by Mark Zuehlke
To the left of Caya’s position, Sergeant John Francis Flannery’s platoon had kept with him during its charge on another trench system. But as the platoon became increasingly mired in a vicious close-range shootout, Flannery got ahead of his men and his Sten jammed. When a German started to spin towards him with machine pistol raised, Flannery tackled the man and strangled him to death.47 Snatching up the German’s weapon, Flannery went on to kill three more enemy and take eight prisoners. He was awarded a Military Medal.48
Caya’s and Flannery’s decisive leadership won entry into the town, which the Algonquins cleared after a four-hour fight “against fanatical resistance.”49 The company counted three men killed and eight wounded, while the BCRs had lost one man, Lieutenant Walmsley. Fifty-four Germans were taken prisoner and thirty-two killed. Why Breddenberg had been so stoutly defended was soon explained when the Algonquins discovered the farm had housed a German non-commissioned officer training school. These high-calibre troops had been well equipped and, despite being cut off, had “fought with extreme tenacity.”50
Beyond Breddenberg, 4th Division entered a new, ominous type of terrain on the morning of April 12. Before the Canadians stretched a seemingly endless expanse of peat bogs extending from the Dutch border all the way north to Wilhelmshaven. The Algonquin’s Major George Cassidy realized it was country that would profoundly affect the battle to follow. It was “flat as a pancake, soaking wet, and fairly heavily treed. The side roads, suitable for farm traffic, were practically useless for tanks or heavy army vehicles. The main roads had sufficient surfacing to hold traffic for some days at least, and hence it was decided to attack boldly along the main road, trusting to heavy air and artillery support to blast a way through. But in so doing we would lose nine-tenths of the effectiveness of our tanks, our thrust-line would be tied quite closely to the main road, and we would be faced with massed enemy resistance. Further, the country was ideal for an anti-tank and anti-infantry role. The flatness limited the visibility to a matter of only a few hundred yards. Every field was dotted with drying stacks of peat blocks, each one providing a miniature fortress for a sniper or a machine gun.”51
Smack in the middle of such country sat Friesoythe, through which the main road across the Küsten Canal passed. It was a town eminently suited for defence and reportedly held by at least five hundred Germans. Brigadier Moncel appreciated that going straight up the road towards it would ensure that the column “met with disaster.” Instead, he planned to wait and gather his forces. Then, on the night of April 13-14, the Argylls would attack by moving along a series of trails, which would be scouted and mapped first by brigade patrols.52
[16]
On to Groningen
AS 4TH CANADIAN Armoured Division became mired in peat bogs, the rest of II Canadian Corps had broken out across the northern Netherlands to the North Sea. Intelligence reports had led General Harry Crerar to conclude that while it was “possible that the enemy might try to delay my northern advance on Groningen, I did not expect this part of the Netherlands to be heavily defended, with the exception of the coastal areas opposite the naval base of Emden.”1
On April 11, his intelligence staff reported that the Germans here had four options. They could sideslip to the west to “join the garrison in Western Holland, surrender on the spot, be driven back into the sea,” or “head eastwards to Germany.”
Having secured Deventer and begun advancing north along the eastern bank of the IJssel River towards Zwolle, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division was rapidly closing the door into the western Netherlands. As 1st Polish Armoured Division had reached Emmen on April 10 and thereafter driven an arrowhead north along either bank of the Ems River to its mouth at Leer, fleeing into Germany was fast disappearing as an enemy option. Intelligence reports further indicated that the Germans in northern Holland were in disarray, poorly equipped, and scattered and confused by the French SAS troops dropped into their midst. Given their current state, intelligence staff predicted that many would “decide there was not much point in putting up a fight.”2
Events on 2nd Canadian Infantry Division’s front had supported this assessment. As the division punched northward from the Schipbeek Canal on April 8, opposition had proved slight and lacking any coherency. Even a couple of bridges, apparently “overlooked by German demolition parties,” had been taken intact. Accordingly, 5th Canadian Infantry Brigade had enjoyed a two-day free run to Ommen before encountering any resistance.3
It was late afternoon on April 10 when the Black Watch spotted German troops dug in along the railway on Ommen’s outskirts and saturated the enemy position with mortar and artillery fire. The battalion’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel Sydney Thomson, had just taken over four days earlier, and he was demonstrating a penchant for using artillery whenever he could to crack opposition and avoid casualties. Looking beyond the railway positions, Thomson called down “a ‘hate’ stonk . . . on the town itself.”4 Although new to the Black Watch, Thomson was no neophyte battalion commander. He had previously commanded the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada in Italy before being posted to an administrative position in England for about five months.
With intelligence reports estimating four or five hundred Germans in the town, Brigadier W.J. “Bill” Megill paused to tee up a set-piece attack for the morning of April 11. Divisional commander Major General Bruce Matthews, meanwhile, decided to try to trap the Germans at Ommen by sending 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade through the Polish Division lines on the right to get behind the town. Provided with the Royal Canadian Dragoon armoured cars of ‘D’ Squadron, the brigade would hook thirteen miles east to Gramsbergen and then make a twelve-mile return run to Balkbrug, which lay six miles north of Ommen.5
At dawn, a Black Watch patrol from ‘C’ Company checked the bridge crossing the Vechte River into Ommen and discovered that “with little difficulty it could be crossed by infantry, as there was only a four foot gap in the middle. The patrol proceeded farther into town and saw two Germans on bicycles, and fired upon them.” Thomson ordered ‘C’ Company to provide security for a team of engineers while they cleared road obstructions leading to the bridge, and also to push “a strong patrol in[to] the town, but first thing we know, the [company] had reported the town cleared.” Thomson funnelled his other three rifle companies across and anchored a jumping-off point for the rest of the brigade to pass through.6
Still hoping to overrun the Germans, Brigadier Megill sent the Calgary Highlanders through Ommen with orders to advance to Balkbrug and either relieve 6 CIB—if it had completed its twenty-five-mile right hook through Gramsbergen—or “take the town themselves depending on who gets there first.”7 On point for the Calgary advance were the armoured cars of 14th Canadian Hussars and also those of the Dragoons’ ‘B’ Squadron. These reconnaissance troops were waiting impatiently on the south side of the Vechte for the engineers to repair the bridge. The past couple of days had been hugely fulfilling for the Dragoons with their heritage as Canada’s senior cavalry regiment. During its long service in Italy, the regiment had never managed the “classic cavalry task—the mad dash into the enemy’s territory to heighten the confusion of the breakthrough.” 8 Events of April 9-10 had given the Dragoons a belief that “now or never they would establish their reputation as the truly great Regiment they knew themselves to be and to a man the Regiment hoped and prayed that here at last after the bitter memories of the Liri, Gothic Line, Marrechia, Savio, and all the other rivers and canals where they had fought and crossed, the golden opportunity of a proper armoured car role would present itself.”9
Nobody felt the moment riper than their commander, Lieutenant Colonel K.D. Lendall. He spent the morning dashing about in a jeep, checking in with one headquarters after another for information on what lay beyond Ommen, while also monitoring the wireless sets packed into the vehicle’s back. Everything he learned suggested that a breakout into the German rear was imminent, perhaps already underway. Finally, “an intercepted message plucked out of the air fro
m Divisional Headquarters confirmed this fond hope and, as though to emphasize the fact, a sudden surge of traffic piled up at the bridging site. The electric news was on every lip—‘Break Through’—and the tired troops shouting happily to one another pressed forward to the pursuit. Thus, quite suddenly, a completely new aspect was given to the operation and the cry for armoured cars echoed loudly through the earphones as the Dragoons struggled through a mass of traffic to the new battleground.” The schmozzle at the bridge soon sorted out, the Dragoons rolled across. Close behind were their support vehicles bearing fuel, ammunition, and reserve rations, which the crews packed into the holds of their armoured cars. Then, at 1300 hours, ‘B’ Squadron was away, leaving the Calgary Highlanders to trail behind on foot.10
The race for Balkbrug was on, two Dragoon squadrons vectoring towards it from opposite directions—both running far ahead of infantry they supported. Also dashing up the main road that led through Hoogeveen, Assen, and on to Groningen from Ommen were ‘B’ and ‘C’ Squadrons of the 14th Canadian Hussars, with ‘A’ Squadron and the headquarters squadron trailing in reserve. The two leading squadrons had already “started to run wild, and were burning up the miles” when Major J.F. Merner—headquarters’ squadron leader—gave “the old familiar command that we had heard so often . . . ‘Mount Up, Start Up,’ and away we went again.”11
Approaching Balkbrug from the east, the Royal Canadian Dragoons’ ‘D’ Squadron had enjoyed a one-hour head start on ‘B’ Squadron. Whichever reached the town first, both were long gone when the Calgary Highlanders arrived at 1530 hours.12 All of 6 CIB had also previously passed through, at 2300 hours, establishing its brigade headquarters in a wood outside Spier.13
The reconnaissance squadrons had already been well north of here, the 14th Hussars’ ‘B’ Squadron arriving at the tiny hamlet of Spier in the early morning in the nick of time to rescue, “in the best manner of the films,” the commander of 3rd Régiment de Chasseurs Parachutistes and a small group of his men facing “imminent annihilation by far superior German forces.”14 The paratroops said “they had a tough time, but put up a damn good show, and were almost surrounded, and out of ammunition, when our boys arrived. They lost a couple of men (killed) and some wounded,” the war diarist recorded. At 2000 hours, trucks carried the French paratroops to the rear and they “were a happy looking crowd when they left.”
The Hussars established their regimental headquarters at Spier in the early afternoon, and several staff officers were led by civilians to a nearby barn where they were shown the corpses of fourteen Dutchmen murdered by the Dutch security police. “Their heads were beaten to a pulp, and some of their wrists were burnt, and it appeared as if they had been shot through the back of the neck, when they had been tortured sufficiently enough to satisfy the low brow bastards that had done it.” The men had been executed out of suspicion that they were providing food to the embattled paratroops.
By day’s end, the Hussars had travelled forty-five miles, at times ranging twenty miles ahead of the infantry.15 The Dragoons had put even more miles behind them. At 1700 hours, ‘D’ Squadron was searching for a crossing over a canal that barred the way into Beilen, a town about twenty-five miles north of Ommen on the road to Groningen. Finding a damaged bridge three miles west of Beilen, one troop used the light bridging materials it carried to get across. Advancing two miles farther, it reached the village of Hijken on the south side of the Oranjekanaal “without incident.”16
The infantry battalions of 6 CIB, meanwhile, had closed on the canal south of Beilen, and Brigadier Jean Allard, anxious to keep the advance rolling, ordered Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal to force a crossing in the night, despite reports that the town was held by at least one hundred Germans .17
LES FUSILIERS MONT-ROYAL’S ‘B’ Company struck at 0200 hours on April 12. Achieving complete surprise, the lead platoon moved into the houses bordering the canal and captured several prisoners. When ‘A’ Company came up on ‘B’ Company’s flank, however, it came under fire from a concrete blockhouse. After Major Bob Lucy, a 6th Field Regiment FOO, hammered the blockhouse with shells, a white flag appeared. This opened the way for the battalion to start clearing the streets of Beilen.18 By 0700 hours, the FMR had its carriers and Wasps across the canal and approaching Beilen from the north to corral the Germans within. As the vehicles approached the houses covering the main street, the first Bren carrier was knocked out by a Panzerfaust. Several machine guns also opened up and Panzerfaust rounds whistled in to explode around the other carriers. The Wasps immediately pushed to the front and started setting buildings on fire, which caused the Germans to retreat. Fighting in the streets continued for two hours, and when it was over the FMR had taken two hundred prisoners, including one officer. Beilen had a population of about four thousand, and the FMR soon learned that “every family wants at least one or two soldier to be billeted in their house. Our rest here will be most pleasant,” the war diarist noted.19
While the FMR assaulted Beilen, the brigade’s South Saskatchewan Regiment had outflanked the village to the east and headed for a bridge that crossed the Oranjekanaal about three miles to the northeast. The SSR had started this move at 0330 hours, only to have Lieutenant Colonel Vern Stott’s carrier throw a track. Then, after transferring the vital wireless sets to another carrier, a fifteen-minute job, the driver ran into a ditch just four hundred yards past the start line. “It looked at this time as if the jinx was on,” complained the war diarist, “and, as the old saying goes, there was one more to come. And it came! Shortly after the CO’s vehicle had been pulled out of the ditch and the column had started on the move—one of the TCV [troop-carrying vehicles] drivers had fallen asleep and held up the rest of the convoy for another 30 minutes before it was discovered. From then on the convoy proceeded to the debussing point without incident.”
Stott set zero hour for 0730. Although the bridges were out, ‘B’ Company crossed unopposed in assault boats and quickly established a bridgehead sufficiently deep to enable engineers to start on a bridge. By 0900 hours, the situation was stable enough for Stott to order ‘D’ Company to work westward along the canal to gain control of the road running from Beilen towards Groningen, a little less than three miles distant. ‘C’ and ‘B’ Companies, meanwhile, expanded the bridgehead out to about a mile north of the canal.
‘D’ Company made good progress against thickening opposition until it was within sight of the road and paralleling railway tracks. A large party of Germans could be seen digging in around the objective, so ‘D’ Company melted into the trees and shrubbery bordering the canal while its commander got on the wireless with Stott, who arranged to have 6th Field Regiment and 4.2-inch mortars of the Toronto Scottish Regiment work the position over.20 When the bombardment lifted, a sharp fight broke out, and ‘D’ Company soon issued an urgent call for Wasps or other support. Two Wasps duly rolled to the rescue. After closing to within one hundred yards, and with the wind helping to carry the flame forward, the Wasps “sent enemy machine gunners running and screaming out into the open, and the battle was over. A good number of prisoners were taken and a greater number of dead and burned were counted. The company suffered eleven casualties, including one killed.”21
For an operation that breached a canal that would normally have been fiercely defended, the Saskatchewan losses were surprisingly light. This mirrored the overall situation, as the Germans—mostly paratroops from 6th Fallschirmjäger Division—proved unable to stem or even delay the division’s advancing tide.
Once again, the reconnaissance regiments were running loose. Having left Spier at first light, mid-morning found the 14th Canadian Hussars seven miles north. Its ‘B’ Squadron was roaming off to the right of the main highway when it stumbled on Westerbork Transit Camp. The guards having fled, the remaining one thousand inmates—primarily Jews—were “delirious with joy.”22 Many were among the camp’s first occupants, particularly those from the ill-fated SS St. Louis. When the Germans had taken over Westerbork,
these inmates were found to be already managing the camp so effectively that they were left in place, while newer arrivals were selected for shipment to the extermination camps.
Closing on the heels of the armoured cars were the rifle battalions of 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade, which had leapfrogged 6 CIB at the Oranjekanaal. The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry (Rileys) relieved the Hussars to enable the armoured cars to continue roaming. Just outside the camp, the Rileys’ ‘D’ Company bumped a pocket of heavy resistance that turned out to be local pro-Nazi paramilitary troops, who feared they would be executed as collaborators if taken prisoner and turned over to the Dutch authorities.
“Then we ran into the concentration camp itself,” Lance Corporal John Lisson recalled. “It was a horrible experience. The Jews came streaming out of the place yelling, ‘Tommy, Tommy’” because—seeing the pisspot-style helmet worn by most Commonwealth troops—they mistook the Canadians for British soldiers. “Those that got to us began to throw their arms around our necks and hang on. We had to shake them off. After all, we were right in the middle of this set-piece operation, and we had to get moving.
“I had to fire my Sten gun over their heads to scare them away. It was all pretty horrible. We had to get on the move.”23 The situation in the camp was so chaotic, however, that ‘D’ Company’s Major Doering sent a message back to Lieutenant Colonel H.C. Arrell that he had “never seen anything like it before . . . These Jewish women had apparently been starved in more ways than one and ‘D’ Coy personnel were heavily taxed in quenching their thirst, the results of five years of isolation.” At 2100 hours, the company was relieved by divisional medical and provost personnel. Doering complained that “the ‘D’ Coy boys do not like the prospects of leaving the place.” In fact, he experienced “some difficulty” in rounding them up. At 0300 hours on April 13, however, the recalcitrant company had been separated from the women and was installed in a battalion bivouac at the nearby village of Hooghalen.24