by Mark Zuehlke
The paratroops putting in the counterattack seized two large buildings on ‘D’ Company’s left flank and started harassing the entire perimeter with sniper fire. Major Roberts told Keith to take them with a bayonet attack. As the company’s 2-inch mortar crew fired smoke and explosive rounds, Keith lined up No. 16 Platoon and then “we went running flat out, yelling and screaming, and firing our rifles from the hip. We could see the mortar bombs landing directly on the German position, dead on time. They stopped just before we charged up and we hit the trenches to find the Germans gone! Don’t know whether it was the mortar bombs or our noisy charge that scared them off!”
Keith climbed a high earth embankment and spotted a German machine-gun position just as it snapped off a burst to his left. Someone shouted, “Blacky’s hit.” The short burst had instantly killed the twenty-three-year-old Turner, who hailed from Hamilton, Ontario. “I have a strong feeling Blacky knew the night before that he was going to be killed. He had that distinctive look of someone who was soon to die; apparently it was quite common. It was still a tragedy. Blacky had landed on D-Day and had, as far I knew, not been wounded. I regret not having him evacuated as a battle exhaustion case. He certainly was.” It took an air strike by Typhoon bombers firing rockets to finally dislodge these last diehard paratroops.44
In the late afternoon, the Can Scots moved to finish the job of clearing Emmerich. Each company worked alone. Because of the profusion of roadblocks, they were seldom supported by armour or Wasps. By 1702 hours, both ‘A’ and ‘C’ Companies reported “the ‘going’ was not difficult.” They were picking up prisoners and at 2100 all companies reported they were on their objectives.45
“And so on Good Friday, 1945,” Regina Major Eric Luxton wrote, “Emmerich was declared, ‘kaput.’” His battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Al Gregory, summed up the bitter battle for the city as one “for control. The heavily bombed town with [road]blocks and rubble presented difficulty in keeping direction and in denying the use of close supporting arms . . . It was in a sense guerilla fighting, each house had to be cleared as [infantry] advanced, no telling which could hold snipers. The number of automatic weapons was out of all proportion to what would normally be encountered in fighting regular German infantry. Every enemy carried an automatic of some type. Mines proved a bugbear.” The Reginas reported 150 prisoners and had no idea how many paratroops they had killed or wounded. In exchange, their casualties numbered seven officers and sixty other ranks.46 The Can Scots reported thirteen killed and forty-six wounded.47 Winnipeg Rifle casualties were not recorded, but the other two battalions suffered a total loss of 126 men and officers, and 7 CIB’s overall casualties were reported as thirteen officers and 156 men. Undoubtedly, the Winnipeg Rifles accounted for most of the unidentified forty-three additional casualties.48
Brigadier Graeme Gibson wrote in his war diary entry for March 31: “The battalions did a splendid job under the most trying conditions. The Germans fought hard and fanatically to prevent our occupying the town—but due to the persistence and courage of all our [troops] the town was taken.”49
[8]
Utmost Tenacity
EVEN AS EMMERICH fell, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division threw its last brigade at Hoch Elten on March 31 from start lines west of the city. The Régiment de la Chaudière was on the left and the Queen’s Own Rifles on the right, with the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment in reserve. Just after midnight, the QOR moved with almost reverential care “through the shattered tomb that once was a town . . . in darkness that was crowded with hushed voices and scuffling boots.” At 0200 hours, ‘C’ Company led off, with each company passing through another in turn until the battalion reached the hamlet of Ingenhof halfway to the heights. There was no opposition.1
When the Chauds’ ‘A’ Company bumped scattered opposition from inside a group of houses two hundred yards short of its objective, ‘B’ Company swung in from the right flank and dislodged the Germans with heavy gunfire. ‘A’ Company took fourteen prisoners, but counted two other ranks killed and one wounded, while an unscathed ‘B’ Company rounded up four prisoners. Passing through, the other two companies advanced along the road from Emmerich that led to the heights. Although sporadic, the French Canadians were dogged by Panzerfaust, machine-gun, and sniper fire while having to constantly watch for mines. Four men from ‘D’ Company were wounded in exchange for twenty-five Germans captured. One Chaudière officer decided that the Germans, now “clinging at the end of their rope . . . are to inflict the most casualties they possibly can, and then give themselves up.”2
Both battalions ran into small shootouts as they pushed on through the early afternoon. Each time the Germans offered a stand, ‘A’ Squadron of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers weighed in with its Shermans. The defenders immediately “fled into the woods” and were usually quickly rounded up as prisoners. Given the rapidity of the advance at little cost, Brigadier J.A. “Jim” Roberts decided against rotating his reserve to the front. The QOR was ordered to continue the attack “non-stop.”3 Opposition across the Chaudière front collapsed as they approached the base of the heights and the occupation was made without any difficulty, except for a few bombs that fell sporadically onto their positions. By 1430 hours, the battalion reported itself solid before the heights, within shattered woods laced with innumerable abandoned gun pits.4
As the QOR closed on the foot of Hoch Elten, however, it came under heavy machine-gun, mortar, and artillery fire from its heights and suffered several casualties. Some disarray followed, and it was not until 1600 hours that ‘B’ Company led the way towards some buildings hugging the slope next to a road that cut across the feature. As the men moved in among the buildings, they were caught by heavy artillery fire, and several men were killed and wounded. Snipers also started potting away from the woods to the right, but the tanks quickly silenced them. At 1700 hours, ‘D’ Company passed through to “scramble” another two hundred yards up the slope, even as shellfire struck down several more men.
The advance continued at a crawl up the steep, exposed slopes that had been stripped clear of their natural foliage by Allied shelling. At midnight, ‘C’ Company passed to the front. Moving “silently in the darkness and encountering no opposition,” the battalion consolidated on the summit and at dawn advanced to the northwestern flank. Below, on the left, was the village of Elten and beyond, an unimpeded view deep into Holland. “The enemy had withdrawn and the area was quiet,” a QOR officer subsequently wrote.5 Reduced to a wasteland of shattered stumps intermingled with countless bomb and shell craters, Hoch Elten resembled a Great War landscape. The troops scattered across it made it clear they were anxious to move on and leave this terrible place behind. The brigade’s casualty toll for winning the feature was far lighter than expected—one officer and sixty-four other ranks killed or wounded.6
A wireless message sent to First Canadian Army headquarters reported that “at least one company of infantry [was] now on top of Hoch Elten feature,” and the staff officers broke into cheers.7 The news came in the nick of time, for at 1030 hours that April 1 morning, the Canadian engineers had been ordered to start bridging operations opposite Emmerich regardless of whether the heights were taken. Unimpeded by artillery and mortars on Hoch Elten, the men finished the approaches for a Bailey bridge stretching 1,348 feet from shore to shore by noon. Melville Bridge was scheduled to open early the next day. Meanwhile, more engineers started work on a 1,757-foot bridge, slated to open in three days’ time.8
The 17th Duke of York’s Royal Canadian Hussars had eagerly awaited Hoch Elten’s fall, for it “finally started unclogging the holes of the salt cellar they had been in for the last few months and all that was necessary was for someone to ‘tip it’ and the fast Recce patrols, shaking the last few bits of mud from their wheels, would begin pouring all over the country.” This morning, 3rd Division’s Major General R.H. “Holly” Keefler “tipped that salt and out poured the regiment,” wrote the 17th’s official historian.
&n
bsp; On the day before, March 31, 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade had secured a start line for the armoured car regiment about three miles north of Emmerich at the village of s’Heerenberg, which stood on the edge of the Stokkummer Bosch—a large forested area northeast of Hoch Elten. Striking out of the village early on the morning of April 1, the 17th’s ‘A’ Squadron, under Captain J.O. MacArthur, headed for a road that ran north into Holland to Wehl, about five miles distant.9
All went smoothly until the advance patrol’s commander, Lieutenant R.K. Smith—just returned to the regiment after being wounded in the opening days of the Normandy invasion—“found himself in a rather precarious position.” Smith’s party consisted of a pair of Daimler Mk I armoured cars mounting 2-pounder guns for main armament and crewed by three men. Smith “was feeling his way down the long slope into the crossroads at Kilder, when suddenly the loud crash of an ‘88’ came from the high woods [of Stokkummer Bosch] to his left. He looked around and saw that the second car, commanded by Sgt. W. Duggan, had been knocked out. As two more shots narrowly missed his Daimler, Smith hastened for cover amongst the buildings clustered around the crossroads. This was a very tight spot, as he could not advance without support from another armoured car. He had also bypassed the Germans who had knocked out Duggan’s car, so retreat was not an option.” Getting on the wireless, Smith summoned artillery down in the general area of the German gun to make its crew duck and kept the fire raining in until some Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders arrived and silenced the “lone weapon. Lt. Smith and his crew breathed a deep sigh of relief and rejoined their troop, who now had to get along without one of their finest NCOs, Sgt. Duggan and his Gunner-operator, Tpr. Pullen.”10 Both Sergeant William Francis Duggan and Corporal Earl Joseph Pullen had died when the 88-millimetre round pierced the Daimler’s thin armour.
While ‘A’ Squadron advanced into the open country east of s’Heerenberg, ‘C’ Squadron had followed a due-westerly course along a country road running through Stokkummer Bosch. Emerging from the dense woods unopposed, the squadron swept through the hamlet of Beek and on towards the town of Diadem, some two miles due west. No. 9 Troop was motoring along a stretch of road bordered on either side by inundated farm fields when it came to a “huge crater, which was covered by MG and rifle fire.” Hooking out from behind, No. 10 Troop swung south and gained the other side of a boggy stream, only to be driven back by heavy Panzerfaust and machine-gun fire. The thin armour of the cars was easily penetrated by the Panzerfaust bombs, so the squadron pulled back from the roadblock and set up a defensive perimeter to await the arrival of 9 CIB infantry battalions.
‘B’ Squadron also punched due west on April 1 from a start line inside Hoch Elten earlier secured by 8 CIB’s Queen’s Own and the Chauds. The armoured cars followed a railway that hugged the Rhine from Emmerich to Arnhem. Cutting past the southern face of Hoch Elten, the armoured cars rumbled through Elten and then along a northwesterly course for four miles to Zevenaar. Midway between the two communities, the squadron crossed the Dutch- German border, rounding up twenty to thirty German prisoners en route. A mile short of Zevenaar, resistance stiffened, and the squadron also formed a perimeter and waited on the infantry.11
APRIL 1 CLOSED the curtains on 3rd Canadian Infantry Division’s role in Operation Plunder. Along with the rest of II Canadian Corps, this division began to conform to First Canadian Army’s directions from Montgomery to advance into the Netherlands and westernmost Germany. Having crossed into the bridgehead on March 28, 2nd Canadian Infantry Division had already embarked on this operation by having 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade establish a footing for a northwestward advance through Netterden, Wieken, and Gendringen—three small communities lying at the base of a narrow Dutch salient that thrust southeastward into Germany. Once these communities were in hand, the brigade would advance six and a half miles northwest to gain Doetinchem.
The Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada had played the first hand late on March 29 with aggressive patrols towards Netterden that bagged sixty-four prisoners.12 Most of them had surrendered personally to Sergeant John Ruczak when he led a ‘B’ Company patrol towards Gendringen. Approaching a farm complex, the platoon encountered three guards and took them prisoner. Hot on the heels of a fleeing German, Ruczak dashed into a building, only to be confronted by about forty soldiers preparing to defend it. Loosing several bursts from his Sten that drove the Germans to cover, Ruczak then gestured threateningly at them with his weapon while shouting in a mixture of English and crude German that they could surrender or die. The bluff worked, the Germans meekly surrendered, and Ruczak netted a Military Medal.13
The Camerons’ easy advance encouraged Lieutenant Colonel A.A. “Bert” Kennedy to advance ‘D’ Company towards Netterden and have ‘C’ Company loop behind the village to cut off any line of retreat. Major Dennis Dickens Sweeting approached the village warily after a patrol reported Germans dug in on the outskirts. Rather than blundering about the village streets, Sweeting decided to wait for first light. As his men attacked at 0400, ‘C’ Company also came in from behind. Sandwiched, the Germans decided to fight to the end, and “bitter fighting ensued on the streets.”14
With casualties mounting rapidly on both sides, Sweeting realized the Camerons risked being wiped out unless the two companies could marry up. Dashing across three hundred yards of bullet-swept ground, Sweeting reached ‘C’ Company and guided it back to his men. Having created a unified front, the two companies advanced against the most heavily defended group of buildings.15 When all the Germans here were either killed or wounded, a momentary lull followed, during which the two sides carried out a shouted and suspicious negotiation. The result was an agreement to allow each side to evacuate its wounded. While this was going on, Sweeting approached a German officer and gave him thirty minutes to surrender or “be totally destroyed.”16 Before the deadline expired, two officers and twenty-two men surrendered, and Netterden was taken.17 At a cost of four Camerons killed and ten wounded, the battalion had taken 130 prisoners.
The advance moved into open farm country, with 2nd Division’s 8th Reconnaissance Regiment (14th Canadian Hussars) armoured cars rolling directly towards Doetinchem and the Camerons moving on a northerly line towards Veldhunten. While the armoured-car squadrons were there to protect the Cameron’s left flank, they were also seeking to contact 3rd Division’s 17th Duke of York Royal Canadian Hussars, believed to be operating to the west.
By the early morning of March 31, the 14th Hussars and all three of 6 CIB’s battalions were meeting stiffening resistance. Soon the two leading Cameron companies were pinned by machine-gun fire just short of Veldhunten.18 To the left, the Hussars were hampered more by impassable inundated fields than by Germans. Unable to locate their Duke of York colleagues, the regiment spent a frustrating day wallowing through country more suited to infantry.19 At day’s end, divisional command agreed and directed the regiment to swing around to the extreme right flank to support an advance by 5 CIB the following morning across the Oude River IJssel and then along a highway leading to Doetinchem. Right of the Camerons, meanwhile, 6 CIB’s Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal had advanced on Gendringen, harassed every step of the way by mortar and shellfire.20 Finally gaining the town at day’s end, they were met by Dutch civilians, “as usual cheering like mad.” While such exuberance was normally welcome, in the midst of an ongoing firefight, the Fusiliers found that the Dutch were “becoming a nuisance with their grateful demonstration.”21
Brigadier Jean Allard quickly passed the South Saskatchewan Regiment through Gendringen with instructions to push on a farther three and a half miles north to Etten “if the front should suddenly go soft.”22 Suffering only three men killed and another fifteen wounded, the SSR was soon firmly ensconced within Etten. On April 1, while 6 CIB was advancing rapidly along the river’s eastern bank, 5th Brigade’s Canadian Black Watch had passed ‘A’ company across the river at 0100 hours to lead the advance on Doetinchem. Under a clear night sky, the comp
any made steady progress until it closed on the outskirts of Terborg.23 From positions around several windmills, the Germans opened fire, and a close-quarters firefight ensued. Rushing to the rescue, the Fort Garry Horse’s ‘A’ Squadron quickly quelled German resistance. Ten prisoners, including an officer, were brought in.
When the Black Watch’s Danish-born acting commander, Major Eric Motzfeldt, interrogated the man, he said his twenty-five-man force had been ordered to guard Terborg’s approaches at any cost. Those men not taken prisoner were either killed or had deserted. Motzfeldt distrusted this intelligence, as ‘A’ Company was repeatedly bouncing into resistance pockets firing from well-placed machinegun positions. Each had to be taken in turn, with the Germans yielding only when the fight moved to close quarters. During one such dust-up, two ‘A’ Company men crawled up on a hidden slit trench and a German inside clubbed one of them with his rifle butt. The other man shot the German dead. The battered Canadian reported only feeling groggy and suffering a headache.24
Shortly after this action, ‘B’ Company moved through and made its way along a section of the highway bordered by tightly spaced houses on either side. Each house had to be cleared in turn, so progress slowed to a crawl. Growing increasingly impatient and also plagued by poor wireless communication back to battalion headquarters, Motzfeldt went forward at 0422 hours to personally assess the situation. After being reamed out, the company commander “decided to go right in on his objective without any more searching . . . so the [company] walked the remaining 500 yards [down the street] to their area around the church . . . having not a shot fired at them en route.” The only casualty was a stretcher bearer who almost had his entire ear bitten off when he tried to treat a wounded German. Soon ‘C’ Company arrived, and the two companies swept through Terborg without meeting significant resistance. By 0620 hours, the village was sufficiently cleared to allow the Calgary Highlanders to head for Doetinchem.