by Mark Zuehlke
A FEW HUNDRED yards to the east of the South Saskatchewans, Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal had stepped into a hornet’s nest at the crossroads in front of Lochtenberg. By 1430, fire was hitting the battalion from the front, the right, and the rear. They could hear German reinforcements unloading from trucks on their right where a wood obscured their view. From the same direction, the creaking tracks of many tanks could be heard.
Sauvé dashed from one company to another, pulling the men tightly together to prevent their lines from being infiltrated. Moving between ‘B’ and ‘C’ Companies, he spotted a cluster of men in the nearby forest. “Don’t bunch up,” he yelled at them. One of the men fired his rifle at the officer. “Take it easy. Pipe down. It’s your C.O.,” Sauvé shouted. This time, the response was a flurry of machine-gun and rifle fire. “They’re Jerries, Sir,” cried the forward observation officer (FOO) from the 6th Field Regiment, supporting the Fusiliers, and the two men hurried to cover.33
At 1700 hours, the perimeter was hit by about two hundred German infantry supported by a dozen captured French Renault light tanks. Lacking any anti-tank weapons but a couple of PIATS, there was nothing the French-Canadian troops could do. With their lines being infiltrated all over, Sauvé ordered a fighting withdrawal to the canal.34 The FOO called in one “Mike” target after another, trying to break up the counterattack by having 6th Field Regiment fire all two dozen 24-pounders at once, but to no avail. Germans and Canadians became badly intermingled, men exchanging fire at close range. Finding himself separated, and almost encircled by Germans, the FOO only escaped by ditching his No. 19 wireless set and swimming the canal.35 About 150 men were either missing or killed.36 An operation that had started so promisingly for the Fusiliers had ended in disaster.
Meanwhile, the South Saskatchewan Regiment still clung to its precarious position. Lieutenant R. Kitching had taken over ‘B’ Company and was trying to direct artillery fire against the Germans. But neither he, nor the company sergeant major, nor Goodman and the other signaller knew how to properly direct artillery fire—a sign of their inexperience. They were reduced to giving their map position and leaving it to the gunnery officers on the other end of the wireless to figure out where to drop the shells. As a result, a good many rounds were landing closer to the company than to the German positions. But the fire did seem to keep the enemy at bay.37
Soon after the Fusiliers retreated to the south bank of the canal, Major General Foulkes arrived at 6 CIB headquarters to discuss the situation with Brigadier Gauvreau. The two men “decided to withdraw the S. Sask. R. to the south side of the canal as it was impossible to get [antitank guns] across before first [light].”38 At 1910, the order came for an immediate withdrawal. Stott decided to wait an hour for darkness, so that the men might slip back without being detected by the Germans. The withdrawal proved the mirror opposite of the crossing attempt, as everything proceeded like clockwork.
Law’s isolated platoon came last. Before pulling out from the farmhouse, the lieutenant sent Private Henry Stadelmier to see if any of the section at the root cellar were still alive. Stadelmier brought back one wounded man and then went back to recover the identity disks of the dead soldiers. When the private failed to return, Law shouted that the platoon had to leave and he was to catch up. A muffled reply from that direction led the lieutenant to think that Stadelmier had understood and would soon be along. On the way to the canal, the platoon passed “numerous ‘B’ Coy dead at the crossroads.” Stadelmier still had not caught up when Law crossed the canal. He was posted as missing.39 * Casualties for the day totalled four officers and thirty-five other ranks. Law filled out a casualty report for his platoon, wrote letters to the relatives of those who had died or were missing, and, after midnight, “crawled into my slit trench just as it began to rain.”40 Considering that most of his men “barely knew which end of the rifle to point and nothing of the other weapons,” he thought, sending those “poor devils” into battle “was a crime. I wept over some of those poor kids.”41
THE CANADIAN ATTEMPT to cross the Antwerp–Turnhout Canal at Lochtenberg had greatly alarmed LXVII’S General der Infanterie Otto Sponheimer. Had the attack succeeded, the Canadians would have been positioned to drive a wedge between his corps and the rightmost division of First Parachute Army. Responding to the gravity of this threat, Generalleutnant Erich Diestel had ordered an immediate full-out counterattack by his 346th Infantry Division. If the Canadians managed to put a bridge in place, Diestel knew the canal line would be rendered indefensible. A bridgehead anywhere along the canal’s length that allowed the movement of tanks and artillery to the north side would make a German retreat inevitable.
Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model at Army Group B preferred to retreat at his discretion rather than having the moment imposed by the Allies. In a detailed estimate of the situation written in the late afternoon of September 24, Model suggested “that in order to obtain reserves and save strength,” Fifteenth Army withdraw behind the Waal River. LXVII Corps would remain south of the river, but pull back to a line running from Bergen op Zoom through Roosendaal to Moerdijk. Model passed his assessment up to ob West Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt and to OKW in Berlin. Still locked in the final phases of capping the Market Garden Operation at Arnhem, von Rundstedt readily concurred with Model’s proposal. He “believed the proposed sacrifice [of ground] was justified by the necessity of gaining reserves for the expected large-scale operations between Arnhem and Aachen.”
All that Model needed was agreement from Berlin, but within a few hours of sending the signal he received a call from OKW. The Führer had personally “rejected the proposals.” At 0140 hours, the morning of September 25, a terse Führer directive arrived that underscored the earlier refusal. “Few things were more abhorrent to the Führer than suggestions of withdrawal. His reaction was immediate and precise,” noted a later report. He ordered “Fifteenth Army and First Parachute Army to stand fast in their present lines.”42
But even as Hitler hobbled LXVII Corps to the canal, First Canadian Army was beginning to crack this defensive line. I British Corps had started its long move from the area of Le Havre on September 20 to form the army’s extreme right flank and relieve XII British Corps of responsibility for this part of the Antwerp–Turnhout Canal. To strengthen and provide this corps with armoured teeth, Lieutenant General Harry Crerar attached 1st Polish Armoured Division to it. Still regrouping, taking in reinforcements, and refitting their tanks after the fighting between Ghent and Terneuzen, the Poles would not join the British divisions until September 27.43
I British Corps was not to wait on the Poles. The same day 6 CIB was repulsed in front of Lochtenberg, the 49th (West Riding) Division’s 146th Infantry Brigade prepared to attempt a crossing about six miles west of Turnhout near the town of Rijkevorsel. Divisional reconnaissance had determined that the Germans had withdrawn from the ancient medieval city to spare it being damaged, but the immediate surroundings were so heavily mined that any thought of crossing the canal there was abandoned. The British would resort to an assault by boat, with the 4th Lincolns carrying out the attack.
This section of canal was defended by 719th Infantry Division, which had been “thoroughly battered from the previous battles and, besides, was no longer made up entirely of units belonging organically to it after it had to give up one of its two infantry regiments as corps reserve for LXXXVIII Corps.” Dredged up to replace this regiment was a unit thrown together from non-German volunteers, prisoners of war from East European countries, “railway security detachments, Labor Service units, and Luftwaffe training units, which was under the command of a regimental staff of an air-force pre-flight training regiment.” The division was still finding its footing behind the canal, having only finished withdrawing the last of its units back from the unsuccessful attempt to hold the Albert Canal line.44
The Lincolns had no idea that the Germans across the canal were still disorganized and of relatively poor quality. Before them, the ground lead
ing to a blown canal bridge stretched flat and open. A large cement plant across the road parallelling the canal offered prime observation sites and defensive fire positions, so a night attack was set for one minute past midnight on September 25. Groping through the pitch darkness, the lead company launched its assault boats and paddled silently for the other side. Any second, German fire was expected. But the Lincolns reached the other side undiscovered. On one flank, a few shots rang out as ‘C’ Company moved into position, but no general alarm followed and no Germans moved to investigate whatever had triggered the fire of the sentries. Dawn found the Lincolns well ensconced, the Germans completely surprised to discover British soldiers in their midst, and Royal Engineers already well along the way to having a Bailey bridge across the canal.45
Within hours of the Lincolns establishing their bridgehead, the South Wales Borderers of 56th Infantry Brigade gained a second crossing immediately west of their position. ‘D’ Company was just beginning to dig in when a man followed by a large body of troops shouted in perfect English: “Stop firing, you bloody fools.” Fearing the approaching troops were from another British battalion, the Welsh soldiers hesitated, and the two forward platoons were overrun by a strong German force and forced to withdraw. Left behind were the forward sections of each platoon, but they stood firm in their slit trenches and repulsed each attack. Meanwhile, ‘B’ Company had also crossed the canal and despite the confused fighting in ‘D’ Company’s sector managed to secure several farmhouses and knock out a pillbox guarding the road parallelling the canal. These clearing actions, however, badly separated the platoons from each other, and at 0600 hours the Germans counterattacked each in force. For three and a half hours the battle raged until Sherman tanks from ‘B’ Squadron of the Canadian Sherbrooke Fusiliers, which was supporting the 49th Division, arrived and drove off the attackers with its 75-millimetre main guns and raking machine-gun fire. Fifty Germans were killed in the action and another seventy taken prisoner.46 A light German tank was also wrecked by fire from the Sherbrooke tanks.
The Sherbrookes had crossed on one of two Bailey bridges—designated Plum 1 and Plum 2—that the Royal Engineers had thrown over the canal. Each was capable of bearing heavy vehicle traffic, enabling the Sherbrookes to get two squadrons of Shermans into the bridgehead in the knick of time to prevent the British infantry being overwhelmed by the determined German counterattacks. While ‘B’ Squadron had rushed to the aid of the 56th Brigade, ‘A’ Squadron moved out alongside the infantry of the 146th Brigade.
In the 146th’s sector, the initial sluggish German response allowed a hard push towards Rijkevorsel that continued despite the counterattacks to the west aimed at eliminating the bridgehead. ‘A’ Squadron’s supporting fire cut apart the German units trying to muster a defence of the town and two hundred prisoners were taken in exchange for only one Sherman knocked out.47 By evening, the 146th had taken Rijkevorsel.
This gain, concluded one German report, put 719th Division “in a most precarious position.”48 Accordingly, LXVII Corps’s Sponheimer decided to pull 711th Division “out of its sector at the mouth of the Scheld[t] and to commit it for a counterattack on Rijkevorsel and the cement plant. All available artillery was concentrated under the corps artillery commander and subordinated to the division for this attack.” Sponheimer also shifted his corps headquarters closer to his left flank in “order to exert greater influence than previously on the left wing.”
Before day’s end on the 26th, the 711th Division began a heavy assault on Rijkevorsel that at first threatened to drive the British out. Violent fighting developed in the streets, but the counterattack was soon blunted by the infantry and Canadian tanks.49 The following morning, the bridgehead was strengthened, with the Sherbrookes’ ‘C’ Squadron advancing alongside the 49th British Reconnaissance Regiment to clear areas to the southwest. ‘A’ Squadron was in Rijkevorsel supporting the 56th’s Essex Regiment while ‘B’ Squadron was operating alongside the Gloucestershire Regiment.
It remained tough slogging, but by the end of the day the Germans had been pushed completely out of Rijkevorsel. ‘A’ Squadron had helped in forcing the surrender of eighty Germans, knocked out a self-propelled gun, and overrun an 18-centimetre mortar that had caused the infantry much grief. Intelligence officers from the Sherbrookes were soon scurrying about the divisional prisoner cages trying to gain some insight into the organization of the foe the tankers faced, but came away perplexed. “These prisoners originally belonged to many different units,” they reported, “and so the difficulty of estimating the strength and organization of the opposing enemy reliably was great. The units had become of such mixed composition that enemy platoon commanders now did not even know the units to which they belonged. The designations of units were apt to vary from day to day as commanders became a casualty, and no one had any clear idea who was on his flanks or in reserve. In the past three days many bodies had been collected from various localities and formed into battle groups, at least a dozen being identified.”50
Despite a concerted effort by the remnants of the 711th and 719th divisions, the Germans were recognizing that saving the Antwerp–Turnhout Canal line was impossible. On September 28, its fate was sealed when 1st Polish Armoured Division struck out from west of Turnhout towards Merksplas, about two miles north of the canal, and 5th Canadian Infantry Brigade crossed into the 49th Division’s bridgehead to begin a hard drive westwards along the north bank of the canal to roll up the 346th Infantry Division’s positions there.
The Polish drive particularly panicked the LXVII Corps command. “This thrust,” stated one report, “tore the front open on the right wing of 719 Inf Div in the Merksplas area and made useless any further effort by 711 Inf Div to regain the Antwerp–Turnhout Canal.” That night, the 711th moved into defensive positions north of Rijkevorsel, its intention now merely to stem the breakout by I British Corps towards the vital lifeline connecting the Germans in the Breskens Pocket, Walcheren Island, and the South Beveland Peninsula to mainland Holland.51
* On October 2, Private Stadelmier’s corpse was found near the canal. It appeared that he had been hanged. Only then did Law pause to think that Stadelmier “could not only speak German, but might have been a Jew, poor man! How stupid I was not to think of it. But then, we had not yet realized how vulnerable Jews were.” (Law correspondence with author, 24 July 2006)
[ 7 ]
Simonds Takes Command
AT FIRST CANADIAN Army headquarters, final plans were being nailed down for the formal campaign to free up Antwerp. Complicating matters was Field Marshal Montgomery’s obstinate refusal to consider the operation as more than an inconvenient sideshow. Despite the failure of Market Garden, the Twenty-First Army Group commander’s attention remained fixated on that offensive’s area of operations. When Eisenhower politely reminded Montgomery on September 24 that “We need Antwerp,” the field marshal’s response two days later was to concur that this was an important business, then to stridently advocate another all-out push to the Rhine. While opening Antwerp was essential, he said, the opportunity remained to destroy the Germans barring the way into the Ruhr industrial area. While First Canadian Army opened Antwerp, Montgomery wanted to send British Second Army charging out from Nijmegen to gain the northwest corner of the Ruhr, with First U.S. Army driving up to the right towards Cologne. Montgomery envisioned these armies respectively gaining bridgeheads over the Rhine to the north and south of the Ruhr and then converging to control the entire western part of the region.1
It was an ambitious and impractical proposal. The Allies had insufficient munitions and fuel to undertake three full-scale army operations. Yet Montgomery was not one to abandon plans of his own making. And the drive to the Ruhr would also salvage something positive from Market Garden’s failure, which had left Second Army holding a thumb-shaped fifty-mile-long by fifteen-mile-wide salient exposed to German counterattack from both its flanks and tip. Nijmegen was close to the eastern flank. If Second Army jumped off fro
m here on a southeastwards drive towards the Ruhr, the Germans would be forced to try and stop it. With First U.S. Army coming up from the south, the two armies could crush the enemy between them and win a large part of the Ruhr valley.
Yet Second Army could hardly strike out from Nijmegen without exposing itself to attack by the German forces arrayed on the western flank of the salient. There was only one way to neutralize this threat without Montgomery being forced to leave several divisions in place. First Canadian Army, Montgomery decided on September 27, would have to not only free the approaches to Antwerp but also “thrust strongly northwards on the general axis Tilburg-S’Hertogenbosch, and so free the Second Army from its present commitment of a long left flank facing west.” The Dutch town of s’Hertogenbosch lay about fifty miles northeast of Antwerp, well east of where Lieutenant General Harry Crerar had planned to have I British Corps advance to form a blocking line running from Roosendaal to Bergen op Zoom, in order to isolate the Germans on the South Beveland peninsula and Walcheren Island. Montgomery’s directive forced him instead to move this corps northeast to clear the Germans off the salient’s western flank.2 Once again, Montgomery was deliberately denying First Canadian Army the ability to use all its strength to open Antwerp.
Crerar might well have balked at this new directive from Montgomery, but the general’s deteriorating health had finally reached a critical juncture on September 25, when doctors at No. 16 Canadian General Hospital in Saint-Omer decided he must be returned to England to be treated for dysentery and tested for a possible blood disorder. Crerar had flown the next day to Montgomery’s headquarters to recommend that temporary army command go to Lieutenant General Guy Simonds.3 Montgomery enthusiastically endorsed having his protégé take the helm of First Canadian Army, believing the young general would tackle the job with a vigour and competence beyond Crerar’s capacity. He also knew that, unlike Crerar, Simonds would be less likely to question or drag his feet over orders issued by Montgomery.