by Mark Zuehlke
The 2nd Canadian Infantry Division also began moving in on March 28—its 6th Brigade relieving 9 CIB, which “had largely ‘carried the ball’ for the [3rd] division since the crossing.” The Sherbrooke Fusiliers armoured regiment, less a squadron already across and moving to help 7 CIB at Emmerich, set up alongside 6 CIB.15
Despite the thousands of Canadians cramming into the narrow patch of real estate inside the bridgehead, First Canadian Army could not unleash its great might until engineers could put bridges across the Rhine in front of Emmerich. The toehold across the Rhine was still too narrow for more bridges to be built east of the city, so Blackfriars Bridge would remain the only one available to serve the Canadians until Emmerich fell and work in front of it could begin.16
As March 28 closed, the Can Scots regrouped amid the ruins of Emmerich’s industrial area. East of Emmerich, the Regina Rifles’ ‘D’ Company set up for the night in a brick factory after advancing two miles from Dornick, and the rest of the battalion camped in nearby positions to the left. Lieutenant Walter Keith was just having a comfortable latrine squat when German artillery opened with a fury on the entire brigade front. Immediately abandoning his mission, he “ran like a scalded cat for the brick ovens.” Most of ‘D’ Company crowded into these, “while the German guns landed shell after shell on top of the building. We tried to sleep but were kept awake by the shelling and watching the cracks in the oven tops grow wider each time a shell landed.”17
AT 2300 HOURS that night, the Royal Winnipeg Rifles’ ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies moved towards Kleine Netterden, which overlooked Emmerich from the high ground to the northeast. At first there was little resistance, but when ‘A’ Company closed on a large cement factory at the entrance to the village, it came alive with paratroops madly firing automatic weapons. A prolonged firefight broke out around the factory and soon the entire battalion was engaged. It took until 0300 hours to quell the resistance. Eighty Germans, evenly divided between the 346th Infantry Division and 16th Fallschirmjäger Regiment, surrendered.18 Some reported that their officers had warned them that if they surrendered, the Allies would shoot them, and if they ran, their superiors would do it.19
The RWR was instructed to hold the village until relieved by the division’s reconnaissance regiment, the 17th Duke of York’s Royal Canadian Hussars. Once the hussars reached the scene with their armoured cars, the battalion was to assault Leegmeer, a suburb on Emmerich’s northern flank, and then clear some woods on the edge of the city that sheltered enemy artillery and mortar positions.20
While this attack was being geared up, the Can Scots slowly pushed through the ruins of the industrial sector. It was a terrible night that “saw what was probably the most vicious fighting of the battle for Emmerich.”21 Periods of “stealthy approaches” were interspersed with “sharp, savage fire fights.”22
‘A’ Company was preparing to hook into the city from the north by swinging through the hamlet of Groendahl when it was struck by “cunningly concealed mortars.” With several men hit, the company scattered. While the company commander tried to regroup them to put in the attack, his wireless operator, Lance Corporal Albin James Kellerman, crept into the darkness and located the mortars. Amidst “the storm of mortar fire, and despite the efforts of German snipers to knock him out,” Kellerman fed the mortar position’s coordinates over the wireless to the Can Scots’ mortar platoon. His directions were so accurate that the first rounds wiped out the German position, a feat for which he received a Military Medal.23
With the mortars silenced, ‘A’ Company quickly cleared Groendahl. It then joined ‘C’ Company in pushing into Emmerich’s northeastern outskirts, which outflanked the Germans holding the industrial area and caused them to slow down the fight there. These gains freed the Landwehr from German observation, enabling the engineers to start bridge construction under the cover of darkness. Using the footings of a demolished sluice gate, the engineers—despite continual harassing fire—opened a crossing for tanks at 0630 hours on March 29.24
Shortly after dawn, the Can Scots—with the Reginas’ ‘D’ Company moving just off to the left to link the two battalions—punched into the city proper. The rest of the Reginas, supported by a troop of tanks from the Sherbrooke Fusiliers’ ‘C’ Squadron and a troop of the Fife and Forfar Yeomanry, equipped with Crocodiles took up station somewhat farther to the left. To the right, the Winnipegs—also supported by tanks and Crocodiles—advanced into Leegmeer.
Lieutenant Walter Keith’s No. 16 Platoon had the objective of two factory buildings separated by a narrow lane. Keith decided that the platoon section commanded by Corporal Homer Adams would lead, with the other two following in an arrowhead pattern. Thinking a leader should be out front, he told Major Dick Roberts he would go forward with Adams’s section. “You’ll stay behind that section,” Roberts growled. As the men started forward, a Sherbrooke 17-pounder Firefly Sherman rumbled up behind and fired several rounds over their heads towards the factories. This unexpected and deafening support set Adams and his men “yelling and firing across the street” as they ran. From the nearest factory a German opened up with a Schmeisser, and the section dived for cover behind a stub of rubble that had once been a perimeter wall. Keith and the rest of the platoon slid in beside them. Quickly fanning out along this minimal cover, the men started shooting their rifles and Bren guns at the building. After a pause to reload, No. 16 Platoon charged through a gaping hole in the factory wall. The same German popped up from behind a low wall and ripped off a burst that ricocheted bullets off a steel column supporting the factory roof. As the Reginas advanced, the man fell back, firing as he gave ground, and then fled out the back door.
Keith and his men emerged warily from behind the cover of a small brick shed. Rifleman Milo Thorson dodged to one side and assumed a prone position behind a mound of shattered bricks in order to cover the platoon’s forward move with his Bren gun. As he braced the gun into his shoulder, a sniper round struck him in the forehead. Keith saw “his chest heave with his last breath.” Sergeant Tommy Tomlinson dashed out and dragged him back to the shed without a thought for the risk taken. Platoon stretcher bearer T.J. Swalwell, a Torontonian, dusted yellow sulpha powder into the hole in Thorson’s forehead and then bandaged the wound. It was a futile effort. The twenty-year-old, who hailed from a farm south of Dollard, Saskatchewan, was already dead.25
Meanwhile, the Regina’s ‘B’ and ‘C’ Companies were advancing on Emmerich to the left.26 ‘B’ Company was supported by the Crocodiles, and ‘C’ had the Sherbrooke Shermans. The two companies pushed through the ruins in a rain of heavy mortar, machine-gun, and Panzerfaust fire from German paratroops. Piles of rubble blocked the streets, hampering movement of the supporting armour. One Crocodile was knocked out by a well-concealed self-propelled gun. At 1300 hours, ‘A’ Company joined the other two Regina companies and met the same dogged resistance. Several men were wounded by mines.27
The farther the Reginas advanced, the harder the paratroops fought, using a simple but effective tactic. Armed with large numbers of automatic weapons, a small group sprayed bursts towards the Reginas, forcing a deployment for an assault. Once the Canadians were spread out and ready, the Germans would slip back and repeat the process from another position. Because of roadblocks and increasingly narrow streets, the supporting armour had trouble keeping pace. Railway cars had been wedged crosswise throughout the streets and then filled to bursting with rubble, creating roadblocks weighing many tons. The tanks were unable to push them aside and so would have to seek an alternative route in the maze of streets and destroyed buildings. Finally, the armour was completely stymied, and “the operation became a straight infantry fight . . . For the next six hours the slugging match continued, the troops fighting their way from house to house. All this time the entire town was subjected to heavy enemy shelling, but by 1900 hours about half the town had been cleared against decreasing opposition.”28
‘D’ Company remained in the thick of things, tying tog
ether the Reginas and Can Scots. As No. 16 Platoon braced to dash across the lane and into the second large factory, a pile of rubble to Lieutenant Keith’s left shot up in the air several times as if of its own accord. Keith suddenly realized the pile was being struck by armour-piercing rounds, but he was unable to spot the tank.
Sergeant Joe Moran from another ‘D’ Company platoon, meanwhile, saw the tank but mistook it for a Sherman and walked towards it. “When the big gun started moving around toward him, he waved at it, and then realized it was too long to be one of ours! He got down behind a low wall and leaped along with the German shells following just behind him.”
As the tank chased Moran, Keith’s men dashed across the lane. They burst into the factory, yelling and firing from the hip. Seeing that one of his men had stopped shooting, Corporal Adams yelled at him to do so. “Why? There’s nothing to shoot at,” the man snapped back. He was right; the factory had been abandoned. No. 16 Platoon scoured several deep bomb shelters dug under the factory floor. Looking back from the factory, Keith saw what looked to be a Sherman burning (actually, the knocked-out Crocodile), and soon “a German armoured assault gun came backwards down the railway track, its horribly long gun facing backward. It passed close to us.”29
During their advance, the Can Scots had called for supporting mortars to deliberately set a massive cement plant on fire with phosphorous rounds to avoid having to secure the sprawling facility. This action seemed to so unsettle the paratroops that they quickly began giving ground.30 By 1600 hours, the Can Scots had two companies— along with the Regina’s ‘D’ Company—in control of the entire factory area, and the battalion’s other two companies were well inside the town and advancing alongside the main body of Reginas.31
THE ROYAL WINNIPEG Rifles advanced into Leegmeer at 1800 hours on March 29. ‘A’ Company led, with ‘D’ Company close behind. Resistance was “fairly heavy,” but “the attack went well.” As the advance progressed, ‘B’ Company leapfrogged ‘A’ Company, and ‘C’ Company passed through ‘D’ Company. ‘C’ Company continued in this role through difficult fighting until ‘D’ Company returned to the lead at 2200 hours and led the way out of the built-up area to gain the woods, which was the final objective.32
An hour later, “though tired from continuous marching and fighting,” the Regina Rifles “regrouped and continued the advance to clear whatever opposition remained in the southwest corner of Emmerich.” Three rifle companies, ‘D,’ ‘C,’ and ‘A,’ advanced in a ragged line.33 No. 16 Platoon headed for a liqueur distillery and adjacent machine shop. The men figured the first would be worth a fight, but both were undefended and the distillery was “smashed like everything else in Emmerich.” They scoured the ruins for Germans and hoped for bottles, but came up empty on both counts. Dashing about to check on his three sections, Keith took a nasty fall that resulted in a painful groin injury. Setting his platoon headquarters in the distillery’s basement, he fell asleep, only to be jolted awake by the sound of shells being lobbed at the building’s skeletal upper structure from a German tank on the railway embankment. It was 0300 hours on March 30, and all of ‘D’ Company was on its final objectives and bracing for a possible counterattack.
Fearing the tank might presage one, Keith called on Corporal Blacky Turner to set up the PIAT and said he would serve as the loader. Turner’s nerves were so shot that he “shook all night,” but Keith figured the corporal would perform well if he had to engage the tank. Everyone was exhausted, their nerves increasingly frayed. Sergeant Tomlinson slumped next to Keith and said, “Geez, sir, you were great! I thought you’d been in action a lot before.” The comment made Keith’s night.34
Although ‘D’ Company’s advance had gone off without significant incident, the other two companies faced stiffer fighting through a long night and into the following morning. ‘C’ Company played hide and seek with paratroops moving from house to house, until they were finally surrounded and forced to surrender. Grenade exchanges were frequent, and during one of these the company commander, Major John Gordon Baird, was wounded. Moments later the Germans involved in this duel gave up. The company was on its objective at 0330 hours.35
‘A’ Company had the hardest time, coming up against the last major resistance point, a heavily fortified and manned strongpoint in some shattered buildings on the southwestern edge of the city. Unable to gain ground frontally, the company called for assistance. Striking from the right at 0400, a ‘C’ Company platoon fought its way into the strongpoint but was immediately ejected when paratroops heavily armed with Panzerfausts and machine guns counterattacked.
At the same time, the rest of ‘C’ Company tried to close on its final objective but was repelled by heavy machine-gun fire from some devastated oil plants off to one flank and a tank firing from the front. Regrouping, the company tried again and finally took its objective at 1610 hours.36
That left only the formidable strongpoint, which “baffled the riflemen throughout the morning.” A proliferation of roadblocks fanning out along the streets and lanes approaching it bedevilled attempts to bring up armour. Finally, at dawn, a route was opened and three Wasp carriers came up to support a new attack.37
One rifle platoon advanced alongside the Wasps, which bathed the buildings with fire, until they ran out of fuel and the attack crumbled. As they withdrew, however, the riflemen were informed that the ruins of the two buildings in which the strongpoint was anchored were connected by a series of basement passages heavily fortified for use as firing positions and to provide sheltered lines of communication throughout the bastion.
Deciding that more firepower was required, the Reginas refuelled the first Wasps and brought up another three. Divvying up the six Wasps so that each building would be subjected to an equal number of flame showers, ‘A’ Company attacked. Both buildings were set ablaze, but still the Germans in the underground passages fought on. It was only when the riflemen got on top of several entrances and “plenty of grenades had been thrown down the cellars that some 50 odd enemy decided that the war for them was over and gave up.”38
As the Reginas had been finishing this fight, the Winnipegs were counterattacked by paratroops supported by two self-propelled guns and six tanks.39 Rifleman George “Bunker” Hill was part of a crew from the anti-tank platoon manning a 6-pounder set up beside a small house. Hill had just fallen asleep when the men on watch shouted that Germans were coming their way. Dashing to a window, Hill stuck his head out and found himself staring point-blank at a Tiger’s 88-millimetre gun. “How can he fire that thing without killing all of us?” Hill thought, as he stepped away from the window. Fortunately, the tank rumbled off a short distance and then paused, apparently unaware of the men in the house.
Armed with a Gammon anti-tank grenade, which was filled with nitroglycerine and could be attached to a tank’s armour, Hill snuck out to attack the Tiger from behind. Unable to close on it, he suddenly remembered he was an anti-tank gunner and, wisely forgetting about the solo mission, returned to the gun by the side of the house. Realizing the sight the gun still mounted was intended for day use rather than night, Hill decided to fire by dead reckoning. “I lowered the barrel to where I was pointing right at the tank. I looked over the gun two or three times to try and make sure. I finally let go and hit him dead on. When I hit him it lit the street right up just like day. He sure knew where I was and fired right back and hit me and threw me and my gun up against the house. I thought I had had it but I rolled around and got up and shook myself when I got to my feet. It was a miracle that I hadn’t been wounded. When I got moving around, I found out that the rest of the fellows were gone. They thought I had got it. I could not hear much for a few days, but did eventually get back to normal. Lucky for me the machine-gunner in the tank had to put in a new belt of ammo and so there was just enough time for me to make my getaway.”40
Confusion reigned in the Winnipeg lines as the counterattack struck ‘B’ and ‘D’ Companies. Major Latimer Hugh Denison of ‘D’ Compan
y was killed, and casualties within the ranks mounted rapidly. ‘B’ Company lost contact with two of its platoons. Cut into three parts, they each fought separate, desperate battles.41
Finally, the counterattack was beaten off with help from ‘L’ Troop of the 3rd Canadian Anti-Tank Regiment’s 105th Battery. Seeing ‘D’ Company pinned down by the fire of several tanks and SPGs about two hundred yards away, Sergeant D. Gomez manoeuvred his Valentine tank destroyer to where he could fire at the rear of an SPG positioned behind a ruined house. Gomez’s crew fired five rounds of armour-piercing shot and scored three direct hits. Then they fired two high-explosive rounds into a cellar sheltering paratroops. An hour later, Gomez spotted another SPG firing on ‘D’ Company’s headquarters. He moved into the open and engaged it in a shootout that silenced his opponent with one round. Subsequent investigation determined that Gomez’s single shot had punched through the armoured side protecting one track and burned out the inside of the SPG’s hull. Gomez’s actions yielded a well-earned Distinguished Conduct Medal.42
Well south of this action, a counterattack fell on the Reginas’ ‘D’ Company. Lieutenant Jim Koester was shot and killed. Just before the assault on Emmerich, Koester had told Keith, “After the war I want to sit by the side of the road and be a friend to man.” Keith thought sadly of the man’s recently acquired English wife, so soon widowed.43