by Mark Zuehlke
The day after the withdrawal, Schlemm met his new superior at the army’s headquarters near Wesel. Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring had taken over from Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt, who had been fired for the second time from his post as Oberbefehlshaber (Commander-in-Chief) West.1 Kesselring, just arrived from commanding German forces in Italy, was anxious to hear first-hand Schlemm’s plans for defending the Rhine. Nicknamed “Smiling Alber t,” Kesselring was noted for unfading optimism at even the direst of moments. He was also masterful at using terrain to defensive advantage. In Italy, Kesselring had routinely brought the Allies to a standstill for weeks, even months, by fighting from behind a major river or from the heights of mountain ranges. Kesselring was also a shrewd judge of morale.2
Kesselring was accompanied by Army Group H’s commander, Generaloberst Johannes Blaskowitz. The sixty-one-year-old Blaskowitz was a professional soldier of the old pre-Nazi school, who had nonetheless risen rapidly under Hitler. The mastermind behind the German blitzkrieg across Poland, he had accepted Warsaw’s surrender on October 22, 1939, and been crowned as the conquered country’s military commander. But Blaskowitz soon fell from grace, writing two detailed memoranda that documented and criticized the persecution and murder of Polish Jews. Citing many instances of looting of Jewish homes and shops, countless rapes, and scores of common murders, Blaskowitz warned that the SS “might later turn against their own people in the same way.” Incensed by Blaskowitz’s “childish attitude,” Hitler sacked him. When good generals quickly proved in short supply, he was returned to various commands and ultimately assumed control of Army Group G prior to the Normandy invasion. Cashiered again by Hitler after the Lorraine fell, Blaskowitz was brought back in January 1945 to head Army Group H.3 This made him the titular German military commander of the Netherlands and one of the most important officers facing the western Allies.
Schlemm told Kesselring and Blaskowitz that if his army was “allowed at least another eight or ten days to re-equip, prepare positions, bring up supplies, and rest,” it should be able to defeat the attack. He pointed optimistically to the fact that the army had “succeeded in withdrawing all its supply elements in orderly fashion, saving almost all its artillery, and withdrawing enough troops so that a new defensive front [could] be built up on the east bank.” The fifty evacuated artillery batteries could provide protective cover for the new defensive line. Schlemm predicted that the assault crossing would most likely fall between Emmerich and Wesel and that the Allies would support it with an airborne attack. Against that prospect he was feverishly strengthening anti-aircraft defences around the obvious drop zones near Wesel. Total heavy and light anti-aircraft guns in this area would soon number 814.
Farmhouses and summer cottages along the river were being transformed into fortifications. What appeared in aerial photographs as animal shelters or machine-storage sheds attached to the sides of many houses facing the river were often actually new bunkers with heavily reinforced concrete roofs, two-foot-thick walls, and firing apertures for machine guns facing the water. Elsewhere, deep trenches were dug behind the river dykes. Covering the suspected airborne drop zones were specially trained and highly mobile reaction forces.
Given enough time, Schlemm could be as ready as possible. But if Twenty-First Army Group decided to bounce the Rhine with a hurried attack, the odds of holding would be slimmer. Schlemm hoped for ten days and was pleased when Montgomery gave him twelve.4
With each passing day, the fifty-year-old veteran of intense fighting on both the Russian Front and Monte Cassino in Italy grew more confident. His defences were steadily being strengthened, and the terrain already worked to his advantage. Before him stood the Rhine, which was running in March at five miles an hour and had a minimum depth of nine feet. On his side of the river, several heights provided commanding positions, while the Allies opposite stood on level ground that was largely unwooded. Containing the river on his east bank was a sixty-foot-wide, thirteen-foot-high dyke paralleled by a railroad embankment. Both provided excellent defensive positions.5
Schlemm arrayed his troops along a front that stretched from Emmerich to just south of and opposite Krefeld—a distance of some fifty miles. His best troops, those of the II Fallschirmjäger Corps, held the ground where he expected the strike to fall—between Emmerich and Wesel. The 6th Fallschirmjäger Division manned a front extending from Emmerich to the outskirts of Rees. Here, the 8th Fallschirmjäger Division took over to a position opposite Xanten, and the 7th Fallschirmjäger Division held the line to Wesel. The ground south of this point was LXXXVI Corps’s responsibility. Serving as a fire brigade to respond wherever needed, the XLVII Panzer Corps was held back of the front.
II Fallschirmjäger Corps was much stronger than the other corps in arms, men, and leadership. It also had Schlemm, considered by Allied intelligence as a “fighting man of undoubted military ability,” headquartered close by so that he could directly influence the battle.
General der Flieger Eugen Meindl, highly praised by superiors and subordinates alike for his abilities, commanded the corps. A little red-faced man who had originally been an army artillery officer before being seconded to the Luftwaffe’s paratroops, the fifty-two-year-old was a veteran of campaigns in Crete, Russia, and Normandy. In the last two operations, he had proved highly capable of extracting divisions from disastrous encirclements. Most of his twelve thousand “tough parachutists” were seasoned veterans. He also possessed about eighty field and medium guns, as well as sixty 88-millimetre anti-aircraft guns adaptable for ground fire. Meindl agreed with Schlemm that the Allies would carry out an airborne drop, but he thought it would come behind Rees rather than Wesel.
The three divisions under Meindl also had capable officers. Generalleutnant Hermann Plocher, whose forceful professionalism was considered by Allied intelligence officers to be a “clue to [understanding] the fierce, skilful fighting [ability] of his parachutists,” was typical. After serving in Spain for fourteen months as the German Condor Legion’s chief of staff during that country’s civil war, he had since 1939 held a mix of Luftwaffe staff and divisional headquarters postings before taking over the 6th Division on October 1, 1944. In March 1945, he was forty-four and had under his command about seven thousand paratroops dug in along a line running from east of Emmerich to just north of Rees. Plocher doubted that the Allied crossings would come in his sector, because the roads leading out of Emmerich were poor. He sided with Meindl in thinking the main assault would be at Rees.
While much of the German army might have fallen into the “depths of dejection,” Twenty-First Army Group intelligence staff believed the paratroops “still intended to fight to the end . . . They are proud of belonging to an elite branch . . . They are, as a rule, younger and physically better qualified than other troops. Their relations to the Army are without a stigma, in contrast to the notorious SS gang. They like to consider themselves the successors of the crack troops which invaded Holland in 1940, Crete in 1941, and made a last-ditch stand in Cassino. Actually, only a handful have survived those ‘memorable’ days and, considering the quality and length of Para training now given, only very few would equal those accomplishments.
“Practically all of them have been made to believe that Hitler has restored law and order, greatness and equality to the German people. The Hitler myth has taken so strong a hold on them that many refuse to consider even the possibility of a German defeat. Hitler’s promise of a victory and of secret weapons to achieve it with is accepted by many like a guarantee from a higher being. Others think that Nazi Germany was a good thing until the War but that Hitler should never have challenged the entire world as he did.”6
High morale aside, the paratroops were severely handicapped. Intercepts through Ultra—the top secret intelligence unit that had broken the German encryption system and was reading many of their wireless signals—had given Montgomery and his staff details of the German full order of battle from Emmerich to Duisberg. They were also aware of
the First Fallschirmjäger Army’s serious supply problems. Fuel was reportedly “so short that the supplying of troops is jeopardized” and ammunition so meagre that “150 tons of certain specified calibres was deemed essential.”7
LXXXVI Corps was in terrible condition. Its 180th Infantry Division, tasked with holding a twelve-and-a-half-mile frontage from Wesel to Duisberg, fielded only 2,500 men and could muster just fifteen light artillery batteries, seven medium batteries, and three heavy-calibre batteries.8 The corps commander, General der Infanterie Erich von Straube, was held in contempt by his fellow generals, and the 180th’s Generalmajor Heinz Fiebig struck many as “a charming fellow to have at a party; the last man to lead a division in the field.”9
If LXXXVI Corps was weak, XLVII Panzer Corps was barely recognizable as the heavily armoured force it had once been. General der Panzertruppen Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz’s two divisions were at 30 per cent of normal strength when he escaped across the Rhine. Although reinforcements had brought his manpower strength up to 50 per cent, he still had only thirty-five tanks. And these were all the Germans had to meet Twenty-First Army Group.10
Despite such grim realities, hope seemed to spring eternal among the senior German officers holding the Rhine. On March 20, Kesselring relayed the welcome news that the Führer had ordered 205 tanks and 1,125 armoured fighting vehicles sent their way. Schlemm was to receive 325 of these over the next three weeks and should prepare crews to man them.11 “My orders are categorical,” Kesselring added: “Hang on!”12
Certainly Schlemm was prepared to do just that. At 0600 hours that morning of March 21, Schlemm was at his desk in a little cottage tucked well away in a forest near Dorsten. Somewhere in the clear blue sky overhead, planes could be heard.13 Then someone shouted in alarm, “Jabos, Jabos.” Fighter-bombers! Everyone scrambled for cover as the scream of the diving planes filled the air, followed by the whistling of falling bombs. A terrific explosion and clouds of black smoke filled the cottage, shards of wood and glass flew, ceiling beams and plaster crashed down. Schlemm was dragged unconscious and severely wounded from the wreckage. He did not regain consciousness until the following day. Although temporarily blinded and barely capable of movement, the general refused to relinquish command. From a bed, he attempted throughout that day and the next to finalize preparations to meet the attack.14
Unlike Schlemm, Meindl was under no illusion that his paratroops could fend off an Allied attack. Although he had been reinforced with Luftwaffe ground-service personnel re-equipped to fight as infantry, Meindl considered these a mixed blessing. “They’re more a hindrance than a benefit,” he grumbled to his staff in a farmhouse near Bocholt, a village about ten miles northeast of the river behind Rees.
Meindl knew he had done all he could to meet the juggernaut massing across the river. “With his huge quantities of ammunition and matériel,” he said, “Montgomery can succeed in crossing the river. We need no longer worry as to where and when the crossing will take place, for we know that the enemy can do it wherever he pleases, if he but uses his matériel in a proper way.” Meindl told an aide: “It won’t be long now.”15
THE THOUSANDS OF Canadian, British, and American gunners on the Allied side of the Rhine swarmed into their assigned gun areas at noon on March 23. It was a clear, warm day. Visibility was unlimited. It seemed to Lieutenant William W. Barrett of 13th Canadian Field Regiment that simultaneously, throughout the whole area, the men “began digging slit trenches and weapon pits. In the small fields flanked by the houses of Wissel the dirt started to fly as everyone worked feverishly to be ready to fire ahead of the others.”16
Such activity was bound to attract notice, and in the mid-afternoon, German artillery and mortars began dropping rounds, ranging in from a distance of just twelve hundred yards. Because of the smokescreen, the German gunners were firing blindly, but still one round landed in the midst of ‘A’ Troop’s area. Sergeant Moffat and Gunner Manning were both wounded. A few minutes later, Gunner Pankoski of ‘C’ Troop also fell.17
To avoid detection, 4th Canadian Armoured Divison’s 15th Field Regiment was not allowed to roll its trucks and gun-towing tractors towards the river until March 21. Late that evening, the column arrived at its firing position on the river flats immediately south of the village of Huisberden. Guns “were quickly rolled into the waiting pits, command posts were established in dugouts and farmhouse cellars, and by 1400 hours the regiment had reported ready to HQ RCA. Because of the amount of artillery massed to cover the crossing, the regimental area was not large, but there was sufficient room to have the guns well dispersed. The position, under water a couple of weeks before, was open, flat, and almost devoid of cover. The 95th and 110th batteries were dug in on the reverse slope of a dyke which was just forward of the regimental area, and the 17th Battery was in the fields and orchards slightly to the rear. Digging and camouflage parties had done an excellent job. Dugouts, where the gunners lived, and the gun pits were deep and well built. Sod was carefully placed on the upturned soil, and camouflage nets covered each pit. RHQ [Regimental Headquarters] occupied the cellar of a large well built house just on the edge of the dyke. ‘A’ Echelon . . . occupied an area to the south of the regimental position; its vehicles were carefully camouflaged, not an easy task in an open field. Behind the guns, on the high wooded ground south of the [Kleve-Kalkar] road, were the wagon lines and ammunition echelons. No vehicles whatever were allowed to remain on the gun position.”
Meanwhile, “from dawn to dusk huge billows of smoke [drifted] from the large generators [that] screened the area from observation from the north. Once the screen backfired sending volumes of dirty choking smoke over the gun position, causing a number to wear respirators for the first and only time in action.”18
Sometimes the smokescreen lifted, whether intentionally or not, the moment that gunners began digging pits and towing guns into position. At 1430 hours, the 7th Medium Regiment’s war diarist recorded, most batteries were still preparing to move the large guns into the pits to be ready when “the smoke screen lifted, affording us a perfectly clear view of the eastern bank . . . Doubtless the Germans had an equally good view of us. Digging continued, and we were not troubled by shellfire. At 1630 hours both batteries reported ready with guns in their pits and camouflage completed.” They had finished the job with just thirty minutes to spare until the first rounds were to be fired.19
During the early afternoon, the gunners in each regiment’s “wagon lines, gun pits, and command posts” had the “outline of the operation . . . explained.” They understood where the crossings were to be made, by which units of Second British Army, and when. They understood their gunnery role. The 15th, as was true of most of the Canadian artillery regiments, would pass briefly under command of the XXX British Corps and join “the formidable force of artillery massed to support the crossing.”20
AT 1700 HOURS on March 23, the Rhine erupted in a cataclysm of fire. “It sounded as if the gates of hell had suddenly been opened,” recorded 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s war diarist.21 For Captain Thomas Bell of the 12th Field Regiment, “there seemed to be a solid row of guns firing from our side of the Rhine from Nijmegen . . . stretching miles to the south . . . The din was really terrific! Aside from the hundreds of guns firing, there were tracers everywhere and it was a sight never to be forgotten.”22
Highland Light Infantry’s Private Glen Tomlin was up close to the riverbank. The twenty-one-year-old from Clinton, Ontario, had known the vast bombardment was coming. Still, this was like nothing he had witnessed during his march from Normandy to the Rhine. “It was an awful noise, the ground just shook, everything shook . . . The guns started off and then you heard the shells come over, and they whistle different sounds for different shells.” The 25-pounders were easy to pick out, passing overhead “in a slow whistle.” But as the guns increased their tempo, the sound became “just a continuous roar.” Tomlin “could feel them going over, there was an air motion.”23
W
ith each passing minute more guns weighed in according to a precise schedule. At 1900 hours, to the right of the 12th Field Regiment’s guns, positioned almost on the riverbank, the 100th and 32nd Batteries of the 4th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment started blazing away with twenty-two 40-millimetre Bofors guns. The two batteries were firing a Pepperpot—a technique in which the anti-aircraft guns are lowered and aimed at pre-designated ground targets—to rake German bunkers stationed close to the riverbank with a rapid rate of fire. “Every calibre gun we had in the Army was firing,” the 4th’s regimental historian wrote. “Over our heads, as we fired, flashed white streaks of fire as more 40-mm behind us . . . turned into red balls of tracers as they passed.”24
Pepperpots were not the exclusive domain of the anti-aircraft regiments. Adding to the rain of steel were the heavy 17-pounder tank destroyers of several anti-tank regiments. The 4.5-inch mortars and 50-calibre Vickers machine guns of support regiments, such as the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa (MG) Regiment, also weighed in.
The 4th LAA had earlier dumped eighteen thousand rounds of ammunition next to the two batteries’ gun positions. By sighting along aiming posts set out ahead of their position, each gun crew now ranged on sixteen designated targets near Rees that varied from 3,450 to 4,700 yards distant. The gunners were to continue firing until 2055 hours, ceasing just five minutes before the first wave of British infantry started crossing in Buffalo amphibious landing vehicles. Each gun would burn through 750 rounds at rates ranging from eight to ten per minute, maintaining an intensity of fire that the Bofors were not designed to take. The regiment fired 13,896 rounds.25