On to Victory

by Mark Zuehlke

  Within minutes of the assault, 9th Canadian Field Squadron engineers began bridging operations. They had several tasks. First, the roadblock in front of the blown bridge had to be cleared and mines along the road lifted to enable the bridging equipment to come forward. As this work was underway, other crews started launching a ferry service, while still more began constructing a bridge. It was hard, dangerous work, for the Germans had the roadblock and approaches “pin pointed by mortar, SP 88 mm, and machine-gun fire . . . Eventually, after a very heavy pounding by enemy fire and suffering three casualties, an armoured bulldozer, driven by S[apper George William] Grieve, cleared a passage through the block.” The engineers realized the Algonquin bridgehead was too narrow and insufficiently deep to shelter them from German fire while they worked. “None of us were at all satisfied with our bridgehead,” one engineer commented, “however, we decided to have a crack at the job.”44 Grieve’s work with the bulldozer earned him a Military Medal.

  Despite their efforts, it was soon obvious there would be no bridge until the Algonquins managed to push the Germans out of immediate range. Yet, without the bridge, tanks, Wasps, and other supporting armour that might tip the battle could not cross. The Algonquins fought from ground “poorly suited for defence, the centre line being bordered by many trees and crossed at right angles by numerous drainage ditches which were in turn lined by thick hedgerows. The ground itself was very marshy and slit trenches reaching a depth of more than twelve inches immediately filled with water. In short, it was ideal terrain from the enemy’s standpoint. He was soon to make excellent use of it.”45

  STANDING ON THE south bank, Major Cassidy saw German corpses strewn on the ground and realized most of these had been caught standing in the open when the Rangers and artillery had opened fire. “But though many were lying dead in the checkerboard of drainage ditches that crisscrossed the fields, it soon became clear that the enemy had moved in heavy reserves.” Intelligence identified these as more marines, paratroops from 32nd Fallschirmjäger Regiment, and Volkssturm from the 22nd Infantry Ersatz Battalion. Except for the paratroops, these were not first-class troops. But “in this country, well-armed (almost every man had a Schmeisser and many had two or three [Panzerfausts]), and well-supplied with ammunition and food, they were a hard force to be reckoned with.”

  ‘C’ Company’s Captain Taylor observed that while the marines “were young and inexperienced, their inexperience seemed to make them foolhardy. They didn’t seem to recognize that Death was permanent. Hence they were damned persistent fellows.” Normally, the Canadians offset German fanaticism with superior mobility and firepower of tanks and Wasps. Denied these advantages, the infantry could only “accept battle on the enemy’s terms.”46

  The Algonquins did have ample artillery and aerial support. Brilliant sunshine provided excellent visibility for the fighter-bombers. But even as the planes and guns hammered targets, snipers infiltrated the bridgehead.47 German mortars, artillery, and machine guns forced the engineers to cease work entirely after two rafts built to float anti-tank guns across were destroyed at noon. The “galling fire” only grew in volume and accuracy as the day progressed.48

  At 1400 hours, the Germans counterattacked ‘C’ Company—which was farthest inland—from three sides, and only the “constant and effective” artillery and “swooping Typhoon rocket-craft broke up many formed attacks.”49 Knowing he had to get more boots on the ground, Brigadier Jefferson ordered the new Argyll commander to put his battalion over. Lieutenant Colonel A.F. “Bert” Coffin had come to the Argylls from being the South Alberta’s second-in-command, and the Argylls were uneasy about this stranger—a tanker suddenly turned infantryman. Delays bringing up the twenty necessary boats ensued and the operation was put off until after last light.50

  In the bridgehead, the Algonquins clung on. Engaged in “a terrific firefight,” ‘C’ Company’s headquarters was constantly “under direct small-arms fire.”51 Dodging bullets, Captain Taylor was unable to control his rifle platoons. No runners could move safely within the company perimeter. Taylor had also lost all wireless contact with the battalion tactical headquarters, and telephone lines strung earlier had been cut by German fire. The company signaller, Private James Shields, kept repairing the line—making one “hazardous journey” after another along its length—a largely futile but brave effort that was recognized with a Military Medal.

  At last light, the Algonquins sent two platoons from ‘A’ Company across to reinforce the bridgehead, and these were thrown out on the left-hand flank.52 About the same time, the Argylls fed ‘A’ and ‘D’ Companies over. While ‘A’ Company dug in on the left side of the road, ‘D’ Company pushed out a thousand yards along the side of the canal. The Argylls held a position only a hundred yards deep, beyond which “stretched a wide, flat open space swept by enemy fire.”53

  Suddenly, out of the gathering gloom, a self-propelled gun mounting an 88-millimetre gun ground along the road towards ‘C’ Company—its big gun slamming shells into the buildings on either side that sheltered the infantry. Desperate, Taylor called for artillery right on his front, which transformed the area into “a veritable hell for Canadians and Germans alike.”54 Several Algonquins were wounded. Unscathed, the SPG rolled slowly past ‘C’ Company, apparently determined to gain the canal. The infantry accompanying the SPG had been driven to ground by the artillery, and Taylor used the lull before the Germans rallied to pull back into ‘D’ Company’s lines to the right of the bridge. Taylor’s “surrounded and shattered platoons got back with far fewer casualties than would have otherwise been possible.”

  The SPG trundled on, everything the Algonquins threw out harmlessly deflected by its armour, until it stopped fifty yards short of the water. From here it fired at houses across the canal and lobbed shells straight down the road towards Friesoythe. Then the SPG turned about and huffed back the way it had come.55

  Crisis momentarily over, the Canadians began improving their situation and taking stock. Seventy-six German dead lay inside the bridgehead and “many other corpses in field grey of the Wehrmacht and the dark blue of his Marine battalions littered the ditches.” Just before dawn on April 18, the Algonquin’s ‘B’ Company regained the ground ‘C’ Company had lost.56 The Argylls, meanwhile, were widening the bridgehead to the west with all four of their companies. Despite continuing heavy artillery and mortar fire, the engineers gained enough elbow room to launch rafts capable of carrying desperately needed ammunition and food into the bridgehead.

  By morning, the Algonquins had been in action for more than thirty hours and suffered eleven killed, nineteen missing (mostly from ‘C’ Company), and thirty-nine wounded.57

  Through the day, the Canadians struggled to deepen the bridgehead, while the Germans remained determined to overrun it. Three counterattacks struck the Argylls, one getting to within a hundred yards of ‘C’ Company before being driven back with heavy losses. Once again artillery and Typhoon support proved decisive. Slowly the Argylls expanded their grip to the west of the road.58 The Algonquins were so battered it was enough that they held their ground.

  With the bridging effort still incomplete, the only reinforcement that could be offered was more infantry, and at 1700 hours, Major General Chris Vokes summoned Lieutenant Colonel Rowan Coleman of the Lincoln and Welland Regiment to meet him at 10 CIB headquarters. In the distance, Coleman saw the crossing point, and beyond “an extreme scene of desolation . . . the whole place was a mess . . . The typical World War I battlefield.” Vokes, whom Coleman knew well from when the two men had served in 1st Division in Italy, grabbed him by the front of his tunic and growled, “You are going to go across . . . If you don’t get across, I’ll throw you right in the canal.”59

  Coleman was given three hours. Once on the other side, his job was to expand the bridgehead eastward. ‘C’ Company was to secure a footing on the edge of the canal, then push a thousand yards along the bank to a rail spur. ‘A’ Company would then advance as far as it could
go northward along the spur. ‘B’ Company would simultaneously punch north another thousand yards along the east side of the main road to where a railway track cut across on a perpendicular line. “The plan was to hold and firm up a very strong [bridgehead] so that a [bridge] could be built,” the battalion’s war diarist wrote.60

  ‘C’ Company crossed at 2230 hours. Veering to the right along the dyke, it reached the rail spur at 2340 hours. Schümines had taken their toll, the men stepping on the detonators that exploded the mines under their feet to mangle a foot and lower leg. Seeing one man being carried off with such a wound, the company commander, Major John Dunlop, walked over and said, “Tough luck, soldier.” The man replied, “Not as tough as you think. I came up for a fight for you, sir, and I never fired a shot. I’m sorry.”61

  Despite heavy resistance, the Lincs gained their objectives by daylight of April 19. Just as importantly, the engineers had rafted the battalion’s anti-tank platoon over the canal under cover of darkness. Food and ammunition also started to flow freely. All three battalions began deepening the bridgehead, and by 0800 hours the engineers—having worked feverishly through the night—opened a bridge to tanks. The British Columbia Regiment inched a Sherman forward, but it was hit by an 88-millimetre round. Luckily, the tank failed to burn and the crew dumped it into the ditch. Artillery immediately began pounding the German lines, and under its cover “the next tanks came across full tilt, firing directly up the road. In a few minutes, the first troop was successfully across and into firing positions . . . among the grateful infantry.”62

  The tanks doomed any thoughts the Germans might have entertained about overcoming 4th Division’s grip on the northern bank, but the delay they had imposed revealed a significant weakness that could not be overcome. As Lieutenant Colonel Mac Robinson, the division’s general staff officer, duly noted, “We were an armoured [division] fighting in what was properly speaking inf[antry] country and, early in this battle, we began to feel our shortage of inf. Only so much effort could be expected from the inf resources at our com[mand], and for one short period [we] were reduced to fighting on a one or at the most two-[battalion] front. Further the div. was definitely road-bound—a fact of which the enemy was entirely aware, and not only were we road-bound but it was constantly necessary to rebuild the [roads] over which the Div had to [advance] or actually to construct new roads to permit further advances.”63

  Of the Küsten Canal, Major Cassidy wrote, the “crossing was so hotly contested, and was won by such a slim margin, that . . . it opened up a three-week period of hard fighting that continued to the very end of the War itself. While on most other fronts the Allied armies were rolling over fragmentary opposition and wreaking havoc in the back areas, we found ourselves up against such determined resistance as had not been felt since the horrors of the Hochwald. It was ironical in the days to follow to hear of the long advances and sweeping victories of others, measured in tens and twenties of miles, while we crawled up blood-soaked ditches, and measured our advances in yards.”64

  [21]

  Large-Scale Street Fighting

  INCREASINGLY, IT WAS impossible for First Canadian Army to predict the intensity of opposition its divisions would meet from the Germans. On April 13, when 2nd Canadian Infantry Division gained the outskirts of Groningen, expectation had been that the city’s liberation would be easily won. In the late afternoon, 4th Brigade’s headquarters staff had confidently predicted that the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry and supporting Fort Garry Horse squadron were “going to victory march right into the city.”

  When opposition stiffened in the modern suburbs surrounding the medieval city centre, Brigadier Fred Cabeldu continued to believe the Rileys were facing a thin defensive crust that would collapse before nightfall. Resistance, however, had only thickened, and as Canadian casualties mounted they became “fighting mad” that the Germans were insisting on drawing them into a stupid and futile battle for a city of little strategic value.1

  Groningen formed the southern boundary of an extensive belt of anti-aircraft (flak) guns extending northeastward through the Dutch port of Delfzijl to cross the Eems Inlet to the German harbour of Emden opposite. A North Sea island, Borkum, which guarded entrance into the Eems, had been transformed into a fortress bristling with a dozen flak towers and an array of naval batteries. The bulk of the defensive ring’s flak towers were concentrated alongside the Eems, only two such batteries being close to Groningen. Their loss would little improve survival odds for the Allied bombers remorselessly pounding Germany’s industrial cities.

  The city was the centre of northern Holland’s extensive rail, water, and road transportation system, but this was of little value to the Germans now that they had lost their grip on the region. Through the years of occupation, the Germans had diligently fortified the city with an extensive network of trenches, anti-tank ditches, bunkers, and weapon pits that covered the canals ringing the city and their bridges.2 But on April 5 they had also sent home its major garrisoning force, the 480th Infantry Division, leaving behind a grab bag of units that still numbered between 7,000 and 7,500 men. Most were army regulars, Luftwaffe ground personnel, and naval marines. But also included were SS units, both German and Dutch, and some Hitlerjügend volunteers, German railroad workers, and members of the German Security Service (SD). This last group had its northern Netherlands headquarters in Groningen.3 Morale was decidedly low, but the SD, SS, and Hitlerjügend forces were, as always, fanatically motivated despite the inevitability of defeat. The SS were able to stiffen other units by threatening to kill any caught trying to surrender. Lacking tanks, they were equipped with many 20-millimetre anti-aircraft guns, MG-42 machine guns, Panzerfausts, and Schmeissers.

  The Germans in the city were clearly superior in their possession of automatic and shoulder-launched weapons, whereas the Canadians relied on their greater number of heavy weapons—tanks, Wasps, artillery, and other armoured support. In the narrow city streets, however, fighting would be limited to ranges of a hundred feet or less, distances better suited to hand-held weaponry than to heavy weapons.4

  Bypassing Groningen was not an option. That would require leaving behind Canadian forces to contain the Germans there, and II Canadian Corps needed these men for its imminent move to Germany to fulfill its first priority of guarding the left flank of Twenty-First Army Group’s advance towards the Elbe River.5 There was also the fact that 150,000 civilians would then be left at the mercy of the Germans and their Dutch collaborators.

  Drawn into an unexpected battle, the Rileys only realized in the early morning hours of April 14 that their attempts to win bridges over the inner canal ringing the city’s core would be met by a foe with no intention of withdrawing. The most remarkable news, however, that Lieutenant Colonel H.C. Arrell gave Cabeldu was that both the main bridge and another smaller one to its right still stood.6 The battalion’s ‘B’ Company had made two successive failed attempts to win the smaller bridge before admitting it was outgunned.7

  Cabeldu decided to feed the Royal Regiment of Canada in to seize the smaller bridge. “Gentlemen, when we have secured Groningen, we effectively will have severed Holland from Germany,” Lieutenant Colonel Richard Lendrum told his officers in a briefing that 4th Canadian Field Regiment FOO Captain George Blackburn heard through a haze of exhaustion. Before Lendrum finished, he nodded off. Waking thirty minutes before the attack, he saw the Royal’s company commanders all sprawled about on the floor of the farmhouse in a similar stupor.8

  By 0415 hours, everyone was awake and the attack got underway with ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies attempting to clear the approaches to the canal and the bridge. Major Jack Stother’s ‘C’ Company was to seize what appeared on the maps and aerial photos as a cluster of warehouses. ‘D’ Company would then pass through to secure the section of canal bordered on the southern bank by the city’s large railway yards and station.9 Once this section of the canal was secured, Major J.K. Shortreed’s ‘B’ Company would make the crossing. Blackb
urn was to accompany Shortreed’s men.10

  The attack rapidly unravelled when Stother’s company discovered that the warehouses were actually rows of apartment blocks bristling with snipers and machine guns. Several 20-millimetre guns sent volleys of shells screaming down the streets, forcing the men to hug the walls and hide behind corners. Both companies set to clearing each apartment building in turn, a slow process that took until dawn to complete.11 The clearing was complicated by the presence of civilian snipers, who were later determined to have been Dutch SS and other collaborators who knew that when Groningen fell they would be “in a serious predicament.”12

  From the apartment complex, ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies moved against the railway station. Shortreed’s men advanced in single file up a street bordered by the canal on one side and a row of buildings on the other. Small-arms fire started coming from “a row of shaggy bushes stretching across the far end of the street and marking the boundary of railyards containing several tracks, separated by raised passenger-platforms, which . . . constitute[d] a formidable obstacle course on the final dash from the hedgerow to the main station platform.” Heavy fire shrieking up the street towards them forced the Royals to crawl along the angled concrete berm at the edge of the canal.

  Across the street, Blackburn ducked into a deeply recessed doorway and pushed his back against the door. As he did so, it opened. Whirling around, Blackburn confronted a Dutch youth, who handed him “steaming coffee in a delicate cup, complete with saucer.” Blackburn sipped his coffee while the troops across the road shouted abuse. “Leave it to the bloody artillery, they always get the best of everything,” one man yelled. The boy asked what they were saying and Blackburn replied that they wanted coffee as well, even as he saluted them with a raised middle finger while taking another delicate sip. The lad disappeared, returning a few minutes later with two more cups, complete with saucers, and ducked across the bullet-swept street. Kneeling on one knee, he waited calmly for a couple of men to empty the cups, retrieved them, and then trotted through the fire back into the house.13