by Mark Zuehlke
From a nearby house, ‘A’ Company Sergeant Major Wilf Stone had gathered a handful of men and they ran down the road. But “by the time we got to where the action was, the Germans had either been killed, or wounded, or escaped. And Colonel Wigle . . . had been killed.”
At main battalion headquarters, news of the attack came at 0830 hours. After that the messages had been chaotic and incoherent, until signaller Private Sidney Webb heard someone say, “Sunray has been milked.” Webb had no idea how to respond. Turning to Major Pete MacKenzie, the battalion’s second-in-command, he reported the signal. MacKenzie went pale. “The Colonel said if he was to be killed, that was the message that would be put over,” he told Webb before setting off in a carrier to take command.11
The Argylls were in control of Friesoythe by the time MacKenzie arrived at 1030 hours, and by early afternoon the Lincoln and Welland Regiment passed through to advance on the Küsten Canal.
Within the village, rumours swirled through the Argyll ranks. Particularly prevalent was a report that Wigle had been killed by a sniper wearing civilian clothes, who turned out to be a local villager. Men were angry, talking revenge. Soon another rumour surfaced. Division, or maybe brigade, had ordered Friesoythe burned. Moncel’s friendship with Wigle was common knowledge, and it was said the grieving brigadier wanted the villagers punished. Vokes’s sharp temper was legendary, and some said his exact words had been, “Burn the fucking town!” As the battalion’s Wasps arrived, the Argylls lashed out. “I was driving a flamethrower . . . and we burnt the whole town down,” Private Harold Reid said. “Revenge, eh—’cause they killed our Colonel.” Other soldiers stuffed rags in the spouts of Jerry cans, set them alight, and chucked them one after the other “into each little frame house.”
‘C’ Company’s Private Donald Stark stood on a back porch watching the church steeple collapse into the flaming structure below. Then he walked into the house, climbed the stairs, and calmly threw a phosphorous grenade into each of three rooms. Flames were spreading as he strolled away.
When the mortar platoon arrived in its carrier, Friesoythe was blazing. Private J.J. Ross saw a corpse lying in the street and realized it was an old man. His clothes were on fire, flames eating away the flesh.12
At 1800 hours, while many Argylls were still torching the village, a small group of officers gathered in a field on its southern outskirts. After a short service, the bodies of Wigle and four other Argylls killed in the fighting were buried in shallow graves. How many German civilians perished in the fires was never determined. The Argylls reported only that they took eighty prisoners and that sixteen of the Germans who attacked Wigle’s headquarters were killed.13
Not all of Friesoythe was burned, but its centre was destroyed. The Argyll’s war diarist made no mention of the incident, noting only that the night of April 14 was spent under occasional, ineffective German shelling of the town, “in which many fires were raging.”14 “When darkness fell,” wrote 4th Canadian Armoured Brigade’s war diarist, “Friesoythe was a reasonable facsimile of Dante’s Inferno.”15
The tragedy at Friesoythe went unmentioned at divisional, corps, and army headquarters. No investigation followed. The army’s official historian, Lieutenant Colonel C.P. Stacey, only confirmed Friesoythe’s burning in a personal visit after the war. He concluded that the false report of a civilian sniper had prompted “a mistaken reprisal,” but that there was “no record of how this came about.”16
No evidence of a deliberate cover-up exists. Indeed, several war diarists, such as the 8th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment’s, alluded to it. “There is a definite hardening in the Canadian point of view,” he wrote. “Civilians in Friesoythe are finding that treachery does not pay. The [Argylls] were attacked in that town yesterday by German forces assisted by civilians and to-day the whole town is being systematically razed. A stern atonement, but one which the Hun knows himself and understands. It seems folly now to continue to fight, but as long as fanatical Germans continue to accept [battle], the war will go on.”17
FRIESOY THE IN FLAMES behind them, the Lake Superiors advanced in a “night push in the hope that we might catch the enemy off balance and seize a crossing [over] the canal intact.”18 ‘B’ Company was to secure a small bridge spanning a narrow canal a short distance south of the wider waterway, and then the plucky scouts of No. 13 Platoon would “make a run for the [bridge] over the [Küsten] canal” while the rest of the battalion hurried along in column behind. Once the battalion was north of the canal, the enemy’s “back would be broken,” 4th Armoured Brigade’s war diarist predicted.
Finding the bridge over the small canal intact, No. 13 Platoon had passed three carriers over when it suddenly exploded. The three-man demolition party was quickly caught, with one man killed and the other two taken prisoner. Hoping to retrieve the situation, the scouts ranged out and discovered another bridge, rickety but intact, over which the rest of the platoon crossed and then raced to join the others back at the main road.19 Eight hundred yards farther on, however, they came to “a tremendous demolition [that had] turned the [road] into a morass and further progress . . . became impossible . . . It was a noble effort but it failed.”20 Using the shaky bridge found by the scouts, ‘B’ Company soon passed over and arrived at the seventy-five-foot-wide, twenty-five-foot deep crater, but the bridge collapsed under the weight of ‘C’ Company’s personnel carriers.
When dawn broke on April 15, ‘B’ Company managed to wiggle four carriers around the crater, but the larger armoured personnel carriers were unable to follow. The rest of the company and those of ‘C’ Company dismounted and moved out on foot. The Superiors advanced through the “dreary peat bog, with here and there a stack of drying peat providing cover for enemy snipers and anti-tank guns, and along the roadsides, deep ditches filled with water, with the inevitable row of trees and the occasional farm . . . the enemy had planned the withdrawal well [and] he fought with determination and oftentimes with considerable skill. Not only did he still have a few paratroopers available, but now he was drawing upon marines from the German naval station at Wilhelmshaven; and if the latter had little knowledge of land warfare, they still had plenty of courage.”21
The Superiors soon saw the canal in the distance. Germans were streaming in large numbers across a bridge, which suddenly exploded into pieces just as ‘B’ Company closed on it. Digging in near the canal, the Superiors were under constant mortar fire and realized that some Germans remained on the south bank when an anti-tank gun knocked out two of No. 13 Platoon’s carriers. Corporal Henry John Beaudry was killed, the only fatal casualty suffered this day.22
Learning there would be no easy crossing, Vokes decided the time had come for Moncel’s brigade to have a deserved rest. Winning a bridgehead would be 10th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s task, a decision Moncel’s staff considered “glad news.” A contact team quickly briefed Brigadier Jim Jefferson and his people, so that they could “carry on the good work.” The Superiors were relieved by the Algonquin Regiment, while the Argylls and Lincoln and Welland Regiment reverted to 10 CIB control. There would be no rest for the infantry, “who had fought so gallantly, since they had joined us at the Meppen crossing,” 4 CAB’s war diarist acknowledged.23
NORTHEAST OF FRIESOY THE, the Lincoln and Welland Regiment spent April 15 clearing small villages south of the Küsten Canal. The battalion’s ‘D’ Company ranged even farther to the east to link up with the independently operating tankers of the South Alberta Regiment. “There was a lot of petty fighting,” the Lincs’ Lieutenant Colonel Rowan Coleman noted, “sniping, this type of thing . . . It was costing us people every day. And I think that type of thing [ramped up the tension] more than a mass attack where a lot of people died. This was more a case of losing one here and two there.”24
Tasked with keeping contact between 4th Division and XXX British Corps, the South Albertas had been operating for several days across a wide front that saw the squadrons gradually vectoring in on the town of Garrel, about t
en miles southeast of Friesoythe. “All along the front came reports of craters, mines, and several bombs for demolitions,” the war diarist noted.25 Lieutenant Colonel “Swatty” Witherspoon was stalwartly doing his duty but grieving for Lieutenant Colonel Wigle, who had been his brother-in-law.
Mines and craters had proven the greatest hindrance, but at about 2000 hours on April 15, ‘C’ Squadron drew fire from two self-propelled guns and a tank as it approached a small airfield south of Garrel. The two SPGs were quickly knocked out, but the tank proved to be a heavy Tiger II—virtually impervious to the 75-millimetre gun normal Shermans mounted.26 While some of the Shermans attempted to shoot it out with the Tiger, Sergeant Tom Milner of No. 2 Troop spotted a couple of smaller tanks—one towing a trailer—rolling across the airfield at a range of about twelve hundred yards. Milner’s tank was a Firefly, mounting a 17-pounder gun that could take on the Tiger, and these smaller tanks were sitting ducks. The tank’s gunner, Trooper Carson Daley, immobilized both with shots through their tracks. He then punched an armour-piercing round through each tank’s turret, and suddenly “the whole damned thing went sky high about five hundred feet.” It was later determined the spectacular explosion had been caused by the trailer’s payload of several five-hundred-pound aerial bombs the Germans had intended to use for mines.27
Lieutenant Danny McLeod’s No. 2 Troop and Lieutenant Ken Wigg’s No. 4 Troop went for the Tiger, aided by the illumination of falling parachute flares. Each troop’s Firefly engaged the Tiger head-on, while the other Shermans manoeuvred to attack it from either flank. Shell after shell slammed into the Tiger, which lashed back ineffectively with its mighty 88-millimetre gun. Finally, a round struck the gun’s muzzle and “it was bent back about six inches.” The Tiger began backing away but in doing so turned itself broadside, and a high-explosive shell set the engine compartment on fire.28 Flames quickly engulfed the tank, bringing to conclusion what the South Alberta’s war diarist termed “a ding dong fight in the failing light.”29
At dawn on April 16, ‘B’ Squadron launched the South Alberta’s assault on Garrel from the northwest while ‘A’ Squadron approached from the northeast. ‘C’ Squadron, meanwhile, sealed the roads leading north from the town to block the garrison’s line of retreat. The three squadrons were entering the outskirts when the town’s civil authorities offered to surrender it. Witherspoon told them the surrender would be accepted, but if any of his tanks drew fire or struck mines, the attack would be renewed. As the first tank moved up the main street, it was “brewed up” by a Panzerfaust round. Witherspoon angrily ordered that “every [building] which did not show a white flag [be] fired.”30
Garrel was so strewn with mines, craters, and other obstacles that Witherspoon decided against keeping tanks there through the night. Several snipers were also at work within the built-up area, and the Lincolns of ‘D’ Company had arrived in such exhausted condition after a long journey that they were in no shape to finish the clearing operation. After giving them the night off, Witherspoon sent the Lincs into Garrel on the morning of April 17, and they soon reported the town clear.
The previous day had been frustrating for Witherspoon, but not because of Garrel. A battalion reconnaissance section had determined that Aue, a stream east of Garrel, was defended for a long stretch by just two German infantry companies. Witherspoon had immediately realized that if his regiment deployed a tank-launched scissors bridge, it could gain a main road leading directly to Oldenburg by the morning of April 17 and take the city in a surprise attack. The nearest such bridge had been deployed five miles south of Garrel, and Witherspoon ordered it rushed to the Aue. As the Valentine tank fitted with the bridge rolled past the airfield south of Garrel, however, it struck a mine and blew up. Witherspoon declared this misfortune “his greatest disappointment of the war.”31
HAD THE SOUTH Albertas succeeded in taking Oldenburg from the south, 10th Infantry Brigade’s Küsten Canal assault crossing might have been unnecessary. Instead, Brigadier Jefferson knew his brigade faced a costly challenge. There was only one possible crossing—at Edewecht, “a hamlet surrounded by marshes and ditches on the Friesoythe-Bad Zwischenahn road about 11 miles southwest of Oldenburg,” so achieving surprise was impossible.32 Across the canal were two battalions of marine fortress troops from Wilhelmshaven. In reserve behind the marines were elements of the 7th Fallschirmjäger Division.33
Completed in 1936, Küsten Canal linked the lower reaches of the Ems to the Weser River. About fifty-five miles long, it had a standard hundred-foot width.
The Algonquin’s ‘A’ Company had closed to its edge in the early morning hours of April 16 and established a base for the forthcoming night assault. Sporadic mortar and artillery fire greeted the company’s arrival. Major Robert Stock’s reports back to battalion offered little encouragement. The peat bogs presented a “practically insuperable” problem, making the deployment of vehicles or guns anywhere but squarely on the narrow road impossible. The dyke on the opposite shore was higher than the southern one, enabling the enemy “to bring his self-propelled guns right up to the canal in virtually hull-down positions.” Only the southern bank’s steep landward side “allowed any lateral deployment.”34
Jefferson and Lieutenant Colonel Robert Bradburn mulled over this information as they worked up an attack plan. At the same time, they had the canal shelled heavily, the fire being directed from ‘A’ Company’s lines by 15th Field Regiment’s Captain I. Cristall. His work spotting “plentiful” targets “kept the guns busy.” April 16 was a warm, sunny day, perfect for air operations.35 All “day long, Typhoons and Spitfires were busy bombing and strafing enemy positions and gun and mortar areas north of the canal with considerable success,” the 10th Brigade’s war diarist recorded.36
Jefferson decided to have 8th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment’s ‘A’ and ‘D’ Troops provide pepper-pot support, as the 20-millimetre guns had done during the Rhine crossing. The gunners were soon slashing “targets along the [canal] and ducking occasionally as hostile missiles returned across the obstacle.”37 Even more in jeopardy due to lack of cover were the New Brunswick Rangers of No. 5 Platoon, under command of Lieutenant J.S. Drury, who could only get in range by digging their medium machine guns into the high canal dyke. Drury’s Vickers .303 machine guns would “lay down rapid fire on enemy positions . . . commencing the moment the boats of the assault [troops] were lowered into the water until they [disembarked] on the other side—his fire will then swing right to engage targets east of the [road],” the Rangers’ war diarist reported. The Rangers’ No. 4 Platoon dug its 4.2-inch mortars into pits a little farther back with instructions to keep up a steady fire program for forty-five minutes once the boats launched.38 The Algonquin’s Major George Cassidy, Left Out of Battle (LOB) for this crossing, thought it an “unorthodox procedure to place the [machine guns] where they could practically shake hands with the enemy.”39
Major P.A. Mayer’s ‘B’ Company would lead the assault, followed by ‘D’ Company under Captain J.J.J. Sunstrum, and lastly ‘C’ Company, led by Captain Les Taylor because Major Clark Robertson, like Cassidy, was LOB. ‘B’ Company’s job was to land next to the blown bridge and advance four hundred yards to seize a cluster of buildings. ‘D’ Company, meanwhile, would expand the bridgehead east of the road. ‘C’ Company would pass through Mayer’s men and work out to the north.
Nobody underestimated the difficulty ‘B’ Company faced crossing the canal. As one report put it, “Success depends entirely upon the initiative of the men who paddle across the water, very often under a hail of fire against which their canvas craft offers no protection whatsoever. If caught by small arms fire in mid-stream, the soldier therefore must fire his own weapons from the boat and neutralize the opposition before he can land. Once he has landed, he must plunge into the darkness beyond to seek out and destroy his enemy in close combat. Such is the lot of the infantryman.”40
As soon as it was dark, the company carried seven canvas assault boats forward
and set them down in a line facing the canal from behind a paralleling road short of the dyke. At a signal from Mayer, the boat crews—those who would do the paddling—quietly moved the boats onto the dyke and lay down alongside them to avoid casting a silhouette. The rest of Mayer’s men waited behind the dyke. It was 0045 hours on April 17 and the “company was lined up in complete silence . . . The enemy, who could be heard on the far bank, apparently realized that something was afoot and a good deal of rifle and machine-gun fire was directed onto the ground on which we were lying,” Mayer wrote. “A tribute to the discipline of the troops here is evident from the fact that although 4 men were hit, not one cried out to give our intention away.”
At precisely 0100 hours, the Rangers fired their machine guns—the signal to the Algonquins to go. Mayer saw tracers flashing across the canal, “shells started to pass over, and as one man the company rose, picked up its boats, and having loaded up, pushed off across the darkened waters.” The canal “was covered against fairly heavy fire, which some of the enemy, standing on the north bank, poured onto us; but our own Brens in the bows of the boat replied and neutralized the opposition long enough to allow us to disembark.”
‘B’ Company bellowed the regiment’s Indian war cry and charged up the bank. Guns blazed as they burst over the top of the dyke, and twenty minutes “of brisk hand-to-hand fighting and house clearing followed, at the end of which the leading company was on all its objectives and had taken twenty-one prisoners.”41
In the brief minutes that the Rangers had spent covering the company’s assault, they “had taken a terrible beating, but their guts and determination was of the greatest value to the crossing.” Most of the Germans dug in along the canal bank had fired at the Rangers rather than the three Algonquin companies, which consequently crossed with minimal casualties.42 Two of the Rangers’ guns were knocked out and four men wounded.43