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(As told to me by my father, James McQuarrie.)

Advance through Broederbosch wood

In mid-February we were on the move again, this time to Hunsberg, then across the River Maas to Gennep and Afferden. The Germans had withdrawn to Goch. After we cleared Gennep, we started to advance through Broederbosch wood, near Afferden. This was a huge forest, miles wide and miles long, with dirt roads running all through it.

The 4th Battalion was on our left with the Royal Scots left in reserve. We started out about three in the afternoon. Progress was slow, because our artillery wasn’t quick enough in lifting the barrage, which caused casualties. Jock Johnstone from Kirkcudbright was one and another was Major A. D. McDonald, the second in command, a nice bloke who cared for his men.

In one incident a dugout received a direct hit and killed six stretcher-bearers. These were bandsmen, the men who recovered the injured during action. Two came from Wigtown, two from the Whithorn area and two from Dumfries.

Digging in for the night

At six o’clock it was getting dark, so we started to dig in for the night. We dug down about a foot or so then we hit water. The deeper we went, the more water poured into the hole. We decided to fill the trench with branches so we could stand on them to try and keep ourselves dry. A major came along and made us dig deeper, so we had to spend the night up to our behinds in water.

In the morning we moved about 185m (200 yards) to our right and made dugouts. As everybody else was doing the same, it looked as if we were going to be there for a while. We were there for a fortnight. We got out for a day to have a bath but went straight back in.

Held up by stiff resistance

The reason for the hold-up was a fortified castle (Kassel Blijenbeek) between Goch and us. It was heavily fortified, and the resistance very stiff, which was holding up the advance of the 4th Battalion.

We were there to contain the Germans and stop them breaking out. The shelling from the castle started the first day we got there and continued for about ten days. It went on daily for hours on end. Quite a few were taken away bomb-happy.

In a foxhole for 48 hours

I was in a foxhole for about 48 hours in very hard frost, under constant mortar fire the whole time. The mortars exploded as soon as they hit the frozen ground, so we just had to keep our heads down when we heard them coming.

On good days they sent in the rocket-firing Typhoons to try and sort out the Germans. We used to watch them in action and see the rockets leaving the planes. The explosions seemed quite near.

One time Bobby Barnfather and I were sent out to dig a slit trench for a forward-observation post. We were half way through when a sniper opened up on us. We moved back a bit, got under cover and watched to see if we could spot him. We couldn’t. He must have had good cover, because we never did get that trench finished. We never saw the castle either because we bypassed it on our way to Goch.

Full English breakfast

We came out of the wood on 2 March to the task of clearing the Xanten and Wesel area prior to making the Rhine crossing. We were in the Rhine Valley, which was good farming country.

We were living in a farmhouse with cows and hens, and there were sides of bacon hanging from the rafters. We put the hens upstairs in the bedrooms. Just in case we were shelled or mortared, it was safer to go up there to gather the eggs than hunt around outside for them. We had eggs and bacon for breakfast every morning.

It was here that I was reminded of home when I met G. Campbell ('Turnip') from Kirkcudbright, who was in the Royal Artillery (RA).

Lying on the banks of the Rhine

It was on to Xanten to get ready for the crossing of the Rhine. On 23 March we lay on the banks all night waiting for the word to start. The gliders came over first of all, towed by bombers and Dakotas filled with paratroops. Their aim was to establish a bridgehead to facilitate our taking the town of Hammelhin [sic].

When the Dakotas started to come back, some of them were on fire. The crews were jumping out. Many, though, seemed to be OK. We learnt subsequently that a lot of the gliders had landed on an anti-aircraft battery.

‘Thank god you’re here’

We crossed over in amphibious-armoured carriers or Buffaloes, which held about a dozen of us. We met the airborne troops about two miles in on the far bank. I remember one of them, an Enniskillen fusilier, saying, ‘Thank god you’re here.’

We reached the town that night before it got dark. The German army had a habit of counterattacking just before dark or daybreak. The first thing we did was to round up the local civilians and get them into one building. This saved a lot of manpower that would otherwise be allocated to guarding them.

We had an Italian POW here who was a great singer and entertained us every day with his singing. I don’t know how he got there, though, because he was living with the civilians, it was likely that he was a deserter from the Italian army.

The bunker under a haystack

We left Hammelheim [sic] after about a week and headed for Rheine on the way to the Dortmund-Ems Canal. Near Rheine, we were held up by the enemy, holed up in a bunker that they had build under a huge square haystack.

The only way to move them was to use flame-throwers and burn them out. A lot of them came out on fire, but they were still armed and firing at us, so we had no choice but to fire back. There must have been about 50 of them, and their bodies were strewn about all over the place.

Ronnie takes his leave

We pressed on through Rheine. It was vital to take it to ensure a crossing of the canal, and there was stiff opposition as it was an important waterway for the Germans. They didn’t want to give it up easily.

It was about now that we joined the 4th Armoured Brigade, and we were living in some farm buildings. One night I was speaking to Ronnie, a carrier driver. He told me he was going home the next morning for seven days’ leave. His last leave had been cancelled because he had contracted VD. Now that he was cured he had been given the all clear and was about to take his missed leave.

When I got up the next morning and went outside the tent, I saw a body lying by the first-aid shelter, wrapped in a blanket. I went over and looked at the label. It was Ronnie. After he had left me he had run over a landmine with his bren-gun carrier and been killed instantly.

Held up by Hitler Youth

We were now heading for the Weser. On the road to Diepholz we were held up again by troops, this time occupying a large farmhouse. It was decided to give them two or three rounds of HE or high explosives, after which they decided to surrender. There wasn’t one of them over 16. They had been forced into the Hitler Youth, but they were all fanatics.

After that it was on to Verden. Here we went into action behind Flail tanks. These were Sherman crab tanks with great, big revolving drums with heavy chains attached. They exploded the mines, which saved us the bother of digging them up. The tracks they left were easy to follow.

Weakening of German resistance

German resistance was getting very weak. By the time we got to Aachen, except for some small pockets, it was practically non-existent.

And, so, it was on to Bremen, the last major city to be taken by British forces. It had been bombed relentlessly by the RAF and was flattened. There were a surprising number of people around amid all the ruins. They had obviously used their cellars as air-raid shelters with some success.

Little organised opposition

There was very little organised resistance. The 4th Battalion even captured a U-boat intact, although it is also claimed that it was seized by 30AU unit. This was the unit that went in front of the troops to capture German secrets before they were destroyed. In any case I went down to the harbour to see it.

One day we went to the main hospital for a bath. It was full of Jews just released from concentration camps. What a pitiful sight they were, their arms and legs no thicker than brush shafts.

Signing of the Armistice

After two days we had cleared the city. We were billeted in houses in the outskirts. Some of them had no roofs, others no walls, so we picked the best of what there was.

We pressed on out into the countryside, clearing the small towns and villages surrounding Bremen. While we were doing this, we heard that the Armistice had been signed and was to take effect from midnight on 8 May, which happens to be my birthday.

We moved to another town outside Bremen, where the population were required to surrender their weapons, which we then had to destroy. There were some nice shotguns and sporting rifles that would have cost a fortune to buy. We had a lot of firing practice with them before they were destroyed.

Not told the war was over

Next was Lauenburg, a town on the River Elbe. There, every night, the Russians on the other side of the river would fire on us with their machine guns. I don’t think anyone had told them that the war was over.

The non-fraternising order was announced while we were here. This meant that we couldn’t speak to any of the Germans or help them in any way. It was an order that must have come from some civil servant in London, and one that the officers and men ignored.

We were told that we were pulling back. The Russians were coming to take over, because the town was within their zone. Some of the Germans were in tears, because they were scared of what the Russians might do to them. It turned out they had every reason to be so.

Starving children

Our next port of call was Neuenrade, near Wuppental. As usual we arrived at night and had to wait until the morning for something to eat.

After breakfast we went out to the swill bins to throw away what was left on our plates and were nearly knocked over in the rush of kids. They were diving into the bins and grabbing what they could and gulping it down. They were starving. We told them to go and get cups or plates, and we would give them whatever was left. Before we left we had them sitting at our tables with us sharing our meals.

One day, excitement was high because they’d been told food was coming into the shop across the road. Sure enough a lorry with high sides arrived loaded with cabbages, and to say the locals were pleased to see it would be an understatement.

No men between 12 and 65

One thing we noticed in this place was that there were no males aged between 12 and 65. The people there didn’t know if their men folk were dead or alive, but they believed the worse, that they had all been killed on the Eastern Front.

We soon moved again, this time to the Möhne and Eider dams. Both of these had been breached by bouncing bombs, and a right good job they had made of it. You could see the mark the floods had made right down the valley, and they must have killed a lot of people.

This area was used as a rest camp for wounded troops. It was a nice and quiet place in which to be. We were here to protect local people from the gangs of displaced persons living in the woods. They’d emerge at night to raid local farms and houses in search of food and anything else that they wanted. They were armed with rifles and revolvers, and we had to be careful in our handling of them.

Minden Day

On 1 August, Minden Day, we found ourselves in Minden. This was where the KOSBs had won their first battle honour, thereafter celebrated on the day by wearing a rose.

While we were here someone cleaned out the ammunitions store and made a bonfire of the rubbish. What he’d failed to do was to gather up the loose rounds of 303 ammo. He had just thrown everything on the fire. It was like the war starting up again.

Demob begins

Demob was beginning. It was carried out according to two classifications. In A class you were allowed eight weeks’ pay and ration money, but you found your own job at the end of it. In B class you got three weeks’ pay and ration money, but you were released right away and directed to work on a farm for at least six months.

I got a week’s home leave. I travelled from Minden to Calais on an old German train that had wooden slatted seats. It was a long journey, what with the temporary wooden bridges over the rivers and tracks that had been destroyed and hurriedly rebuilt a few times.

Leave didn’t start until you got to Dover. If your home was on an island you’d get an extra day’s leave, so the boys from the Isle of Whithorn all put in for this extra day and got it.

Back to the land of LSD

When we got to Calais we had to change our money into pounds, shillings and pence or LSD as we called it. The exchange limit was £50, but very few had that amount in credit, even though we’d never drawn any pay while in Europe. I went through and got £40 changed, and they stamped my pay book.

A Scots Guardsman wanted me to go back through and get £50 worth of guilders changed for him. I said I’d already been through, but he said to try again, and if it didn’t work it wouldn’t matter. He gave me the guilders, and I went through again and got away with it, but I couldn’t find him when I came out.

I hunted high and low for him and eventually found him and gave him the £50. He gave me £10 for my trouble, but I should have walked away with the lot.

Lugers as war souvenirs

When we left our unit we were warned about taking guns into the UK. A few of us had held on to Lugers as souvenirs, but we knew that if were caught with them we would be returned to our units and lose our leave. As the boat arrived in Dover harbour, there were a lot of splashes as souvenirs were thrown overboard.

One fellow walked down the gangplank pushing a brand new pram with a wireless set in it. The Customs men just ignored him and seemed to concentrate on the officers.

When I got home to Borgue, I spread all my money on the kitchen table. It was £48, and your mother had never seen so much money in all her life.

Released on a Monday morning

When I got back to my unit I found some of the lads had been demobbed already, while others had been posted to other units. Feeling a bit fed up, I decided to go for class-B release on the following Monday morning.

Things started to move then. First was a very strict medical, which I thought was ironic, as I’d never needed a medical to get into the TA. It seemed, though, that I needed one to get out.

Playing again with the Saints

On Thursday I was on my way back to Calais on that awful train again, heading to Edinburgh for demob. I arrived in Kirkcudbright Station on the Friday at five o’clock at night.

I was met at the station by two committee members of the St Cuthbert’s Wanderers, the Saints. They wanted to know if I would play for them on the Saturday. I knew then that things were back to normal.

Postscript

My father later rejoined the TA when it was the 4/5th Battalion. He was at its 1948 King George’s review, in which they paraded through the streets of London and slept in the deep air-raid shelters in Hyde Park. They had a whale of a time.

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