大象传媒

In 1944-45, the British army under General Bernard Montgomery was driving toward Germany from Holland. My brother-in-law, Bruce Lindsay, was in a Sherman tank regiment and his unit came upon a river that had to be crossed. Engineers built a bridge, but apparently the Germans figured out pretty much where it would be built, because they had their 'Moaning Minnies' zeroed in on the spot, and blew it to pieces before anyone could get across.

As Bruce tells it, the engineers promptly built another one in the same place and it, too, was blasted. They built two more before someone figured out that it might be a good idea to try a different location. Meantime, the tankers and the infantry regiment with them (the Lake Superior Regiment) were sitting quietly, drinking whatever they could find, and apparently the Dutch gin was superb!

When the new bridge was built, the Germans started dropping mortar shells onto it, but it took them a while to range in on it, and before they could hit it, about 50 infantry had gotten across. The Germans promptly attacked - no tanks, but lots of infantry, and the British were taking casualties.

The Lake Superior Regiment was composed of Native Canadians, and when they saw their brethren being hit so hard, they quickly stripped to their shorts, shoved their bayonets between their teeth and swam the river... about a thousand of them. They struck the Germans and a furious battle broke out.

Meanwhile, the engineers were building another bridge, and the Germans who had been manning the mortars were fighting with the infantry, so the bridge was not destroyed. It took a while to complete, and throughout this time, the fighting on the German banks was vigorous, to say the least. Finally the bridge was completed, tanks and infantry in huge numbers rolled across and the battle was soon over.

Apparently the Germans had not expected an attack at that point on the river and the defence was not what it could have been had they been better prepared for it. But Bruce was impressed by the ferocity of the Lake Superiors, attacking with nothing but bayonets. Casualties amongst the Canadians were actually small compared to those suffered by the Germans before the bridge was completed and before the reinforcements arrived. The Canadians got in close, where the Germans found it hard to use their rifles. They evidently had no bayonets on them, so the knives of the Canadians were extremely effective.

The only officers who witnessed this were junior, so no Mention was ever forthcoming, nor were there any gongs passed out for this. In fact, the Native Canadians never received any praise for what they had done, but Bruce says it was one of the most heroic actions he had ever seen or heard of.

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