大象传媒

Chapter 19

Rhine to Bremen

It was the 43rd Division, supported by the tanks of the 8th Armoured Brigade who smashed some of the toughest opposition in the Rees Bridgehead, forced the crossings of the rivers Aa and Ijssel, broke out northwards to liberate the important Dutch town of Hengelo on the 3rd of April, and then thrust due east and captured the German communications centre of Kloppenburg on 13th April.
The entry of the Hampshires into Kloppenburg completed an advance of 150 miles after eighteen days of continuous battle and pursuit on the extreme left flank of the Second Army against pockets of desperate resistance, blown bridges, and formidable roadblocks sown thickly with mines. While the divisional artillery gave supporting fire to the first assault troops to cross the Rhine the main infantry battalions were crossing within forty-eight hours.
The first battle was for the town of Millingen, a few miles inland from Rees itself, and after difficult fighting against paratroops, much of it involving house clearing at night, the Dorsets, aided by one Company of the Hampshires, and the Canadians under command, together won the town.
Millingen, and an area of scattered farm buildings to the south, between ~Millingen Meer and the Millingen-Haldern railway, were cleared during the night of the 26th March only after close, grim fighting against tough opposition.
On the morning of the 27th, 129 Brigade launched an attack with the object of clearing up to the line of the unfinished autobahn running north-west to Emmerich where the enemy had constructed their main defence line, a deep and intricate trench system strongly held with many automatic weapons, and the Wiltshires advanced against fairly light opposition until the area of the autobahn was reached: but when 214 Brigade attacked in the afternoon they met with desperate resistance and heavy shelling before the trench system was overrun. The 7th Somersets and the 1st Worcesters made the assault, and the Somersets, reaching the edge of a wood with the German trench system only eighty yards away, were held up for several hours by vicious machine-gun fire from the trenches. A section managed to work its way along a roadside ditch to reach the shelter of an unfinished flyover bridge and outflank the Germans in their trenches. Only after a heavy exchange of fire was this stronghold finally eliminated and the line of the autobahn won.
At the same time, the D.C.L.I. were advancing in Kangaroos on the village of Megchelen to the northeast. Stiff fire from 88mm guns forced them to abandon the armoured troop carriers early after several had been hit, and advancing on foot they fought their way over 2,000 yards of ground in darkness and fog. It was not until daylight that they reached the outskirts of the village and fought their way in against machine-gun fire and fire from light anti-aircraft guns being used in a ground role. Supporting flame-throwers were bogged down on the way in, only one remaining to fire the houses and intimidate the enemy as the D.C.L.I. routed them out of the cellars.
The autobahn defence line and the village of Megchelen proved to be the main centres of German resistance on the left flank of the Rees Bridgehead. It was tragic fighting for the Germans, for fanatical Nazis shot their comrades in arms who attempted to surrender.
The Royal Engineers had frequently to bridge streams and cratered roads, while the Dorsets and the Hampshires pressed on without respite and cleared the villages of Anholt and Landfort and then mounted an assault on the rivers Aa and Oude Ijssel. Several crossings were made, both in daylight and during the night.
The 5th. Dorsets, bothered more by the state of the ground and the darkness than by the enemy, surprised the Germans by crossing before first light. The Hampshires captured a bridge intact after a platoon had dashed across seventy yards of open ground under heavy machine-gun fire. Other troops crossed over the remnants of demolished bridges or swam and waded to the east bank. The very speed of the operation was its success, for it gave the enemy no time for more than patchy resistance. By the morning of the 30th of March, with Anholt captured and the rivers crossed, the stage was set for a breakout. Riding on the tanks of the 8th Armoured Brigade, the 4th Somerset Light Infantry and the 4th and 5th Wiltshires now struck due north through Varsseveld and Ruurlo to Lochem, clearing each place against small enemy resistance.
Driving hard along this road in bright moonlight the leading tank crew of the 4/7th. Dragoon Guards saw a group of Germans completing the demolition preparations on a bridge directly ahead. They identified an object lying on the bridge as an aerial bomb. As the enemy ran towards their firing point to blow up the bridge the Pioneer Section of the 4th Somersets raced forward towards the bridge. Though fully aware that the bomb might explode at any moment the Pioneers found and cut the demolition wires, lifted a number of mines they discovered connected to the bomb, and rolled it clear of the bridge. The armoured thrust continued and the Somersets finally entered Lochem in the early hours of the 1st of April after the German commander had refused to surrender to a demand made over the telephone by the 4th Wiltshires.
Just ahead lay the important Zutphen -Hengelo Canal. In the next twenty-four hours several brave but unsuccessful attempts were made to capture the crossings over the canal. Tanks of the 8th Armoured Brigade, with the Worcesters in support, actually got on to two of the bridges, but the first collapsed under the weight and the second was blown up by the Germans at the very moment that a tank got on to the crossing after driving straight through close-range fire.
The canal was finally outflanked after 130 Brigade, the Dorsets and the Hampshires had made a long forced march at night in heavy rain and appalling ground conditions. Confined to a loose sandy track, tanks and other tracked vehicles towed wheeled vehicles and guns through the mud, passed through Enschede, and prepared to mount the attack on the big town of Hengelo itself from the east.
Both Hengelo, and the adjoining town of Borne, and with them the German canal defence line, were cleared on the 3rd. of April against light opposition. The Dorsets, who captured Borne, were immediately given the freedom of the town, and the battalion commander was driven in triumph round the town on a funeral hearse, the only vehicle remaining on four wheels: The Dorsets had attacked from the south-east, advancing up the main road, while the Hampshires came in from the north-east.

Spasmodic resistance from machine-gun nests caused the infantry to dismount and deploy from the tanks of the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, but gallant work by individuals quickly disposed of one particularly troublesome Spandau position and also mines which had delayed the tanks on the road. This resistance proved to be all that the enemy could muster. Our entry into Hengelo cut the Amsterdam - Hanover railway a V2 supply route and one of the two lines of escape for the Germans in Holland.
After a brief pause the Division thrust strongly from Lingen due east along the Amsterdam -Bremen road, and though considerably impeded by bridge demolitions and heavy road blocks the impetus of the pursuit was maintained. Approaching Haslunne the 7th Somerset light Infantry, the Worcesters and the D.C.L.I. swung left and crossed the River Hase to the northwest of the town itself. The enemy had blown up the main bridge on the immediate outskirts of Haslunne, but the Somersets crossed the river unopposed, though small groups of the enemy with a few machine guns did manage to slow the advance a little .The Worcesters then passed through and entered Haslunne on the 9th of April without a shot being fired against them. The Royal Engineers, already fully occupied dealing with continual craters, re-opened the main road from the west by building a Bailey bridge over the River Rase.
It was in Haslunne that I was told that Joe Mobley had fought his way with the Worcesters to beyond the Rhine and had then to be evacuated because of a particularly nasty attack of tonsillitis.

Because of the Germans' blowing up the road ahead of us, and creating other delays whenever and wherever possible, we in Roger Dog were halted with the rest of the column on the road between Kloppenburg and Bremen. Vehicles of all descriptions were at a standstill on the right of the road while open trucks of the Pioneer Corps, loaded with rubble to fill in the craters, charged through on the left. Chaos was everywhere, and panic reigned supreme. With typical lack of fore- sight, the units that should have been leading the column were at the rear and those who should have brought up the rear were at the front. Flustered Redcaps and irate officers trying to sort things out only added to the confusion. The comments that were hurled from one section to another as the vehicles tried to pass each other on the one side of the road to take up their proper places in the column without getting in the way of the Pioneer trucks were totally unfit for delicate ears. Fortunately, there were not many of those around: Irksome as they were, the delays were only temporary, mere punctuation marks in the story of our progress, and failed to bring us to a full stop.
As we waited for the situation to be resolved and the column to get moving again, Nobby and I chatted with the crew of a Sherman tank just behind us. Shells from an unknown source were falling at various points near the column. A jeep drove slowly along the column as we chatted, and when it drew near to us we could hear the officer, standing up in the front seat and gripping the top of the windscreen to steady himself, calling out in parrot fashion: "Is there an O.P. crew here? Is there an O.P. crew here?"
"Yes. Here, sir," one of the tank crew answered, pointing to us as the jeep drew abreast of us.
The officer stopped the jeep and addressed us. "Those shells are coming from some tanks somewhere over there" --and he pointed vaguely towards the right. "Find 'em and shut 'em up." Just like that!
We remounted Roger Dog and drove along the column looking for a suitable place to get off the road. We soon found one, a narrow track through the trees that bordered the road, and it led to a rough stone square in front of a large house that the Germans were using as a field hospital. Wounded Germans occupied the beds, with German nurses in attendance and a German sister in charge. There was no German doctor, but a British Medical officer had taken charge and the Germans were co-operating calmly with him. The shells from the German tanks endangered them as well as us.
A Section of the Worcesters was positioned nearby, and while Captain McAllister went to look for one of their officers to get some up-to-date information on the local situation I went to look for a suitable observation post. Nobby and Alf stayed with the carrier. After only a few minutes' search I found the only place suitable, a small thatched cottage in a field at the edge of the nearby wood. I returned and told the others.

The infantry cooks had set up a temporary field kitchen at the side of the house and were busy preparing a quick meal for their men when a despatch rider chugged up on his motor bike and spluttered to a halt near us. He dismounted, leaned his bike on its supporting leg, gave us a friendly grin, and walked into the house.
We did not see what happened next, but one of the infantrymen told us afterwards. The D.R. delivered his message and then accepted a helping of porridge offered him by one of the cooks. Looking round for somewhere to sit, he chose a raised dais at one end of the room and settled down to eat his porridge. A stray shell from one of the tanks came through the open window and decapitated him.

Captain McAllister re-appeared, accompanied by an infantry captain. I told him about the hut and he agreed it would suit our purpose. He then asked the officer to let us have a section of his men for local support. The officer objected immediately. "I can't send my men out there. It's too dangerous."
That amazed Captain McAllister. "Oh, so it's too dangerous for you, but not too dangerous for us to go out there on our own. And how the hell are we supposed to defend ourselves if we're at tacked, and still do our job giving you artillery support if you need it? It's most essential we have local support."
They moved away, still arguing. Nobby and I exchanged glances. Neither of us spoke, but we had worked together long enough to know what to do next. I reached into the carrier for the haversack containing the spare handset/headset and Nobby moved to the front of the carrier and started to untie the remote control cable.
"I'll give you a call as soon as I get set up," I told him, as I grabbed the end of the cable and headed for the nearby wood.
With the haversack and my rifle slung over my left shoulder and the cable held firmly in both hands over my right, I found the going easy until I reached the wood. Then hauling the cable became difficult. To go direct was impossible. I had to change direction continually to avoid the thickest of the undergrowth because the cable frequently got caught up in it and jerked me to a stop as if someone had tried to pull it back. It got snagged against trees and fallen branches. The further I went, the heavier the cable became and the more difficult it was to pull, so to ease the situation I dropped the cable, partly retraced my steps, and heaved on it until I had a sizeable coil of slack. I repeated the process several times and made better progress. I had almost reached the edge of the wood, and was leaning forward straining against the weight of the cable, when a shell landed somewhere behind me in the wood and severed the cable. Being suddenly relieved of the weight of the cable I fell flat on my face as though I had been shoved violently from behind, and just missed pushing my face into a mass of nettles and brambles.
I now had another problem. Should I repair the cable first and then proceed to the hut, or should I go to the hut first with the short length of cable I still held in my hand and then come back and repair it? The first method had one disadvantage. I would still have to pull the full length of cable, which would be a slow and difficult haul. The second method would obviously be the quicker way of reaching the hut because the shorter length of cable would be so much easier to pull. Even so, that, too, had its disadvantage; I would have to cross the open ground between the wood and the hut at least three times. And those tanks might come into view at any moment.
I chose the second, quicker course. With the weight of the cable no longer impeding me I reached the edge of the wood very quickly, ran across the intervening stretch of open ground to the hut and pressed against the door. It opened slowly but easily.
The interior of the hut was rather dark because there was no window but I could see to my right a flight of wooden steps that led up to the wooden floor above. I ran quickly up the steps. The floor above was close under the roof, and a single pane of glass in the low wall admitted the only light. Taking care not to pass in front of the window I dropped the satchel, secured the cable to the roughly hewn post at the top of the steps and descended. Once outside again I glanced quickly towards the area the tanks were firing from, and ran across to the shelter of the wood and the rest of the cable. A few good pulls gave me plenty of slack and as soon as I was satisfied I had enough I pulled it to where the end of the shorter length lay. Repairing the break occupied a few minutes but as soon as it was done I ran with the cable back to the edge of the wood, across the intervening ground a third time and breathed with relief when I was inside the hut once more. Plugging the headset on to the end of the cable took only a second; then I called Nobby for report of signals. To my relief he answered "O.K.鈥� immediately and then demanded to know what the hell had I been messing about at?
I returned to the carrier as quickly as I could.

continued in 19b

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