Terrible Victory
Page 25
At 2000 hours, Matheson called a conference of his battalion staff to plan for the grim night that likely lay ahead and the next day’s operations. He took the opportunity to praise the Royal Montreal Regiment, pointing “out that they were the only company of the two leading companies to cross the canal, who had accomplished their task… by doing so they enabled the operation to continue.” It was a fifteen-minute tribute peppered with expressions such as “grim determination,” “great courage,” and “splendid fighting ability.” He closed by saying, “I cannot pay too high a tribute to the RMR [Company]. I have only one regret and that is that I must tell you that this company is wiped out. My sympathies go out to the RMRS at the loss of all these good men, but the important thing in war is to accomplish the task given to you. This the RMRS have done and it could not have been done better.”45
[ 13 ]
A Hell Of a Way to Go
WHEREAS THE REGINA RIFLES assault had begun to unravel the moment the lead companies began crossing the canal on October 6, the Canadian Scottish Regiment had not run into major opposition until it moved up on top of the dyke and encountered “plenty of small arms fire, but [also an] increasing amount of mortar and shell fire [that] made it clear the enemy was going to fight hard and that he had plenty of support to back him up.”1 This came as a nasty shock to ‘C’ Company’s Lieutenant Royce Marshall, who had understood this was to “be a nice easy attack.” Disseminating what army intelligence had assured would be the case, company commander Major Roger Schjelderup had said: “There will be nothing to this. The enemy are white bread troops, so it will be a pushover.”2 Schjelderup’s attempt to boost morale belied his deep concern over how hastily the operation had been thrown together. Getting to the launch site alone had required a forced six-mile march carrying full battle gear that meant his men went into action already fatigued. It was not only the march, though. Everyone in 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade was worn out from the Channel port clearing mission and needed a long rest. Instead, it was once again into battle.3
‘B’ and ‘D’ Companies had been first across the canal, and Lieutenant L. Hobden one of the first men to jump out of an assault boat. Several boats had been set on fire by flamethrower fuel that had landed in the water. But the flamethrowers appeared to have done the trick. There was no immediate opposition, confirming that “anyone in the slits would have fried.” While trying to get his bearings, Hobden realized that ‘B’ Company’s No. 12 Platoon had “headed right up for Holland” rather than going west along the canal towards Oosthoek.4 This had taken them out into the flooded fields and “up to their knees and going deeper when I caught up to them and settled them down,” Hobden later wrote. Pointing No. 12 in the right direction, Hobden ran back to his No. II Platoon and the two platoons moved in line towards Oosthoek.5
While Hobden had been reorganizing the rest of the company, Major Earl English had headed directly for Oosthoek with No. 10 Platoon and his company headquarters section. At first, opposition was “very disorganized,” but resistance stiffened as they reached the hamlet’s outer edge, and English ordered the men to dig in around one of the outer farms.6 Oosthoek was not so much a hamlet as a collection of small farms facing a road that angled off from the canal on a gradual northwesterly plane. As Hobden’s part of ‘B’ Company approached a crossroad that ran north to Vuilpan, it was met by heavy mortar fire. Hobden put No. 12 Platoon into a house close to English’s position and set No. II Platoon into two houses closer to the crossroads.7 ‘B’ Company had shifted from offence to defence.
Having crossed the canal on the shaky kapok bridge behind ‘B’ Company, ‘C’ Company came under such heavy fire that it was unable to move along the top of the dyke. Instead, Major Schjelderup told Lieutenant Marshall that his No. 15 Platoon should hug the steep and heavily overgrown south side of the bank. Marshall and his men “slithered along the side of the dyke for about 800 yards. This was hard work but finally we arrived at the position… where the company attack was to be launched.”8
Schjelderup was close behind with the rest of the company. After a 250-yard advance, he “realized that ‘B’ Company could not have reached its objective and that the far side of the canal bank was still occupied in strength by the enemy. This produced a very unusual and difficult situation,” he wrote later. “The top of the dyke was under observation and enemy machine-gun fire and the enemy were in strength in deeply dug trenches on the far side… From these positions they were able to lob quantities of grenades on ‘C’ Company, which was clinging perilously with their feet literally either in, or a step above, the water of the canal.”9
Marshall attempted to break the dangerously developing stalemate with a platoon assault across the embankment towards Oosthoek. “As soon as we went over the top of the dyke we were met with enfilade fire from the left and right flanks which forced us to go to ground and orient ourselves.”10 The lieutenant had never seen anything like the ground the platoon was in. Absolutely flat, cut by canals and rivers, and mostly flooded. The areas not flooded were “covered with trees, hedgerows and villages. The water obstacles… made movement by foot or organized military formations extremely difficult. Here the enemy had a major advantage in that he had… flooded certain areas… and knew every inch of ground.”11
The platoon was using the exposed root systems of a row of poplars parallelling the canal for cover, everyone worming deep into the scant protection in an attempt to escape the incoming fire. Marshall realized “that if we were going to ‘get going’ it had to be done then or we would never move at all. I posted one Bren gun to protect my left and we made a dash for the closest buildings 500 yards to our front. I am sure that machine gun fire is the best incentive to get men moving. On reaching the house we received fire from other farm buildings about 500 yards further on. This fire was so directed that we could not go to the right or left of the building, in fact, when we attempted to collect wounded Germans who were lying groaning and crying for water we were fired upon. This fire caused a couple casualties.”12
Schjelderup capitalized on Marshall’s toehold within Oosthoek by pushing No. 14 Platoon forward. Soon the two platoons were locked in a “long drawn-out contest in which every weapon the company possessed was employed” to little effect. In an attempt to contact the Regina Rifles, No. 13 Platoon edged along the canal and managed to knock out two machine-gun posts at point-blank range with a PIAT gun before its commander realized he was getting too far out on a limb to continue. Falling back along the canal, the platoon advanced across the road running through Oosthoek to seize a house to the right of No. 15 Platoon.13
Back on the canal bank, Schjelderup was becoming overwhelmed by casualties. Dragging badly wounded men back to the crossing point for evacuation was a torturous process, with soldiers continually falling into the water and having to be hauled out before they drowned. When the company second-in-command, Captain Thomas William Lowell Butters, was struck in the neck by a shard of grenade shrapnel, he fell into the canal. Schjelderup was able to pull the bleeding officer out in time to prevent the current sweeping him away. A stretcher-bearer had to lie down beside Butters on the steep bank to prevent his sliding back into the water.14 Eventually evacuated, his wound proved so serious that Butters was invalided out of the service.15
It was late afternoon before Schjelderup got all ‘C’ Company into the northwest corner of Oosthoek. Only then did ‘B’ Company also set up in the hamlet. Joining English at his headquarters, the two officers coordinated a defensive plan for the night.16
As night fell, ‘A’ Company joined the rest of the battalion on the north side of the canal to secure the original crossing site. ‘B’ Company was to its immediate left and ‘C’ Company farther out along that flank. To the right of ‘A’ Company, Major David V. Pugh’s ‘D’ Company had been plagued by problems similar to those faced by the other two assault companies. It had taken Lieutenant O.N. Falkins’s platoon four separate assaults against well-emplaced machine-gun positions to f
inally gain a precarious toehold in Moershoofd. The entire battalion front was about 1,000 yards wide with the farthest northerly penetration only about 700 yards, where ‘B’ and ‘C’ Companies were dug in. Throughout the night, the quiet was “broken periodically by blazing gunfire as the opposing troops prodded each other’s defences.”17
AT 7 CIB HEADQUARTERS, Brigadier J.G. “Jock” Spragge had anxiously monitored the Leopold Canal battle, frustrated by there being little brigade could do for the battalions beyond ensuring that the 12th Field Regiment’s guns kept disrupting German attempts to move in reinforcements. Several Typhoon fighter-bomber sorties had also been directed against identified German artillery positions located near the towns of Aardenburg and Saint Kruis. With nightfall, Spragge realized the two battalions across the canal were too weak to reach one another to create a continuous front. The only option was to commit his reserve battalion, the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, to fill the gap.18
At 2100 hours, Spragge ordered Lieutenant Colonel John Mel-dram to take the Winnipegs across the canal on the kapok bridge behind the Can Scots and be on the move towards the Reginas by 2300 hours. Despite not arriving back at his own headquarters until 2230 hours, Meldram got ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies, under overall command of Major J.T. Carvell, over the bridge on schedule.19 Only “able to fight their way about 1,000 yards westward along the canal before the enemy’s unceasing resistance brought them to a halt,” Carvell ordered his men to dig in, and hoped the morning would bring some means to renew the advance. The situation was badly confused, both companies caught in a “swept and coverless lodgement, never more than 200 yards from the bank.” Casualties were mounting, and with the position so exposed, evacuating the wounded was extremely dangerous.20 Both the Reginas to their left and the Can Scots behind were still locked in fierce gun battles.
Increasingly heavy small-arms and machine-gun fire harried the Reginas more with each passing hour. It was a cloudless, moonlit night so the Canadians could see the Germans advancing. Lying in a slit trench next to a couple of Reginas firing their rifles at the shadowy figures darting forward, 12th Field Regiment’s Captain John Beer put in yet another call for every gun to spread its fire out in a linear pattern across the front of the narrow bridgehead. Having come across the canal with the Royal Montreal Regiment, Beer was exhausted by the rate of the fire direction he had provided throughout the day, considering the narrow distances separating the Canadians from the Germans. The risk of an inaccurate map reading could mean catastrophe for the troops around him.21 Throughout the night, Beer called in seven major defensive fire missions to break up attacks before they could gather full steam.22 Radio reports sent to brigade told the story. At 0145, Captain Mel Douglas reported ‘D’ Company on the right flank was “Being overrun… want arty task swung to the left.” Minutes later, he reported: “Counterattack beaten off once and is coming in again.” Beer duly brought down more shells and by 0305, Douglas could say, “Things are quieter now.”
An hour later, it was ‘A’ Company’s turn, Major Ronald Shawcross reporting being under small-arms fire and that there “may be something forming up,” only to confirm “being counterattacked. Need grenades.” At 0435 hours, ‘C’ Company called for artillery on a position four hundred yards to its right. Then, at 0520 hours, it reported enemy “advancing and firing” on its position and that artillery was “taking action.”23 First light saw no relenting in the German efforts to overrun the Reginas.
But the ferocity of counterattacks against the Canadian Scottish had been even greater. In a house on the south side of the street running through Oosthoek, Lieutenant Royce Marshall and No. 15 Platoon had created a stout fortified position “by piling sacks of salt which we had found in the barn attached to the rear of the house around the doors and windows.” As evening had drawn in, the men were grousing about how hungry they were because no rations had been brought forward. “Fortunately, a couple of stray chickens wandered by and within minutes they were plucked, drawn and being boiled in a discarded pot found in the farm house. No chicken ever before tasted so fine,” Marshall wrote.
After dark, Marshall checked in with Major Schjelderup, who was set up in the basement of a small, partially destroyed stone house. Schjelderup told him that all the company could do for now was hold its position. Back with his platoon, Marshall posted sentries and the other men bedded down on straw gathered from the barn. Unable to sleep, Marshall lay there listening to the shuffling of his men and realized that everyone was equally on edge. The tension in the air was palpable, the eerie quiet menacing.
Marshall was just beginning to drift off when a sentry shook his shoulder and reported “men were advancing down the road towards our position. Obviously this could only mean one thing! I ordered the sentries to open fire and then I aroused the whole platoon who took their positions in the house. Within minutes the enemy fire became so intense from all sides that we knew… we were surrounded.” At least 150 Germans had infiltrated Oosthoek and cut ‘C’ Company’s platoons off from each other. Marshall’s men were blazing away with Bren guns, Stens, PIATS, and rifles. Enemy bullets spattered the building, making Marshall grateful for the sacks of salt thickening the walls around windows and doors. It was pitch-black inside the house, making it impossible for the men to see the grenades the Germans tossed inside. Most were potato mashers that caused a lot of concussion but threw little shrapnel. Still, the concussion was causing casualties. Twice, exploding grenades knocked Marshall to the floor, but each time he received nary a scratch. With every passing minute, however, the volume of fire thickened and the number of wounded was mounting alarmingly. Men lay where they dropped, those still on their feet so engaged in fighting for their lives they had no time to move the fallen.24
‘C’ Company was desperate. When the attack came in, Sergeant Armando Gri, commanding No. 14 Platoon, had sprinted over to apprise Schjelderup that his platoon was likely to be overrun, leaving company headquarters vulnerable. He then ran back through a rain of incoming German grenades, firing his Sten from the hip at any sign of movement and killing at least four enemy soldiers. Back with his platoon, Gri led it in a desperate gun battle that raged for over an hour. The platoon was spread out among a couple of buildings and slit trenches interspersed between. Dead and wounded soon sprawled throughout the position. Finally, only Gri remained in the fight “against overwhelming odds. Savagely he moved from house to house and ditch to ditch cutting down all enemy who came within range of his Sten gun. The situation became absolutely impossible as he found his last house set afire and his ammunition almost expended. Finally, with his clothes afire, and all magazines empty, he was forced to surrender.” Gri was the only survivor from the platoon. The heroism of the twenty-six-year-old from the little mining village of Phoenix near Trail, British Columbia, garnered a Military Medal.25
At company headquarters, the situation was grave. The small headquarters section had done what it could to barricade itself by scrounging timbers, stones, and other materials to strengthen the walls. With a Sten gun in hand, Company Sergeant Major Wilf Barry manned the door leading from the basement into the yard. When a tall soldier walked up within two feet and called something that sounded like, “Ist dat Hans?” Barry shot him dead. That action precipitated a shower of grenades from out of the darkness that tore the dead soldier to pieces. Clutching a Sten, Schjelderup joined Barry at the door and the two men met each German charge with long bursts that left bodies littering the ground in front of them. Meanwhile, Captain Bob Brownridge, the artillery FOO, was trying to direct fire practically onto the company’s positions but was unable to establish contact. Nor could the company signaller raise battalion headquarters. Schjelderup told the small group that they could only hold and hope for reinforcement after first light. If they failed, he believed the Germans would break through to the canal and the entire battalion would be wiped out.26
The Germans were throwing grenades through various gaps in the basement wall. Shrapnel from one peppered Schj
elderup’s back. Ignoring repeated calls for them to surrender, the small group of men fought on. Suddenly, smoke grenades exploded all around the basement, making it impossible to see the surrounding grounds. Under this cover, a party of Germans detonated demolition charges in an attempt to collapse the building into the basement. Several fires broke out, but the house still stood. Schjelderup knew “we had no hope now of survival unless a counterattack could be launched by our battalion very quickly.”27
There was no likelihood of that happening. ‘B’ Company’s Lieutenant L. Hobden’s No. II Platoon was closest to ‘C’ Company’s position, but the officer considered intervention impossible because he could see Germans lining up and searching prisoners close to their position. There also seemed to be Canadian stretcher-bearers retrieving wounded under a white flag, which left the officer more unsure what to do. He “didn’t dare fire… especially as we were worried about what might happen to the prisoners.” Then firing broke out from within ‘B’ Company’s lines to his rear. Hobden looked over at his sergeant and the two men agreed: “If all those Jerries come at us, complete with mortars… somebody is kaput.” Hobden ordered the platoon’s maps, documents, and money hidden, and then the troops “manned our positions and waited.”28 (Hobden was mistaken or misled. There were no Canadian stretcher-bearers at work in ‘C’ Company’s perimeter, and it was never determined whether the Germans had been evacuating men under a false flag.)