrison to surrender, Grow ordered CCB, which was closest to the city, to attack next morning. Attacking south-west from Lesneven, the combat command came under heavy fire from German artillery in Brest, halting the American advance abruptly. Faced with this set-back, and needing a day to reorganise for a co-ordinated effort, Grow decided to give the German garrison one last chance to surrender. While the division prepared for their attack on August 9, the division G-2, Major Ernest W. Mitchell, and German-speaking Sergeant Alex Castle drove toward the German line on the morning of August 8 in a Jeep draped in white sheets and flying a flag of truce. Reaching the German front line, a Leutnant blindfolded the two emissaries before taking them into the city. When the blindfolds were removed, Mitchell and Castle found themselves in an underground command post, face to face with several German officers seated round a table.
Left: The 6th Armored Division closed on Brest on August 7, reaching the vicinity of Gouesnou in the late afternoon. The following day the division was in contact with the German outer
defences along a front running from Milizac, north of the city, through Gouesnou to Guipavas, east of the port. Right: Looking south along Rue des Fusillés in Gouesnou today. 11
BUNDESARCHIV BILD 101I-548-0725-28
BUNDESARDCHIV BILD 101I-719-0208-13A
Left: The German commander in Brittany, Generalleutnant Wilhelm Fahrmbacher of the XXV. Armeekorps (seen here at Saint-Nazaire with Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel in February 1944), knew it was impossible to hold the whole peninsula with the forces he had on hand so he planned to
The German commander, Oberst Hans von der Mosel, replied that there was no way that he could surrender. Mitchell asked whether he understood what that meant and the German said he did. Mitchell took back the ultimatum; the German commander Heil-Hitlered and Mitchell saluted. The two Americans were then blindfolded and driven back to the outpost. Mitchell and Castle reentered their lines and reported that the bluff had failed. With no alternative but to attack the city, General Grow requested heavy air support for the following day (August 9). However, disturbing reports had been coming in from rear outposts from midday on the 8th about enemy soldiers suddenly appearing in their rear in stray vehicles. These turned out to be the remnants of the 266. Infanterie-Division that were moving towards Brest under Fahrmbacher’s order to consolidate with the city garrison. The Germans were equally surprised by the unsuspected arrival of the American tanks and the commander of the division — Generalleutnant Karl Spang — got himself captured when he stumbled into a battery of the 212th Armored Field Artillery Battalion with several members of his staff.
Worried by this threat from the rear, Grow cancelled the attack on Brest planned for next morning and instead ordered his combat commands to turn around to face the German elements approaching the city, leaving a screening force to prevent the garrison in Brest from sallying out to meet the approaching force. In the meantime, the 2. FallschirmjägerDivision had been in contact with American armour near Carhaix since August 5 but it was unable to advance any further after its leading regiment-sized Kampfgruppe Rolschewski joined the garrison at SaintMalo. As a result, the division commander, Generalleutnant Hermann Ramcke, decided to pull back into Brest. Avoiding American forces, the paratroopers managed to slip back into the city on August 9. Three days later, Ramcke was appointed fortress commander, with Oberst von der Mosel his Chief-of-Staff. On August 8, a small group of paratroopers under Leutnant Erich Lepkowski mounted a daring raid from Brest to Brasparts, over 25 miles to the south-east, to free over 100 of their comrades that had been taken prisoner by the FFI during the battle near Huelgoat. For this feat of arms, Lepkowski was awarded the Knight’s Cross.
ATB
USNA
One German raised his hand and said, ‘Heil Hitler’. After a momentary hesitation, Mitchell saluted. Presuming the German to be the senior commander, Mitchell handed him General Grow’s surrender ultimatum. When the German denied knowledge of English, Castle translated the paper aloud: ‘Headquarters 6th Armored Division, Office of the Commanding General, APO 256, US Army, 8 August 1944, Memorandum to: Officer Commanding German Forces in Brest. ‘1. The United States Army, Naval and Air Force troops are in position to destroy the garrison of Brest. ‘2. This memorandum constitutes an opportunity for you to surrender in the face of these overwhelming forces to representatives of the United States Government and avoid the unnecessary sacrifice of lives. ‘3. I shall be very glad to receive your formal surrender and make the detailed arrangements any time prior to 1500 this date. The officer who brings this memorandum will be glad to guide you and necessary members of your staff, not exceeding six, to my headquarters. R. W. Grow, Major General, USA, Commanding’
concentrate them on the major ports. Right: On August 12, Generalleutnant Hermann Ramcke, commander of the 2. Fallschirmjäger-Division (pictured here in North Africa in late 1942 when in command of Fallschirmjäger-Brigade Ramcke), was put in charge of ‘Festung Brest’.
On August 8, General Grow was in the middle of finalising his attack on Brest for the next morning when reports started coming in about groups of German soldiers appearing at various places in his rear. Consequently, he cancelled the planned attack and directed his combat commands to drive north-east to 12
destroy these enemy forces. This took most of the 9th and a part of the 10th, and even then many smaller groups of Germans still managed to slip through into the city. Right: These prisoners are being marched into captivity on Boulevard de Coataudon at Guipavas, five kilometres north-east of Brest (left).
GOUESNOU
By August 25 — the revised date set for the main attack on Brest — three American infantry divisions faced the city in an It took most of August 9 and part of the following day for the Americans to clear the area east of Brest, though more Germans still succeeded in getting into the fortress. On the evening of August 12, with Brest obviously too strong for the 6th Armored Division to take it swiftly on its own, VIII Corps ordered Grow to contain the city with one combat command while relieving the 4th Armored Division at Lorient and Vannes with the others. A series of heavy air raids were then sent to try to shake the garrison loose. The Eighth Air Force began on August 11 by despatching 275 B-17s to bomb troop concentrations and fuel dumps. RAF Bomber Command followed up by attacking the U-Boat pens and shipping with 28 Lancasters on August 13, returning the next day with 155 Lancasters in two separate attacks on ships in the harbour. Meanwhile, the garrison at Saint-Malo had grown to about 12,000 men: 8,000 east of the Rance estuary in the city and 4,000 west of it at Dinard. While Oberst Andreas von Aulock allowed the evacuation of the inhabitants, he refused French requests to declare Saint-Malo an open city. The subsequent battle with the US 83rd Division began on August 4, von Aulock not surrendering until the 16th (see After the Battle No. 33).
arc: the 29th Division on the right, the 8th Division in the centre, and the 2nd Division on the left.
GERMAN DISPOSITIONS AT BREST There were now approximately 30,000 German troops defending Brest, nearly twice the number estimated by the Americans. Around 12,000 belonged to the Kriegsmarine and about 11,500 were from the Army, mainly elements of the 266. and 343. Infanterie-Divisions. There were also over 4,200 men from the Luftwaffe, mostly paratroopers from the 2. Fallschirmjäger-Division. Generalleutnant Ramcke used them to stiffen the defence of strong points held by the miscellaneous naval and static personnel of the garrison. The countryside around Brest — a gently rolling plateau — presents a pattern of small hills and low ridges separated in some places by narrow deep-cut valleys, the whole criss-crossed by numerous streams. The Germans used these features to good advantage and organised a system of positions of various kinds and in varying strengths to establish a defence in depth. The defensive works ranged from simple trenches to concrete pillboxes, casemates and gun emplacements. Obstacles included barbed-wire entanglements, minefields and anti-tank ditches. The Germans incorporated into their defensive system a number of old French forts, built in the late 18th century, and
located in the western and north-western suburbs of the city. The garrison had 12 batteries of Army field artillery and 18 batteries of Navy Flak plus some anti-aircraft guns and weapons stripped from ships sunk in the harbour. Batteries of coastal and field artillery on the Daoulas promontory and the Quelern peninsula provided additional fire support, as well as heavy guns near Le Conquet intended primarily to protect the sea approaches to Brest. Generalmajor Josef Rauch of the 343. Infanterie-Division was charged with command of the Daoulas and Crozon sectors east and south of the bay. Ordered by Hitler to hold to the last man, Ramcke was determined to do so. He believed that the more Allied forces were tied down at Brest, the better it would be for the German homeland which was sound thinking as more than 50,000 US troops became involved in siege operations against the fortress 300 miles behind the front line. Although most of the 80,000 inhabitants had left the city when the Germans ordered them to leave on August 4, some 25,000 still remained. Ramcke feared that they might encumber his defence so on August 13 he ordered the complete evacuation of all civilians. 13
This map from Captain Tisdale’s report shows the routes followed by Companies E and G as they infiltrated the enemy lines, and their objectives: two fields surrounded by hedgerows just south of the hamlet of Kergroas. For the sake of clarity, we have highlighted the routes in green and blue. Though the event happened on August 29 — the regimental after action report is clear about that — in his later account Tisdale erroneously dated it the 28th.
ATB
A remarkable incident then took place in the early hours of August 29 when two companies of the 2nd Battalion, 28th Infantry (8th Division), which had infiltrated behind the German lines southwest of Gouesnou, became cut off resulting in the capture of some 275 GIs. History books tend to gloss over inglorious moments and this incident is hardly ever referred to in any account of the Brest battle. Captain Charles F. Tisdale, who led Company E, later detailed his ‘personal experience of a rifle company commander’ at the 1949-50 infantry officers course of the Infantry School, Fort Benning: ‘Companies E and G quietly started moving out in single files at 4.30 a.m. Everything seemed to be going well, except as the leading troops started crossing the hedgerows, a very audible rustle was created as each man crawled through the bushes and weeds on top, but almost simultaneously a Godsend rain started falling in large scattered drops. This created a rustle, which in itself drowned out that of the troops and permitted them to move faster. Just as the leading elements of each company reached a point where the columns were to make a left turn, within a large hedgerow block, flares started up in front of the 1st and 3rd Battalions. An enemy machine gunner, evidently suspicious, opened fire 50 yards from the left flank of Company G and began raking the field now occupied by both companies. When after ten minutes he finally stopped firing, Company G moved on across the road toward the objective some distance to the south-east, and Company E tied into its rear. As the head of Company G reached the objective, the company was moved into one large hedgerow block and as Company E came up, it moved into an adjacent block. By 5.30 a.m. both companies had started digging in. At about 5.45 a.m. four Germans walked into Company G’s area and started speaking to a soldier digging in. Quickly realising their mistake, one of them dropped a grenade and ran, killing one Company G man. Within a few minutes Germans had crawled up to one side of the hedgerow in Company G’s area and a furious grenade battle began. At about 8.30 a.m. the Germans were heard to start the motors of three tanks in the vicinity of Kergroas. Company G immediately informed battalion. From a position in Company E’s area, the tanks could be observed. One of the tanks started firing its cannon at Company G after moving within 100 yards.’
This is the stretch of the road — which in 1944 was a dirt track — where the two companies were pinned down by the German machine gunner. 14
Tisdale: ‘The company commander then requested that battalion move the tank destroyers to a position where they could fire on the tanks. The TDs moved to the crest of the high ground just to the rear of Company G’s former attack position but they could not spot the tanks because of foliage. By the use of voice relay to Company G’s radio, Lieutenant Rossini, with the use of reference points, directed the fire of a tank destroyer. The fifth round set one tank afire and after six more another tank was knocked out. As Lieutenant Rossini started to adjust on the third tank (a captured Sherman), the battalion S-3 said that no more anti-tank fire such as this would be fired since it was so wasteful of ammunition. A few minutes later the one remaining tank entered Company G’s area through an opening in the hedgerow and started blasting away with its machine gun and 75mm gun. The four remaining bazooka rounds were fired at ranges from 50 to 75 yards with only two glancing hits, which, though not disabling the tank, did succeed in causing it to withdraw from the field.’
‘Shortly after’, recorded Tisdale, ‘the tank returned and this time, it completely circled the field, firing its machine guns and cannon over into Company E’s area. It had started to circle the field again when two Company G men climbed on top and began pounding on top of the turret with grenades. Although both men were wounded, their action caused the tank to withdraw once more. [Sergeant Walker and Pfc Willard Jones were later awarded the Silver Star for this action.] However, after only a short while the tank burst back into the field again, this time herding a small group of soldiers, who had not been able to dig in, out through the hedgerow opening toward the waiting German infantry. This act was repeated again and again and it looked as if the tank and German infantry had begun to systematically capture small groups of three to four at a time. The Company G commander had asked his executive officer to call the battalion and request fire on the company position if any artillery at all was available and the message had just been sent when eight Germans armed with machine pistols stepped through a small hedgerow opening near the command post of
Company E. In this surprise move, both company commanders and ten other men nearby were captured. The enemy quickly closed in and in a very short time, with the use of the tank, succeeded in capturing the remainder of the two companies by 12 hours.’ The 28th Infantry’s after action report stated: ‘At 1243 an artillery forward observer reported two companies of US troops moving south towards Brest. Troops appeared to be prisoners and were believed to be Companies E and G having been cut off and captured.’ The line was quickly restored, Company F taking up the position formerly held by Company E and the reserve Company A filling that of Company G, but the debacle had several repercussions: Lieutenant Colonel Frederick J. Bailey, the 2nd Battalion commander, was relieved of his command on August 30; Colonel Kenneth S. Anderson of the 28th Infantry on the 31st; and the 28th Infantry was relieved in the line by the 121st Infantry. By contrast, on September 5 Hauptmann Reino Hamer, the commander of the I. Bataillon of Fallschirmjäger-Regiment 7, was awarded the Knight’s Cross for this action.
IGN
KERGROAS
making identification of the individual wartime fields difficult. Also, Kergroas has expanded considerably and one of the fields is now completely built over.
Left: This picture by PK Reich of Fallschirmjäger inspecting captured American equipment perfectly matches the events of August 29 at Gouesnou, although it was probably taken at an earlier date, in Normandy. Right: The field where Company E was captured. A wall of the farmhouse in the background still bears
marks left by the German-operated Sherman. After the war, the farmer found a broken Garand rifle in the hedgerow in the background on the right. Searching the place in 2003, historians Yannick Creach and Jonathan Gawne found a large number of .30calibre cartridges and also a fired shell-case from the Sherman.
ATB
BUNDESARCHIV BILD 101I-586-2215-31
Left: The fields and hedgerows described by Tisdale can be identified on this aerial shot taken in 1948. Right: Modern agricultural methods have largely done away with the hedgerows,
15
USNA SC 194739
Expecting an early and easy capture of Brest, the Third Army had failed to provide sufficient ammunition for the operation, forcing VIII Corps to postpone the attack. Arrangements to rectify the shortage by sea and rail were soon made and by September 7 the corps had enough ammunition on hand, and
Rennes, the capture of Brest was far beyond the capacities of the VIII Corps. Therefore Bradley transferred to Middleton the 2nd and 29th Divisions from the First Army and two Ranger battalions which had been performing rear-area guard duty. The 2nd Division arrived at Landerneau on August 19 and the 29th assembled just south of Lannilis
four days later. With Task Force A and contingents of the FFI also nearby, as soon as adequate supplies could be built up Middleton could begin the operation against Brest. On the 18th, the VIII Corps command post moved to Lesneven, about 16 miles from Brest, ready to direct the siege of the fortress.
ATB
USNA
THE BATTLE FOR BREST By mid-August, Middleton had the bulk of the 6th Armored Division at Lorient with only a small combat command from it and a few 8th Division troops remaining at Brest. With Task Force A clearing the Paimpol area, the 83rd Division heavily engaged at Saint-Malo, and the 8th Division protecting
assurance of more to come, to permit resumption of the attack. Above: On September 5 Signal Corps photographer Tech/5 George W. Herold pictured LST-72 and LST-325 unloading ammunition directly onto trucks on the beach at Morlaix, 50 kilometres east of Brest.
After a strong artillery preparation, the new attack was launched on September 8. Left: An 8-inch gun of the 256th Field Artillery Battalion kicks up a huge cloud of dust as it hurls one of its massive shells into the city. Right: General Middleton pictured observing the barrage together with Brigadier General James A. van Fleet, the assistant comman16
der of the 2nd Division who was also then commanding Task Force B, the force charged with clearing the Daoulas promontory south of Brest. The photo was taken by Signal Corps photographer Pfc Sam Gilbert and his original caption indicates that the two generals were then standing in a blasted German 88mm gun position.
ATB
USNA SC194116
Comprising 182 statues, the monument is acknowledged throughout the world as a magnificent work of art, certainly unique of its kind.
In all, Task Force B took 2,700 prisoners on the Daoulas peninsula. Here, German wounded are being evacuated from a hospital that had been set up in a casemate of the 18th century Fort du Corbeau which lay on the shore six kilometres west of Plougastel.
ATB
By far the most serious problem for waging the forthcoming siege-type of action was the shortage of artillery ammunition and Middleton had already warned the Third Army that he foresaw heavy ammunition expenditure to take Brest. When Third Army requested formal estimates of the Brest requirements, Middleton based his reply on the Saint-Malo experience and requested an initial stock of 8,700 tons, plus replenishment of 11,600 tons for the first three days. However, because the corps had overestimated the strength of the enemy garrison and its will to resist, Third Army considered the request excessive and instead allocated only 5,000 tons for the whole operation, and even set September 1 as the target date for the fall of the fortress! When Bradley and Patton visited Middleton on August 23, he managed to convince them that he needed more ammunition so they immediately authorised 8,000 tons, which they thought would be sufficient for six days, the length of time they considered reasonable for the operation. Preliminary operations now began on both flanks. Having added the 38th Infantry (from the 2nd Division) and additional units to the existing Task Force A, Middleton had created a unit called Task Force B. He placed it under the command of Brigadier General James A. Van Fleet, the assistant commander of the 2nd Division, and instructed him to clear the Daoulas promontory which juts out into the sea south of Brest and which would provide an excellent artillery position to shell the rear of the fortress. This first operation was achieved by the last day of August with the capture of 2,700 prisoners whereupon VIII Corps placed a whole artillery group there to bombard the German defences from the rear.
USNA SC336741
Above: Task Force B launched its separate operation on August 21 and the Daoulas peninsula was cleared nine days later. This calvary at Plougastel was erected in 1602-04 to mark the end of the plague epidemic that had just devastated the parish. It was badly damaged by American shelling on August 23 with several statues and crosses being destroyed. The American officer seen here in discussion with the Mayor of the town is Private (later Lieutenant) John D. Skilton, a member of the US Army’s Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives (MFAA) team — better known as the Monuments Men. A curator at Washington’s National Gallery of Art in civilian life, he salvaged the broken statues and later established the Plougastel Calvary Restoration Fund that financed the monument’s repair in 1948-49.
The old fort is still in a military area and off-limits, but as the site appeared abandoned, Jean Paul felt authorised to jump over the fence to take his comparison. 17
ATB
IWM KY37613
Left: Meanwhile the attack on the city itself was making slow but steady progress. On September 9, the 121st Infantry of the 8th Division secured Lambézellec in the northern outskirts with Shermans of the 709th Tank Battalion supporting the regiment during mopping-up. At one point, the armour was having difficulty locating the source of enemy fire in the 1st Battalion sector, which was taking a heavy toll of the
of the Penfeld river. In that area were two defence belts. The outer line consisted of field fortifications developed in depth and reinforced with anti-tank obstacles, concrete works and emplacements, most of which were recent additions. The inner belt had been built long before for close protection of the naval base, and was strongly fortified throughout with field works and permanent-type defences some four miles wide with a depth of 3,000 yards. Middleton arranged to have heavy and medium bombers attack targets in the city as well as on the peninsulas, with close air support provided by a constant presence of four fighter-bombers per division. However, part of the bombing program had to be cancelled because of adverse weather conditions, but seven groups of mediums of the Ninth Air Force struck Brest on the 25th and started a large fire in Recouvrance, west of the Penfeld
river. Fighter-bombers strafed and bombed, and sank several ships in the harbour near the Crozon peninsula and 15 medium and heavy battalions of the corps artillery were also active. HMS Warspite fired 300 huge 15-inch shells into the coastal batteries near Le Conquet and, after scoring several direct hits, shifted to forts in Recouvrance but despite this heavy volume of preparatory fire, the well-co-ordinated ground attack by the three divisions made little progress. Attempting to soften the will to resist, 334 aircraft from RAF Bomber Command were employed against coastal battery positions near Brest on the night of August 25/26, followed up next morning by 160 B-17s of the Eighth Air Force. With the resumption of the ground attack on August 26 bringing little change, so came the realisation of the strength of the German opposition and the nature of the battle
ATB
USNA
Meanwhile, on the other flank, another operation was conducted by the 29th Division which pushed a regimental-sized Task Force S to clear the tip of Brittany from Brest to Le Conquet. When the operation ended on September 9 with the capture of the fort at Lochrist, about a 1.000 Germans had been captured. After several postponements due to the difficulties of securing ammunition and of co-ordinating air, naval, and ground forces, General Middleton set the date of the main attack against Brest for the afternoon of August 25. He planned to attack the city with three infantry divisions abreast, the 29th Division on the right, the 8th Division in the centre (the main effort), and the 2nd Division on the left. By then the divisions were in contact with the forward edge of the German defence perimeter, which formed a rough semicircle four to six miles around the mouth
infantry, so Sergeant George Scanlon ran to one of the tanks to direct its fire. However, his shouts failed to draw the attention of the crew so he picked up a stone and pounded the side of the tank until the crew heard him. He then successfully directed fire onto the German position. Right: The tanks entered the village along Rue de Bohars. The village church is just off to the right.
Sergeant William Dunn of the 167th Signal Photo Company must have been suddenly disturbed as he pressed the shutter of his Speed Graphic while taking a photo of a machine-gun crew from the 2nd Division guarding a street in Brest. 18
Jean Paul found the same spot in Rue Massillon in the northern quarter of the city. Well away from the harbour and Arsenal, this part of Brest had suffered considerably less from the Allied air raids.
BELL ARCHIVE ATB
Original caption: ‘The American infantry had to methodically search every house and building for snipers as they made their way into the centre of Brest. The Germans had even turned small villas into strong points from which they had to be ousted with grenades and small arms.’
Rue de Verdun in front of the Saint-Marc Church (just off the picture to the left) in the eastern part of town.
ATB
IWM KY37787
changed. Instead of a simultaneous grand effort, now came a series of local actions dictated by the problems of each sector commander. The divisions began to move ahead where weak spots were found, overwhelming pillboxes with flame-throwers and demolitions after patient manoeuvre and fire. Poor weather during the remainder of August restricted air support while continued shortages of ammunition curtailed the artillery, yet on August 28 a regiment of the 29th Division advanced toward Brest on the Le Conquet highway for almost two miles against virtually no resistance. However, when the 8th Division gained ground near Gouesnou, the Germans managed to cut off its two leading companies and obtain their surrender, taking some 275 prisoners. (Hauptmann Reino Hamer, commanding the I. Bataillon of Fallschirmjäger-Regiment 7, was awarded the Knight’s Cross on September 5 for his exploit.) On September 1 — the expected completion date of the operation — General Middleton again launched a co-ordinated attack after a strike by medium bombers and a 45minute artillery preparation. Nevertheless the only gain was a few hundred yards by the 8th Division but even this was lost to a counter-attack. Discouraged, Middleton sent a pessimistic signal to General Bradley, reporting that his troops were ‘none too good’; that replacement arrivals were behind schedule; that ammunition supply was poor though improving, and that air support ‘left much to be desired’. He said that the Germans had ‘no intention to fold up right away, having shown no signs of weakening’. At the same time he requested more 4.2-inch mortars, more artillery and more and better air support. For five more days the divisions continued their individual efforts. The first real break occurred on September 2 when the 2nd Division captured Hill 105 south-west of Guipavas. As the Germans fell back, the 8th Division advanced and took another of the fortified hills in the outer defence ring. Yet the 29th Division, facing Hill 103 east of the village of Plouzané, had no such success. Heavy bombers attacked the German positions every day save September 4 when bad weather prevented: 67 Lancasters attacked on the 2nd; 393 B-17s on the 3rd; and 60 Lancasters and 143 B-17s on the 5th, but from then on heavy bombers could no longer attack without endangering the troops on the ground. Fighter-bombers took over close support from September 5 when 12 of the Ninth Air Force’s 18 fighter-bomber groups were over Brest. By the end of the first week in September, the grip around the Brest garrison had tightened. The 2nd Division was within reach
Left: Most of the ‘action’ photos taken in Brest were actually staged after the end of the fighting, all of them in the 2nd Division sector. This one, of two GIs attacking down a street, was
taken in Rue Jules Guesde close to Place Keruscun. Right: This is another part of Brest which came through the battle relatively undamaged. 19
ATB
BELL ARCHIVE
British war photographer Fred Ramage from the Keystone press agency composed another fanciful caption for this shot of GIs of the 2nd Infantry (note how the shoulder patch has been painted out by the censor), preparing to blast an opening into a house: ‘Utilising the street-fighting manoeuvre which highlighted the siege of Stalingrad, when the Russians drove back the invading Germans, the Allied troops adopted the same method of warfare in driving Germans out of the houses in which they were holed up.’
ATB
BELL ARCHIVE
of Hill 92 (the second hill dominating the north-eastern approaches); the 8th Division was on the approaches to the village of Lambézellec (the gateway to Brest from the north), and the 29th Division stood before Fort de Mengant, five miles west of the Penfeld river. On September 7 Middleton judged that he had enough ammunition on hand to sustain another effort on the whole front so he launched a co-ordinated attack the following day after a strong artillery preparation. The weight of all three divisions carried a number of positions that previously had been denied. The 2nd Division captured strongly fortified Hill 92; the 8th Division advanced two regiments several hundred yards toward Lambézellec and Hill 82 — to a great extent due to the actions of Pfc Ernest W. Prussman, who virtually led the attack until he was killed. (He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.) The 29th Division also finally took an important strong point at Kergonant, just north of the village of Penfeld. American casualties numbered 250. Furnished at last with adequate artillery support, the next day the 2nd Division reached the streets of Brest. The 8th Division, after securing Lambézellec, launched a two-regiment attack and also entered the city while the 29th Division secured the village of Penfeld. Prisoners taken to date totalled over 3,500. With the arrival of eight LSTs and two trainloads of ammunition on the 8th, Middleton was optimistic for the first time since the beginning of the operation, and the ammunition crisis finally cleared on September 10 when Bradley assigned the Brest operation first priority on supply.
rifle fire.’ Right: The location of this shot was not easy to find in the restored city, but the building in middle distance on the left was the clue and the gradient of the street brought confirmation. This is Rue Saint-Marc (the continuation of Rue de Verdun), looking west.
BELL ARCHIVE
Left: Although the caption would make us believe otherwise, this is another staged shot: ‘A tough spot in the street fighting in Brest. The officer in the foreground making a dash is Lieutenant M. L. Stolberg of the 23rd Infantry, 2nd Division, who crosses first, calling his men to follow under machine-gun and
The charge blown, Ramage’s next shot showed the men entering the building. This part of Brest suffered heavy damage . . . some of it incurred just for the sake of taking a good picture! 20
The house in Rue de Sébastopol, which is two blocks north of Rue Saint-Marc, has been completely rebuilt but the one next door on the left confirms the comparison.
USNA SC 194418 ATB
An M18 tank destroyer of Company B, 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion, waits in Rue Kerfautras for the order to advance towards the German strong points near the Saint-Martin Church in support of the 3rd Battalion, 38th Infantry, 2nd Division. The picture was taken by Sergeant Dunn on September 12.
Seven decades later little has changed.
USNA
ATB
That day, another headquarters became involved in the Brest operation when VIII Corps passed from control of the Third Army to that of a new command, Lieutenant General William H. Simpson’s US Ninth Army, which had become operational five days earlier at Rennes. The Ninth Army assumed responsibility for protecting the southern flank of the 12th Army Group and for conducting operations in Brittany. To permit Middleton to give undivided attention to Brest, General Simpson immediately placed the 6th Armored and 83rd Infantry Divisions, both of which were not involved at Brest, directly under his own control. On September 10 the 8th Division reached the fortified city wall at Fort Bouguen but an infantry assault, even though preceded by an artillery preparation, failed to breach the wall which was 25 to 35 feet high and behind a dry moat 15 to 25 feet deep. The division commander, Major General Donald A. Stroh, prepared an attack for the following day, but after direct fire from heavy-calibre guns only made gaps in the upper portion of the wall, it was obvious that an infantry assault would be costly and of doubtful success. Since the converging movement on the city compressed the division fronts and deprived them of sufficient space to manoeuvre, Middleton decided to remove the 8th Division in the centre. This took place in several stages and on September 12 the 8th Division began to move to Crozon to secure the peninsula to eliminate the guns that were firing from there and to prevent escape of the Brest garrison across the harbour. The 29th Division attacked at midnight, September 11/12. Crossing an anti-tank ditch near the village of Saint-Pierre, they advanced toward Hill 97 from the north and west toward two old French fortifications, Forts Keranroux and Montbarey. Meanwhile, the 2nd Division still was involved in vicious street fighting. At this point, Middleton thought the Germans might be ready to surrender, but his offer was declined by General Ramcke. Fort Keranroux was the first objective on the 29th Division’s list. A battalion of the 175th Infantry, which for three days had been denied a close approach because of strong outer works, attacked again on the afternoon of September 13. Staff Sergeant Sherwood H. Hallman leaped over a hedgerow and single-handedly attacked and captured a machine gun emplacement, prompting the surrender of other German forces in the area. (He was killed in action the next day and was later posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.)
Left: This blockhouse armed with a tank turret (from a French Somua S-35 captured in 1940) commanded Rue Jean Jaurès, the major entrance to Brest from the north-east. Above: Fortunately the buildings in the left background remain at the junction with Rue du Vercors. 21
USNA
22
The next objective for the 29th Division was Fort Montbarey. Hammered for days by artillery and aircraft, 80 dazed survivors of the garrison surrendered on September 16 after Crocodile tanks flamed the apertures and tank destroyers and howitzers blasted the fort from point-blank range.
ATB
The entire battalion then advanced 2,000 yards to Fort Keranroux which was under bombardment from aircraft and artillery and covered by smoke shells. Two infantry companies, crossing the open ground immediately in front of the fort, lost ten men although they gained the entrance within 15 minutes, taking 100 prisoners. By this time the fort had been so blasted by bombs and shells that the original outlines of the main emplacements were no longer recognisable. Fort Montbarey was more difficult. An old French casemated fort with earth-filled masonry walls some 25 feet thick, surrounded by a dry moat 50 feet in width, and garrisoned by about 150 men, Montbarey was protected by outlying positions that included riflemen and 20mm guns covering a minefield consisting of naval shells equipped with pressure igniters. Even the preliminary task of approaching the fort seemed impossible. The VIII Corps engineer, Colonel Williamson R. Winslow, had early recognised the difficulties posed by these old forts and had requested a detachment of flame-throwing tanks. A squadron of the 141st Regiment, Royal Armoured Corps, was attached to the 116th Infantry, the regiment charged with the capture of Montbarey. The British unit had 15 Crocodiles — Churchill tanks mounting a flame gun in place of a machine gun and towing a trailer of fuel. Their function in the attack was to scorch the firing positions of the outer wall of the fort and cover engineers who were to place charges to breach the wall in advance of an infantry assault. On September 14, after men of the 121st Engineer Combat Battalion had cleared a path through the minefields under the cover of artillery high-explosive and smoke shells, four Crocodiles advanced in file toward the fort but when two tanks wandered from the path and struck mines, and another was destroyed by enemy fire, the attack had to be suspended. For the rest of the day and the next, artillery, tank destroyers and mortars pounded the fort. Eight fighterbombers were able to give support when the infantry resumed the attack on the following day. Meanwhile, engineer troops, working at night, improved the path through the heavily-mined and shell-pitted fields. At dawn on September 16, the Crocodiles advanced to within 85 yards of the fort. After an intensive artillery preparation, smoke shells were aimed at the outer wall. Concealed by the smoke, three Crocodiles moved forward and flamed the apertures. At the same time, engineers placed 2,500lbs of explosive at the base of the wall while tank destroyers and a 105mm howitzer fired at the main gate from
outlines were no longer recognisable. Right: The fort is now buried under a public park but the pointed shape of the old buttresses can still be seen.
USNA SC232185
Left: On the western side of the German defensive ring, the 29th Division attacked Fort Keranroux on September 13. The fort had been so blasted by bombs and shells that the original
Repaired after the war, the fort served as the command post of Brest’s anti-aircraft defences during the Cold War. Today it houses a museum devoted to the history of Brittany during the Second World War.
ATB
USNA SC 360921
Finale in Brest. On September 17, men of the 23rd Infantry fire their 3-inch M5 gun at a German strong point near the railway station. Right: The track was in fact the access road to the
Meanwhile, on the left flank, the 2nd Division had fought through the streets of Brest to reach the city wall on September 16. After a strong point near the railway station was eliminated, and after a patrol exploited an unguarded railway tunnel through the wall into the inner city, troops climbed the wall and advanced the remaining half-mile to the water’s edge. As the battle for Brest had been fought in two sectors, separated by the Penfeld river, so the German capitulation occurred in two parts, both on September 18. Von der Mosel
surrendered all the troops in Recouvrance to the 29th Division; Oberst Erich Pietzonka of Fallschirmjäger-Regiment 7 surrendered the eastern portion of the city to the 2nd Division, appropriately enough in President Wilson Square. Nearly 10,000 prisoners, who had prepared for capitulation by shaving, washing, donning clean uniforms and packing suitcases, presented a strange contrast to the dirty, tired, unkempt, but victorious American troops. Ramcke, however, had escaped across the harbour to the Crozon peninsula.
ATB
USNA
a distance of 200 yards. Battered by almost constant fire from the ground and the air for several days, and dazed by the shock of the explosion, the surviving 80 members of the garrison surrendered. With Fort Montbarey subdued, the main Recouvrance defences were now wide open. Before night fell on September 16, combat patrols were over the wall and in the old city. Resistance disintegrated and the groups holding the submarine pens and Fort du Portzic capitulated on the morning of September 18.
Ker-Stears château seen in the background. Today it is the Lycée Fénelon. The woods on the left are now much thicker than in 1944, forcing Jean Paul to take his comparison from closer in.
Some time after the end of the battle, Army photographer Herold had a look inside the château which still showed evidence of its German occupation. (It had been built in 1861 by John Burnett-Stears, the son of a Scottish industrialist.)
The Lycée Fénelon is not normally open to visitors but, as Jean Paul’s visit coincided with French Heritage Day, he was lucky to gain access and match up the shot in the former ballroom, now a study. 23
USNA
ATB
USNA
ATB
Above: The 23rd Infantry had a particularly difficult battle in a cemetery on the southern edge of the Saint-Marc district in eastern Brest as the Germans had set up dugouts and machine guns for crossfire on either side of it. One company manoeuvred around this spot for hours before finally worming its way through a hole in the wall. Tall buildings on each side of the cemetery had to be reduced before the strong point could be cleaned out. The fight over, Signal Corps photographer Tech/5 Louis Weintraub pictured Private John Hilton and Corporal Woodrow Howard of the 23rd Infantry inspecting one of the strong points which appeared to have been hurriedly set up with an old gun recovered from a French depot. The white cloth seen hanging from the gun was used by its crew as a token of surrender when the American infantry advanced towards them. Right: The same spot at the junction of Rue de Guelmeur and Rue de la Garenne today.
Left: On the western side of the Old City the Germans had built casemates for 10.5cm guns at the foot of the old moated wall. Right: The fortress wall as well the casemates are all now gone 24
and it was only by studying aerial photography that it was possible for Jean Paul to pinpoint the location for this comparison beside the Rue Saint-Exupéry.
ATB
USNA
Left: On September 18, Oberst Erich Pietzonka, commander of Fallschirmjäger-Regiment 7 (with back to camera), surrendered that part of the fortress garrison fighting east of the Penfeld river to the 2nd Division. Here he is formally handing over his pistol to Colonel Chester J. Hirschfelder, commander of the 9th Infantry Regiment (right, with goggles on his helmet), in Place Wilson. In the centre wearing sunglasses is Major General Walter M. Robertson, the 2nd Division commander. Right: Since 1918, the square has been named in honour of US President Woodrow Wilson. A memorial in the northern corner of the square now commemorates the achievement of the 2nd Division.
USNA
FINALE AT CROZON On August 27, a cavalry squadron of Task Force A had cut the base of the Crozon peninsula, patrolling there until Task Force B had completed the Daoulas operation. Task Force A then moved onto Crozon. Brigadier General Earnest took Hill 330, the dominating terrain near the base, then
ATB
USNA
Tech/5 Herold was there to capture the historic moment. No doubt the Americans found it appropriate that it occurred in President Wilson Square!
The ceremony took place in the western corner of the square.
Meanwhile, Generalmajor von der Mosel (he had been promoted on September 1) surrendered the troops west of the Penfeld to the 29th Division. At 11 a.m. Von der Mosel, Konteradmiral Otto Kähler, naval commander of Brest, and Generalmajor Hans Kroh, commander of the 2. Fallschirmjäger-Division, surrendered to Major Anthony J. Miller, CO of the 2nd Battalion of the 115th Infantry, at the German command post in the submarine pens. Some time before this shot was taken, a Life photographer snapped a picture of Major Miller discussing terms with General von der Mosel ‘deep inside the fortress’. Appearing in the issue of the maga zine of October 16, 1944, this photo made Miller known throughout the United States. 25
ATB
USNA
The German troops sheltering within the U-Boat bunker had elaborately prepared themselves for capitulation by washing, shaving, donning clean uniforms and packing suitcases.
An exact match should have been taken from the street but as the gate to the naval yard and a wall masked the view, Jean Paul took his comparison from closer in, inside the compound.
ATB
USNA
USNA
However, Ramcke had escaped across the harbour to the old French Fort des Capucins on the Crozon peninsula. On September 19, as the 8th Division pushed north to clear the last part of the peninsula, 1st Lieutenant James M. Dunham, a platoon leader from Company I of the 13th Infantry, spotted Germans waving white flags in the old fort. A German medic came forward and explained to him in good English that General Ramcke was waiting in an underground bunker to surrender. At 6.30 p.m. Dunham led the 8th Division assistant commander, Brigadier General Charles D. W. Canham, down the stairs. Through his interpreter, Ramcke said: ‘I am to surrender to you. Let me see your credentials.’ As the story goes, Canham pointed to the infantrymen crowding the entrance and said, ‘These are my credentials’. (Alhough Canham always maintained that it was he who uttered these words, interviews with two members of the initial party have since revealed that they were actually said by Lieutenant Dunham at the first meeting. Whatever the truth, the phrase has since become the 8th Division’s motto.) As Ramcke was led to see Major General Donald A. Stroh, the divisional commander, Morrow Davies, a reporter for Stars and Stripes, noted that he was ‘carrying a cane and leading a beautiful Irish setter. He wore a camouflaged jacket, a field-green paratroop trousers and black paratroop boots. Around his neck hung the Knight’s Cross over a shirt collar of pale blue cambric. It was the only decoration he wore.’
Left: Constructed in 1890-92, the powder magazine of the Fort des Capucins (see map page 13) lay beneath several metres of rock. The entrance block, located down a trench that serves the fort’s various magazines and batteries, still stands. 26
Arrangements were made to have the site cleared of undergrowth which had hidden it since the war, ready for the 70th anniversary. Right: A commemorative plaque recording the capitulation now adorns the wall near the entrance.
BELL ARCHIVE
contented himself with patrolling since he knew he could expect no assistance from the forces in the main battle. When the 8th Division, pinched out before Brest, arrived on Crozon in mid-September, General Stroh mounted an attack to overrun the defensive line maintained by the 343. Infanterie-Division. Its commander, Generalmajor Rauch, surrendered on September 17. The final battle took place on the 19th when troops pushed north and cleared the Quélern peninsula. Claiming later to have fired the last shell from his last remaining 75mm assault gun, Ramcke surrendered during the afternoon at the Pointe des Capucins. Between September 15 and 19, the 8th Division had incurred casualties of 72 killed and 415 wounded but had taken over 7,500 prisoners. The final action occurred on September 20 when Task Force A drove down to Douarnenez to demand the surrender of an isolated group of 300 Germans. Though they refused at first to surrender, a few artillery rounds and the threatening presence of a single fighter-bomber overhead proved sufficient persuasion. In the battle for Brest American casualties totalled 9,831. Prisoners numbered 38,000 of which 20,000 were combat troops. Although Brest had fallen, Hitler appreciated the stubborn resistance put up by the garrison and at least ten Knight’s Crosses were awarded, mainly to paratroopers of the 2. Fallschirmjäger-Division. Von der Mosel and Pietzonka had both been given the Oak Leaves to add to their awards and on September 19, the day of his capture, the resolute Ramcke was awarded the Swords and the Diamonds. The VIII Corps turned over the city and port to the Brittany Base Section of the Communications Zone on the evening of September 19. The combat troops were moved into assembly areas to rest, receive winter clothing, and repair armament and transport. Task Force A was dissolved. The 29th Division departed on September 24 to rejoin the First Army, and on September 26 the VIII Corps headquarters and the 2nd and 8th Divisions began to move to Belgium and Luxembourg for commitment in a new zone, though still under Ninth Army control.
Top brass inspect the spoils of victory. (L-R): Brigadier General van Fleet, assistant commander of the 2nd Division; Major General Robertson, 2nd Division commander; Lieutenant General William H. Simpson, commander of the Ninth Army, and Major General Middleton of the VIII Corps watching a batch of captured Fallschirmjäger.
ATB
BELL ARCHIVE
ATB
Right: With so little of the background visible, the chances of finding where this picture was taken looked small. However, the line of telegraph poles on the left indicated the presence of a railway line behind the hedge so Jean Paul followed the track until he came across this short stretch of Rue de la Comtesse Rodellec du Portzic, one kilometre east of Brest main station.
Left: Together with Middleton and Robertson, Simpson then toured the city to see the German defences for himself and the effect of the Allied air and artillery bombardments. Though the original caption calls this a German pillbox, it was actually no
more than a small one-man air raid shelter for a watchman. Right: The entire stretch of Rue Jean Jaurès near the Place de Strasbourg was rebuilt after the war, the shelter standing on the corner of what was then a Citroën garage. 27
ATB
USNA
Left: On September 20, General Middleton formally presented the liberated city to Jules Lullien, acting Mayor of Brest following the death of Mayor Victor Eusen in what is known as the tragedy of the Sadi Carnot shelter 11 days earlier. In spite of the German decision to evacuate all civilians, about 2,000 inhabitants had remained in the city. Some 400 of them were living in the Sadi Carnot shelter, a 560-metre-long tunnel that had been prepared in 1941-42 as protection against air raids. Civilians had been assigned the upper northern half while the Germans took over the lower half, which had direct access
the harbour and twisted bridge structures blocked the Penfeld river channel. The Americans had contributed to the destruction as the bombing and shelling had burned and gutted practically every building in the central area of Brest as well as in Recouvrance. Interest in the remote ports of Brittany had begun to wane toward the end of August as Allied optimism raised hopes that the Channel ports, including even Rotterdam and Amster-
dam, would soon come within reach. On September 3 SHAEF planners recommended the abandonment of proposals to use the ports of Lorient, Quiberon Bay, Saint-Nazaire and Nantes, and had the battle of Brest not been in full swing, SHAEF might well have withdrawn its approval of Brest as well. On September 13 Eisenhower said he still felt that he needed the port to receive troops and supplies directly from the United States but, once the extent of
ATB
USNA
THE BEST LAID PLANS The capture of Brest presented the Allies with a totally destroyed city and a thoroughly demolished port. The Germans had wrecked everything that might be of any use, Ramcke later boasting that he had done so ‘in good time’. The wharves, dry docks, cranes along the waterfront, and even the breakwaters enclosing the naval basin and the commercial port, had been blown up. Scuttled ships lay in
from the Arsenal in the Penfeld and which they used to store fuel for generators and ammunition. On the night of September 8/9, an accident in the German quarters (its cause has never been explained) set fire to the fuel which, in turn, triggered an explosion of the ordnance. A huge fireball torched the length of the tunnel, spewing out 30-metre-high flames at the northern end, killing over 900 people: 373 civilians, including Mayor Eusen, and over 500 Germans. Right: Though badly damaged during the battle, the main Post Office in the Rue de Siam was rebuilt along its previous lines.
A plaque commemorating the disaster was unveiled above the upper entrance in Rue Emile Zola in 1984, and in 2009 the tunnel was opened to visitors. Tours start at the lower end, near 28
the Porte Tourville of the Arsenal, and run the length of the tunnel to the 154 steps that lead up to the exit into Rue Emile Zola.
USNA
USNA
The Germans had thoroughly wrecked the entire port area, destroying dry-docks and cranes and scuttling ships in waterways and basins. These are the dry-docks at Pontaniou on the west side of the Penfeld river. Four smaller graving-docks had originally been built here in the mid-18th century, partly dug out from the rocky river shore. At the beginning of the 20th century these were completely rebuilt to form two larger docks, each measuring 180 by 30 metres. Modernised in 2007, Docks Nos. 2 and 3 are still in full use today.
A survey group sent to examine Brest on September 25, comprising representatives of the Brittany Base Section, the Navy, the Chief of Engineers and the Chief of Transport, reported that extensive demolitions, mining and damage to quay facilities had rendered the port useless. It was estimated that even limited unloading of cargo and troops would not be possible for at least 75 days. In view of the more urgent commitments to bring Le Havre and Rouen back into operation, the rehabilitation of Brest was given the lowest priority and eventually abandoned altogether. Port plans for Lorient and Saint-Nazaire were also scrapped, and the 15,000-strong German garrison at Lorient and the 12,000-strong force at Saint-Nazaire, together with a small pocket north-west of Bordeaux, were left contained until the end of the war. Ironically, the ports which the Americans had counted on so heavily in the Brittany area — Brest, Quiberon Bay, Lorient and Saint-Malo — were never put to use, and the only harbours that proved of some value — Saint-Brieux, Morlaix, Roscoff and the open beaches near Saint-Michelen-Grève — were minor ones, which had either been eliminated from the ‘Overlord’ planning after brief consideration or never been considered at all.
Once a major landmark of Brest (see page 3), the Pont National swing bridge was totally wrecked, its twisted structures blocking the Penfeld river.
ATB
USNA
ATB
the reconstruction and repairs necessary to rehabilitate the port had been looked at, a decision was made not to rely on Brest and to abandon all repair work there. The serious Allied problem of port capacity then persisted until November when the facilities at Antwerp became available.
Left: Brest after the battle was a desolate place, especially in the area near the Penfeld and in Recouvrance on the west side of the river. Almost every building had been smashed by shelling and bombing and gutted by fire, and many had collapsed, filling the streets with rubble. The Americans were
quick to bulldoze paths through the piles of debris, but even then weakened and collapsing walls made passage hazardous. When the French inhabitants returned they found their city virtually obliterated. Right: The same view 70 years later in Rue de Lyon, near its junction with Rue de Siam. 29
During the war, there existed a unique unit within the Home Guard, Britain’s volunteer local defence militia formed in 1940. Made up wholly of civil servants from the Ministry of Food, a department that had been displaced from London to the area around Colwyn Bay and Rhos-on-Sea on the North Wales coast in June 1940, it grew from a nucleus of just a few dozen men to
what finally became known as the 11th (Ministry of Food) Battalion, Denbighshire Home Guard. Here the battalion, which at its peak had a strength of 1,050 men, falls in on the promenade at Rhos-on-Sea in May 1943. Penrhos College girl’s school, where much of the battalion’s training took place, lies just off the picture to the left.
THE MINISTRY OF FOOD HOME GUARD
Right: The Promenade between Rhos-onSea and Colwyn Bay now incorporates a busy highway that connects to the M55 North Wales Expressway. 30
father, and the unit was the Ministry of Food’s own Home Guard battalion, a cadre of part-time soldiers referred to in its official published history by Henry Smith in 1945 as ‘Bureaucrats in Battledress’. A plan called ‘The Yellow Move’ had been drawn up in 1936 with the purpose, should war
By Patrick Hargreaves
be imminent, of dispersing British Government departments to areas of lesser risk than the site of their home headquarters in the capital. Around 23,000 civil servants and government
PATRICK HARGREAVES
Britain’s Secretary of State for War, Anthony Eden, made a momentous radio broadcast on the BBC Home Service at 9.15 p.m., on Tuesday, May 14, 1940. He called for the enlistment of men of between 17 and 65 years of age, who had not been called up for military service, to form a home defence force to be called the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV). The appeal resulted in police stations up and down the country being swamped by volunteers. There were no forms available to cope with the in-rush, as 250,000 men signed up in the first seven days and by July that number had risen to about 1.2 million. Eventually, the only qualifying requirement to join was that men had to be ‘of full and free movement’. The Home Guard, as the force became known from late July 1940 under Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s insistence, numbered 1,500,000. It ranks as the largest volunteer army in history. Sometime during the tenseness of May and June 1940, an accountancy clerk was newly recruited as a civil servant with the British Ministry of Food (MOF), and found himself directed to work in the Government department in London. Soon afterwards, along with 5,000 fellow Ministry of Food staff, he was re-located some 245 miles away, to the North Wales coast. On arrival and alongside his day job in the Ministry, he became an early volunteer to a new and unique unit. The new recruit was the author’s
PATRICK HARGREAVES
Men from the ministry at rifle drill in the playing fields of Penrhos College on July 26, 1940. At this time the MOF Local Defence Volunteers numbered 97 men, drawn from the ministry’s Bacon and Ham and Sugar and Starch Divisions. At this stage they wear no uniforms and carry civilian gas masks, and are armed with a mix of rifles, including some M10 Canadian Ross Mk IIIs.
PATRICK HARGREAVES
employees were affected by this evacuation plan. In spring 1940, as the war situation deteriorated and the threat of invasion and aerial attack grew, the Yellow Move was put into action. Almost the whole of the Ministry of Food was re-located from its headquarters in Whitehall, London, to the coastal resort of Colwyn Bay in Denbighshire, swelling the populace of the town by a quarter in the process and taking over most of the available accommodation. Many members of a patient and tolerant local population, first subjected to compulsory take-over of buildings and homes, later joined the ranks of support staff to the evacuated ministry. As well as recruitment to the Local Defence Volunteers through the existing military organisation by county areas, certain utilities, large corporations and government departments, such as the MOF, were allowed to set up Home Guard units to protect their own undertakings. They went on to play a much larger role in their local areas. At the Ministry of Food just ten rifles together with 20 rounds of small arms ammunition per rifle had been issued for LDV guards to defend the ministry buildings in London. At the same time the ministry requested that Lachlan Maclean, Principal Secretary at the MOF, and George Lawrence, another staff official, form a Home Guard unit drawn on ministry personnel. Both men had had previous fighting experience in the First World War (Maclean had served with the 2nd Manchesters, had held several staff functions and had ended the war as a Major; Lawrence had been with the 1st Coldstream Guards and had demobilised as a Captain), as had many of the Home Guard recruits coming forward. Selection to the new MOF Home Guard included measures to keep out what were called ‘unsuitable volunteers’. Most desirable for recruitment were established civil servants, followed by unestablished civil servants of reasonably long service who were Army, Navy or Air Force pensioners. A quizzical eye was passed over other volunteers, who filled in the forms but with no guarantee of acceptance. Later, memos went round the ministry inviting volunteers, and by February 1942, compulsory Home Guard service was introduced, by which time a sizeable body of men had been enrolled and were well advanced in their training. Along with many hundreds of clerical staff and civil servants, the ministry volunteers pitched up at the Welsh seaside in July 1940.
was where the personnel of the ministry’s Merchant Navy Control (who monitored movement of shipping and its cargoes of foodstuffs through the port of Liverpool) were lodged. Right: Two Colwyn Bay students stand in for the civil servants of yesteryear.
IWM HU 454
Left: Two Ministry of Food’s civil servants, newly arrived in Colwyn Bay, wait outside the railway station for a taxi to take them to their temporary lodging. The Imperial Hotel, visible across the road on the corner of Princes Drive and Station Road,
Right: Peter Carlisle, who assisted Patrick Hargreaves on his research trips, follows in the volunteers’ footsteps. Although the site has been totally remodelled as a housing development, the line of an old footpath remains a clear reference point. 31
PATRICK HARGREAVES
IWM HU 448
Left: By the time of the men’s second parade which took place on November 24, 1940, they had formed F Company of the local 1st Denbighshire Home Guard Battalion and been issued with battledress uniforms, some cotton denim, some wool serge. The occasion was an inspection by the Minister of Food, Lord Woolton, seen here being escorted by Major Geoff Huskisson, the commanding officer of No. 1 Platoon, with They had been equipped with some armbands printed ‘LDV’ and little else. Firearms were a mixture of what could be cobbled together locally. Only .22-calibre ammunition was available, which had to be obtained through the Ministry of Food Rifle Club, as the LDV did not at that time have the authority to draw on official supplies. The LDV paid the Ministry Club one shilling per member for rifle practice, which was carried out at a local school’s rifle range. It seems that there was also a store of makeshift pikes available, typically kitchen knives tied to broom handles, which fortunately remained unissued through the anxious days of 1940. On arrival in Colwyn Bay the ministry took over many addresses as office space: The Colwyn Bay Hotel, The Imperial, The Queens Hotel, St Enoch’s Hotel, Mount Stewart and
Major Lachlan Maclean, the company commander, walking behind. The men are still without cap badges, belts or gaiters; wear a mix of issue boots and civilian shoes, and their respirators still include many of the civilian pattern. The few rifles visible are again Canadian Ross Mk IIIs. Right: With the college buildings gone, another footpath again provides the only tangible link with the past.
CAMERA POSITION PENRHOS COLLEGE BUILDINGS
Right: Penrhos College buildings were demolished around 2001 following amalgamation with Rydal Boys School but this aerial view indicates where the pictures were taken.
CAMERA POSITION ‘FIRST UNIFORMS’ PHOTOGRAPH
‘LDV DAYS’ PHOTOGRAPH
PROMENADE
RHOS-ON-SEA COLWYN BAY
COED COCH
PENTREFOELAS
The area around Rhos-on-Sea and Colwyn Bay on the North Wales coast where the MOF Home Guard spent the war years. 32
Pwllycrochan Hotels together with scores of other buildings. Many ministry personnel were billeted on local families. A landmark, which was to become the headquarters of the MOF’s Bacon and Ham Division, and more significantly served as the unit’s training and communal area, was Penrhos College, a girl’s school. Hastily evacuated to make room for the ministry, the girls and staff were to spend a not unpleasant war at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire as guests of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. It was later said that as a result of their wartime stay some of the girls returned home having adopted noticeably upper-class accents. Reflecting the acute shortages following the British Army’s evacuation from Dunkirk, equipment for the MOF unit was very slow to arrive. At first, only brassards to LDV or Home Guard
march from Colwyn Bay, it was a discreet site offering a safe back-stop for a rifle range and bombing pits. Derelict farm buildings at Glyn Lws were a focus for the standing camp-site.
PATRICK HARGREAVES
Coed Coch estate had been established by the 1st Denbighshire Home Guard as their training ground and this became the MOF unit’s training area too. A six-mile inland
PATRICK HARGREAVES
Right: Coed Coch lies just south of the B5381 near Bron-Pistyll Farm. The farm buildings have almost disappeared but the topography of the ground in the steep-sided valley is unmistakable.
F Company’s cooks using a petrol-fired field cooker to heat dixies of food for the company.
Only rubble marks the site of the farm buildings. The stone wall on which the cooks placed their water tank remains identifiable. 33
Now only sheep roam where the Home Guard once stood in line.
PATRICK HARGREAVES
were available as ‘uniforms’. As Major Maclean was held in London on ministry business, it fell to the energetic Captain (soon promoted to Major) Lawrence to issue orders in Colwyn Bay. As acting CO of the Home Guard unit in September 1940, he managed to squeeze from the supply chain a small number of uniforms, some cotton denim, some wool serge battledress, some boots of civilian pattern and some bayonets without frogs. The Home Guard was organised on parallel lines to the Army, mirroring its regional structure, and relying on it for supply. Lords Lieutenant in the counties were tasked with setting up the command framework, with designated staff officers working with civilian counterparts to invite suitable commanders for each area. When the ministry unit arrived in Colwyn Bay, it was attached to the existing local 1st Battalion (Denbighshire), Home Guard, commanded by Major Ivan Edwardes-Evans, MC, as part of No. 3 Zone. The ministry unit became Company F of the 1st Den Battalion and it was given responsibility for the left sub-sector of the coastal sector
their category was hampered by the availability of only one rubber stamp! The unit historian reported on the result: ‘Some keen and regular members were never branded at all.’
PATRICK HARGREAVES
Men of the 1st Denbighshire lining up to have their papers stamped at Coed Coch in February 1942. Members were issued with regimental numbers but marking their identity cards with
Left: Seen outside the requisitioned Pwllychrochan Hotel at Colwyn Bay, members of the Transport Platoon attend to a most valuable asset of the Ministry Wing — ‘The Runabout’. A 20hp Vauxhall motor car, which the platoon had converted into a troop and cargo carrier, it could carry ten fully equipped guardsmen. However, the makeshift body-builders had left bolts protruding 34
through the sides of the timber body which were inclined to punch holes in the occupants when travelling over rough ground. Note the unit badge on the mudguard: an ‘F’ for Ministry of Food capped by a Tommy’s helmet. Right: The Pwllychrochan, located off Pwllychrochan Avenue, returned to serve as a hotel after the war, and subsequently has become a preparatory school.
With the A55 highway now bypassing the town, Conway Road (the A547) has become a much quieter thoroughfare. This is its junction with Coed Pella Road. The Canadian Ross Rifle M10 was an enigmatic weapon, arriving in wooden cases packed with molten wax to protect against corrosion. With it came a chequered history. It was ‘a grand shooting rifle’ according to one Home Guardsman. With a reputation for accuracy on the Bisley Ranges in international competition, it still could be a temperamental weapon. Designed by Scots-
man Sir Charles Ross, it was the issue rifle for Canadian troops in the First World War. Finely engineered with an unusual straight-pull action, the grime of the Western Front had found the rifle wanting. It did not particularly like British Mk. VII ammunition either, and it was prone to jams. It was also possible to strip the rifle for cleaning, and to re-assemble it incorrectly, causing possibility of
IWM HU 451
PATRICK HARGREAVES
of the zone. With it came the honour of wearing the regimental cap badge of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, to which the 1st Battalion was affiliated. A parade of F Company was mustered on November 24, 1940, for the visit of the Minister of Food, Lord Woolton, and Sir Henry French, Permanent Secretary at the ministry. Woolton was a Manchester businessman, considered to be ideally suited to run the ministry. The parade took place on the sports field at Penrhos College. Drawn up were 470 Home Guards including a machine-gun section, a signal section, first aid party and a dispatch-rider, proving already a good level of organisation. As Major Maclean reported to his platoon commanders afterwards: ‘The turn-out was, I think, commendable, while the drill and march-past were definitely good.’ The cadre was partially equipped by this time. Although given the issue first of just 30 denim uniforms, followed afterwards by 400 more, 311 pairs of boots, and 349 caps, some blankets, groundsheets, and 80 greatcoats, the OC reported that as Home Guards they were more or less clothed. There were no belts, no distinctive leather Home Guard anklets, and the issue of 100 .303-calibre Canadian Ross Rifles had to suffice. Other weapons were to arrive later, such as the .303-calibre Enfield Pattern 14 rifle and the US .300-calibre M1917 version of it; ex-aircraft Lewis guns, and two Vickers .303-calibre medium machine guns. F Company was assisted by a local regular Royal Signals unit stationed nearby, whose commander generously offered SMLE .303-calibre rifles, for use on the range, with instructors and transport.
PATRICK HARGREAVES
Right: On May 16, 1943, the 11th Denbighshire Battalion marched on parade through Colwyn Bay to mark the third anniversary of the formation of the Home Guard. Here Lieutenant Alec R. Parselle, the commanding officer of No. 10 Platoon of B Company, gives a snappy salute as his unit marches past the saluting base which had been set up outside the Town Hall on Conway Road in the centre of town. Lieutenant Parselle was a department head in the Meat and Livestock Division, and was posted from London to Colwyn Bay in August 1940. He became Platoon Officer of No. 5 Platoon, F Company, and later Platoon Commander of No. 10 Platoon. He also led the battalion’s Mobile Column until the war’s end. Parselle stayed with the Ministry, being transferred back to London in 1947 and travelling widely in his duties as a transport specialist for food. In 1953 he was awarded an MBE for his work.
Left: The Women’s Unit of 11th Denbighshire marches past as Colonel John Barton takes the salute in front of the town’s war memorial. (Colonel Barton was the Zone Commander, the Home Guard being sub-divided into Zones, Sectors, Sub-Sectors and Battalions.) Led by Sub-Leader Miss A.
E. French, the unit had only been formed four months previously, so that the women initially had to turn out in civilian dress with the addition of the Home Guard brooch. Right: The war memorial has since been moved to a park 100 yards to the west. 35
PATRICK HARGREAVES
Left: On July 3, 1943, the 11th Denbighshire was inspected by Major-General Nigel Wilson, Colonel of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and a Guard of Honour was paraded to welcome him. The Home Guards had been given the honour of sharing the cap badge of the RWF (officers and warrant officers were also entitled to wear the RWF’s flash, i.e. black cloth pendant worn from the collar).
Right: Rhos Abbey Hotel has been replaced by an apartment block and its former garden is now a car park. The monastic statues seen on the right, which marked the site of a 12th-century monastery, have been removed. 36
company’s training’, according to the battalion historian. Their commander, Captain W. F. Crisp, he described as ‘a cultured man forced by circumstances into a mould of pitiless efficiency’.
The numbers of ministry staff joining its Home Guard accelerated rapidly with personnel being ‘directed’ to join. It grew in late 1941 to incorporate a second ‘E’ Company. By early 1942 a third ‘G’ Company was formed, but this
The officers pose for a group portrait with General Wilson in the hotel garden. Front row (L-R): Lieutenant-Colonel John Williams of the 1st Denbighshire; Colonel John Shennan, the Home Guard Conway Valley Sector Commander; General Wilson; Lieutenant-Colonel Maclean of the 11th Denbighshire; an unidentified officer. Lieutenant Parselle stands in the rear row to the right under the flagpole.
PATRICK HARGREAVES
a dangerous misfire with injury to the rifleman. Canadian troops lost trust in the weapon, and it was withdrawn to be stored until the critical situation of 1940 prompted its release by Britain’s friends in the Dominions. Its reputation carried with it to the Home Guard. At the time, the threat of a Nazi incursion into Eire, as a stepping-stone to invade or raid the western coast of Britain, was thought to be highly possible. The MOF Home Guard had to jump immediately to the role of home defence. First for F Company came nightly guard duty, including guarding the strategically important railway line through their area. There also was a piquet at Penmaen Head and at a jetty which served a quarry. The first duty platoon travelled there by Crosville Bus Company’s local service, carrying rifles, full equipment and a Dixie containing a stew to see the squad through the night. There was a sharp exchange between the NCO in charge and the bus conductor over whether the Home Guardsmen should pay fares for the journey. Training ratcheted up quickly with moves to find a suitable site. Practice grenades were thrown in a local quarry and on the beach at Colwyn Bay. Other rifle ranges were borrowed, but in the end, a site was found some six miles inland on an estate called Coed Coch. It offered a four-target rifle range of 100, 200, 300 and 400 yards, already constructed by the parent 1st Denbighshire Battalion. This unique, deep and remote valley was where the Ministry Home Guard unit was able to properly hone its proficiency in target shooting, bomb-throwing skills, as well as with unique and bizarre weapons. The fearsome Northover Projector was a pipe weapon which used a black powder charge to fire a Molotov Cocktail-style No. 76 phosphorous grenade at an advancing enemy, resulting in a more perceived threat to the safety of the gun team than to the adversary. Twenty thousand Northovers were distributed to the British Home Guard. The School of Guerrilla Warfare at Hurlingham was invited by F Company to visit North Wales to provide realistic training in unconventional methods of fighting, to which the War Office only reluctantly gave its approval. A group of young men from the school who had experience of recent fighting in Spain brought ‘a refreshing breath of realism to the
The General ‘paid tribute to their smartness and felt quite confident that the important role which the Home Guard might be called on to fulfil in the future would be carried out with precision and forthrightness that would surprise the world’. Right: The Guard of Honour was lined up on the Promenade at Rhos-on-Sea, adjacent to the Rhos Abbey Hotel which has since been demolished.
PATRICK HARGREAVES
Left: In May 1944 the MOF unit found a new and better training area at the village of Pentrefoelas, on the main Corwen to Bangor road 20 miles south of Colwyn Bay. This then became the unit’s camp for the rest of their existence. Now equipped with the SMLE Mk III, here instruction is given on squad rifle fire — a typical element of Home Guard training — not on a proper rifle range but in the north-east corner of the campsite. No proof
Here the men are training to use the Spigot Mortar at Pentrefoelas. Issued as a stopgap weapon from 1941, the unwieldy 29mm Spigot Mortar fired a 20lb anti-tank projectile over a range of 100 yards. Instruction to the Home Guard was often given by NCOs from specialist regular army units who were brought in as the militia moved from an ill-equipped defensive role to a high standard of efficiency and training which mirrored that of the regular army. The flagstaff marks the centre of the camp. The tents beyond housed the field kitchen.
PATRICK HARGREAVES
time to be organised more like a Headquarters Company of a battalion with five platoons. These included a Headquarters and Intelligence, Machine Gunners, Signals, Transport, and a Mobile Reconnaissance Platoon. The ministry Home Guard was then known as ‘The Ministry of Food Wing’ of the 1st Denbighshire Battalion Home Guard, under the command of Maclean. By this time the un-loved Ross rifles were withdrawn, and replaced by a supply of the US Model 1917 rifle in .300-calibre, designed by Enfield in Britain. To avoid confusion over ammunition with the almost identical Enfield P14 .303 model, which had been loaned to the Home Guard by nearby regular troops, the M1917s were painted with a red stripe around the fore-stock to identify them. Petrol was in very short supply and many privately owned cars were laid up for the war. By the time the Transport Platoon was formed, based at the Pwllychrochan Hotel, all that was available to the MOF Home Guard as transport was the occasional loan of trucks by a regular unit of Royal Signals stationed nearby. Some of F Company’s NCOs and officers offered their private cars, mostly 8- or 10-horsepower saloons to be at the disposal of the Home Guard. From the Machine Gun Platoon, Corporal Frank BurnCallandar (he had served as a lieutenant in the First World War and won a Military Cross) magically managed to move two Vickers medium machine guns, associated equipment, plus four burly guardsmen to every call-out on time in a small saloon car Utilising classic British ‘make-do-and-mend’, the Transport Platoon converted its own ‘truck’, by hacking off the rear of a handsome 20hp Vauxhall motor car, a gift from Sergeant A. D. Fairclough. Working in a dim and underequipped garage, a makeshift and rough timber cargo body was grafted on by the platoon. The resulting ‘truck’ was capable of carrying ten fully equipped troops and became a mainstay of the battalion. The rapid growth of the Ministry Wing and the withdrawal of the nearby regular Royal Signals troops led, under authority of the War Office, to the unit being raised in status and becoming a new Home Guard Battalion to be known as 11th Denbighshire Battalion, with a ceiling of 1,050 Guardsmen. On its formation on January 1, 1943, Maclean as Commanding Officer was promoted to lieutenant-colonel.
exists that live-firing took place here, but the riflemen are aiming at a substantial earth bank flanking the east side of the camp. Right: The same field today. Note the stream on the right. The battalion historian records: ‘A stream provided water for washing, but, like much of the water coming off the heavy bog land of the surrounding Denbigh Moors, it was hardly suitable for drinking’.
Right: Vegetation has now encroached along the camp’s former eastern perimeter. In 1945 the battalion flag was presented by Colonel Maclean to the Imperial War Museum. 37
PATRICK HARGREAVES
IWM HU 453
Left: In the south-west corner of the camp, a natural amphitheatre provided the perfect spot for training and instruction. Here a lecture is being delivered by policeman Sergeant Hughes of Denbighshire Constabulary. Present are women
In June 1944 the Home Guard competed for the Inter-Platoon Challenge Cup at Coed Coch. Here the new Minister of Food, Colonel John Llewellin, presents the cup to Sergeant Clark of No. 10 Platoon, B Company. Sergeant Harris and LieutenantColonel Maclean look on.
GEOFFREY PARSELLE
PATRICK HARGREAVES
On hearing in 1942 about the achievements of Russian women in the war, a list was started amongst staff at the ministry, and 130 women came forward to form a Women’s Home Guard to work alongside the men. The unit was affiliated to the national Women’s Home Defence movement led by Edith Summerskill MP. From January 1943, the Home Guard Auxiliaries of the 11th Denbighshire pitched vigorously into training and were in a short time working in full support of their male colleagues, taking over many support roles in administration, catering, communications, guides, intelligence and transport sections. The Auxiliaries’ contribution was remarkable and they went on to gain a high level of recognition through the national Press. The need for more-advanced training led to a search for a more-appropriate and testing location for exercises. The village of Pentrefoelas on the main Holyhead Road, the A5 highway, at a key defensive position on the Conwy Valley was allocated to the MOF Battalion. It offered morechallenging possibilities for a Home Guard unit which was becoming ever more competent and sure of itself, in a position to stand alongside the regular army in home defence. After extensive reconnaissance by most of its officers, the battalion essentially took over the village as a centre for training. The Village Hall formed a social focal point during training weekends there. The vicar, and the local publican of
auxiliaries in their distinctive dark battledress and (at left rear) nurses of the St John Ambulance who joined the Women’s Auxiliary cadre. Right: The slope of the ground with the woodland backdrop that sheltered the tents is unmistakable.
The removal of field boundaries and the clearing of vegetation has changed the aspect of this location, yet local farmers still refer to it as ‘Home Guard Field’. It is the farmhouse on the hill that forms the link with the past. 38
The Challenge Cup, pictured 70 years later by Geoff Parselle, son of Lieutenant Parselle.
At the closure of a fundraising campaign during the week of June 17-24, 1944, a platoon from the 11th Denbighshire Home Guard marches past the saluting base at the Colwyn Bay war
memorial. By this time of the war the Guardsmen had been issued with full webbing equipment and were armed with the M1917 Enfield rifle.
Left: On December 9, 1944, to mark the Stand Down of the Home Guard, the auxiliaries paraded through the town. Drawn up on Princes Drive, resplendent in their uniquely-styled battledress with trench coats, they are inspected by Controller Audrey Troyte Chitty, Deputy Director of the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service).
Escorting her is the Auxiliaries Leader, Miss L. Bridgman. Right: Being close to their Penrhos College base, Princes Drive was the obvious forming-up point for the march. The location is now the site of a very busy road junction at the slip road exit from the A55 but the distinctive pre-war housing still remains.
Garw. They were represented by Home Guards under Captain Robert Spencer, with heavy machine guns. Two battle platoons of 11th Den and the 1st Denbighshire, the local Home Guard battalion, spent the night in advance of the exercise at the settlement of Maes Gwyn two miles west, before setting out at first light to outflank the ‘enemy’ forces from the north-east. At the same time another battle platoon approached the settlement from the west. Though the position surrounded by open ground favoured the defence, according to the umpires, the enemy forces were reported to be successfully overcome. Present for the ’show’ were many dignitaries from Western Command, plus a contingent from the locally stationed
American forces who were invited along in the spirit of Allied co-operation. By the time that the stand-down of the Home Guard approached in November 1944 the Women’s Auxiliary Unit was fully turned out in their own unique and striking uniforms. They had collected clothing coupons, and used money raised by men of the Home Guard to buy a quantity of civilian-issue re-dyed battledress which on their own initiative they adorned with a badge featuring ‘Home Guard Auxiliaries’, and an ‘F’ for Food, and wore on parades to much public acclaim and coverage in the national Press. The Home Guard’s task was now virtually over. With the Allied advance rolling eastward through Europe, the perceived threat of a German invasion of Britain or a large-scale air
PATRICK HARGREAVES
the Voelas Arms were contacted, and they willingly offered co-operation with the unit. A standing camp for the battalion was established there in 1943-44 on land made available on the estate of Colonel John Wynne-Finch. Long-suffering villagers were subject to invasions by squads of ‘toffs’ from the ministry. They even tolerated the setting up of a bar in the Village Hall on Sundays when by strict local religious observance their own pub was shut. Typical of the tactical training by 11th Den in 1944 was the ‘Defence of Cefn Garw’, an exercise which centred on a lonely Welsh farm settlement. The scenario was that ‘enemy’ paratroopers or glider infantry had landed in the locality, and a detachment of 40 was reported north-east of Pentrefoelas in the vicinity of Cefn
39
PATRICK HARGREAVES
DAILY EXPRESS
attack had vanished. As the 11th (Ministry of Food) Battalion assembled to parade for the last time, Lieutenant-Colonel Maclean circulated a farewell order of the day in which he summarised what this singular unit had achieved: ‘From an untrained, unarmed mass of enthusiastic volunteers who joined four and half years ago, we have progressed in strength and efficiency . . . and in recent months platoons and sections have given evidence of field craft and technical competence of a high order. You have been told on the highest authority that the dispatch of the Army of Liberation was only made possible by the existence of a large body of trained men and women ready to undertake the major share of the defence of these islands from raids or invasion. Home Guardsmen and Women Auxiliaries have played no small part in advancing the hour of final victory.’ On Sunday December 9, 1944, rain lashed down on personnel of the 11th Denbighshires as they dispersed at the end of the final parade for what was a unique military organisation which had taken up so much of their time and effort alongside their ministry day jobs. The invasion of the Continent meant a stepping-up of Britain’s efforts both in industry and agriculture to meet the food requirements of the areas in Europe which were rapidly being liberated. There was much ministry work still to be done by the ‘Bureaucrats in Battledress’. 40
and were featured widely in the national Press. Right: With the war memorial removed and the Town Hall demolished, the architecture of the 1960s has now transformed the scene.
Five months after the Stand Down Parade, a small detachment of Women Auxiliaries, still working for the Ministry of Food, were invited to parade at the local VE-Day commemoration held in Colwyn Bay in May 1945. Here they are approaching the same saluting base on Conway Road from the west.
PATRICK HARGREAVES
IWM HU 449
Left: Following the inspection, the women marched through Colwyn Bay, offering the salute to Minister of Food Llewellin at the Town Hall. They drew a rousing reaction from the public
Looking west along Conway Road at the junction with Wynnstay Road, the parade of buildings remains largely unchanged
IWM FLM1232
In the summer of 1945 a documentary film was made about the Nazi concentration camps, the full horror of which had just been uncovered by the Allied liberation armies from East and West. Titled Nazi Concentration Camps Factual Survey, the film started out as a joint Anglo-American production but, after the Americans withdrew from the project in early July, the work was
carried on by the British alone. A large part of the film consisted of cine material that had been shot in Belsen concentration camp by the cameramen of No. 5 Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit (AFPU). One of them was Sergeant Mike Lewis, seen here filming arrested SS personnel carrying corpses of dead inmates to one of the mass burial pits in the camp on April 24.
GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS FACTUAL SURVEY On April 16, 2015 — 70 years after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp — an Allied wartime documentary was screened that should have reached the cinemas at the end of the war — but never did. Commissioned by the Allies in April 1945 and designed to inform the German people about the crimes committed in the recently uncovered Nazi concentration camps, the film was never finished, got buried in the archives and was largely forgotten for seven decades. Now, having been completed from the original script, and with all its footage digitally restored, German Concentration Camps Factual Survey has finally reached the screen, receiving its world premiere in February 2014 and being immediately hailed as a masterpiece of British documentary cinema. FILMING AT BELSEN Belsen concentration camp was liberated by troops of the British 11th Armoured Division in the afternoon of April 15, 1945 (see After the Battle No. 89). It was not the first camp to be discovered for Majdanek near Lublin in Poland had been uncovered by the Soviet Red Army on July 24, 1944; Auschwitz on January 27, 1945; Ohrdruf by the Americans on April 4 and Buchenwald and Nordhausen on April 11. However, it was the gruesome, horrifying scenes found at Belsen, described on the radio by war corre-
spondent David Dimbleby of the BBC and captured on film by the photographers and cameramen of the British Army Film and Photographic Unit (AFPU), that shocked the world and for the first time brought home the true barbarity of the Nazi regime. Not surprisingly, it was the images from Belsen that were to form nearly half of the footage used in German Concentration Camps Factual Survey. The war in North West Europe was covered by No. 5 Section of the Army Film and Photo Unit. As a rule the AFPU worked in small teams of one still photographer and one cine cameraman with a Jeep and driver, each team normally being assigned to a division or other large unit to cover its operations. The very first AFPU men to arrive at Belsen were Sergeant Ian Grant (cameraman) and Peter Norris (photographer). Assigned to the 11th Armoured Division, they had received an early warning of what was reported to be ‘a camp for political prisoners where typhus had broken out’. Advancing with the troops of the 23rd Hussars along the road from Winsen to Bergen in the afternoon of the 15th, they arrived at the camp gate just as the loudspeaker lorry from the 14th Amplifier Unit under Lieutenant Derrick Sington (who had been detailed to broadcast announcements in the camp) was waiting outside, with SS camp staff and Hungarian guard troops still milling
By Karel Margry around at the guardhouse. Except for a short recce by Brigadier Bob Daniell of the 13th Regiment, RHA, no one had as yet entered the camp nor got a glimpse of the inmates, the actual prisoner compounds being nearly half a kilometre away down the camp road and hidden behind pine woods. Grant later claimed that he put a telescopic viewfinder on his camera and, through it, observed groups of emaciated inmates in the distance. If so, neither he nor Sergeant Norris took any images of it. They only recorded the scene of the SS and the amplifier lorry at the gate, with Comet tanks passing by on the road, Grant exposing one 100-foot roll (about 60 seconds of film) and Norris taking two pictures. When it became clear that the 11th Armoured would not be responsible for occupation of the camp — this task being assigned to the 63rd Anti-Tank Regiment, an VIII Corps unit — they continued on their way with the armoured troops, no doubt glad to leave the typhus-infected area behind them. Still ignorant of what it was that they had passed, Grant labelled his reel simply ‘11th Armoured Division advance’ and the roll showing the camp gate quite inaccurately as ‘Belsen, where a German and Hungarian military camp that had been stricken with typhus was situated. There are 60,000 troops in this camp’. 41
The first AFPU men to arrive at Belsen — on April 15, the day of its liberation — were cameraman Ian Grant and photographer Peter Norris. Grant is holding a DeVry 35mm cine camera and Norris is equipped with a Super Ikonta, the standard stills camera used by the AFPU. It was not until the following day, April 16, that the first AFPU men entered the camp proper. Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh Stewart, the commander of No. 5 AFPU, had personally gone in to have a look on the first day and, horrified by what he had seen, ordered Lieutenant Martyn Wilson (head of the unit’s cine section) to take charge of organising an extensive coverage. There was a bit of an argument over who would go there, none of the men particularly wanting to be sent to a contaminated area. Cine cameraman Sergeant Harry Haywood had been covering the operations of the neighbouring 15th (Scottish) Division and, as he had already been inoculated against typhus and typhoid back in the UK, he got the assignment. As he and Lieutenant Wilson (who was both a cameraman and photographer) drove down to Belsen in a Jeep, they met Richard Dimbleby, who had just been in the camp and warned them that it was ‘terrible’. Arriving at the site, Haywood and Wilson went in and spent the rest of the day walking the various compounds and filming and photographing what they saw. Haywood was using a Vinten 35mm camera and exposed a total of 600 feet of film (six rolls), or just under six minutes of moving image. He had not received any instructions on what to film, and worked all by himself, making his own decisions. He spent only the one day in the camp, but his are the earliest moving images from its inside. As his dope sheet (soldier’s slang for shot list or secret caption list) recorded: ‘These shots were taken at the first opportunity and complete and full coverage is to follow during the next few days.’ Meanwhile Lieutenant Wilson was taking photographs (they would later be bunched up with the ones he took on the following day and thus get wrongly captioned as taken on the 17th). One harrowing haunting image, which both he and Haywood recorded from the same angle (and which would become an iconic image of Belsen), was the scene of a horribly emaciated man, a living skeleton, sitting on the ground amid a pile of rags and corpses and delousing his clothes. That evening, the AFPU arrived in greater strength. To follow up on Haywood, Wilson had assigned Sergeants Mike Lewis and Bill Lawrie (cine cameramen) and Harry Oakes (photographer) to come to Belsen. The probable reason he chose these three was that they were all ‘Airborne AFPU’, i.e. assigned to airborne units and thus more freely avail42
able than personnel assigned to ground formations (Lewis was normally with the 1st Airborne, still in England recovering from the Arnhem disaster, and Lawrie and Oakes were with the 6th Airborne, which had just been taken out of the line for a short period of rest after the ‘Varsity’ airborne crossing of the Rhine.) The three men and their drivers journeyed to Belsen in their Jeeps, arriving in the late afternoon. At first, they completely missed the camp, driving right past the entrance and continuing on to the Panzertruppeschule, the German military barracks that lay two kilometres up the road at Bergen-Hohne, which by then had been taken over by the British troops and housed the command post of the
63rd Anti-Tank Regiment. Unaware that they were in the wrong place, Lewis and Lawrie began filming German sentries at the gate and Hungarian soldiers unloading sacks of food from lorries. It was not until a British medical officer remarked ‘I don’t know what you’re doing here, chaps, you’d really ought to get to Camp No. 1’ that they realised their mistake. Driving back the few kilometres, they arrived at the camp gate. By now it was getting too dark to do any filming but they went in anyway to have a first look. Before being allowed in they were inoculated against typhus and given a dusting with DDT anti-louse powder. Totally unprepared for the grim reality of the camp, they came away utterly shocked and abhorred. They all fell silent, immersed in their own thoughts. Wilson had meanwhile requisitioned billets for the AFPU in a small cinema in Winsen and they bedded down for the night, but none of them could sleep. The following morning, April 17, they returned to the camp to begin their filming and photographing. (Lewis’s first Belsen dope sheet is confusingly dated April 16. That they in fact began filming inside the camp on the 17th is clear both from Lawrie’s and Oakes’s dope sheets and from the images). By now, a second team had arrived comprising three more photographers, Captain Ted Malindine (head of No. 5 AFPU’s stills section), Sergeant Reg Morris and Sergeant Norman Midgley. Now seven strong, the AFPU men began work in the camp. Lieutenant Wilson was loosely in charge but he had received no instructions as to what to film and there was no central direction. Each man worked largely on his own, wandering about in the various compounds or acting on tips from the gunners or medical personnel that were desperately trying to alleviate the misery of the inmates and bury the thousands of dead. Wilson might consult with the cameramen, maybe order a close-up here or a long shot there, but decisions were made quickly and on the spot. In addition to taking photos himself, Wilson also took care of the organisational side: he maintained contact with the other British
Advancing with the 11th Armoured Division and unaware of what the camp was all about, they did not actually go in but limited themselves to filming at the camp entrance, where Wehrmacht and SS officers stood waiting apprehensively while Comet tanks of the 23rd Hussars rolled by. At the gate stands Lieutenant Derrick Sington’s loudspeaker lorry, just arrived with mission to broadcast messages to the inmates.
IWM BU8368
Together with Mike Lewis, Sergeants Harry Oakes (left) and Bill Lawrie (right) were responsible for most of the images to come out of Belsen. The trio stayed at the camp for ten days, Lewis and Lawrie producing over one and a half hours of cine footage and Oakes taking over 160 photographs. In this photo Lawrie is holding a Vinten 35mm cine camera but at Belsen he used a DeVry. units in the camp; saw to it that the men were kept supplied with ample celluloid stock, and arranged the sending-off of exposed film by despatch-rider. By now they had changed billets to a farmhouse along the road at Belsen (it belonged to the village burgomaster), which was closer to the camp, and this is where the team would stay for the rest of their time there. Most of the footage and the majority of the photos to come out of Belsen were exposed in the first two days, April 17 and 18. Of the some 360 photos produced before the camp was dissolved on May 21, close to half — 152 — were taken in these 48 hours, with Oakes exposing 50 frames, Midgley 38, Malindine 30, and Morris and Wilson 17 each. Lewis and Lawrie, both equipped with a DeVry 35mm cine camera, similarly spent an unusually large number of film rolls in this short period. On the first day alone, Lewis exposed a total of 2,700 feet (23 and a half minutes) — a very long treatment indeed when compared to the normal, usually very concise, coverage of other themes by the AFPU. The scenes recorded by the seven AFPU men on these first two days showed the camp in all its stark, awful reality: the great mass of surviving inmates, the majority of them women, in ordinary or striped prisoner clothing, sitting or lying listlessly on the ground, or tottering about between the huts; fields strewn with unburied naked emaciated corpses; little groups or individuals boiling water over open fires or cleaning themselves, just a few metres from where the dead lay; the sick inmates dying of typhus in the hospital hut; open burial pits, half-filled with naked dead in the most grotesque positions; the mountain of shoes, and innumerable
other dreadful scenes. As Sergeant Midgley noted down: ‘I saw some of the most horrible sights imaginable. No words can describe the
horrors of this place. It must be seen to be believed.’ Bill Lawrie recalled: ‘The majority of the inmates were completely unable of coherent thought, it was all silent business, they just sat about, too far gone to move.’ In his dope sheet for April 17 he wrote: ‘It is impossible to put into writing all that was seen but the pictures should give pictorial evidence of the brutality and callousness of the Master Race’. The AFPU men were deeply affected, and angered, by what they saw. As seasoned combat reporters, they were used to seeing death — but not on such a scale and not of innocent civilians. Also, as cameramen, they had developed certain unwritten rules: enemy killed soldiers were filmed but dead or seriously wounded Allied soldiers were not, nor were dead civilians or civilians in distress; and death was filmed from a distance. Here, however, in order to provide irrefutable evidence of the atrocities, the dead had to be filmed from very close up; the skeletal survivors had to be shown in their full misery. It was a very difficult task, which might easily lead to voyeuristic or dehumanising images, but the cameramen handled it with remarkable sensitivity, filming the dead with respect and the survivors with compassion. Though mostly weak and silent, once the inmates realised the British soldiers were their liberators, many of them found ways to express their gratitude. At one point, a woman grabbed Lewis’s arm and would not let go of him, her grip was so tight that she left bruises on his arm. The AFPU men realised right from the start that the majority of the Belsen inmates were Jewish. As Lawrie remarked in his dope sheet of the 17th: ‘The inmates who were called political prisoners by the Germans were of all religions and countries, mostly Jews, whose only crime lay in the fact that they were Jews.’ Lewis, who himself was Jewish, would never forget one female survivor who incredulously asked him in Yiddish: ‘You are Jewish? And yet you are free?’ They filmed and photographed the SS guards and female wardens being arrested and searched, and later how the SS men were
In charge of AFPU work at Belsen was Lieutenant Martyn Wilson. Like many AFPU men, he was trained both as a photographer and a cameraman, and he himself also took cine and stills at the camp. On April 17, Lewis filmed him as a woman survivor was grasping his hand in gratitude of liberation. She has since been identified as Rosalie Weisner by her daughter Jolly Zeleny who also survived Belsen. 43
SIDNEY BARLOW
Mike Lewis filming the most gruesome of all scenes — the bulldozer pushing corpses into a burial pit. (In our Belsen feature in issue 89, we named the driver as Sapper Frank Chapman. However, the AFPU dope sheets of both Lewis and Lawrie unequivocally identify the two drivers that took turns on the bulldozer on April 19 as Sapper Wrinn of Haddington, Scotland, and Sapper Burridge of Todmorton, Yorks, explaining that it was made to collect corpses into lorries and then carry them by their arms and legs to the grave pits under the guns of the British soldiers. They pictured camp commander Josef Kramer, his ankles manacled and on socks, being questioned and later being driven off in a Jeep guarded by British military police. Malindine, Morris and Midgley left after the first two days, but Wilson, Oakes, Lewis and Lawrie stayed on for another eight days, until the 26th. Whereas Wilson exposed just three more frames on the 20th, Oakes added some 135 more photos between the 19th and 26th. Thus, of all the AFPU photographers, Oakes stayed the longest — ten days — and produced some 185 — nearly half — of all the still pictures. As for the cine cameramen, in their ten days at Belsen, Lewis exposed a total of over 6,000 and Lawrie 4,600 feet of cine. Among the scenes filmed by Lewis and Lawrie on April 19 was perhaps the most gruesome and nauseating of all the images of Belsen: those of a small Army bulldozer pushing piles of emaciated corpses into an open burial pit. They filmed the bulldozer operator, Sapper Wrinn, a cigarette in his mouth to keep the awful smell at bay. They filmed the ex-prisoners silently watching the grim spectacle. Unflinchingly, Lewis climbed on board the bulldozer itself for shots of a different angle. Later, they filmed the replacement driver, Sapper Burridge, wearing a handkerchief soaked in petrol over his mouth and nostrils to keep the stench out. Lewis himself used the same method to keep him from throwing up while filming. On the 20th Lewis filmed young children, 44
Burridge who tied a handkerchief over his mouth and nose. Chapman may have been the bulldozer operator assigned to demolish the camp fence who was filmed by Sergeant Hewitt on May 8.) This unofficial picture was taken by Sidney Barlow who served with No. 10 Garrison Detachment, Military Government, the unit that took over military control of the camp and barracks area on April 18.
survivors from a special children’s hut (No. 211), and, together with Lawrie, Wehrmacht troops returning to their own lines under armed British escort after expiration of the truce period. Lieutenant Wilson and Sergeant Oakes took photos of the latter event. On the 22nd their film showed how many of the freed inmates had moved from the typhus-infected huts to living outdoors, and they documented the work of the Mobile Bath Unit, filming women washing their clothes and cleaning themselves under makeshift showers in open air. Lawrie’s footage on the 23rd showed three British Army priests and a former Polish inmate standing near an open burial pit, saying prayers for the death; other shots showed Rabbi Leslie Hardman, senior Hebrew padre of the British Second Army, scattering sand over cadavers in a mass grave, then leaving the scene in a distressed state; still other shots captured British medical personnel from the 11th Field Ambulance, dressed in protective clothing, putting severely-ill inmates into the back of an Austin ambulance — evidence of the beginning of the evacuation of the camp one week after its liberation. That same day, April 23, a team from British Movietone News arrived in the camp with a sound truck. Made up of cameraman Paul Wyand and soundman Martin Gray, they had come to make on-camera sound recordings of individual persons and scenes in the camp. They stayed for two days, April 23 and 24, during which time they expended 2,000 feet of celluloid, producing 20 minutes
of sound film. Among those filmed speaking out in front of a microphone were two SS officers, SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr Fritz Klein (one of the camp doctors) and SS-Obersturmführer Franz Hössler (commander of the satellite camp in the nearby military barracks); three SS NCOs, SS-Oberscharführer Friedrich Herzog and SS-Unterscharführer Wilhelm Dörr and Arnold Wilmschen; four British soldiers — Lieutenant-Colonel William Mather, commander of the 113th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment; the Reverend Thomas Stretch, the regimental padre; Gunner Jim Illingworth of the same unit; and Major Patrick Fox, commander of No. 30 Field Hygiene Section, RAMC — and three former inmates, Hella Goldstein and Dr Hadassah Bimko (who had been in charge of the camp infirmary), both Jewesses from Poland, and Stanislaw Kadziolka, a Roman Catholic priest from Cracow in Poland. On the 24th, Wyand and Gray soundfilmed the condemning speech delivered in German by Lieutenant Sington over his loudspeaker lorry to the burgomaster of Celle, other local German officials, the SS guards and SS female wardens, who all stood assembled around the edge of mass grave No. 3. This was followed by shots of the SS men offloading an endless series of corpses from a truck and dragging them to the pit, jeered at by a crowd of female ex-prisoners. (These same sequences were filmed mute and photographed by Lewis, Lawrie and Oakes.) The newsreel team was operating independently from the AFPU, but their sound footage became an integral part of the audiovisual record of Belsen.
On the 25th Lewis and Oakes went to the Hohne military barracks (now renamed Camps Nos. 2 and 3) to film and photograph Jewish children survivors playing at a set of swings built by the British REME, others playing ping-pong, and children being fed by nurses in white uniform in a clean dining hall. Meanwhile, Lawrie filmed the evacuation, in Army lorries, of the fitter survivors to new quarters set up in the barracks. By April 26, the AFPU men had taken over 270 photos and exposed over 10,000 feet — over an hour and a half — of running footage. But their work was not over yet. In order to get a complete record of the camp and of the British efforts to relieve the plight of the survivors, there was more to cover. However, by now, Wilson’s team of airborne cameramen was needed to cover the 6th Airborne Division’s part in the upcoming crossing of the Elbe river and subsequent drive to the Baltic (see After the Battle No. 88) so a decision was taken to replace them with colleagues. Wilson stayed on but Lewis, Lawrie and Oakes were relieved of their duties and other men took over their task. (It has often been said that they were relieved because the strain of working in such a gruesome environment was taking its toll on them but there is no evidence to substantiate this.) Next day, April 27, Lawrie was on the Elbe, filming British commandos crossing the river at Lauenburg. Lewis recorded the 15th (Scottish) Division going across on the 29th. (The 6th Airborne’s drop on the far side of the river was subsequently cancelled). The first new AFPU man to arrive at Belsen was photographer Sergeant Jimmy Mapham who in the last week of April took a series of photographs showing food (mostly soup) being prepared and handed out to the inmates still living in the huts, many of them still in utter squalor. Next to arrive was Sergeant Slim Hewitt, who was both a photographer and a cine cameraman, and for the next four weeks would pay regular working visits to the camp. He began on May 2, taking several dozen photos of the ‘human laundry’, the cleansing station set up by the British to wash and decontaminate former inmates before admitting them to the clean hospital established in the military barracks, followed by shots of happy patients recovering in white-sheeted beds. On May 6, he exposed a single frame showing war correspondent Dyker Thew of the Lynn News and Advertiser talking to a Polish girl survivor with the aid of an interpreter. Then on May 7 and 8 Hewitt changed to cine, using his Vinten camera to film lorries and ambulances moving the few remaining thousands from the camp to the military barracks, and a bulldozer breaking down the barbed-wire fences and burying heaps of discarded prison clothing under a pile of earth. He also took close-ups of the signs erected over the now filled-in mass graves, numbered 1 to 10 and with a total of 19,300 dead buried in them. On the 11th he filmed and photographed a British Red Cross relief officer giving an outdoor lecture to part of the 97 British medical students that had come to Belsen to help out the Army medics. On the 15th Hewitt returned to film and photograph how the situation of the survivors had improved by the setting up of a school for the children. On the 16th he recorded, again on cine and stills, the supply of new clothes and shoes to female survivors by UNRRA relief workers in a barn aptly signposted ‘Harrods’. Three days later, on May 19, he returned again, now together with Lieutenant Wilson. The latter only shot cine that day but Hewitt used both his film and still cameras. His first roll of cine recorded Rabbi Hardman conducting an open-air thanksgiving service for Jewish survivors in the grounds of the military barracks. Another reel, combining
Sergeant Lawrie’s dope sheet for April 22, when among other things he documented the work of the 102nd Mobile Bath Unit. As a rule, rolls of film exposed on a day’s work were consolidated into a package and given a collective serial number, in this case A700/307/3. The original reels are still identified under this number in the collection of films held by the Imperial War Museum. footage from both men’s cameras, showed the start of the destruction of the plagueinfested camp, with Wasp flame-throwers incinerating huts and burning heaps of infested clothing. Hewitt’s 17 still photos that day covered the same two topics as his cine material. The final day of AFPU work was two days later, on May 21, when two new men — Sergeants Geoff Seaholme (cameraman) and Bert Hardy (photographer) — were sent to record the ceremonial burning down of the very last barrack hut. Seaholme filmed two Wasp flame-throwers setting the hut ablaze, watched by a crowd of British soldiers and camp survivors. Sergeant Hardy’s seven photos recorded the same scene. To wind up the coverage of the camp, Wilson and Hewitt returned a last time on May 29 to film and photograph the two big signs set up at the former camp gate indicating, in German and English, that ‘This is the site of
the infamous Belsen concentration camp’, and Crocodile flame-throwers of the 7th Royal Tank Regiment at work spraying the fouled ground of the camp with liquid flame to kill the germs. In six weeks of work, the Army Film and Photo Unit had taken over 370 photos and — together with the Movietone News sound crew — recorded nearly two and a half hours of moving image (some 16,000 feet, over 40 reels) at Belsen, making it the most-extensively covered of all the Nazi concentration camps. Wilson, Hewitt and other AFPU men — notably photographer Sergeants Terry McArdle and Bill Evans — would return to Belsen in June and July to further document the slow rehabilitation of the survivors at the Hohne military barracks — soon to be renamed Bergen-Hohne Displaced Persons Camp — but this fell outside the documentation of the horror camp as such. 45
Left: On April 23 a two-man crew from British Movietone News arrived in Belsen to make sound film recordings, cameraman Paul Wyand and soundman Martin Gray having been specifically asked to undertake interviews that would corroborate time and place of this atrocity. Among those filmed in front of a microphone was SS-Unterscharführer Wilhelm Dörr. Born in 1921, he had been on the SS staff at Dora-Nordhausen from January 1944, being transferred in September to the small satellite camp at Kleinbodingen, where he became camp commander. When this was evacuated on April 5, 1945, he had led a death march of 610 prisoners to Belsen where he and the survivors had arrived on the 11th — four days before the camp’s liberation. At the Belsen trail (September-November 1945), Dörr would be sentenced to death by hanging, the verdict being carried out at Hameln prison on December 13.
46
would appreciate you taking sound interviews of the British officials and German SS men etc at the Belsen concentration camps. Shooting you arrange should be coordinated with the work done by AFPU.’ Bernstein considered such sound shots essential to authenticate the scenes and corroborate that the horrors found at the camp were true. Thus it was through his direct action that Wyand came to Belsen with his sound truck. As the latter wrote to his own editor that same day: ‘We willingly accepted the job as we feel it is the duty of everybody to see it, as it is the most revolting proof of what we are fighting for.’ Bernstein came away from Belsen convinced that the atrocity film that had been planned since February should become a feature-length film and that, instead of in the liberated territories, it should be screened in Germany after the fall of the Third Reich, in both the British and American zones of occupation. He also had a specific idea about the message the film was to convey. The primary object was to shake and humiliate the Germans and prove to them beyond any possible challenge that these crimes against humanity were committed and that the Ger-
IWM A70 514-98
A FILM UNFINISHED On April 12, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, in company with other generals and a horde of Press men, had inspected the small camp at Ohrdruf, seeing at first hand a heap of murdered prisoners, a morgue filled with emaciated dead and a stack of incinerated corpses. Thoroughly shocked by what he had seen, on April 15 — the day Belsen was liberated — he issued instructions that evidence about the concentration camps should be immediately placed before the American and British public. He also ordained that irrefutable evidence of the camps should be presented to the German people. As it happened, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) was already preparing such material. Its Psychological Warfare Division (PWD), a branch jointly staffed by personnel from the British Ministry of Information (MOI) and the American Office of War Information (OWI), had since February been preparing the production of an official documentary about German atrocities, to be compiled with footage shot by the combat and newsreel cameramen accompanying the Allied troops. A joint production, it was to be screened in territories liberated from Nazi occupation — France, Belgium, Holland, etc. In charge of the project was Sidney Bernstein of the PWD’s Film Section. A successful cinema and theatre owner since the late 1920s and a founding member of the London Film Society, Bernstein had been an early and ardent activist against Nazism, beginning in 1933, when he had helped many German Jewish and anti-Nazi filmmakers to escape Germany and find work in England. He had joined the MOI in 1940 as film advisor, producing anti-Nazi and pro-British movies for screening in the United States. By 1945, he was head of the Liberated Territories Section of MOI’s Film Division, combining this function with that of chief of the PWD’s Film Section, Liberated Areas. Having heard the news about Belsen, Bernstein flew out from London on April 21 and visited the camp himself on the 22nd, one week after its liberation. The AFPU cameramen were still at work there but he appears not then to have left them any instructions about what and how to film. (He did issue written directives to cameramen on the 30th but by then the bulk of the filming had already taken place.) However, one of the things he did on April 22 was to write to Paul Wyand of Movietone News: ‘I
man people — and not just the Nazis and SS — bore responsibility. However, in addition to that, he wanted the movie to convey a more general message, a universal warning of what depths of barbarity humanity could sink to if civilisation was allowed to break down. It was proposed to produce three separate versions, one for showing to Germans in Germany, the second to German prisoners of war, and the third to ‘audiences, perhaps specialised, in neutral, liberated and Allied territories’. As it developed, the planned documentary, which received the working title German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, became largely a British production, carried out under the auspices of the Ministry of Information. Setting out with Sergei Nolbandov, his very able producer in the Liberated Territories Film Section, Bernstein knew he first had to find a director for the film. In the first week of May, he approached acclaimed movie director Alfred Hitchcock, who was a personal and lifelong friend, feeling out his willingness to help. Hitchcock was then in the United States, under contract with producer David O. Selznick, and fully committed, but he promised to come over as soon as possible. Bernstein was unable to secure Hitchcock a rapid aerial passage to the UK (an opulent man, Hitchcock was not keen on flying anyway) so, when the latter finally set out for England in late May, it was aboard an ocean liner.
On April 24, the burgomaster of Celle and other local government officials were brought to the camp where they were forced to listen to a speech in German and watch the SS men filling another of the mass graves with corpses. This still frame from the sound footage shot by Paul Wyand shows the three AFPU men at work: Bill Lawrie is on the extreme left, filming from on top of the heap of sand; Harry Oakes stands in front of him, holding his still camera; and Mike Lewis stands on the right (below the white star on Lieutenant Sington’s loudspeaker lorry) holding his DeVry camera.
IWM BU6676
On May 21, AFPU photographer Sergeant Bert Hardy came to Belsen to record the ceremonial burning down of the last hut. In this shot, his cameraman partner Sergeant Geoffrey Meanwhile, Bernstein and Nolbandov set about assembling a team to work on the project. This included the film editors Stewart McAllister — who had done sterling work in the MOI’s Crown Film Unit on wartime documentaries such as London Can Take It! (1940), Target for Tonight (1941), Listen to Britain (1942) and Fires Were Started (1943) —, Peter Tanner and Marcel Cohen; assistant editors Ray Riley and Donald Bowden; and writers Colin Wills and Richard Crossman. Australian-born Wills was a war correspondent for the News Chronicle and the BBC and had himself been reporting from Belsen in a week-long series of despatches from April 17, the second day after its liberation, onwards; Crossman (a future cabinet minister) had joined the Political Warfare Executive in 1939, where he headed the German Section and produced anti-Nazi broadcasts, eventually becoming assistant chief of SHAEF’s Psychological Warfare Division. He had personally visited Dachau and Buchenwald after their liberation to gather intelligence on them. Together, Wills and Crossman were responsible for writing the treatment and voice-over commentary for the film. From the start of the project, there were a number of problems, and these were to cause long delays and much frustration. One of the problems was the practical difficulty of obtaining all the film images needed. In addition to the footage from Belsen, Bernstein wanted to include scenes from the other camps and sites of atrocity uncovered by the Allies. The camps and sites liberated by the US Army had been extensively documented by the cine cameramen of the Signal Photographic Companies and their material was readily available. However, progress was held up by the US Army Pictorial Service’s slowness in providing the British with duplicates of the American material. In the final selection, Bernstein’s team would use footage shot by 24 Signal Corps cameramen including Tech/Sergeants Harry A. Downard and A. W. Statt; Staff Sergeants Gordon C. Bush and Raymond Graham; Sergeants Phillip Drell, Edward J. Guthals and Fred R. Owens; Tech/3s Anthony S. Brooke and Theodore W. Sizer, and Tech/5s
Seaholme can be seen standing in the AFPU Jeep and capturing the same scene with his cine camera. Lieutenant Sington’s loudspeaker lorry is again present.
Harold L. Hershey and Edward L. Urban. Some of the footage showing the other camps had been shot by cameramen working for Allied newsreels — Gaston Madru of Metrotone News, François Delalande of Pathé News, Georges Méjat of Movietone News and Thomas A. Priestley of Universal News — so their material was supplied by the newsreel companies. It was even more difficult to get hold of material from Eastern Europe. Although the Western Allies had initially discarded the reports about the extermination camps uncovered by the Red Army at Majdanek and Auschwitz in Poland as Soviet horror propaganda of a dubious nature, by the spring of 1945 enough evidence was forthcoming to prove that these two camps had indeed been major killing centres in the Nazi campaign of genocide, so Bernstein and his team decided that these two should be included in their movie. Majdanek camp had been extensively documented after its liberation in July 1944 by Soviet Army official cameramen Roman Karmen, Avenir Sofin and Viktor Shtatland. (From their footage, the Central Studio of Documentary Film in Moscow had compiled the short documentary Majdanek, released in January 1945.) Auschwitz had been liberated in late January 1945 (see After the Battle No. 157). Like at Majdanek, the inmates had been evacuated just before the liberators’ arrival and so the camp was found nearly empty. The film team of the First Ukrainian Front sent to document Auschwitz, consisting of cameramen Aleksandr Vorontsov, Nikolai Bykov, Kenian Kutub-Zade, Mikhail Oshurkov and Anatolii Pavlov, spread their work over several weeks and their footage was partly authentic, but also contained scenes that were in fact re-enactments, with former inmates returning to the camp to pose in their old positions. (From it, the Central Studio of Documentary Film made a short documentary, titled Oswiecim and released in May 1945.) Obtaining the Majdanek and Auschwitz footage from Russia took considerable time and created further delays. Another major problem that confronted the filmmakers was the sheer complexity of the subject. Even though the Allies had liberated the camps, their factual knowledge
about them was still very basic. Nobody in the Western Allied world in the summer of 1945 was yet able to fully understand the grand design that had lain behind the Nazi genocide of the Jews, nor to grasp the fact that there were many different kinds of concentration camps: camps for political prisoners, collection and transit camps, exchange camps, slave-labour camps, extermination camps, main camps, satellite camps, etc. Also, in a well-meant attempt to negate the racism of the Nazis, the Allies as a rule listed the victims and survivors of the camps not by race or religion but by nationality, thus downplaying the obvious fact that most of them had been Jews. As a result of all this, German Concentration Camps Factual Survey presented the camps simply as if they were all the same thing — horror centres of a murderous regime — and did not mention the fact that the huge majority of their inmates had been Jews. Although the scriptwriters, notably Crossman, did their best to get the facts right, basing themselves on the cameramen’s dope sheets and on research carried out by Gordon Taylor of the PWD Film Section, almost by necessity there were factual errors (most notably, the number of people murdered at Auschwitz was given as four million whereas the accepted figure today is 1.1 million) and errors of interpretation (for example, that people were gassed at Dachau and Buchenwald). Even without these problems, compiling the film was a mammoth undertaking. Altogether the British and American material alone added up to 75,000 feet (12 and a half hours) of film. These had to be collated, viewed and sorted. The best footage was then assembled into logical groupings for each location. The scriptwriters then had to structure these groupings into a complete film by writing a treatment and the early drafts of a commentary. These texts would then enable the making of the rough-cut, a complete version of the film made by splicing together scenes from positive prints of the rushes. The whole viewing and editing process was hampered by unexpected problems: manpower shortages and trade union disputes in the London film laboratories; and long searches for a Moviola editing machine and an experienced film cutter. 47
The driving force behind the production of German Concentration Camps Factual Survey was Sidney Bernstein, the chief of the Film Section, Liberated Areas, in the Psychological Warfare Division of SHAEF. He combined this function with that of head of the Liberated Territories Section of the Film Division in the British Ministry of Information. In this picture taken in North Africa in 1943, he stands (left) with LieutenantCommander Anthony Kimmins, official commentator at Admiralty Public Relations, and Major Hugh Stewart, then commanding No. 1 Section AFPU in North Africa, but later commander of No. 5 Section AFPU in North West Europe. It was Stewart who ordered Lieutenant Wilson to organise extensive coverage of Belsen in April 1945.
48
put together. In particular, it was his idea to use maps to show how close the camps were to normal German towns and villages and to focus on the stark contrast between the horrors of the camps and the peaceful life of the Germans living in close proximity to them. Another of his contributions was the frequent use of wide establishing shots which support the documentary feel of the film and showed that the events seen could not have been staged, and panning shots tying together, for example, the SS guards and the mass graves. He also consulted with scriptwriters Wills and Crossman and may have had a hand in some of the writing. Hitchcock worked on the project for about a month, then returned to the US. Bernstein later described Hitchcock as the film’s ‘supervising director’, but given that all the footage had been shot prior to his involvement and that he was not in England to oversee the editing of the rough-cut, it is more accurate to describe him as the treatment adviser.
IWM A70 304-1
As a result of all the practical difficulties and long-drawn-out discussions over form and contents, progress on the film was slow and by June 1945 impatience was growing between the British and American partners. London still had not formally appointed a director, producer or writer and the Americans suggested that Austrian-born Hollywood movie director Billy Wilder, on the staff of the OWI Films Division, complete the film in Munich. The project was also losing urgency for by now there was already another film available documenting the Nazi atrocities: on June 15 the Allies released Welt im Film No. 5, an issue of the German-language newsreel jointly produced by the Americans and British for screening in their zones of occupation. Using much of the same material as that scheduled for Factual Survey, it was widely shown to German audiences. By the end of June, the Americans were so frustrated by the sluggishness of the British filmmakers that the Office of War Information withdrew from the joint project and commissioned Billy Wilder to quickly produce an alternative documentary on the camps for presentation to the German people. The film was actually put together by Lieutenant Hanus Burger, a German-born filmmaker with the PWD, Wilder only working on it for a short period to decide on the final editing. Titled Die Todesmühlen (English title Death Mills), it was 22 minutes long. The German version, credited to Burger, was widely screened in the American zone of occupation from January 1946. Compared to Bernstein’s planned film, Welt im Film and Die Todesmühlen were decidedly less artistic and more factual, being strictly meant to accuse, condemn and re-educate the German people. With the Americans having formally withdrawn on July 9, and with the dissolution of SHAEF on July 14 (which terminated the joint work of the MOI and the OWI in its Psychological Warfare Division), Bernstein’s film was now purely a Ministry of Information project. In late June, almost coinciding with the Americans pulling out, Alfred Hitchcock finally arrived in London. By that time, much work had already been done by the MOI team but still Hitchcock was able to give important advice on how the film should be
Throughout July, with Hitchcock finally there to advise, and US footage becoming available at last (the Soviet material had still not arrived), the team worked with renewed vigour on completing the film. In its final form, German Concentration Camps Factual Survey was to cover scenes at 11 locations (ten camps and one atrocity site) discovered in Austria, Germany and Poland. It began with a prologue compilation of Nazi propaganda film (mostly taken from Leni Riefenstahl’s 1934 film Triumph des Willens) and then dealt with each camp or atrocity site in turn, starting with Belsen and then reporting on Dachau (see After the Battle No. 27), Buchenwald, Ebensee, Gusen (the latter two both sub-camps of Mauthausen), Wöbbelin outside Ludwigslust (a satellite of Neuengamme), Ohrdruf (a sub-camp of Buchenwald), Thekla on the outskirts of Leipzig (another Buchenwald satellite — see After the Battle No. 129), the atrocity site at Gardelegen (see After the Battle No. 111) and concluding with coverage of Auschwitz and Majdanek. Stewart McAllister edited together the Belsen section (reels 1 to 3); Peter Tanner edited the other sites from Dachau to Gardelegen (reels 4 and 5), and was to cover Auschwitz and Majdanek in the sixth and last reel. The final part, dealing with the prisoners’ possessions — their clothes, glasses, shoes, etc — and the closing montage — a blend of Soviet and American footage — was to be compiled by McAllister. Uniquely, and in contrast with all the other camp documentaries produced in 1945, the film showed not just the horrors of Belsen but also the slow healing process of its survivors. The style adopted for the film echoed the best of British documentary cinema. The editors opted for a leisurely pace of editing, using only 631 cuts in 72 minutes (giving an average shot duration of six seconds). The scriptwriters decided to use language economically, intending to let the pictures tell their own story wherever possible. The final version of the commentary, mainly written by Crossman, was terse, counting just 3,753 words (70 words per minute), but at the same time unflinching, full of irony and painfully evocative. However, the planned film was not to see the light of day. By September 1945, the British authorities themselves were getting weary of Bernstein’s project. There had been several political developments, all of which combined to make them less desiring to see Factual Survey released.
On April 17, Lewis filmed Colin Wills, war correspondent for the News Chronicle and the BBC, talking to a Hungarian soldier, a member of the Hungarian battalion that had taken over guarding of the camp from the Germans. Having arrived in Belsen on the 17th, Wills would file a whole series of despatches about the camp. Two months later, Bernstein would hire him as one of the scriptwriters for his atrocity film.
IWM A70 311-2
makers’ original directions (the rough-cut, shot list and commentary script) and all reels of source material that had been assembled back in 1945. The work began in December 2008, when the IWM team — including Dr Toby Haggith, George Smith, Andrew Bullas and David Walsh — investigated whether the sequences for reel 6, as described in the original shot list, could be found among the 100 reels of unedited footage deposited with the rough-cut in 1952. They discovered that all the scenes were there, except for two maps (one of which the team then had especially created for use in the completion). As well as completing the film, the IWM team revisited the original masters and component reels, digitally scanning these and assembling the whole film from scratch. This was carried out in collaboration with Dragon DI, a digital post-production company in Wales. The original commentary was rerecorded with the voice of actor Jasper Britton and an effects track created, blending the existing synch sound recordings made at Belsen by Paramount News with authentic AFPU recordings made on the battlefields of North West Europe in 1944-45, which are held in the IWM Sound Archive collection. The restored and completed film, now with its original title — German Concentration Camps Factual Survey — and a running time of 72 minutes, received its world premiere at the 64th Berlin Film Festival in Feb-
ruary 2014 and its UK premiere at the 58th BFI London Film Festival in October of that year. The IWM also presented it at film festivals in Jerusalem, Melbourne, Sydney and Amsterdam in 2014. This was followed by special screenings coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz (January 27, 2015 — Holocaust Remembrance Day) in Hamburg, Copenhagen, Los Angeles (its US premiere) and San Antonio, Texas. The screening at the British Film Institute on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Belsen launched a programme of cinema screenings across the UK. As a companion piece to the completed movie, Spring Films Ltd have produced Night Will Fall — a 75-minute documentary telling the story of the liberation of Belsen and other camps; the inception, production and abandonment of German Concentration Camps Factual Survey and its subsequent rediscovery and completion. Directed by André Singer, it includes interviews with key eyewitnesses, including archive interviews with former AFPU cameraman Mike Lewis, producer Sidney Bernstein, editor Peter Tanner, Soviet cameraman Aleksandr Vorontsov and director Billy Wilder, and newly recorded testimony from some of the actual camp survivors captured in the 1945 footage: Mania Salinger and Anita LaskerWallfisch (from Belsen) and Eva Moses Kor, Vera Kriegel and Tomy Shacham (from Auschwitz-Birkenau).
NIGHT WILL FALL
RESTORATION AND COMPLETION This material lay largely forgotten for 30 years. Then in the early 1980s, writer/broadcaster Caroline Moorehead was researching her biography of Sidney Bernstein — who in later life had become well known as the founder of Granada Television. Moorehead (herself the daughter of famous war correspondent Alan Moorehead, who himself had been a friend of Bernstein) was surprised to learn about the concentration camp film that Bernstein had worked on in 1945 and wondered if anything was left of it and, if so, where. It was really not until she approached the Imperial War Museum that the curators became aware of the importance of the material (at this stage accessioned and preserved under number F-3080 but untitled) and the five-reel rough-cut was screened at the Berlin Film Festival in February 1984, with the allocated title Memory of the Camps. This version was also broadcast on television, the WGBH Boston PBS television network showing it in their Frontline programme in May 1985. The commentary was read by Trevor Howard, Frontline concluding the film by directing Howard to read the last 14 lines of the commentary, accompanied by scenes shot at Belsen in 1945. In the years following, Memory of the Camps became a popular loan item, being screened at numerous historical seminars, film conferences and educational projects. By 2005, it had become apparent that the master copy of the film was in need of restoration. It was then that the IWM came up with the idea not just to restore the film but to attempt to complete it, using the film-
On April 25, Lewis filmed Private W. Barrett talking with a young girl inmate, whom Lewis identified in his dope sheet as ‘Rene Lasker of Breslau’. However, she was in fact not Renate Lasker, but her younger 18-year-old sister Anita. Arrested by the Gestapo after a failed attempt to flee from Germany, Renate and Anita had been deported to Auschwitz in December 1943, in two separate prison trains. A promising cellist, Anita was lucky enough to secure a place in the camp’s women’s orchestra, which saved her life. Reunited with Renate, in November 1944 they were both transferred to Belsen as part of a group of 3,000 women, subsisting there almost without any food until liberation.
IWM A70 311-2
First of all, there had been a notable adjustment in British occupation policy for Germany: faced with the complete collapse of the German economy and infrastructure, priorities had rapidly changed from de-Nazification to reconstruction. Coupled with that, problems with the Soviet ally were mounting and it was increasingly realised that the Germans might soon be needed as allies against the Soviet Union — so the British authorities no longer considered a feature-length film of German atrocities appropriate. As a memo from the Foreign Office succinctly put it on August 4: ‘Policy at the moment in Germany is entirely in the direction of encouraging, stimulating and interesting the Germans out of their apathy and there are people around the C-in-C who will say: “No atrocity films”.’ At the same time, Britain was having increasing problems with illegal immigration of Jewish camp survivors into the British mandate territory of Palestine. A movie that showed the horrors endured by the Jews might well generate compassion for the survivors — a large number of whom were at that moment living at the Displaced Persons camp at Bergen-Belsen — and thus produce difficulties for the British efforts to curtail the stream of immigrants. And so Bernstein’s film project was abruptly terminated. The movie had missed its moment and been overtaken by other events. The last official action on it was a screening of an incomplete rough-cut (without titles, credits or sound) on September 29, 1945, after which the film was shelved, unfinished. Bernstein left for America and the members of his team moved on to other things. Although there was an intention to return to the project in the spring of 1946, this never happened, and in May 1952, the Imperial War Museum in London inherited the mute rough-cut of five reels of the planned six-reel film, along with 100 compilation reels of unedited footage. The museum also acquired a typed script for the commentary and a detailed shot list (scene-by-scene description), the latter dated May 7, 1946, for the complete film.
Although she spoke little English, Anita, like her sister Renate, became an interpreter for the British Army. She testified at the Belsen trial and in 1946 moved to England, where she co-founded and joined the English Chamber Orchestra, achieving an international career as a cellist. She married the pianist Peter Wallfisch and in 1996 published her memoir Inherit the Truth. She recounted the story of her liberation in Night Will Fall, the documentary that accompanies the completion and restoration of Factual Survey: ‘It was very strange. You spend years preparing to die and suddenly you are still there.’ 49
ATB
ATB
On February 18, 1945, Goch was described by Allied Supreme headquarters as ‘the bastion town of the Siegfried defences belt’ and, having in my possession a beautiful map of the period (see overleaf), given to me soon after the war by my uncle, Roy Bradford (below), who fought there, I had always wanted to see what was left of the formidable defences shown on the map. Long before I even had any idea of starting this magazine, an opportunity arose to find out and in March 1969
I approached Goch in my new Ford Capri with much excitement. However, even though it was only 25 years after the battle, I was surprised to find how much had been swept away, and my attempt (left) to hang out my washing on the Siegfried Line [1] was rather pathetic. Publication of our special issue on the Siegfried Line was the inspiration for me to visit Goch again to see what the intervening years had done to the area so of course we had to match that shot (right).
MY RETURN TO THE SIEGFRIED LINE In 1945, my uncle Roy Bradford returned home from Germany. Although I was only five at the time, I clearly remember him producing a beautiful pearl-handled, chromeplated Luger from the bottom of his kit-bag, and also showing me a battle map in his Army map-case of the northern section of the Siegfried Line at Goch. I was fascinated with the detail shown in the Defence Overprint on the map but it was not until many
years later that I had the opportunity to investigate the area for myself. My uncle had enlisted in March 1940 under his full name of Roderick John Charles Bradford and issued with service number 7668524. He had initially joined the Royal Army Pay Corps but by 1943 was attached to ‘A’ (Testing & Training) Wing of the 8th Battalion, The Sherwood Foresters but later that year his Service and Casualty Form states that he
By Winston Ramsey had transferred to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. On June 9, 1944 he embarked to France with the 51st (Highland) Division and it was with them that he found himself at Goch, Germany, during the final phase of the Reichswald offensive (see After the Battle No. 159) in February 1945.
GERMANY
HOLLAND
GOCH
ATB
Reproduced with acknowledgement to the AA/ADAC Verlag
The trip was also to be special as you will be surprised to learn that although Karel has worked with me on After the Battle for well over 25 years, we have never had the opportunity to research a story together. So, in the company of my wife Gail who was going to take the photos of Karel and I working together, we set out early for the 130-kilometre journey from ATB Forward HQ in Fort Blauwkapel in Utrecht. The intervening years since my visit in ’69 have brought great changes to Goch where a new autobahn slices its way across the battlefield. Also the town has expanded and the odd ruined buildings 50
that I found still standing then, have now been repaired or rebuilt. There is even a large civil airfield close by. Not having made detailed notes at the time, it was difficult at first to get my bearings after a gap of 45 years but we managed to trace most of the places which I had photographed although some of the bunkers had simply disappeared. Today one would never know that a major battle had been fought over this ground just a few decades ago, and even now the last vestiges are disappearing as we, by an extraordinary coincidence, were to discover ourselves during the trip.
1
2
3 4
6
5
51
ATB
Right: It stands behind a farmhouse on the north side of Hassumer Strasse two kilometres west of Goch. The landowner kindly allowed us to take a photo on the other side of the bunker, which is less obstructed. Like nearly all bunkers in the Goch area it is a Regelbau Type 102V — a personnel shelter for 30 men — and this particular one was No. 636 in this regimental defensive sector of the Westwall. It was captured by D Company of the 1st Gordon Highlanders on February 20, 1945. 52
Whereas in 1969 I had found it standing in an orchard and easily visible from the road, today it was masked from view by heavy overgrowth.
ATB
The town was well fortified with many pillboxes and fieldworks, as his map shows, and the task of capturing it was given to three divisions. The 15th (Scottish) and 53rd (Welsh) Divisions were to clear the part north of the River Niers while the 51st (Highland) Division was to come in from the west and capture the main part of town south of the river. The order given to the 153rd Brigade on February 18 was for a night attack by the 5th Black Watch from the north-east to the main square when the 5th/7th Gordons would pass through to clear up as far as the railway line. Meanwhile the 1st Gordons would clear the south end of the town. Goch was already largely in ruins from frequent bombing and the pre-attack artillery bombardment added to the destruction although the buildings had cellars which were frequently occupied by the enemy. Tossing in a grenade was described by the Black Watch as ‘messy, if effective’, and so a new technique had been adopted, said to be from an idea by Sergeant Maxie 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!’ The divisional history explains that there was very strong opposition with heavy shelling by mortars and ‘Moaning Minnies’ and it was not until the afternoon of the 19th that the north bridge had been cleared of mines and the 5th/7th Gordons were able to make contact with the 8th Royal Scots of the 15th Division on the other bank of the river.
ATB
The first bunker that we managed to trace as we drove west from Goch was this one [2].
ATB
ATB
It is located in the grounds of a farm on Boeckelterweg. Again this is a Regelbau 102V and this particular bunker was No. 638.
ATB
ATB
This last statement rang a bell as I recall that my uncle had received his Mention in Despatches for being the first man across a mined bridge. In March 1969, the Young Master Printers were holding a study tour in Germany beginning in Frankfurt so I decided to leave two days earlier to drive to Goch to investigate and also make my first visit to the Möhne Dam. This of course was long before I had even thought of After the Battle but I was still following my dream of visiting and photographing the WWII battlefields. An additional attraction on this trip was that I had just traded in my Vauxhall Viva for the brand-new Ford Capri — a 1300GT model — and it would be a marvellous road trip across Holland and Germany in my new car. The Capri had only been released the previous month as ‘the car you have always promised yourself’ and it certainly drew admiring glances — I could even lip-read Germans mouthing: ‘der neue Capri’! Anyway, I spent a wonderful day on my own with my uncle’s map, knowing that I must have been tramping over the same ground that he had known. However, although there was damage visible on a few buildings, I could not believe the complete
ATB
The next bunker that we found [3] had not changed its appearance since 1969, enabling us to take a perfect match.
Today the new E31/A57 autobahn cuts right across Boeckelterweg immediately behind the farm and bunker 638, and a viaduct now carries the minor road across the motorway at this point. We knew from the map that there was another bunker just on the other side of the autobahn, on the edge of Boeckelt village, but we were in for a shock. The bunker I had photographed there in 1969 [4] was now just in the process of being demolished! It stands — or rather stood — in the grounds of Boeckelterweg 414 owned by the Nagelschmitz family. As they explained to us, they needed
the plot to build a new barn and had pursued demolition of the massive structure before it could be placed on the protected list. Another Regelbau 102V and known by the Germans in this sector as No. 637, this bunker was very likely the one which the 5th Cameron Highlanders, having captured Boeckelt on February 25, 1945, could not find until they got help from a German prisoner of war. Considering it was 45 years ago when I first inspected it, it was a truly remarkable coincidence that my return visit coincided with its demise (see also the back cover). 53
ATB
ATB
To my great disappointment, all the shattered concrete from the pillboxes in this area has since been completely cleared away, with virtually nothing remaining in the undergrowth. A good example of how thoroughly the Germans go about expunging the Westwall from the map. non-stop, and we have all had some near shaves. One landed very close to Cornish and
me as we were on our way back to breakfast after visiting D Company.’
ATB
ATB
absence of the wartime defences. All I could find were the machine-gun and troop-shelter bunkers but most of them were in ruins, undoubtedly blown up by engineers after capture to avoid them being re-used. One of the bunkers that I found lay on the edge of the Hassum to Goch road, which in 1945 was the main route in from Nijmegen and Gennep to the west, and would serve as the main supply artery for the British and Canadian forces fighting east of Goch later on. The 51st Division attack on Goch itself had come in from the north-west, thus bypassing this particular bunker, and it was not finally cleared until a day later (February 20), when the 1st Gordon Highlanders moved out of the town to secure the area around the Thomashof farm. It was the battalion’s D Company that occupied the crossroads at which the bunker stood. As the battalion commander, Major Martin Lindsay, noted in his diary: ‘The crossroads is a shambles; most of the houses are burnt out and two recce cars and a carrier have blown up on mines. The shelling and mortaring since we have been in Goch has been pretty well
bunkers, all of them having been blown up by British engineers shortly after the war.
ATB
From Boeckelt we turned south to exploit the area around Sankt-Petrusheim [5] where back in 1969 I had found several
Left: When I first visited this locality in 1969, the trenches that had connected the bunkers in 1945 were still clearly visible but today only shallow traces of them remain (right). Interestingly, immediately behind the low ridge on which the bunkers and trench system were located now lies the western end of the runway of Weeze airfield. Originally a fighter landing strip built by the RAF for the Second Tactical Air Force in March 1945, and 54
known by the Allies as Advance Landing Ground Goch (B-100), it was rebuilt in 1954 to become RAF Laarbruch. Decommissioned as a military base in 1999, it then became a civil airport known as Flughafen Niederrhein or Düsseldorf-Weeze Airport (the latter a somewhat confusing name as Düsseldorf lies 70 kilometres away and already has two other international airports).
ATB
Back in ‘69 I had wanted to find out how easy it would be to cross the border, bearing in mind that in those days one had to show a passport at one of the check-points. The only trouble was I could not remember where I had attempted the deed.
A second bunker that I found stood about a kilometre further south, along the secondary road to Boeckelt. One of a trio of bunkers, occupied by troops of the 7. Fallschirmjäger-Division, this too was taken after the capture of Goch, when the Highland Division’s 152nd Brigade was ordered to mop up the area south-west of the town. The 5th Cameron Highlanders attacked Boeckelt on February 25 and with only casualty — the victim of a Schu-mine — captured two of the pillboxes. C Company then set out in search of the third bunker, which they could not discover until Lieutenant van Roekel, the Dutch liaison officer, seized a prisoner and ordered him to lead the way to it. The prisoner did as he was told and led them to a farmhouse, which turned out to be the pillbox in disguise. It was discovered from POWs that, when the Cameron attack came in, every officer of the Boeckelt garrison was absent attending a conference. So low was the morale of the German other ranks here that the prisoners admitted that they had all agreed not to fire on the advancing Allies. Continuing south for another six kilometres, I then explored a concentration of six bunkers built against a wooded slope near an asylum identified on the map as Sankt-
Petrusheim. Here I found all the bunkers thoroughly demolished, their walls cracked and roofs caved in by the force of the explosion. I did however find traces of the trench system that connected the bunkers. This strongpoint, held by men of the 8. Fallschirmjäger-Division, had been neutralised on March 2, when it was bypassed by a concentric attack carried out by the 52nd (Lowland) Division on the west and the 53rd (Welsh) Division on the east. When the two attacks met on March 3, the strongpoint was cut off. My inquisitive nature being what it is, I also wanted to see how the frontier between Holland and Germany was policed; remember this was long before the open borders of the EEC. Was it possible to cross over by a minor road without going through a border post? I was surprised to find that side roads were simply sealed with a padlocked pole and it would be easy just to walk across. The Siegfried Line has always been a fascination of mine and I have wanted to do a feature on it in After the Battle right from the very beginning, particularly knowing that the German authorities were going to great lengths to destroy it. I impressed Karel that we must cover it before it was too late but it was many years before we had the opportunity, prompted by the acquisition of a won-
ATB
Something I had missed in 1969: just a few metres from the bunker site stands a small memorial commemorating that here on this spot 20-year-old Theodor Jansen was fatally wounded in a mine accident on May 25, 1945. He died four days later.
ATB
ATB
derful file of photos from the late Roger Bell’s archive. Time passed but finally in 2013 Karel managed to explore it from top to bottom, matching up so many good photos that I said we should make it a special issue which we did in February 2014 (see After the Battle No. 163). I had hoped that there would have been room in the story to include Uncle Roy’s map, which obviously meant a lot to him, with the photos I had taken in the 1960s. We were tight for space, so Karel suggested that I go back with him and take comparisons for a follow-up piece. Which is how this article came about. Visiting the battlefield again nearly 50 years later, and knowing that I was treading in my uncle’s footsteps, was reliving a special moment, in spite of the fact that even more of the pillboxes and bunkers had been demolished. We even found one in the process of being knocked down by the farmer whose land it stood on as he was worried that the authorities were about to put a preservation order on it! So what happened to the Luger? My uncle handed it in to the police in the 1946 amnesty when over 75,000 weapons were surrendered, including 58,000 pistols and over 1,500 machine and sub-machine guns!
So, to wind up my nostalgic trip in 2014, I went looking for the unguarded crossing of the Dutch-German frontier that I had photographed back in 1969 [6]. We spent an inordinate amount
of time searching, and finally found it due south of the village of Hassum on Grensweg between Op de Belt and Vrij at Border Post No. 551. This is the view looking into Holland today. 55