by Mark Zuehlke
He was dimly aware of No. 7 Platoon dashing past just as the artillery lifted and then stretcher bearer Slim Cole leaning over him, crying. Martin’s tunic had been shredded, exposing the mass of red flannel that Cole mistook for a bloody, gaping chest wound. Cole started injecting Martin with morphine as the CSM whispered, “Please let me die in peace.” When Martin asked for some water, Cole gave him a sip from a canteen containing pure rum. Raising his head, Martin could see white flags waving from the various buildings, around which the smoke from exploding shells still drifted. No. 7 Platoon was rounding up prisoners. Cole was still weeping. Major Secord crouched down and gave Martin a hug. “Thanks, Charlie, for everything,” he said in a choked voice, and then was away to oversee the surrender. Martin thought from all the sadness that he must be a goner. It was a feeling reinforced at the Regimental Aid Post, where the battalion padre also broke into tears as the doctors dressed Martin’s wounds with hurried efficiency.
An ambulance soon whisked him to the rear, going so fast it ran into a ditch, and many minutes were lost until it was towed out and on the way again. At the hospital, Martin’s leg wounds started to bleed furiously, and he was dragged into emergency surgery. Martin fell unconscious. He would not awaken until May 8.28
The Queen’s Own, meanwhile, had finally gained the entrance to the causeway at 1030 hours on April 18, when resistance collapsed. 29 This ended 8th Brigade’s clearing of Friesland. Along with the rest of 3rd Division, its regiments embarked on a short but welcome period of guarding the ground won.
[18]
Piece of Cake
WHEN II CANADIAN Corps’s divisions had begun their drive through Holland and western Germany, the attached 1st Infantry Division had remained at the IJssel River to prepare for Operation Cannonshot—the precursor to any I Canadian Corps advance into western Holland to liberate the great cities there. The selected crossing site was in front of the village of Gorssel, midway between Zutphen and Deventer. Here the river followed a wide westward dog-leg, and Major General Harry Foster planned to gain the opposite shore square in the middle of this natural salient that thrust into Twenty-Fifth Army’s front line. Because the launching sites and approaches were exposed to German observation, all sides of the dog-leg would be masked by a giant smokescreen created by a heavy bombardment of smoke shells and deployment of many mobile generators. Crossing in Buffaloes, 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade would establish the beachhead with the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada on the left, the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry the right, and the Loyal Edmonton Regiment staying back in reserve. The Shermans of 1st Hussars Regiment’s ‘A’ Squadron would be rafted into the beachhead as soon as possible.1
In the next phase, 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade, supported by the rest of the 1st Hussars, would advance on Apeldoorn. The 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade would come up on the left and make for the Apeldoorn Canal running south from the city. Once Apeldoorn fell, Cannonshot would be concluded, and the division would return to I Canadian Corps command for whatever operations westward followed.2
“It’s a clever, well-thought-out plan,” PPCLI Captain Syd Frost concluded. “Whatever harsh words I’ve had for generals and the staff in the past, I’ve got to admit they occasionally come up with some bright ideas.”3 Frost was impressed that the plans gave him time to thoroughly reconnoitre the assigned river crossing site and study the battalion plan in detail. “It was such a sensible way to go to war compared to the Italian campaign, where we had been thrown into river crossings so many times with no chance for any recce or planning. The more I saw of the orderly, deliberate way the [First] Canadian Army went about its tasks, the more I liked doing business with them.”4
What Frost disliked was the selected crossing site, although he admitted it was likely as good as any possible. From a covering wood the battalion’s officers spent hours studying the ground. With binoculars, Frost could see his company objective—“a group of houses about 1,000 yards from the crossing place, but they were sheltered by a dyke that could mean real trouble. The river itself seemed about 100 yards wide, muddy and sluggish. From our vantage point to the near bank of the dyke, the area was as flat as a billiard table and no cover was available.”
Turning to Major J.M.D. Jones, whose ‘C’ Company would be on the left of Frost’s ‘D’ Company, he asked, “Does this remind you of anything we’ve seen before? ”
“Christ, it’s the Italian plains all over again,” Jones responded.
“Yeah, but maybe this will be our last river.”
“It sure as hell will be, if we don’t have lots of smoke and reach those dykes molto pronto.”
“Hell for leather with two platoons to the dyke while the third lay down covering fire,” the two officers decided. Then Frost bet Jones a bottle of whisky his company gained the dyke first.
On April 9, 2 CIB moved to its assembly area about two miles directly east of the crossing site and married up with the Buffalo crews from 4th Royal Tank Regiment. Each company was allotted four, one for each rifle platoon and another to carry the company headquarters section. The PPCLI and Seaforths had recently been reinforced and the companies were almost at full strength—a rare occurrence in Italy—with one hundred men each, just short of the normal 110. Frost liked the fact Buffaloes were armoured, unlike the amphibious trucks (DUKWs) they had sometimes used in Italy. When one crewman said they’d put him on the other shore dry-footed, Frost was dubious. “Piece of cake, old chap,” the man assured him.5
AT 1400 HOURS on April 11, the PPCLI and Seaforths loaded into the Buffaloes. The Seaforth plan mirrored that of the PPCLI, with two companies making the initial crossing. Once ashore, ‘D’ Company on the left and ‘B’ Company the right would advance about seven hundred yards from the river. When all the Seaforths were across the IJssel, ‘C’ would deepen the advance westward while ‘B’ Company swung north to tie in with the PPCLI. Once this phase was complete, ‘C’, ‘B’, and ‘D’ Companies would advance on the village of Wilp.6 The PPCLI would also make for Wilp via a road running to it from the river.
The Seaforth Buffaloes began rumbling towards the IJssel at 1500 hours, a journey that struck ‘C’ Company’s diarist as surreal. Here were the Seaforths loaded with weapons and riding in Buffaloes mounting heavy machine guns on the fronts. In the distance, near the river, the sound of artillery shells exploding could be heard. And yet, “we passed neat houses with laundry drying in the bright sunshine. On the east side of the river, it never looked like a war or an attack was in progress. People were sitting in their gardens and everything seemed awfully peaceful.”7
As a young platoon leader, Frost had suffered a horrific facial wound in southern Italy, undergone months of painful reconstruction, and returned to the PPCLI in time for the finale of the Gothic Line battle. Recovering from the wound had put him behind the promotion curve, so only now was he to lead a company into combat. “The Buffaloes roar into life and fill the woods with their heavy fumes. I run back to my vehicle and hop on the ramp just as it is pulled up . . . The great beasts snort and lurch toward the river. God, it feels good to be leading my company into action at last!
“I look at my watch—1530 hours. In 30 minutes the smoke screen will start. It’s a fine day for smoke, just a light breeze. We meet Charlie Company Buffaloes. I wave at Maj. Jones . . . We exchange V signs but I am not sure whether his gesture is Churchillian or rude.
“Ten minutes to smoke—five minutes. We emerge from the woods. The artillery opens up. Shells whine over our heads and land on the far bank of the river. Smoke drifts across the whole front, completely shielding us from enemy obser vation . . . Now we are churning along the flats. The river is about 1,000 yards away. The artillery starts to fire HE [high explosive]. We can’t see the targets, but the tremendous explosions tell us Jerry is getting a pasting.”
At 1630 hours, Frost’s Buffalo hit the water “without missing a stroke. The nose dips down and then bobs up. The thing actually floats! More important it a
lso swims.
“In minutes we are across the river. The craft has trouble negotiating the bank. I indicate to the driver to stay in the water. We can jump to the bank. He is happy. The lower the Buffalo, the smaller the target.
“The enemy has hardly reacted to our attack. Only a few scattered shells fall. Once again, he’s been faked right out of his drawers . . . We rush over the nose of the vehicle, fan out, and hit the ground. Now the smoke starts to thin out. We have to get our tails up. [Company Sergeant Major M.] Milko charges over . . . and urges the men forward. They don’t really need any urging as now we are getting small arms fire from Ness [buildings that are the company’s objective]. But sergeant majors are supposed to give men hell—‘Come on, Dog Company, move it, move it!’ he yells. ‘Now’s the time to earn your King’s shilling.’”
Leading the charge, Lieutenant Allan McKinnon’s No. 17 Platoon reached the dyke and found it unoccupied. But the fire coming from the houses at Ness was thickening. Frost could also see a tank. This was going to be tough after all.8
McKinnon’s platoon was 150 yards from the houses and pinned down by the infantry’s small-arms fire and the tank’s raking machine gun. The platoon’s PIAT gunner loosed his three 2.5-pound bombs without effect—the launcher only having an effective range of one hundred yards. McKinnon sent a runner back to get more rounds from the other platoons, his men hunkered down to avoid the incoming fire, and the situation seemed stalemated. Not a stitch of cover offered itself for Frost to advance another platoon beyond the dyke to get inside PIAT range. Frost was still looking for a solution when Lance Sergeant Thomas Hanberry grabbed a PIAT and a single round and headed out alone.9
Crawling through the short pasture grass from one shallow ditch to another, Hanberry closed undetected to within fifty yards of the tank. To get a clear shot, Hanberry rolled into the open, propped the PIAT on its bipod, braced the butt hard into his shoulder, carefully sighted on the tank, took a long breath, and, with a slow exhalation, steadily depressed the heavy trigger for the one-tenth of a second it took to fire the charge. The bomb whistled across the fifty yards and knocked the tank out of action.
The moment the tank was silenced, No. 17 Platoon charged, and gained the buildings with only one man being wounded. Hanberry’s solo assault earned a Military Medal.10 Frost reported ‘D’ Company “snug” inside Ness at 1720 hours, thirty-seven minutes behind ‘C’ Company. Frost had lost the bet. “Guess you’re out one bottle of whiskey,” his amused wireless signaller allowed.11
In the Seaforth’s sector, ‘B’ Company’s signaller, Private A.J. McKay, had piled out of a Buffalo into the mud right beside Major John Bassett. “First we stood quite amazed at what to do for machine-gun fire from houses ahead of us was whistling by our heads and I recall seeing turf being ripped with grass roots upturned only a few feet away.” The Buffalo crews were burning off bursts of heavy machine-gun fire to cover the Seaforths. “As though we were both hit by the same thought we [sprinted] directly towards the enemy positions. They must have contracted ‘buck fever.’” As McKay fired his Sten through a window, “three Germans came out a side door. One kid was in a shed where I sent three rounds for him to think about . . . I took the prisoners aside to the next house, about twenty yards away . . . There I found a few company personnel, one signaller and a larger group of prisoners.”12
By 1800 hours, both battalions were complete across the IJssel and expanding the beachhead towards Wilp, despite increasingly heavy artillery and mortar fire from positions around the village. At midnight, the two battalions were about a mile west of the river. German prisoners totalled 122, and one tank and an anti-tank gun had been destroyed.13 Canadian casualties had been surprisingly light and not all the result of enemy fire. The Seaforth’s ‘C’ Company reported Private Bela Terepocki “killed—by our own artillery. He was a new member of our [company] and it was his first battle.”14
The intensity of fire seriously hampered engineering efforts to bring bridging equipment forward, but by 2115 hours a small bridge was half built and several smaller ferries were operational, with one under construction that would be capable of carrying tanks. But the engineers were paying a price in casualties—seven 1st Field Company sappers, one 3rd Field Company officer and three sappers, and one 4th Field Company sapper. The bridge opened at 2315 hours, but not until 0300 hours of April 12 was the raft capable of ferrying tanks operational.15
Early morning in the Seaforth’s sector was fairly quiet, although the continuing shellfire claimed the life of the battalion’s second-in-command, Major Haworth Glendinning. The popular officer and DSO holder had just returned two days earlier from leave in England and had been married only a week. At dawn, the Seaforths recorded their casualties for the assault as totalling one officer (Glendinning) and four men killed. Two other officers and sixteen other ranks had been wounded.16
The PPCLI, meanwhile, had closed on Wilp with ‘B’ Company assigned the job of clearing it. Captain Egan Chambers and his men moved towards the graceful brick church, which with its tall spire, soaring arched windows, and tall buttresses dominated the village’s few other buildings, when “rattles and rumbles were heard in the darkness ahead.” Out front, Lieutenant E.R. Berryman led No. 10 Platoon in a mad dash to gain the tree-shrouded churchyard. ‘B’ Company just managed to wriggle into firing positions around the church before three tanks appeared with a large force of German infantry marching along behind as if on parade. Chambers waited until the column had passed, and then his men cut into its rear at a range of a few yards. Catching most of the infantry in a fierce melee, ‘B’ Company quickly took eighty prisoners before the rest of the column—seemingly uninterested in the battle to their rear—melted into the darkness and continued along the road leading to the IJssel. ‘B’ Company “braceleted the road with festoons of 75 [anti-tank] grenades and awaited the return of the raiders.”17
Directly in front of the German column, Frost’s ‘D’ Company frantically prepared to meet the tanks head on. Lieutenant Harvey Beardmore’s No. 18 Platoon had two PIAT gunners lying in ambush. It seemed a pathetically insufficient response, but Frost’s attempts to raise battalion headquarters on the wireless failed, and he remembered that it would be hours before any anti-tank guns or armour were over the IJssel. The infantry would have to meet the tanks alone. Frost was in a farmhouse behind Beardmore’s position, still hunkered over the No. 18 wireless set and trying to get through to battalion when a runner burst in. “Three tanks coming down the road,” he yelled, just as a shell blew the lean-to shed beside the house to bits. Another shell exploded in the front yard. Frost wished he were back in Italy. Houses there could take a beating from artillery and tank fire, but Frost had noticed that Dutch houses tended to disintegrate. Nearby, a PIAT fired, Bren guns chugged out their slow, steady bursts, a shell crashed into the front of the house, and from upstairs a man shouted, “They’re coming at us!” Frost drew his pistol and turned from the wireless just as the door burst open and five Germans lunged in. Before Frost could respond, his signaller emptied his Sten gun in their direction and all the men went down “writhing on the floor in agony.”
Outside, the tanks and surviving infantry never paused, just shot their way through ‘D’ Company and continued for the bridgehead—obviously intent on eliminating the bridge and ferry operations. Alerted by the two previous firefights, ‘A’ Company was waiting, and the night exploded “in a fearful roar of shells, PIAT bombs, Schmeissers, mortars, Brens and Stens.”
Suddenly, the tanks reappeared at ‘D’ Company’s position, “firing wildly in all directions.” Lieutenant Bert Bolton’s No. 16 Platoon’s PIAT gunner fired a bomb, and “a great explosion rents the night air and red flames shoot into the sky.” The two surviving tanks spun about and fled back the other way, which only returned them to ‘A’ Company’s lines, where they were quickly knocked out by PIAT bombs. After that, the infantry was easily wiped out.18
BY DAWN, 1ST Canadian Infantry Brigade began enteri
ng the bridgehead, the 48th Highlanders of Canada crossing the IJssel in Buffaloes, while the 1st Hussars fed the Shermans of ‘A’ Squadron over in rafts. Troops from this squadron quickly linked up with 2 CIB’s battalions and assisted in mopping up the last remnants of German resistance, and the bridgehead was declared secure at 0900 hours. The buildup continued throughout the morning until, at 1015 hours, 1 CIB advanced towards Apeldoorn with the 48th Highlanders leading, followed by the Royal Canadian Regiment and then the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment. The Highlanders were supported by the 1st Hussars’ ‘B’ Squadron.19
Rather than head due west along lesser roads towards Apeldoorn, Lieutenant Colonel Don Mackenzie directed his battalion northward on a road leading to the villages of Steenenkamer and de Hoven. This would put the Highlanders astride the major highway running from Deventer to Apeldoorn. Mackenzie sent ‘A’ Company around the southern side of Wilp and ‘B’ Company around its northern flank. Once past the village, the two companies would advance, with ‘A’ Company about three hundred yards west of the road and ‘B’ Company the same distance to its east. ‘A’ Company’s objective was a crossroads about a mile and a half distant and just south of Steenenkamer, while ‘B’ Company’s was to clear a wood next to this junction. Mackenzie held his other two companies back as a reserve.20