For the past eleven months I've been following my late father's slow walk through NW Europe, from Sword beach at dawn on 6th June 1944 to Germany's final capitulation, which saw the battalion resting outside Bremen after a final action taking the bridge at Kattenturm on 24th/25th April. He bore shrapnel wounds from taking an SS-defended orchard at Cambes but was otherwise intact.
As a kid I used to model the Tamiya 1/35th series, becoming an expert with a 3/0 brush and Humbrol paints. After modelling a Wehrmacht Heer mortar crew I showed the result to my dad and remarked something like "They were really smart in those uniforms, weren't they?" to which he replied laconically "Not the ones I saw". He had seen the German army not in its peacock pride but crumpled, dirty, lousy and abject in defeat. Or dead.
By that stage of the war a British infantry brigade in Germany worked like a proverbial well-oiled machine, in close co-operation with gunners, sappers and armour, in a continuous series of textbook small actions, company actions, taking villages, bridges, strongpoints. The battalion's final action is a good illustration -
"A" Company took some 40 prisoners, and besides this, killed and wounded an appreciable number. Booty included the 88 mm gun, three lighter flak guns, and a host of small arms. As against this, their own casualties were one officer and 24 wounded, and most of these were fortunately not serious. "A" Company has much cause to be proud of this achievement.They temporarily occupied a sector including Delmenhorst, Mettingen near Osnabrück (familiar to generations of BAOR) and at Gelsenkirchen, but while his comrades enjoyed a spell on occupation duties in Austria, the old man, as a professional soldier, was given little rest. He was posted to Palestine and subsequently to Korea before enjoying a furlough walking and climbing, then on to help mould the new cold-war army of the 1960s.
Meanwhile "C" Company's bridgehead was now the scene of furious activity. Vehicles, anti-tank guns, and men poured out of the Buffaloes and were directed onwards by Capt. Gray who, as Battalion Landing Officer, had come in with "C" Company to search out a landing ground and routes forward for vehicles.
"D" Company had pressed on, simultaneously with "A" Company, but the German defences were without depth, and apart from a few snipers which were cleared without much trouble, "D" Company's advance was unopposed.
Tactical Battalion Headquarters moved up close behind "D" Company and established itself at the Eastern end of the village for the duration of the attack.
"B" Company had landed without incident, and as soon as "D" Company reported their objectives gained, "B" Company was slipped through towards the greatest prize of all, the Kattenturm bridge.
Almost at once they came under fire from the road and a large house to the left. The leading section, under Cpl. Holt, rushed the position and eliminated it, whilst another section dealt swiftly with the house, and soon the advance was resumed.
Lt McCrainor, the leading platoon commander, had been given orders by Major Cummins to push on as fast as he could towards the bridge and to bypass any opposition which was not sufficiently serious to detain him.
At the cross-roads near the bridge they encountered opposition, and were able to do this; and by slipping round the enemy, they seized the bridge before it could be blown, quickly establishing themselves on both sides of it.
Subsequently the enemy on the cross-roads and along the bund, where it went towards the bridge, were liquidated at leisure.
Altogether 4 Officers and 20 or 30 other ranks and one camp follower were discovered in the Company locality; so that had the position been assaulted frontally, serious opposition might have been met. As it was the Sapper reconnaissance party, following close up behind the leading platoon, quickly rendered innocuous the two bombs which were found sunk into the side of the road as a demolition charge; and soon a bulldozer arrived to assist in the clearance of a formidable road block which the retreating Germans had left behind on the bridge.
Apologies for this deeply personal post, but this 75th anniversary of the achievements of those who attained that epochal victory may be the last we will officially remember. To my father, and to the countless others who made that victory, my heartfelt thanks.
21 comments:
That's a wonderful post Radders.
Your father and his comrades deserve to be remembered down the ages for their heroism.
Thank you for sharing that.
Personal history makes very emotional reading, Mr Raedwald. That was a very brave generation and it very fitting that they will be honoured on Friday.
Fascinating. Echo your last sentence.
Indeed. I remember hearing such powerful accounts from my father and his friends
@ By that stage of the war a British infantry brigade in Germany worked like a proverbial well-oiled machine - yes, the later war diaries read a lot better than the stories of chaos in the days before Caen was finally taken: it's not hard to see why that took such a long time. But there were relatively few veterans in the Second Army when it first landed.
One tiny detail of NWE campaign tactics fascinated me disproportionately. They said that when action in open countryside commenced, the men would always take an opportunity to nip into a building and tear out a small, squarish cupboard door or similar. This would be used to form a lid over a foxhole when it came time to dig in against a bombardment or counter-attack. A deep narrow hole would be dug (when the terrain permitted), then the lid, the earth on top.
The key extra detail was to place the lid at the front of the foxhole, facing the enemy. Not because the blast would necessarily come from that direction - a shell could burst anywhere. And therefore, you might think that placing it at the back was best, to allow for easier peaking over the lip of the hole for forward observation.
The flaw in that reasoning is fatal, as follows: with the lid at the back, an onrushing counter-attacker would clearly see - from several yards - the ink-black recess of the foxhole, framed by the leading edge of the lid. And a black hole could betoken the entrance to an enormous section-sized dugout, or maybe even bigger. There is only one SOP for such a contingency - a grenade. Which no-one in his little foxhole could expect to survive.
So - turfed-over lid at the front it was, and readiness to take a snapshot at fritz as he dashed past the invisible hole.
You post encourages me to re read my late great uncles demise by way of the correspondence his colleagues wrote to his mother of his passing. They were true heroes to us all and put our pathetic response to 'the flu' in perspective - not least in terms of self sacrifice but also in terms of the freedoms they were fighting for that too many people nowadays seem too casual about handing over.
God rest their souls.
In contrast to hearing from your father, mine was taciturn and rarely spoke of it. He did say that the Germans stank, in part because their field kit had a lot of poorly tanned leather that didn't respond well to being wet for days. He also said that he viewed the bombing of Caen, which he described as 'bombs falling like rain'. Some years ago on TV they showed some footage of the event in newly-discovered movie film, and yes, it did look like rain. Whenever I see that sort of rain, usually off the coast somewhere, it makes me think of that description.
Great post Raedwald. Thanks. Interesting and movinag all at once. Your words describing his service after WWII reminded me of a meme doing teh rounds of life seem from someone born in 1900. WW1, Spanish flu, depression, WWII etc., we have been so lucky.
I'm just reading "Tank Action: An Armoured Troop Commander's War 1944-45", which is David Render's recollections of his time as a 19 year old second lieutenant with a two week expected lifespan - 90% of his fellow tank commanders became casualties. I can recommend the book.
But note he was just 19. Shades of that Paul Hardcastle song from the mid '80s.
There's an old anarchist quote about how the State protects us from foxes in order that we can be devoured by wolves.
We have always been badly served by our leaders, and the bigger and more remote the State, the worse this is.
Something else to remember this Friday.
Remember and say thank you.
Thanks Radders.
To others reading this; I may have mentioned this before but the Daily Telegraph Book of Military Obituaries contains many humbling stories. I regularly visit it to reset my own pathetic whinges.
“ Let us now praise famous men..” The achievements of the wartime generation were inspirational. Modern Germans often think that we “ bang on” about it far too much and should be looking forward in a more constructive way.
I have often wondered how Britain and Germany came to such an enduring state of enmity. In the House of Lords are two tapestries of formative national myths - on one side is the Death of Nelson and on the other, the meeting of Wellington and Bluecher and the Prussians in victory at Waterloo. So I recently started to read up nineteenth century history and came across this report by an American of a hugely influential politician in the Reichstag. ( circa 1872) .
“ I am compelled to say that ........ is one of the most outrageous speakers who ever addressed an audience. He has no control over his voice, his intonation, or his utterance. He mumbles and roars and shrieks, he brandishes his arms and his fists: he pounds with hands and feet ; and during all these physical contortions, never interrupts the foaming torrent of his words. His manner is more that of a fanatic, or a madman, than of a moderate and somewhat Conservative Professor”. This was Treitschke, an erstwhile Liberal who became tremendously useful to Bismarck and promoted England as the great hostile demon to a newly unified, morally upright Germany, recently victorious in the Franco Prussian war. He obviously touched a deep nerve in the German psyche. So, when Germany crashed from a spectacular, giddy post war boom to a profound, decades long bust, there was no doubt that it was England and “ Manchestertum” (its infernal free trade) which was to blame. In a modified form, this attitude or “ Weltanschauung” persists to this day and can be sensed in the wrangling over Brexit.
DP writes
Thank you for a timely article
Indeed I too thought that the Germans had better tailors. But I suppose, They would look very different "crumpled, dirty, lousy and abject in defeat. Or dead."
http://royal-ulster-rifles-ww2.blogspot.com/2010/11/24th-april-1945-assault-on-kattenturm.html
DP
jim said @ 10:15
'Remember and say thank you.'
I do Jim. I attended a 40th Anniversary Parade in 1984 when there were many veterans still around to tell us how it was. These were commandos and the place was the Commando Memorial near Spean Bridge in Scotland. Great blokes.
The last two paragraphs taken from Swiftly They Struck: The Story of No.4 Commando by Murdoch C. McDougall:
The war is over now and we occasionally have reunions. We even returned as a unit to Flushing to unveil a memorial there, and every man took up where he had left off, so for a short time No.4 Commando was re-born.
I like to think of the unit at a time when it was a fighting force, when we stood with achievement behind us and looked with hope ahead, and there can be no better epitaph for any unit than the words used on a certain memorable occasion by Derek Mills-Roberts, who from a few days after D-Day was Brigadier of the First Special Service Brigade:
"Men may Forget, you may forget, but God will remember.."
[No. 4 Commando took part in the Normandy Landings in June 1944. Landing on Sword beach 30 minutes before the rest of the brigade, their first objectives were to capture a strong point and gun battery in Ouistreham. After the commandos eliminated these positions they rejoined the brigade, reinforcing the 6th Airborne Division at the Orne bridges. Before the invasion the brigade had been informed that they would stay in France for only a few days. The commando remained there for a further 82 days, protecting the beachhead's left flank. During that period, No. 4 Commando endured over 50 percent casualties]
Thanks for posting the signal Raedwald, it must be dear to you. You wrote:
'By that stage of the war a British infantry brigade in Germany worked like a proverbial well-oiled machine, in close co-operation with gunners, sappers and armour, in a continuous series of textbook small actions, company actions, taking villages, bridges, strongpoints.'
The forerunner of the All Arms Combat Team familiar to all squaddies up until the early 90's when unit tactics changed to suit new battlefield technologies.
Thanks.
Steve
As you say, very personal.
The diary entry gives a very graphic sense of a machine rolling ever forward and crushing what little resistance there was by that time.
Just phrases such as "liquidated at leisure" although essentially simple belie the smooth operation of the combined forces at that time. Either referencing close air or artillery support.
A very fascinating diary entry, many thanks for sharing.
I shall be remembering my Dad, who served aboard minesweepers in the Royal Navy. He would never talk of the war only the good times ashore with shipmates and marching to the beat of ‘that infernal drum’ during basic training.
He did tell me the boats he served on were on the Atlantic and Russian convoys but again wouldn’t talk about it, other than to say he hoped no one would ever have to experience war. Dad recommended me reading The Cruel Sea, I now know why.
Thank you Radders for this
Thanks also to all the other commenters
Thanks for the post Raedwald. Let's never forget them. But how will we keep their memory alive beyond this generation? It's heartening to look at the last election and feel the hard left has been trounced; but the truth is there are still many 'the anointed' as Thomas Sowell would say, who would tell a different story...
Conor Burns - lost in battle.
Bang goes the easiest trade deal in history.
Absolutely no need for an apology. And you have every right to proudly tell your father's story.
The understatement is impressive.
We are very fortunate that such challenges do not face us.
Oh Radders how you have lifted my spirits. Just doing their duty in the truest sense of the word. How blessed you are to have had a virtuous, in the widest sense, father and the memories that flow from this fountain. Perhaps the apple does not fall far from the tree?
Thanks for that Radders.
I think the term "The Greatest Generation" is apt, when reading stories like this.
Regards
@PlansBloke
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