On to Victory

by Mark Zuehlke

  There remained one major line of resistance. The Germans fought hard to keep a road running through Putten and Nijkerk immediately south of the IJsselmeer, as it provided the only remaining escape route for 361st Volksgrenadier Division. When the New Brunswick Hussars and Strathconas passed the Dragoons on either side in a race towards the coast, both met costly resistance here.

  Yet the most the Germans could do was save remnants of the units east of the Grebbe Line from the closing divisions of I Canadian Corps. From the east, 1st Canadian Division and the British 49th (West Riding) Division were overrunning and capturing Germans by the hundreds while fighting through occasional resistance pockets. The British division, supported by 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade’s Calgary Regiment, fought a sharp five-hour action on April 17 at the town of Ede, southwest of Otterloo. Hooking out on the flanks of the advancing infantry, the tankers ambushed several anti-tank and artillery positions from the rear. But the Dutch SS defending the town withdrew into a heavily fortified factory complex. Artillery was called in and after a ten-minute barrage, Captain J.W. Rainey’s ‘C’ Squadron “went over the crest, advanced to the factories and punched holes in the brick walls. Wasp flamethrowers followed, sweeping slit trenches and the interior of buildings. In some cases enemy MGS fired to the last. Some attempted to escape, were captured or cut down by an ‘A’ [Squadron] troop under [Lieutenant R.G.] Maltby, who waited for them in the rear. From this time on resistance rapidly collapsed. ‘A’ [Squadron] entered the south part of the town, shot up a barracks, took the [rail] station, cleaned out the southern half of the town by 1310 hours.”

  ‘C’ Squadron then “committed the error of harbouring in the main square, where hundreds of ecstatically happy civilians cheered, climbed on the tanks, made normal work impossible,” commented the regiment’s war diarist. He added, “These civilians were happy, but their faces were stamped with the mark of malnutrition or downright starvation.”51

  To the north, 1st Division’s Royal 22e Régiment enjoyed an unopposed ten-hour advance from Apeldoorn to Barneveld and arrived at midnight, establishing a link with 5th Division and freeing it to concentrate on the escape corridor to the north by the afternoon of April 17. The 8th Hussars advanced on Putten with ‘A’ Squadron leading on the left and ‘C’ Squadron the right. Less than five miles from the IJsselmeer, they were confident of bringing things to a quick conclusion despite the poor condition of the sandy tracks bordered by scrubby pine woods. Three hundred yards east of its starting point at Voorthuizen, Major Lloyd Hill’s ‘A’ Squadron came under intense fire from a German position about twelve hundred yards distant that was “bristling” with six anti-tank guns “manned by good troops.” Knocking out two of the guns, Hill’s tankers were stumped as to the location of the others and were taking fire not only from them but also from about 150 supporting infantry heavily armed with machine guns and Panzerfausts. Although Hill was short-tempered, his men considered him “a dandy fighting leader.” Pressed for time, Hill was in no mood to look for ways around the German force. Instead, he threw the squadron’s four troops out on line, and the tanks charged with guns and engines “blazing and snarling.”

  Lieutenant Ivan Harper’s troop bored towards a road, the officer intending to hurtle across before the Germans could bring any anti-tank gun to bear. But his driver was new and, confused, yanked hard on the right tiller to set the Sherman grinding right up the road towards an 88-millimetre gun. “I was sure we’d had it . . . But the Germans were apparently more astonished than we were,” Harper said. “This must have been the last thing they expected. Anyway, they deserted their gun. We could see them running away . . . We destroyed the 88.” Leading the troop into a gap through the woods, Harper got behind three self-propelled guns and knocked two out. Before anyone could fire at the third, the crew abandoned it and fled. Harper’s actions earned a Military Cross.52

  ‘A’ Squadron emerged victorious at 1550 hours from its wild gun-fight at point-blank range. Seven anti-tank guns had been destroyed, an ammunition dump blown up, and at least fifty Germans killed. In exchange, four tanks were lost and one suffered mechanical breakdown. No Hussars died and a few suffered light injuries. Hill received a Distinguished Service Order.

  To the right, ‘C’ Squadron also bumped anti-tank guns, but these were poorly positioned and all three were knocked out at the cost of one Sherman. The farther the two squadrons advanced, the more Germans appeared. ‘A’ Squadron rampaged through a small column of “soft-skinned” vehicles, shooting them up with high-explosive shells from a hundred yards off. Then they tangled with “a hornet’s nest” of three 88-millimetre guns and four 20-millimetre anti-aircraft guns, destroying them all before the Germans managed to get off a shot. Luck ran out soon after, when two tanks were knocked out by anti-tank guns so well concealed the tankers were unable to bring them under fire. Lieutenant Colonel J.W. Eaton ordered Hill to pull back and let the Westminsters send a company to deal with the guns. When the motorized infantry arrived, the Germans abandoned their guns and ran.

  Nine hundred yards farther on, ‘A’ Squadron ran into another ambush set by a large infantry force supported by two self-propelled guns and a 105-millimetre artillery piece. Armed with at least fifty Panzerfausts, the infantry lit up the tanks with flares that blinded the crews. ‘A’ Squadron frantically extricated itself from the storm of shells and Panzerfaust bombs, but lost six tanks before breaking free. The squadron might well have been wiped out entirely, a report later concluded, had it not been for the track links welded to the hulls and turrets to increase the armour’s density. Every armour-piercing round or Panzerfaust bomb that struck a track was either deflected or failed to penetrate the tank. The first of two Panzerfaust bombs striking one Sherman “hit the track links, and although these were melted and mangled, the explosion did not penetrate the armour. A second round hit the front of the turret, which is the heaviest amour on the tank. This portion was not covered by track links and the explosion penetrated the turret.”

  At 2030 hours, ‘C’ Squadron also got stuck in front of a German strongpoint and, as he had with ‘A’ Squadron, Eaton ordered it to pull back for the night. April 17 was among the hardest fighting days the Hussars had experienced and ended the earlier impression that campaigning in Holland constituted a stroll compared to the Italian slog. ‘A’ Squadron had only four of seventeen tanks operational. Two ‘C’ Squadron tanks had also been lost. Amazingly, only Trooper John Burpe Wallace had been killed and nobody else was seriously wounded. The two squadrons accounted for fourteen anti-tank guns, five anti-aircraft guns, four vehicles, two ammunition dumps, about eighty Germans killed, 120 taken prisoner, and “an enormous number of bicycles captured.”53

  To the west, the Strathconas’ advance to Nijkerk had been one of frustration. A single narrow dirt track offered the only route, so ‘A’ Squadron led with the Westminster’s ‘C’ Company riding on the hulls in order to quickly deploy forward of the Shermans to meet infantry ambushes. Shortly after starting out at 1400, they entered what became known as the “battle of the roadblocks.”54 Deep ditches either side of the track constrained the tanks to driving up in single file, so the first roadblock of “heavy green logs securely braced to form a [five-foot] wall” stopped the tanks cold. An armoured bulldozer was required to remove the obstacle. A thousand yards ahead its twin stood, this time defended by infantry supported by artillery fire that hammered the Shermans with shrapnel until the Westminsters cleared the Germans off and the advance could continue.

  “At this rate,” Lieutenant Colonel Jim McAvity realized, “it would have been impossible to fight our way through to Nijkerk before dark.” He told ‘A’ Squadron’s Major R.J. Graham to check whether a paralleling railway shown on the map would serve as an alternative route. Setting out alone, Graham’s Sherman was immobilized a few minutes later by a high-velocity shell. The officer was severely wounded in the chest. Situation hopeless, 5th Brigade ordered the advance abandoned, with the Strathconas instructed t
o hook instead through Putten once the Hussars secured it. Nijkerk would be left to 1st Division, while 5th Division would close to the coast at the small harbour of Harderwijk.55 The Strathconas had suffered three officers wounded, five other ranks killed, and eight more wounded.

  During the night, intelligence reported that Harderwijk was being used by the German Kreigsmarine to evacuate troops by ship to Amsterdam. Brigade ordered the Strathconas to gain the “high ground south of Harderwijk and shell the enemy taking off in small boats.”56

  But first the Hussars had to take Putten, which they set out to do at first light, with the squadrons converging on it along several different routes. It soon became clear that during the previous night, the Germans had withdrawn. Aided by partisans, Putten was cleared by mid-morning, and at 1035 hours, Captain H. Snell reported his reconnaissance troop had gained the IJsselmeer and “cut Holland completely into 2 sections.”57

  Pushing out from Putten, amply assisted by Dutch resistance, the Strathconas reached Harderwijk at 1630 hours “without a shot being fired.”58 The local underground chief jumped onto the lead tank, and waving “aside the masses of joy-crazy people, he led them through the narrow twisting streets of the quaint old port, through ancient masonry arches, to the beaches. There he pointed out several ships, small fishing craft most of them, full of Huns. A few rounds of 17-pounder resulted in one ship sunk, then a white flag appeared above the others. Meanwhile, the tanks covering the fields east of the town got in some good shooting as more tried to escape there.

  “Suddenly it was all over; all over but the cheering, as the saying goes. It had been a wonderful day . . . here, in the narrow old-world streets of Harderwijk, we had come to the end of the journey.”59

  The Strathconas had only intercepted the last stage of the Kreigsmarine in Holland’s final naval operation. After the failed breakthrough at Otterloo, about a thousand men from 953rd Volksgrenadier Division had turned for Harderwijk. Beginning at 0800 hours on April 18, a small flotilla of naval ships had evacuated most of them before the Strathconas arrived.60

  Harderwijk’s liberation concluded 5th Division’s operations in western Holland. After the briefest break to quickly service vehicles and tanks, the division moved towards the Delfzijl region and the Canadians’ final battle in the Netherlands.

  [23]

  Sound Tactical Plans

  I CANADIAN CORPS’S REMAINING 1st Canadian Infantry Division and the British 49th (West Riding) Division continued towards the Grebbe Line. There was little resistance. While the Canadian division’s 2nd and 3rd Brigades led the advance, its 1st Brigade mopped up hundreds of stragglers wandering between Apeldoorn and Barneveld.

  When 2nd Brigade reached Barneveld, the Loyal Edmonton Regiment remained behind there as the reserve. On April 19, Lieutenant Colonel Jim Stone was approached by Dutch resistance. They reported about five hundred Germans holed up in a forest to the north who wanted to surrender. Taking the surrender personally was too good an opportunity to pass up, but Stone distrusted the Germans enough to take with him a fighting column consisting of ‘D’ Company, six carriers, a Saskatoon Light Infantry heavy machine-gun platoon, a tank troop, a troop of self-propelled anti-tank guns, and a section of Edmonton pioneers. Brigadier Pat Bogert cautioned, “Don’t get engaged. If they want to surrender, fine. But don’t get into any big battle. It’s not worth it, we’re moving through the country anyhow.”

  The column soon met a roadblock, and the typical deep ditches blocked passage to the tanks. Stone tried to blow it out of the way with the 17-pounder tanks, but the rounds bounced harmlessly off the obstacle’s hard concrete. Snipers started taking potshots at the column from the surrounding woods.1

  Battalion intelligence officer Lieutenant Keith MacGregor stood next to Stone’s carrier. Its machine-gunner was blazing away with the Bren, and spent casings bounced off the vehicle’s side. “Suddenly I felt a thump in the shoulder and thought I’d been hit by a casing, so moved to get out of the way . . . and realized that my whole left side was strangely numb. Then I did what I said I would never do. I had seen people do this so many times and always thought, ‘How foolish. ’ I grabbed myself on the left side and felt the numbness. Looked astonished at the person next to me and said, ‘I’ve been hit.’”2 MacGregor’s wound proved not to be serious, and he went on to have a post-war military career.

  Stone figured a bullet that had whistled past his head was the one that got MacGregor. Damned if he was going to let the snipers get away with shooting one of his men. Stone radioed Bogert. “Get us a squadron of Typhoons to dive bomb this wood,” he said. Reminding Stone not to get tangled in a dogfight, Bogert summoned the aircraft. “That was the amount of support we had by this time. Poor old Jerry had nothing, but we could call up Typhoons whenever we liked. So in came these Typhoons and rocketed the wood while I disengaged and pulled back to Barneveld.”3 Stone had overstated the Germans’ helplessness. Including MacGregor, snipers had wounded six Eddies.4

  Avoiding costly fights was increasingly the order of the day. As one Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry officer described it: “The Battalion has been ordered to advance in a slow and stately manner.” 5 Rumours were rife down to the battalion command level by April 20 that a deal was being brokered with the Germans. From Barneveld to the Grebbe Line before Amersfoort was barely seven miles, but 2nd Brigade advanced at a snail’s pace to give the Germans time to withdraw.

  Yet resistance sharpened the closer the Canadians came to the Ems River, which was now identified by divisional headquarters as the line upon which the advance would halt. On April 24, when the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada patrolled close to the canal, the carrier platoon came under deadly sniper fire that killed Lieutenant Frank Richard Perrett and Corporal Alfred “Frenchy” French. Perrett had joined the regiment in 1939 and French in 1940. The next day, ‘C’ Company was sent to clear up the resistance, and Corporal John Myles was shot and killed by a sniper. Private George Francis Votary was then killed by mortar fire. Both men were relative new-comers, having joined the regiment in the fall of 1944.6

  April 24 was also a bad day for the Edmontons’ Lieutenant Robert Dudley. He knew the corps’s plan was to push the Germans “back . . . gently so they wouldn’t retaliate on the Dutch cities where people were dying of starvation. So we were closing No Man’s Land slowly, giving the Germans plenty of time to withdraw without fighting.” But some Germans in a wood next to a farm refused to cooperate, which resulted in Dudley’s No. 14 Platoon leading a ‘C’ Company attack to clear them out. Dudley was in the centre with a section on either flank, his headquarters group right behind, and then the platoon’s last section on the tail end. Standard formation for a job the platoon had carried off countless times before.

  In the second-storey window of the farmhouse, Dudley spotted a German geared up for action. “I decided the thing to do was throw a grenade through the upstairs window. And when it blew upstairs, hopefully taking the Germans out, we would come in the bottom of the building. The normal technique for an experienced infantryman is to pull the grenade pin, let the striker lever come off and count to two and throw. Then, if they pick it up to throw it back at you, they’re mush. Five second fuse and I heaved the grenade and it went right through the window like Joe DiMaggio throwing one across the plate. As it crashed through the window, I headed for the door with Corporal Hinkley and his section in hot pursuit. I kicked open the door and moved to the far side and started working the place over with my Sten gun, and there bouncing down the staircase is my grenade. They simply kicked it downstairs. And I said to myself, ‘Shit, this is nowhere for Mrs. Dudley’s little boy, Bob.’

  “I started to hit the deck, but it blows up in my face. I got twenty-three holes. Damn thing happened in slow motion. I’m lying on the floor. My Sten gun is long gone. I’ve been hit in the wrist and both legs. And I’m trying to get my pistol out because there’s a German at the top of the staircase and he’s got a Schmeisser. I figure he’s going to
try and write me off. I’m lying on my right side and I’m fumbling around on my left. Probably [would have] shot myself in the foot if I’d managed to get my pistol out. If he’d fired the Schmeisser the way he had been trained to fire, instead of trying to aim it, he’d have got me. But the next guy through the door was Bill Hinkley and it seemed like slow motion. I thought to myself, ‘How terribly undignified. I am lying here and I can see Bill Hinkley’s khaki clad battle dress on either side of me and he blows this German away at the top of the stairs . . . I can feel hot spent shell casings hitting my ass as Bill shoots this guy. We left three dead in the place and took ten prisoners . . . I got evacuated and sort of ended the war.”7

  April 24 was the last real day of combat for I Canadian Corps, which thereafter entered into what its troops would remember as a “phony war”—the troops facing the Grebbe Line from across the Ems River. Strict orders prohibited any firing on the Germans opposite unless directly attacked. “Even if the brigade sector is being fired upon there will be no retaliation,” the West Nova Scotia Regiment war diarist complained. Even when the Germans opened up with “spasmodic fire . . . from machineguns, mortars and artillery,” the West Novas were forbidden to respond. Like the rest of the division, the battalion was holding a sprawling ten-thousand-yard frontage that had been reduced to a quagmire by deliberate inundation. To keep dry they constructed above-ground shelters from branches, small tree trunks and other heavy vegetation so that their positions “eventually resembled a muskrat colony.”