by Mark Zuehlke
Precisely at noon on March 26, the remaining Rowley still in action ordered the North Shores to advance alongside a road that led from the anti-tank ditch eastward to the small village of Am Stevert, immediately northwest of Millingen. ‘A’ Company’s Major L.S. Murray had two platoons out front with one following in reserve. Am Stevert lay just under a mile away across wide-open ground, and the company was to lead for six hundred yards to a straggle of farmhouses and then let ‘C’ Company through. This company would advance to Am Stevert, and then ‘D’ Company would hook from the village into Millingen. ‘B’ Company should have come up by then on its path to enter the town in line with ‘D’ Company.5
Under a barrage that Lieutenant M.H. Rogers described as “tremendous,” ‘A’ Company hugged it all the way to the houses. Murray reported at 1240 hours that the farm was secure and he had prisoners. “Opposition was not heavy,” he added.
Five minutes later, battalion headquarters learned that Rowley had been killed by a shell while walking back to the HLI headquarters. Major Neil Gordon roared forward in a jeep to take command, and there was no pause in the operation.6
Out on the left flank, ‘B’ Company headed towards the suspected fortified houses, came under machine-gun fire from them, and was forced to ground. From where he kissed the dirt, Acting Corporal Reginald Alastar Shepherd realized they were going to be slaughtered. Signalling his six-man section, Shepherd led them in a crouched dash across the open ground to strike the buildings from a blind side. He and another man kicked in a door on the closest building and were tangled in a fierce fight. But after several Germans were killed, the remaining twenty-three in the building surrendered, and four machine guns were silenced. This weakened the overall German defences sufficiently to enable ‘B’ Company to carry the other buildings. Shepherd’s dash was recognized with a Military Medal.7
Meanwhile, Major Blake Oulton’s ‘C’ Company had just been moving off the start line when one platoon was smothered by artillery fire. Several men were killed or wounded, and it took the leadership of Sergeant Joseph Lawrence Hennigar to get the survivors moving again. They rejoined the company just in time to move through ‘A’ Company and discover that fifteen hundred yards of level ground, absent any cover, stretched between them and Am Stevert. Oulton, though, had the support of artillery and British tanks. “We walked in under the barrage and the guns of the tanks and in very short order the Germans came flooding out of the houses and trenches, about 200 of them. The defences were good and the guns were there but the platoons were on them before the Germans could lift their heads. For those who couldn’t be dealt with at once, I called up the tanks, and soon we were solid.”8
The major’s account downplayed the intensity of the battle. Some Germans in Am Stevert sought a fight and were well positioned and equipped for it. Hennigar’s platoon had easily seized its objective but had come under heavy fire from houses to the front, which forced the men into a trench they had just cleared. Unable to see the source of the shooting, Hennigar stepped out into the open so that he could direct his men’s fire. They had gained the upper hand when a German tank rumbled out from behind a building and tore into them with its 75-millimetre main gun and machine guns. Grabbing a PIAT gun, Hennigar dropped to the ground, shouldered the awkward weapon, and discharged a bomb that damaged one of the tank’s tracks. This convinced its commander to reverse back the way he had come. Hennigar then turned the PIAT against the buildings and pummelled them with two bombs. The resulting holes in the walls and scattering of shrapnel inside decided the issue, and ten surviving Germans stumbled out. Hennigar’s Military Medal recognized his leadership both at the start line and throughout the fight at Am Stevert.9
Lieutenant Phil Chiasson and his platoon were approaching a house when a German appeared, waving a white flag out one of the windows. The Canadians had seen this ruse before, so Chiasson held his men in place rather than moving into the open to accept the surrender. Sure enough, the Germans suddenly let loose a Panzerfaust round that narrowly missed the lieutenant, who returned fire with a long burst from his Sten gun. That convinced the Germans to surrender for real.
Captain Bob Albert led ‘D’ Company into Millingen and bagged a good number of prisoners. He was just setting up a headquarters in a house when two Germans came “ambling down the street as nonchalant as could be. I assumed they were prisoners sent along by the platoon and yelled at them to get the hell along . . . One got down on his knees, pointed a bazooka [Panzerfaust] at me and let go. I just had time to dive into the door of a house when about half the wall came down on me. That was the lesson I needed. There was no further trouble from that pair, then or afterward, and my rule in the next scrap was ‘shoot first and ask questions afterward.’”
‘D’ Company advanced through Millingen towards an “old-world castle. It was heavily constructed and was thought to be well fortified.” Albert called artillery and even tactical air on assigned targets. The castle was designated for both, and the artillery marked its position for the Typhoon fighter-bombers by striking it with several red smoke shells. The Typhoons screamed down and fired rockets. “The noise was deafening. Then came the big explosions. Our ringside seats were a bit too near and we had two casualties.” The moment the explosions ceased, ‘D’ Company rushed the castle. “We expected things to be really tough, but all we found was 25 Volkssturm with not much fight left.” The castle had served as a military hospital, hastily abandoned. In the cellars, civilian refugees huddled.10 At 1700 hours, the NSR linked up with British troops from the 130th Brigade, and the Bienan bottleneck was uncorked.
AN HOUR AFTER Millingen was secured, the Glens stepped out from the anti-tank ditch and walked north into what remained of the Bienan gap. Their goal was the village of Praest, on a sharp angle west of the Alter Rhine. This was the start of the II Canadian Corps advance on Emmerich, about five miles west of 9 CIB’s new front. The purpose was to create enough elbow room inside the bridgehead to allow 3rd Canadian Infantry Division to establish itself in its entirety as the XXX Corps’s left flank anchor.
The Glens advanced warily, fearing another ambush. Praest lay one and a half miles from the start line, and the ground was the usual open field with a few small, scattered farms that could be German forts. ‘A’ Company’s Major James Wallace Braden was surprised to encounter no resistance at all en route to its first objective. One after the other, the companies passed through each other, meeting barely any opposition. Building clusters whose names had more letters in them than there were houses were quickly cleared. Grevenshof, Hueth, and Phalenhof fell without a shot fired. On one occasion, Braden’s men discovered three German soldiers sleeping soundly and had to shake them awake to take their surrender.
‘A’ Company was beginning to lark along a thousand yards ahead of the rest of the battalion and was closing on Praest. It was beginning to look like a pleasant evening stroll until just before Praest, when the Germans suddenly counterattacked from the village with infantry supported by Tiger tanks. Weighing almost seventy tons and mounting an 88-millimetre gun, these behemoths were a nightmare vision for both Allied infantrymen and tankers. In a shootout, the more lightly armoured and under-gunned Shermans stood little chance. Most infantrymen tended to think all German tanks were Tigers, but whether they were Tigers or not, the approaching armour was more than capable of overrunning Braden’s company.
In the opening moments of the action the artillery forward observation officer (FOO) accompanying the Glens had been killed, so Braden and his second-in-command, Captain Blair Gilmour—who had initially been trained as an artilleryman—got on the wireless set. With Gilmour helping him work out the firing coordinates, Braden called in artillery against the German tanks crunching up against the hasty perimeter ‘A’ Company had thrown together to meet the attack. While Braden directed artillery against the tanks, he concentrated most of the fire on the closing infantry and broke their attack. As the infantry withdrew in disorder, leaving many dead and wounded on the
field, the tanks began milling about uncertainly. Braden and Gilmour immediately turned all the artillery on the tanks, which caused them to scatter and flee back to Praest.11
Counterattack beaten off, the Glens marched on, and by first light on March 27 were positioned in four strongpoints extending back from a clutch of houses identified as Berg, about one thousand yards east of Praest, to the anti-tank ditch by Bienan. Intensive patrolling followed, and throughout the day patrols returned with no prisoners and no reports of sighting Germans. Finally, at 1445 hours, one patrol picked up thirty Germans all wearing civilian clothes but looking very much like soldiers. An increasing number of legitimate civilians were reporting Praest clear of paratroops. The Glens soon set up on the outskirts, securing the start line for an advance by the Canadian Scottish Regiment on Emmerich, from which the civilians claimed the Germans had withdrawn.
It was hard to know what to make of German civilians. The Glens found them “moderately friendly and almost obeisant . . . If they hate us they choose to dissemble their hatred. As is to be expected though, their sympathies are aligned with the German soldier. Upon our arrival here we buried three dead Jerrys found on the premises and the mistress of the house, a reserved, dignified German matron, quietly asked us for the identification of the dead in order that she might, we supposed, mark the graves and communicate with the surviving families.”12
With German opposition limited to the incessant artillery and mortar fire emanating from the woods on the heights of Hoch Elten, the Canadians were able to rapidly expand their presence across the Rhine on March 27. Rockingham and his 9 CIB were clearly worn out, so the advance to Emmerich fell to 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade, with the Can Scots entering the bridgehead at 1300 hours, followed soon after by the Regina Rifles and Royal Winnipeg Rifles. All these battalions crossed on bridges rather than Buffaloes.
Until that morning, most movement of men, vehicles, and supplies had been restricted to a massive amphibious operation that employed hundreds of sappers, pioneers, and Royal Naval personnel equipped with Buffaloes, amphibious trucks (DUKWs), boat ferries, and large rafts capable of transporting tanks and other heavy equipment over the Rhine.13 Although the engineers had erected the first bridge at Rees as early as 0100 hours on March 26, “Waterloo Bridge” was a Class 9 folding boat bridge with limited capacity. This was followed by “Lambeth Bridge,” a Class 15 pontoon bridge, which opened at 0835 hours, and “London Bridge,” a Class 40 Bailey pontoon bridge at 2345 hours. The same day, Canadian engineers from the 29th, 30th, and 31st Field Companies started working west of Rees on a second Class 40 bridge that would be “the longest Bailey Bridge in the world,” at 1,814 feet.14
Following a gruelling round-the-clock schedule, the Canadian sappers and pioneers working on “Blackfriars Bridge” used artificial moonlight provided by searchlight beams bounced off low clouds for night illumination. When the all-too-common fog settled in, searchlights were pointed directly at the structure. Despite the punishing pace, completion was not expected until March 30.15 Hampering all bridging work was the harassing fire from Hoch Elten.
This constant barrage made 7 CIB’s forthcoming advance on Emmerich all the more urgent, as it would allow II Canadian Corps to begin bridge construction in front of the city and would lead to operations against these heights. Crossing on foot over wobbly Waterloo Bridge on the late afternoon of March 26, the Can Scots found “the whole area . . . under shellfire from . . . enemy guns. The Bridgehead was shrouded in a smokescreen; and this, added to the weird flashes of guns, made a ghostly scene as we traversed this last barrier to Fortress Germany.”16 Their regiment’s pipers led the way, the drone of the bagpipes almost a supernatural sound in the false mist.17
WHILE THE CAN Scots formed for their attack, Brigadier Stanley Todd, the II Canadian Corps chief artilleryman, directed a massive artillery program against the city and Hoch Elten that would attain its height on March 28. Once the Rhine bridgehead had been established, Todd had turned the fury of the Canadian artillery against these two targets. Todd knew how artillery weakened the soldiers under its fire: land a shell within fifty to sixty yards of a man and he generally cowered. So in the four days leading up to the attack on Emmerich, Todd decided to make sure every German there would be cowering. Dividing Emmerich and Hoch Elten into hundred-yard squares on a map, he assigned at least one gun to each square. By this strategy, “it wouldn’t be possible for anybody to be outside the range of 50 yards of an individual shell. By firing about four rounds to the hour, at irregular intervals, left to the discretion of the individual gun sergeant, not a German soldier on that hill could go more than 15-20 minutes without having a shell within 50 yards of him. With the technical variances applicable to each shell, none would fall in the same place a second time.”
Todd sought to pin the enemy “to the ground, unable to sleep, crawl to the latrine safely, unable to get meals, unable to get together and unable to give orders.”18 How many shells were ultimately directed against Emmerich and Hoch Elten during these days was never officially recorded, but the 13th Canadian Field Regiment’s historian estimated four million shells were fired at Hoch Elten alone. “So heavy was the shelling that in some places the contour of the feature had been noticeably changed, and little remained but stumps and shattered trunks of the heavy growth of trees which had covered the hill.”19
Despite the massive destruction wrought on Hoch Elten, the German artillery and mortars on its heights slackened their fire only marginally. Their guns and bunkers were dug so deep they remained relatively unscathed. They were also protected by the distance across the Rhine. It was impossible for artillery to gain the correct angle for the fall of shot to be directed on specific targets. Mostly the Canadians fired blind, and that meant the odds of a direct hit were poor.
Like Hoch Elten, Emmerich—a city with a normal population of sixteen thousand—had been all but destroyed by previous bombing and shelling, the former over a long period preceding Plunder. “Emmerich had been more than battered about,” the Canadian Scottish regimental historian wrote. “It had been blasted time and again even before the Rhine had been crossed, and was continually hammered afterwards. Instead of bricks knocked into the street by shellfire, whole walls had crumbled down under attack from the air and land bombardment to block the thoroughfares, and buildings, burning without hindrance, sent tons of masonry, wooden beams and steel girders crashing down into the streets.”20
Deciding he still lacked sufficient firepower to root the Germans out of their formidable fortifications, Todd brought up 4th Canadian Armoured Division’s 4th Canadian Armoured Brigade and strung its three tank regiments in one unbroken line alongside the river. A total of seventeen thousand shells had been stored in pits next to the Shermans for firing at Hoch Elten and Emmerich.21
At 1700 hours, 7th Brigade’s Brigadier Graeme Gibson tersely ordered Lieutenant Colonel Larry Henderson to “move along and . . . take over the advance” from the Glens. Forty-five minutes later, Henderson told the Can Scot company commanders that they would simply advance up the Rees-Emmerich road until they either ran into trouble or walked unmolested into Emmerich. Along the way, they would clear Praest and Vrasselt. ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies would lead, moving along opposite sides of the road. ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies would follow, with the headquarters support platoon and its vehicles strung out on the road farther back. Unlike some Canadian battalions, the Can Scots were in good shape with 801 men and 39 officers. They were rested and ready to go, which they did at 1830 hours.22
The lead companies swept rapidly through Praest, where “all the houses in the town and along the road display[ed] white sheets, pillowcases or shirts to indicate the surrender of the sullen civilian population in their wrecked villages and homes.” Anticipating “that there would be no major opposition before we reached the outskirts of Emmerich,” Henderson decided to keep the ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies out front.23
By midnight the battalion closed, still unopposed, on Vr
asselt, encouraged “to see all the white flags hanging from the houses as the men probed on.” Vrasselt was thoroughly searched for enemy by 0115 hours, and the battalion sent patrols towards a long row of brick-yards and kilns that lined the road to the west of the village. ‘A’ Company soon sent back the first prisoners—a “motley crowd [that] included 3 Italians, 6 Frenchmen, 1 Pole, 1 Belgian, 1 Dutchman, and 3 Germans. There was no way of telling which was enemy and which was friend so they were all treated as suspicious and sent to the [POW] ‘Cage.’”24
The Can Scots were still probing for German defences in front of Emmerich when Gibson issued new orders. Although he had only taken over 7 CIB on February 27, Gibson was a seasoned brigade commander, having led 3rd Brigade from October 1943 to April 1944 and then 2nd Brigade until the conclusion of the Gothic Line battle that October. During his time in Italy, Gibson’s leadership ability had been found lacking, and he had been packed off to administrative postings in England. Then, due to a growing shortage of experienced brigadiers, he was returned to combat duty just as the Rhineland Campaign concluded. This current operation was the first opportunity for his battalion commanders to see their new leader in action during combat. Gibson quickly made it clear that he expected rapid results, even if it cost lives. Expressing impatience with Henderson’s cautious patrolling, he insisted at 0400 hours that the Can Scots “not . . . await the return of their patrol but . . . push [forward] until they gained contact.”