by Mark Zuehlke
Before either advance could proceed, Wehl had to be secured, and it was this task that led to the Reginas crossing the bridge on the evening of April 1. Dutch civilians estimated that four hundred Germans were dug in behind the raised single-track railway that marked Wehl’s southern boundary.9 Doubting they would make a stand, Brigadier Graeme Gibson ordered the Reginas to “march to contact.”10
Through the afternoon, the rifle companies paced towards Wehl in a long strung-out line, with the armoured cars of the 17th Duke of York’s Royal Canadian Hussars’ ‘A’ Squadron out front and the Sherbrooke Fusiliers’ ‘C’ Squadron clanking along to the rear in their Shermans. Lieutenant Colonel Al Gregory suspected the civilians overestimated German strength but agreed that the railway “would provide a logical [defensive position] for a [rearguard] action.”
By 1800 hours, his men were practically staggering beneath their weapons and other gear. Gregory decided that “tired, marching [troops] could not either gain contact, nor fight, and the entire [battalion should be] made mobile.” Mounting ‘B’ and ‘C’ Companies on the Sherbrookes’ tanks and the others on support company vehicles sped the advance to Kilder. Here the battalion halted for the night.
Gregory tested Wehl’s defences with three fighting patrols, which all drew fire from the railroad. Suspicions confirmed, Gregory teed up a heavy artillery and 4.2-inch mortar concentration on the railway to coincide with the Regina attack at 0400 hours. The attack was to advance up either side of the main road with ‘A’ Company left and ‘B’ Company right. A section of Wasps would support each company. Gregory asked the tanks to do likewise, but “they refused to play,” invoking armoured doctrine that Shermans were too vulnerable during night actions. Once the leading companies had forced the railway and cleared the southern half of Wehl, the other two companies would pass through and carry the rest. As the sun would be up, the Sherbrookes promised to assist that phase.11
Shortly before 0400 hours, ‘C’ Company’s No. 14 Platoon mustered inside a barn, and the quartermaster sergeant gave each man a rum ration while Lieutenant Regan explained the attack. Rifleman Doug Dobie looked at his comrades and felt that “great feeling of comradeship that exists in a front line fighting battalion. Each one knew there was a chance he would not come out alive but that worried no one. Good soldiers are all fatalists and so it was with this bunch of boys.”12
Outside, ‘C’ Company formed behind ‘B’ Company and the column trudged through the darkness to the start line. At 0400 hours, the artillery began pounding the railway and the men advanced. The Reginas were surprised to meet little resistance on the railway, the hard fight coming instead as they entered the village. Lighting up one building after another with flame, the Wasps prowled streets echoing with the chatter and crack of gunfire. It took two hours for ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies to win the southern portion of Wehl.13
‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies launched past with two Wasps apiece and a troop of tanks from ‘C’ Squadron of the Fusiliers. Dobie’s platoon “went up the road through the shambles of the battle, houses were burning, lots of dead Jerries lying around but we only saw one dead Canadian.” Just as it seemed the fight was won, Dobie heard a mighty metallic bang, and a shell from a German self-propelled gun punched the lead tank’s turret.14 The tank commander, Lance Corporal Norman Adrian Beleval, and Troopers William Charles Anderson and David Frederick England were killed. One other crew member was wounded.15
‘D’ Company’s Lieutenant Walter Keith saw a Panzerfaust projectile shriek out of a trench and skim harmlessly over one Wasp, which replied with a jet of flame that brought the Germans spilling out with arms raised. “The flame hadn’t burned any of them, but was so frightening they surrendered—a marvelous weapon.” One soldier informed Major Gordon Brown where a Panzerfaust was located. Brown told Keith to accompany the man and retrieve it. “Keep your pistol trained on him,” Brown cautioned. “The German led me into the trench, pointed out the weapon and went to pick it up. I don’t know what he intended to do with it but I jabbed my pistol in his ribs and stopped him.” The German then said, “Can I get my eatings.” Keith consented, and the man lifted a belt from which dangled “large pieces of sausage and black bread.” As the two walked back to where Brown had set up a company headquarters, the German said, “Ve vas alright, ve vas shooting your guys but then whoosh, ve quit.”16
By 0925 hours, most of the Germans inside Wehl had done likewise, although several snipers were still active and occasional mortar rounds struck the village from firing positions inside a nearby wood. Seventy-nine prisoners were taken in Wehl and another twenty were subsequently flushed from the woods.
Wehl was a small battle but one that Lieutenant Colonel Gregory thought yielded a couple of important lessons. First, the defensive methods employed by the Germans had achieved their intent. “A few average troops with stern N.C.O. leadership,” he wrote, “well supported by S.P. guns and mortars meant a serious delay and caused at least one brigade to deploy and one battalion to attack.” Another “important lesson to be learned . . . is the absolute necessity for getting infantry on the spot as fast as possible and having the troops fresh to fight. Had the entire distance been marched on foot the attack would have probably been abortive. Also the Wehl garrison would have had time to dig further defences as many partially dug pits were seen later.”17
At 1240 hours, the Royal Winnipeg Rifles passed through Wehl, headed west for Didam and Zevenaar. Lieutenant Colonel Lochie Fulton put ‘C’ Company out front, with tanks and 17-pounder anti-tank guns giving the force real teeth. However, the Germans, one army report commented dryly, were “apparently not in any way awed by the sight of this war column. The advancing troops were met with a hail of fire as soon as they left the village, and deployment [for combat] became necessary.”
Not until dawn of April 3 did the Can Scots cover the last leg of the four-mile distance between Wehl and Didam. “Considering the opposition encountered,” the regiment’s historian explained, “the advance had been slow, but the alternative meant greater risk and possibly higher casualties. Admittedly, too, there was a certain amount of over-caution on the part of some . . . a not unnatural feeling immediately following the slugging matches such as the battalion had fought at . . . Emmerich.”18 The RWR passed through the Can Scots in Didam at 0530 hours and took until 0800 to cover the mere mile between Didam and Zevenaar.
ON APRIL 2, Wehl had served 3rd Division like a turnstile. Within an hour of the Winnipeg Rifles passing, 8th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s Queen’s Own Rifles had marched out on the northward-running road to Laag Keppel, where they were to force a crossing over the Oude IJssel. Again, weariness took its toll. Despite very light resistance, which was brushed aside by the supporting tanks, it took until 0130 hours on April 3 to secure the southern portion of Laag Keppel and come up to the river, only to find the bridge blown. Le Régiment de la Chaudière was shuttled in trucks to Doetinchem, from which it marched back along the river to the part of Laag Keppel that stood on the north bank.19
Securing the town opened the way for 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade to take over the advance that afternoon at 1440 hours, with the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders and North Nova Scotia Highlanders leading and the Highland Light Infantry following in reserve. Within the hour the Glens reached their first objective—a bridge at the village of Hummelo, which was captured intact. Finding opposition “non-existent,” the North Novas fanned out across a three-mile-wide front to make contact with 2nd Canadian Division on their right and clear the small hamlet of Bronkhorst to the left. As this locality was also undefended, ‘D’ Company carried on a few hundred yards to the east dyke of the IJssel River and started working northward.20
On April 4, once again at the forefront of the advance, the Glens closed on Leesten, about two miles southeast of Zutphen. A large windmill, which the locals considered the most beautiful of the three in their district, dominated the hamlet. Leesten consisted of a blacksmith shop, a carpenter
shop, a bakery, a general store, and a little cluster of farms fanning out beyond the businesses. It perched on what had once been a dune bordering a riverbed. All around were other old dunes, between which streams had formerly flowed before being drained to create farmland. The riverbeds provided the farmers with meadows, while the slopes and tops of the dunes supported crops. Most farm buildings were situated on the dunes, as the low ground was subject to seasonal flooding.
The residents of Leesten had taken to their cellars because Canadian artillery sporadically shelled the Zutphen area. On April 2, the Dykman family had narrowly escaped disaster when two shells exploded simultaneously on opposite sides of their farmhouse. Young Henk Dykman’s grandmother had been facing a window and working at a sewing machine when the glass shattered and she was hurled under a table. Although bruised, she was otherwise uninjured. The Dykmans were still cleaning up as the Glens approached.21
After the unopposed advance of the previous day, the Glens were surprised to find themselves entangled in a confused series of skirmishes with paratroops. Having had several days to prepare, the paratroops had dug a network of trenches and gun pits. They had also hoisted a dozen heavy machine guns onto platforms mounted high in trees, from which they could fire down into the fields and dunes. Carefully sighted anti-tank guns covered the roads and open fields.22 Mixed in among the veteran paratroops were many young Germans recently sent from central Germany. These younger paratroops, many no more than sixteen years old, offered “fanatical resistance.”23
Throughout the morning, the people of Leesten were caught in the middle. Shellfire set numerous buildings ablaze. The beautiful windmill that had been “the pride of the Leesten landscape” was reduced to a smouldering ruin. To the civilians, the battle seemed pure chaos. Germans ran this way, Canadians another, tanks rumbled forward and fired several rounds and then pulled back, flame-throwing Crocodiles ground up to farm buildings and set them on fire to drive out the paratroops inside.
Guus van der Hoeven, the local minister’s son, hid in a farmer’s cellar along with his and the farmer’s families. A bullet pinged through the single cellar window and grazed Guus’s brother’s forehead, van der Hoeven later recalled. “Everybody screamed in the pitch black cellar . . . When the commotion stopped we heard cautious, heavy footsteps upstairs and my parents called out. My father was the only one of us who knew some English. Next I remember a . . . soldier stepping down into the cellar with a Tommy gun at the ready and a little wax candle in his other hand. He told us to raise our hands and he looked around very carefully. He said that enemy soldiers had fired into the cellar but that everything was alright now. Then he left us again, giving us the little light. He told us to keep that burning. This man has often been on my mind. Undoubtedly his friends were covering him from outside, but he still had a lot of courage to come into our cellar. He was a stocky guy in battledress, quiet and efficient. I wish I could meet that guy again and thank him.”24
Dina Vink-Jimmink, her sister, and her parents were also in their farmhouse cellar. Looking out a little window, she saw men in khaki “crouching and running with blackened faces. They came straight toward our house and disappeared into a side door as we got ready to greet them. Then all hell broke loose above our heads. Not just rifle and machine gun fire. No! Heavy explosions as well! We were totally frightened. Thank God it did not last long. But then smoke began to drift across our cellar window.
“‘We have to get out,’ father said.
“Hand in hand we left the house. Outside, behind the farm building, the pig barn had its doors open and inside we saw them again, the Canadians. They were busy tying up each other’s wounds. One of them waved to us.
“We ran a long way into the pasture east of our farm. Then we stopped to take a look. Flames were shooting up high from the thatched roof. We watched the shelter of our family and of our forebears burn furiously and listened to the bawling of our dying cows. Then father began to cry. Cry like a baby.”25
Nearby, German soldiers had burst into the Bruggink family’s farmhouse at noon and ordered them out. “We are going to defend this place,” they shouted. The family had gone but a few hundred yards when the area came under shellfire. They dived into a dry ditch beside the road. Hanna Bruggink “could see the Canadians advance toward our farm. There was some shooting and a carrier with a flame thrower came up. Soon the place was on fire and the enemy soldiers came out with their hands up. ‘They didn’t have to make a show of it,’ father said bitterly. ‘They could have stuck up their hands sooner to save the farm.’
“As the shells kept coming and the bullets kept flying, we stayed where we were, all afternoon. Toward dusk we watched some big tanks arrive and they produced enormous flames, burning up the enemy defences just north of us. Then, as they turned away again, all shooting stopped. We got out of the ditch, wondering what to do, when the farmer . . . [farther] west, waved at us. So we went to that place and stayed there overnight.”26
The battle for Leesten concluded the following morning, April 5, and cost the Glens eleven dead and nineteen wounded.27 They took fifty-one prisoners on April 4, ‘B’ Company alone counting thirty-five dead paratroops in its sector.28
MEANWHILE, TO THE south, First Canadian Army’s new corps had been heavily engaged in clearing the Nijmegen Island. Operation Destroyer opened at 0630 hours on April 2, with 147th Brigade’s 7th Battalion, Duke of Wellington’s Regiment (West Riding) advancing eastward alongside the Rhine River towards the town of Doornenburg. This community stood in the angle formed by the Pannerdensch Canal’s northward diversion from the Rhine and about three miles from the start line at Haalderen. Supporting the British battalion were two Ontario Tank Regiment troops under command of Lieutenants J. Cameron and W.B. Stewart, with Cameron’s No. 14 Troop following the leading infantry. Stewart’s troop was well back but ready to move up on demand. All went well for the first fifteen hundred yards, until the infantry reached a narrow stream called the Rijn Wetering and came under heavy fire from a row of houses on the opposite bank.
Resistance here had been expected, so a solution was readily at hand. Accompanying Cameron’s tanks was a Valentine Bridge-Laying Tank. By replacing a Valentine’s turret with a folding metal gangway, British engineers had created a mobile apparatus that could launch a thirty-foot self-supporting bridge in minutes. Quickly negotiating their tanks over a series of small drainage ditches, No. 14 Troop closed up on the houses and pummelled them with 75-millimetre main gunfire, while the bridge tank launched its span into place. “Before many minutes, the troop was pounding across the bridge and in very short order the enemy in the area were entirely subdued,” the Ontario Regiment’s intelligence officer, Lieutenant J. Black, wrote.29
Many Germans surrendered, and those that withdrew were too few to further resist the advancing infantry and tanks. By early afternoon, Doornenburg fell. More than one hundred Germans were captured at a cost to the British of two men killed and four wounded.30
At 1530 hours, 146th Infantry Brigade passed through and advanced north alongside the Pannerdensch Canal with the Ontario’s ‘B’ Squadron supporting the 4th Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment. By nightfall the force won the villages of Angeren and Huissen.31
Despite damp and unsettled weather, April 3 proved a fine day for the British division and Ontario tankers. In rapid order, 146th Brigade’s battalions—supported by ‘A’ and ‘C’ Squadrons—scoured up the last Germans in their sector of the Island, which was bordered on one side by the Pannerdensch Canal and on the other by the Nijmegen-Arnhem highway. More than fifty Germans were taken prisoner on a day when resistance remained light and clearly disorganized. 32 It was so light that throughout the day various tank troops from the two squadrons were released by the infantry battalions as being no longer required.33
At 1700 hours, the Lincolnshire Regiment slipped some troops across the Neder Rijn just east of Huissen. Dragooning several landing craft previously deployed on the Rhine for Plunder, a 49th Reconnaissan
ce Regiment squadron was lifted into the small bridgehead and its armoured cars advanced two miles to Westervoort. Finding the village clear, it set up a defensive perimeter on the banks of the IJssel east of Arnhem.
Meanwhile, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division’s 7th Infantry Brigade had not yet reached Zevenaar, and this left a gap between the lines of I Canadian Corps and II Canadian Corps. To close it, a second 49th Reconnaissance squadron crossed the Rhine at Emmerich and moved along the riverbank to join hands with 1st Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment, of 147th Brigade—which had earlier crossed the Pannerdensch Canal and cleared the community of Pannerden. At 1700 hours, the reconnaissance troops and infantry were linked up, and 49th Division reported that it now controlled all the ground west of the Emmerich-Arnhem highway.34
April 3 had seen 5th Canadian Armoured Division’s 11th Infantry Brigade enjoying similar successes clearing the Island’s western portion. The Canadians had kicked off the preceding night with all three infantry battalions. Supporting them were tanks from the Governor General’s Horse Guards. Although a reconnaissance unit, the GGHG was equipped with Shermans in a mix identical to that of the division’s 5th Armoured Brigade regiments.
On the extreme left, the Irish Regiment of Canada’s ‘D’ and ‘C’ Companies advanced up either side of a road that led to Randwijk, a village on the Neder Rijn’s south bank. The unopposed advance was slowed by mines on the road, and not until the early hours of April 3 did the two companies reach the village outskirts. After taking eight prisoners, ‘C’ Company was suddenly forced to cover by fire from a pillbox that was only silenced when the battalion’s anti-tank gun platoon came forward to shoot it up. ‘D’ Company also bumped light resistance passing through the right-hand side of Randwijk and took four prisoners. By 1030 hours, both companies reported their sectors of the village taken. ‘A’ Company then hooked out to the right to meet the Cape Breton Highlanders at Heteren. On the company’s return hike, it came under heavy shelling from guns on the other side of the river but managed to dodge through the explosions without loss. The Irish Regiment’s war diarist considered April 3 “a very successful day.”35