大象传媒

My father, Leslie Warne tells this story...

Towards the end of World war 2, Germany was short of food, and Holland, in the year or so before the Germans in Holland surrendered, was very short of food, and the people of Rotterdam, in particular, were starving. A month or two before the Germans in Holland surrendered, a truce was arranged to allow food into Rotterdam. Some Landing craft had guns removed, and helped by the organisation of the Swiss Red Cross, took some food into Rotterdam from the sea.

Another scheme was to send barges of food from Oosterhout in Southern Holland (a town near the South bank of the river Maas) along canals into Rotterdam. The problem was that a bridge across the river Maas had been demolished and the debris was blocking the passage of barges. It was planned that divers from a section of one of the companies of No. 1 Group Port Construction and Repair, Royal Engineers would use explosives to clear a passage way for the food barges. A barge, skippered by its owner (and incidently still keeping his wife and daughter on board!) was fitted out for this purpose.

There is often misunderstanding as to the meaning, in war time, of a white flag. It can mean surrender - but also it is only a flag of truce. As an officer of Group H.Q. I heard that some of the rank and file, particularly those whose brothers had been killed by Germans, were contemplating refusing to work under a white flag in front of the Germans, so to avoid good soldiers getting into trouble, I arranged for these men to be transferred to other duties.

So we set to work to clear the obstruction. A tributary of the river Maas took us to the river Maas and one then went upstream several miles to the demolished bridge, the north bank of the river Maas being occupied by Germans, invisible to us, in trenches.

We made good progress for a couple of days, but then one evening, just before sunset, a staff officer appeared on the South bank and signalled to us (moored in mid river), and when we met, told us that the message to us was unfortunately delayed but the truce had broken down, and at sunset the Germans would be free to open fire.

We travelled down river and into the Oosterhout tributary at very high speed and reached Oosterhout just as the sun had set.

Then we heard on the radio that the Germans in Holland had surrendered.

Next day we went back to continue work and found that the Germans were out of their trenches and many drunk with joy that the war, for them, was over. Sadly, one of them was careless and stepped on one of their own land-mines, and was blown up and killed.

We were shortly afterwards told that our operation was to cease. The RAF dropped food on airfields and golf courses and shortly afterwards road convoys got through.

An advance party of Group H.Q. of No. 1 Port Construction and Repair, Royal Engineers was the first unit to be offered the surrender of Rotterdam.

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