On to Victory

by Mark Zuehlke

  Although the Twenty-First Army Group’s planning section report was a chilling document, neither Crerar nor Montgomery used it to argue for abandoning the operation. For his part, Crerar continued to refer to its prospect as something that might or might not be demanded of the army. Ultimately, both men knew that the decision on whether to proceed would, just as the planners had foreseen, be made by their political masters.

  [10]

  A Lion and a Tiger

  GENERAL HARRY CRERAR could afford to set aside the western Holland operation because I Canadian Corps would be well positioned to advance in that direction once it cleared the Nijmegen Island opposite Arnhem to begin opening the transportation corridor from this city through to Deventer. Meanwhile, he could direct the more robust II Canadian Corps towards operations that fit Montgomery’s preferred strategy by having it drive the Germans back across the IJssel on the bridgehead’s western flank and the Twente Canal to the north. Thereafter, the corps could clear the northern part of Montgomery’s supply route running from Deventer to Zutphen.

  Mindful of Montgomery’s desires, Crerar gave II Canadian Corps priority call on all the army’s resources and No. 84 Fighter Group, RAF, which was to provide tactical air support.1 Lieutenant General Charles Foulkes got the meagre leftovers.

  Foulkes even lost his tough 1st Canadian Infantry Division, which had earned a reputation in Italy as Eighth Army’s elite shock troops. Crerar considered the frontage over which Lieutenant General Guy Simonds must operate so wide and heavily defended that he provided him with what he understatedly described as “a very strong corps.” Adding the Red Patch Devils increased II Canadian Corps’s complement to three. Simonds also retained his inherent armoured division and 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade. Additionally, to add “extra fast moving firepower,” Crerar stripped Foulkes of his 1st Armoured Car Regiment (Royal Canadian Dragoons). Foulkes kept only 5th Canadian Armoured Division, 1st Armoured Brigade, and the British 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division.

  Simonds decided to punch a hole through the German lines on a narrow front. On his right, 4th Armoured Division would advance northeastward to cross the Twente Canal at Lochem. In the centre, 2nd Infantry Division would strike towards Zutphen, with 3rd Infantry Division following a closely paralleling track through Wehl to the left and focused on the same objective. To offer Foulkes some measure of support and prevent the two corps losing contact with each other, 3rd Division’s 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade would divert westward from Wehl to Zevenaar and Didam—about midway between Emmerich and Arnhem.2 Here it might marry up with 49th Division—assuming the British managed to bounce the Neder Rijn and create a bridgehead on the north side of the river immediately east of Arnhem upon clearing the Nijmegen Island’s eastern sector. With all his riches, Simonds could afford to place 1st Division in reserve until Zutphen fell. He would then leapfrog it past his other two infantry divisions to strike westward towards Apeldoorn. This advance would protect his left flank, freeing Simonds to direct the entire weight of his normal corps towards northeastern Holland and northwestern Germany without concern for protecting his rear.

  Using 1st Division this way would also serve Crerar well if it developed that an advance towards western Holland was ordered. As it closed on Apeldoorn, Crerar planned to return the division to I Canadian Corps should it need to advance westward.

  Both Simonds and Foulkes launched their new attacks on April 2. Anticipating a breakout into open country suited to armour, Simonds divided 4th Armoured Division into two highly mobile battle groups that would allow each to fight independently. Canadian armoured divisions fielded just two brigades rather than the three common to infantry divisions. One brigade was exclusively armoured and the other was infantry. Original doctrine had foreseen the armoured brigade making lightning runs across open ground with its preponderance of tanks outgunning anything in its path. Travelling with the brigade would be the division’s one battalion of motorized infantry, equipped with armoured personnel carriers that could keep pace with the armour. The infantry brigade would follow behind to mop up bypassed resistance pockets. In reality, European terrain and German defensive tactics seldom allowed such strategies. The profusion of water courses and extensive inundation in Holland and western Germany limited tank mobility while providing the Germans with multiple defensive lines that must be overcome in endless succession. To meet this situation, the Canadians had taken to mixing the two brigades into hybrid battle groups, where tanks and infantry could mutually support each other.

  Leading the division’s advance, Battle Group Lion was to advance to the Twente Canal. Commanded by 10th Infantry Brigade’s Brigadier Jim Jefferson, Lion’s armoured strength came from 4th Armoured Brigade’s Governor General’s Foot Guards and the division’s reconnaissance unit, the South Alberta Regiment. Jefferson retained his Algonquin and Argyll and Sutherland Highlander regiments for infantry. He also had the heavy machine guns of the New Brunswick Rangers, the 14th Canadian Anti-Tank Battery, 15th Canadian Field Ambulance, and the engineers of 9th Canadian Field Squadron. Simonds viewed the task as relatively simple because the British 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division’s 129th Infantry Brigade had almost gained Lochem, a village close to the canal.

  Once Lion established a bridgehead over the Twente, Battle Group Tiger—under the armoured brigade’s commander, Brigadier Robert Moncel—would pass through and lunge eastward to Delden and Borne. After that, Simonds planned to let the division run as far as it could. Moncel had retained two of his armoured regiments, the Canadian Grenadier Guards and British Columbia Regiment, while receiving a boost in infantry from the Lincoln and Welland Regiment. He also had the Lake Superior Regiment (Motor), which normally supported the armoured brigade. Travelling in Tiger’s van was the self-propelled artillery of the 23rd Canadian Field Regiment, the 96th Canadian Anti-Tank Battery, and 12th Canadian Light Field Ambulance.3

  Lion closed rapidly on Lochem, only to be delayed in reaching the canal beyond until 1630 hours by a painfully slow British handover. Predictably, Lochem’s bridges were down, so Jefferson ordered the South Alberta’s reconnaissance squadron—equipped with Stuart VI light tanks rather than the Shermans used by the rest of the regiment—to search outward on either flank. With two Stuarts, Sergeant Tom Patterson headed west of Lochem for a mile and a half. Here, he turned north on a road that bridged the Twente. En route was a little creek called the Berkel, whose bridge was intact but blocked by “mines on the road and verges.” The Stuart crews all dismounted and started digging up the mines. They were nearly done when a German despatch rider roared towards the bridge from the north, spotted the Canadians, and cut a sharp U-turn before anyone could lay hand on a gun. Continuing up the narrow paved road, Patterson’s men soon saw that the bridge over the Twente still stood and floored their Stuarts forward.4

  As Corporal Jimmy Simpson’s Stuart accelerated up the incline of the dyke to gain the bridge, an anti-tank gun on the opposite shore fired. Trooper John Lakes, the Stuart’s gunner, saw a bright flash as the shell dealt the turret a hard blow. Simpson yelled for the crew to bail out. Making sure the 37-millimetre gun barrel was centred and not blocking either the driver or co-driver hatches, Lakes started to rise from his seat and discovered that his left foot was “turned completely backwards, with the heel to the front, and the toes to the back. My left leg had been shattered and was just hanging by some sinews.” Blood gushed from the leg. Despite his wound, Lakes dragged himself to the top of the turret to find the Germans on the other side of the canal firing at the Stuarts with small arms. With his injury, Lakes realized he would be unable to scramble off the turret quickly enough. Nor was jumping down an option. So Lakes launched off the turret in a bellyflop, chin up to avoid knocking himself out on landing. For several seconds he lay on his stomach, wrenching for breath, then crawled to a shallow ditch, where Simpson stopped the bleeding with a tourniquet.

  Some of Patterson’s men helped Simpson’s shaken crew back to their Stuart. As Trooper Clarence
Lorenson was helping settle Lakes and other wounded men on the outside hull, he was killed by a sniper round to the head. Patterson rolled the Stuart back to the cover of a thicket, issued an urgent call for Simpson’s crew to be evacuated, and awaited reinforcement.5

  When Lieutenant Colonel Gordon “Swatty” Witherspoon received Patterson’s report, he sent the South Alberta’s ‘C’ Squadron racing to the rescue. Lieutenant Bill Luton’s No. 1 Troop formed the fire brigade, while the other two troops held back long enough to board infantry. Luton saw himself bound for glory, picturing his tanks grinding unscathed over the bridge. This vision evaporated when he came to the narrow road approaching the canal. His tanks would have to advance single file, and the ground on either side was too boggy for use. He might have waited for the rest of the squadron and the infantry had Witherspoon not made it clear that the bridge was vital. Luton re-evaluated the scene and realized there were in fact two dykes on that side of the canal, a high dyke to hold back winter flood-water, which would screen the Shermans from the Germans on the other side, and a lower dyke that supported the bridge. Luton advanced to the high dyke. Now came the tricky part. He either just barrelled up onto the dyke and dashed for the bridge or took a more cautious approach. Opting for caution, Luton inched his Sherman up just enough to expose the top of the turret. If that failed to draw fire, he would rise to a hull-down posture to enable firing the main gun across the canal. Should this manoeuvre go unchallenged, Luton would go for the bridge.

  The moment the turret’s top poked above the dyke, “a tremendous explosion shook the ground and a spectacular mass of debris shot far up into the air.”6 Luton stared miserably at the fragments of steel and concrete spattering down upon the canal.

  Realizing there were no more bridges in the area to win, Brigadier Jefferson dispersed Lion Force so that the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders along with the South Albertas were in Lochem, and the Algonquin Regiment was on some high ground immediately south of the town. The Dutch populace turned out to enthusiastically greet the Canadian liberators, even though the Germans were still ensconced across the canal immediately opposite and subjecting the area to sporadic machine-gun and artillery fire. The Argyll’s war diarist thought Lochem “the largest and most attractive town [they] had liberated in Holland, and it was regretted we were unable to fraternize with the jubilant population, as our role was strictly an operational one.” They also discovered that the Germans had used Lochem as a rear area headquarters and had established several clubs, various recreational facilities, a military hospital, and “countless military offices filled with files, correspondence and in some cases ammunition.”7

  Patrols estimated German opposition at three hundred paratroops. 8 Given the intensity of fire aimed at the Argylls behind the dyke, they seemed determined to fight and were more than adequately armed with 75-millimetre and 88-millimetre artillery.9

  Given the enemy strength, the mood was sombre when at 1500 hours the Algonquin Regiment’s company commanders convened to consider next steps in a “wonderful observation post” inside a “huge leather factory” on the edge of the canal.10 The entire divisional plan rested on forcing the Twente at Lochem, and the Algonquins had been selected to win a bridgehead with an attack in assault boats if no bridge was won. Such an attack promised to be a bloody affair.

  FORTUNATELY, 4TH DIVISION’S Major General Chris Vokes had already abandoned the original plan by diverting Tiger Force to Diepenheim—a town about six miles northeast of Lochem and a mile short of the Twente Canal. Here Brigadier Moncel was to wait until the British 43rd Division advanced to the canal and established a bridgehead within a two-mile front anchored by Delden to the west and Hengelo the east. Once on the other side of the Twente, the British would advance to Borne and guard Tiger’s flank as it advanced on Almelo to cross yet another canal—the Almelo-Nordhorn.11

  Instead of moving quickly as Vokes had expected, the British crawled forward at a snail’s pace. Deciding the Canadians might have to take matters into their own hands, Vokes signalled Moncel at 2325 hours on April 2 that if the British were still “not proceeding quickly enough,” he “would be responsible for forcing a crossing and establishing his own bridgehead.” He was already sending thirty-six assault boats that the Lincoln and Welland Regiment would use for the attack.12 Deciding a few hours later to proceed with this plan, Vokes told Moncel to send the Lincs across at 2100 hours that evening adjacent to a destroyed bridge opposite Delden.

  Moncel had already put things in motion at 0400 hours, instructing the Lake Superior’s Lieutenant Colonel Robert Angus Keane to send a patrol out to check an electrically controlled lock one and a half miles west of Delden. If the patrol was able to cross the canal on the lock, it was to set up a bridgehead that he would strengthen with a company before dawn. Moncel thought the lock offered the best chance for an immediately usable structure, because his engineers had warned that even if the Lincs succeeded in their assault, it would require fourteen hours to construct a functional bridge at the Delden site. Moncel wanted armour pushing out beyond the Twente sooner.

  Keane assigned the patrol to Lieutenant Bruce Wright’s No. 13 Platoon from ‘C’ Company, whose men had acquired a reputation for being the battalion’s best scouts. With Wright providing regular updates by wireless, the patrol crept forward, trying to hide inside the heavy mist that cloaked the low flat ground south of the canal. Detected just short of the lock, the patrol came under heavy small-arms and mortar fire. Wright was ordered to “withdraw slightly but to keep the area under observation.”13

  Recognizing that a crossing would have to be won the hard way, Moncel held a meeting at 1100 hours. Among those present were Keane, the Lincs’ Lieutenant Colonel R.C. “Rowan” Coleman, and Lieutenant Colonel R.E. Hogarth from 23rd Canadian Field Regiment (Self-Propelled). The Lincs would assault with a company on either side of the blown Delden bridge, while the Superiors carried out a diversionary attack on the locks. Moncel had learned the locks were partially demolished but hoped they might provide a temporary bridge. Despite Moncel’s desire to delay the attack to first light on April 4, Vokes ordered the timetable advanced instead to 1900 hours on the 3rd.14

  Vokes’s decision shocked Coleman. He had just seven and a half hours to get everything ready. Yet his men took to the task without complaint, and he later said, “Everything just got together beautifully, like a jigsaw puzzle.”15 Once Coleman provided an estimated time for the assaulting companies to reach the northern shore, the artillery teed up a fire plan to kick in thirty minutes beforehand. Most of the shells would be high explosive, but a smokescreen would also blanket the front and flanks to hide the boats.

  Major Jim Swayze’s ‘A’ Company would cross on the right and Major John Dunlop’s ‘C’ Company the left. Each company had seven assault boats. Once they established a bridgehead, Captain T.F.G. Lawson’s ‘D’ Company would pass through Swayze’s men to a railway line that paralleled the canal at a distance of about two hundred yards, while Major John Martin’s ‘B’ Company advanced from ‘C’ Company’s position.16 At 1646 hours, the attack started.17

  By now the Lincs had a well-tested routine for boat assaults. First, men armed with machine guns slipped down the side of the dyke facing the canal to ensure control of the launch site. Then the reserve companies sent carrying parties to put the boats into the water. Once the boats were ready, the assaulters tumbled over the dyke, piled in, and launched. With the barrage still pounding the opposite shore and smoke blanketing everything, the men paddled hard. Over their heads the machine-gunners back on the dyke blazed away to keep the Germans’ heads down, while in the front of the boat another man also plied a Bren gun.

  The assaulting companies reached the opposite shore in minutes, but ‘C’ Company lost four men in the crossing. Leaping out of the boats, the men clawed their way up the steep dyke. Dunlop led his men about forty yards from the dyke to some farmhouses. They were taking heavy fire, so he spread the company among the buildings.18 Ahead lay
woods, the edge of which had been their first objective. It was 1938 hours.19

  To the right, Swayze’s company met only light resistance and gained the edge of the woods by 1950 hours. Coleman sent Lawson through Swayze’s position to start clearing the woods.

  On the left, however, Dunlop’s men were fighting for their lives in a vicious close-quarters shootout. Each platoon had set up in a farmhouse that the Germans had isolated from the others. Dunlop and his headquarters section with one platoon were in a large barn-shaped house in the centre. The platoon led by Lance Sergeant J.M. “Johnny” McEachern was in a small farmhouse to the right. One of his Bren gunners, Private Clifford Challice, saw a group of Germans concentrating for an assault on Dunlop’s position. Followed by his loader, Challice sprinted across a bullet-swept pasture and scattered the enemy with bursts of close-range fire. Returning to the platoon, Challice was just stepping through the doorway when a potato-masher grenade went off at his side. The blast broke his left arm.20

  Despite intense pain, Challice slung the Bren support strap over the shoulder of his useless left arm and operated the gun single-handed. From a window facing a pasture swept by repeated enemy assaults, Challice let loose a steady fire. Each time a magazine went dry, one of the other wounded men replaced it with a fresh one loaded by other injured soldiers.21 “I wasn’t brave,” Challice later stated. “I was mad. A soldier should never get mad, but I don’t fight good unless I get mad.” Anything that moved outside, he shot.22 One particularly determined attack brought the Germans to within fifty feet of the house. Bullets were ripping splinters out of the window frame and whickering past either side of his body, but Challice never budged. He killed five more paratroops, wounded many others, and drove off the attack—saving the platoon and garnering a Distinguished Conduct Medal.23