Terrible Victory
Page 35
A total of 168 guns would be involved. All seventy-two 25-pounders of the division’s three field regiments and forty-eight 4.5-inch and 5.5-inch guns of the 7th Medium Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery and 84th and 121st Medium Regiments, Royal Artillery. The 115th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery provided an additional forty-two 3.7-inch guns.32 Also weighing in would be the Toronto Scottish machine-gun and mortar units and a squadron of Fort Garry Horse tanks.
Whitaker intended his men to go right to Woensdrecht behind a creeping barrage, while simultaneously forcing the Germans to ground with a relentless series of concentrations dropped on their positions. When the artillery stopped firing, the Rileys should overrun the Germans before they recovered from the trauma of being shelled. Sufficient veterans remained, he thought, to carry the day. These were tough soldiers, proud of their reputation for always gaining their objective and never being forced off it by counterattack. They knew how to lean into a barrage, getting to within twenty-five yards of each of the timed lifts, and then to jump ahead the moment the guns moved their fire forward. The plan consisted of three vital components–good troops, a good fire and movement scheme, and a chance of gaining surprise by attacking at night. But, Whitaker thought, a fourth component–luck–would determine the final victor.33
Regimental pride is important to building a battalion’s fighting prowess, but it can also lead to overestimation of ability. Unlike the Black Watch, the Rileys were led by veteran officers, had many experienced men in the ranks, and enjoyed consequent high morale. But, as with all the First Canadian Army infantry battalions, the reinforcements taken in over the past weeks were largely untrained. Even as the battalion prepared for battle, some of these new men were “quietly taken aside for… a short course in how to shoot a rifle and stay alive in battle.” Section leaders walked others through a “sad spectacle of… crawling on barn floors to demonstrate movement under fire. Elementary section and platoon tactics were explained. There were men who could not strip a Bren.”34
That afternoon, Whitaker convened a preliminary O Group in the badly damaged Hoogerheide town hall. The main room was crowded with Riley officers and representatives of all the supporting units. Using maps and aerial photographs, Whitaker explained his plan.35 H-Hour would be 0330 on Tuesday, October 16, and the Rileys would attack in a box formation. Everyone, including his tactical battalion headquarters, would cross the start line–a track midway between Hoogerheide and Woensdrecht–and advance to the objective. The pace would be 100 yards every four minutes, and the leading companies had about 1,500 yards to travel. These companies would be Major Jack Halladay’s ‘A’ Company on the right flank and Major Louis Froggett’s ‘D’ Company to the left. Major Joe Pigott’s ‘C’ Company would follow Halladay’s men, mopping up bypassed pockets of resistance, while Major H.A. “Huck” Welch’s ‘B’ Company did the same behind ‘D’ Company.36
The reconnaissance patrols went out soon after the O Group broke up and returned with reports that confirmed Whitaker’s suspicion that intelligence staff underestimated the German defence. So, too, did the aerial photograhs. Although many seemed unoccupied, the area was riddled with slit trenches and bunkers.
By Sunday morning, a sandbox contour model showing the topography around Woensdrecht was in place at the Hoogerheide town hall, and the company commanders spent hours examining it. Along with Whitaker, each man also went up in an artillery spotter plane to take a look at the actual ground. Each commander took pains to ensure that his men also understood the plan. Briefings at company level were extensive and detailed. Whitaker was confident the Rileys would take the objective. What worried him were the civilian reports about the paratroops deployed north of the town. If the estimates were correct, the regiment could be outnumbered four to one when the inevitable counterattack came. That made the chances of victory in Woensdrecht pretty slim.
But nothing could be done about that. So everyone concentrated on preparing his personal fighting kit. At 2359 hours, a hot meal and a rare four-ounce rum ration were served. As the calendar turned to October 16, the Rileys settled down to wait for the order to move to the start line.37
A clear example of how even best-laid plans can go awry at the last moment came just minutes before h-Hour when ‘A’ Company’s second-in-command, Captain Lyn Hegelheimer, called Whitaker to report that Halladay had fallen asleep and for the past hour all efforts to awaken him had failed. Having landed at Dieppe and fought through Normandy, Halladay was the battalion’s senior major, but he had succumbed literally to battle exhaustion. Whitaker quickly ordered Hegelheimer to take over. Having been designated Left Out of Battle, Hegelheimer had not participated in any attack briefings. Whitaker quickly briefed him on his tasks and the timings. Then the artillery opened fire right on schedule at 0330 hours, and the Rileys attacked.38
WHITAKER HAD COUNTED on darkness giving an element of surprise, but at 0230 hours Oberstleutnant Friederich von der Heydte received a report from Woensdrecht of unusual movement. Throughout the day, his sumptuous headquarters in the Mattemburg country house had been subjected to repeated bombing by Spitfires from 127 Squadron, RAF and he had suspected this meant a major attack was forming. Woensdrecht was the obvious candidate. Therefore, he directed two companies of 6th Parachute Regiment’s 1st Battalion to move from the railway embankment towards the town.
Now, he was even more certain the attack was coming. Jumping into his motorcycle’s sidecar, von der Heydte was driven to Woensdrecht. Previously, he had established a defensive plan whereby the German units would immediately withdraw to a prearranged second resistance line on the northern outskirts of Woensdrecht. Here, they would await reinforcement and begin counterattacking. By pure coincidence, this second resistance line was precisely astride the Rileys’ final objective. When von der Heydte arrived at 0300 hours, the town was undergoing a preliminary bombardment. He immediately ordered the withdrawal and sped back to Mattemburg to organize a counterattack.39
Despite his last-minute briefing, Captain Hegelheimer got ‘A’ Company moving on time. Ahead, the “fields heaved and trembled under the weight of exploding shells.” The gunners drenched a 1,200-yard square with shells, with Woensdrecht at the centre. To keep the men on track, every fifteen seconds, anti-aircraft guns fired a rapid, fiery trail of tracers overhead towards the objective.40 Hegel-heimer advanced on a northwesterly axis that would take his company through the hamlet of Nederheide along the main road leading to his objective, “a line running through houses on the northern fringe” of Woensdrecht. Moving closely behind the creeping barrage, ‘A’ Company made good progress and met no opposition. At 0515, he thought his men were on the objective. They had suffered only two casualties.
‘D’ Company followed another northwesterly running road to its objective of a reverse slope on Woensdrecht’s outskirts, and at 0445 hours, Major Froggett reported being on the objective. Major Pigott’s ‘C’ Company was tasked with clearing any Germans out of Nederheide. His men quickly rounded up forty-five dazed Germans at a cost of only three men wounded. ‘B’ Company, under Major Welch, had a harder time carrying out its clearing task in Woensdrecht. A skirmish erupted as the company was engaged by Germans firing from slit trenches dug behind a number of buildings. Then the platoon moving east through the town came under fire and started tripping booby traps. With casualties mounting and the situation confused by darkness, Welch consolidated until daylight made it easier to renew the mopping-up operation. So far, the attack seemed on track.41
Major Pigott had set up headquarters in a cottage on the western edge of Woensdrecht, beside a road that ran along a narrow finger-like ridge pointing towards South Beveland before descending to the polders. The quiet front and lack of strong German forces disquieted him. Pigott knew German tactics. A favourite was to pull back “when the heat was on,” and then counterattack before the opponent could set up proper defensive positions. He feared the Rileys were being set up for a sucker punch, and warned his men they were �
��going to catch hell first thing in the morning.” He was worried, too, about his platoon disposition. Groping in the dark, Pigott had set each in place by feel and guesswork. ‘A’ Company was out somewhere ahead of ‘C’ Company, but an intervening rise of ground blocked it from sight. Not until first light at 0615 hours would Pigott be able to get a clear sense of his position. His unease grew with every passing minute.42
[ 19 ]
Dominate the Situation
JUST AFTER DAWN on October 16, Lieutenant Colonel Denis Whitaker moved the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry headquarters into a white stucco farmhouse on Dorpstraat–a main street running west to east through the southern part of Woensdrecht. From here, he could see Major Huck Welch’s ‘B’ Company a few blocks to the west, and Major Louis Froggett’s ‘D’ Company on a rise holding the battalion’s western flank. Back of the rifle companies, Captain Bob Wright’s pioneer platoon was barricaded in a house on the northwest corner of the street to guard against an attack along Dorpstraat from this direction. Whitaker’s most forward companies, ‘A’ and ‘C’, were on the other side of a slope to the north and out of sight.
Within minutes of Whitaker’s headquarters section moving into the farmhouse, his men had taken ten paratroops prisoner who were discovered hiding in the cellar and pits in the backyard. That these men were all paratroopers greatly concerned Whitaker. When he tried questioning one, the man spat in his face. “Even in captivity, the beast could snarl,” he thought.1
Dawn brought unpleasant realizations for his company commanders. Pigott discovered one platoon so out of place it could neither support nor be supported by the other two. He got busy repositioning the company so each platoon could interlock fire with the others. Froggett’s ‘D’ Company was 150 yards short of its objective, but when he sent two platoons up the hill to rectify the problem, they were pinned down by Germans holding the summit. Froggett threw his reserve platoon into a vigorous attack that convinced the paratroops to fall back so quickly they left burning candles in their dug-outs. The situation restored, Froggett began to relax.
In Woensdrecht itself, ‘B’ Company had started clearing the town, only to run up against many well-emplaced snipers hiding in houses and barns near the main crossroads. Welch reported his men taking casualties, but determined to control the situation.
Over at ‘A’ Company, Captain Lyn Hegelheimer was struggling to properly position his men. Contrary to his initial report that the company had gained its objective, the young captain had overshot it. Turning everyone around, he led them back up the hill. Coming upon two paratroopers from the rear, he took them prisoner at pistol point. The ground was more rugged than Hegelheimer had expected, and the inexperienced officer decided that the only way to defend it was to cast his platoons far and wide, to cover every possible line of approach. But this left gaps between each platoon, meaning they were unable to support each other. Hegelheimer also put his company headquarters section so far back, he was unable to exert proper control.2
The company was still digging in when the paratroops counterattacked at 1000 hours with three self-propelled guns of the 255th Sturmgeschutz Company supporting. Hegelheimer sent a runner to Whitaker warning that ‘A’ Company was being overrun. In setting up his platoons, Hegelheimer had given no thought to meeting an armoured attack. Too late, he realized he should have pulled his company in tight among the buildings around the crossroads that lay in the centre of his position. From these positions of cover–all close enough for voice communication–the spgs could have been effectively engaged.3 Such hindsight could not save ‘A’ Company, which was badly shot up in a matter of minutes. When Hegelheimer ordered it to fall back on ‘C’ Company’s position, many of the men bolted.
Pigott had just brewed a cup of tea in his stone cottage headquarters when the Germans struck ‘A’ Company. Looking out a window, the ‘C’ Company commander saw some of Hegelheimer’s men “running down the hill. We got them stopped–some were crying and panic-stricken–and they told us that they’d been wiped out. I could hardly believe it.”4 Not all the men were stopped. Some ran back to battalion headquarters, where Whitaker halted them with a drawn revolver.5
‘A’ Company had been shredded, and about thirty men taken prisoner. No sooner had its survivors poured through ‘C’ Company’s lines than Pigott saw the paratroops come over the hillcrest. “You could tell they were crack troops just by looking at them, by the way they moved and used the ground.” Close behind was an SPG that rumbled to within fifty yards of the cottage and opened fire with a combination of armour-piercing and high-explosive shells. Pigott’s driver, Private Harry Gram, had his chest and face flayed by shrapnel and stone chips. The wounds looked bad, so Pigott ordered him to the rear. Half stunned, weakened by blood loss, the short, stocky driver tried to leave the normal way–in his jeep. When it failed to start on the first crank, Gram kept pumping the starter and wiggling the gear shift, despite the fact that the SPG was sitting there with the jeep in its sights. Any moment, Pigott expected Gram to be blown to bits. But the gun remained quiet. Then the SPG commander stood up so that he was exposed to the waist, and motioned impatiently towards Gram as if brushing aside a pesky fly. Whether Gram saw the gesture or not, he dismounted from the jeep and trudged off. Once he was out of the line of fire, the SPG commander ducked down and the 75-millimetre gun resumed methodically hammering the cottage apart.6
Pigott’s situation was desperate. ‘C’ Company was going to face the same fate that had befallen ‘A’ Company if the paratroopers got in among his men. Grabbing his wireless handset, Pigott told Whitaker that he needed artillery immediately right on his position. Whitaker never hesitated. Pushing aside the thought that his friend was asking him to be “his executioner,” Whitaker yelled to Major Jack Drewery, his artillery representative from 4th Field Regiment, that he wanted a Victor Target, Scale Ten concentration fired on the coordinates of ‘C’ Company’s headquarters. Drewery responded instantly. Pigott was yelling and shouting for his troops to get low in their slits when the first shells started whistling down.7
A Victor Target drew fire from all artillery in range. In this case, that consisted of the three divisional artillery regiments, three medium regiments, and three heavy anti-aircraft regiments–a total of 312 guns firing ten rounds per minute. Pigott figured as the Germans were “on their feet and attacking and our men dug in, they’d probably lose 90 per cent to our 10… The first salvo was right on. It came over like 70 or 80 express trains pulling into Union Station at the same time.”
In little more than a minute, about four thousand shells bearing fifty tons of high explosive turned this small patch of Holland into a slaughterhouse. The paratroopers were literally torn asunder, the attack shattered. Those who survived the salvo reeled in shock towards their lines. Pigott, who had been wounded in the scalp by fire from the SPG moments before, headed out of his battered cottage towards a six-pounder antitank gun and its crew. Getting there required dodging across a hundred yards of open ground still cut by machine-gun fire and exploding shells. He directed the gun crew to push it to where they could fire on the still unscathed spg. Several shots later, the SPG was destroyed, its crew dead. An eerie silence fell over the battleground, wreathed in smoke and small fires. Miraculously, only one Canadian had been killed by the artillery concentration. For his bravery, Pigott received an immediate Distinguished Service Order citation.8 ‘C’ Company had suffered badly, though, with Pigott reporting initially that he had only twenty men left, but soon after, he managed to round up another twenty to bolster the ranks to forty.9
Although the threat to ‘C’ Company had been alleviated, the battle for Woensdrecht raged on. Welch’s ‘B’ Company, supposedly the battalion reserve, was snarled in a relentless firefight with snipers for control of the town. Sergeant Ernie Dearden, leading No. 11 Platoon, was shot in the arm and wounded in both legs by shrapnel. But he refused evacuation, leading his men onwards until the majority of the Germans were dead or captured. As he sta
ggered into the Regimental Aid Post, Dearden fainted from loss of blood. His actions resulted in a Military Medal.10 Around noon, Welch consolidated his company in the town centre, and an hour later detached a platoon to help ‘C’ Company, which was now being heavily shelled and mortared. The platoon no sooner reached Pigott’s position than its commander, Lieutenant Arthur Cairns, was killed.11
The Rileys were hanging on to most of their original objectives, but only just. Major Froggett’s ‘D’ Company had been doing all right until noon, when they received an urgent call from 4th Field Regiment Forward Observation Officer, Captain Douglas McDonald, that he was surrounded on the left flank and needed help breaking out. Froggett sent a section of men, but they were all killed by fire from the same machine gun pinning down the FOO. Some time later, McDonald managed to get through to the company.12 ‘D’ Company was soon forced off the top of the slope and into a pocket about a hundred yards in diameter, centred on a farmhouse in which a shell-shocked goat was hiding. Froggett was headquartered inside, his men spread out in slit trenches on either side of the building.13
All the antitank guns had been knocked out or lost, but ‘B’ Squadron of the Fort Garry Horse had moved into the town and was providing fire support. At 1410, Whitaker radioed 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade headquarters regarding “our thinness on the ground.” ‘A’ Company had just one officer and eighteen men, ‘B’ Company two officers and thirty-nine other ranks, ‘C’ Company two officers and forty men, ‘D’ Company only Froggett and sixty other ranks. Less than an hour later, Lieutenant D.R. Brown, commanding the battalion mortar platoon, was trying to set the tubes up behind ‘C’ Company’s position when a shell fragment broke his leg. He finished deploying the mortars before going to the rap for treatment.14 The Rileys were being ground away.