On to Victory

by Mark Zuehlke

  The other signaller was monitoring the wireless, so Goodman scanned the flanks. Spotting a figure standing behind a farmhouse, Goodman raised the German semi-automatic rifle he had recently found and took aim while trying to figure out whether it was a civilian or soldier. Suddenly, there was a deafening blast and concussion punched him upward. Goodman was flying, briefly looked down upon treetops, then plunged earthward and into unconsciousness. He awakened to find someone dribbling rum into his mouth. The carrier was a twisted wreck. Lying around were bits and pieces of a body that turned out to be all of Lieutenant Blake that remained. The carrier driver had a mangled left arm and leg. Blood poured from the other signaller’s smashed face. He had been struck full on by the wireless set when the explosion hurled it upwards. Someone said the carrier had run over two large mines stacked one upon the other, the focus of the blast penetrating directly under the front seats where the driver and Blake had sat.

  Amazingly, the wireless still worked and an ambulance was called. The message also brought the rifle companies on the run, and first to arrive was ‘B’ Company. Major Lee walked over to where Goodman lay. “Chic, were you in that? ”

  “Yes, Sir,” Goodman croaked, and then pleaded, “Can I come back to ‘B’ Company?” Lee promised to seek permission and after being declared fit to return to duty by the battalion medical officer, Goodman once more shouldered a wireless set and walked towards battle.38

  Once the Saskatchewans and Fusiliers closed up on Kirchatten, the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders passed through. A large expanse of woods on the northern outskirts sheltered German artillery, which hammered the town after the battalion entered it. As the Camerons dug into slit trenches near the edge of the wood at 1500 hours, two hundred German infantrymen suddenly charged ‘C’ Company’s front, while forty more rushed the battalion’s tactical headquarters. When an even larger force slammed into ‘D’ Company’s lines, one platoon started withdrawing until supporting tanks helped drive the counterattack back to the woods, inflicting heavy casualties in exchange for none among the Camerons.

  It took until mid-morning of April 24 to secure Kirchatten and allow the Camerons to renew the advance. ‘D’ Company led the way on a road through forest towards a point a thousand yards distant. Major D.D. Sweeting’s orders were to “work [forward] if possible but not to bust in too rashly.”39 Sweeting relied on the battalion’s mortars and anti-tank guns to break up resistance. Soon ‘B’ Company came up on the flank to clear the woods. When Captain J.H. Ross was slightly wounded, Lieutenant F.E. Millar took over. Both companies progressed slowly, constantly harassed by airburst shells exploding in the trees. Three Camerons died this day.40

  Remorselessly, 2nd Division continued towards Oldenburg. While the Camerons had secured their grip on Kirchatten, 4 CIB had slipped around to the right, coming up between 6 CIB and 5 CIB. By day’s end on April 24, all three brigades were advancing in one broad line. Brigadier Fred Cabeldu’s 4 CIB was to cut the road running from Oldenburg southeast to Delmenhorst and begin the city’s isolation. The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry and Royal Regiment of Canada were met by heavy enemy fire, which the 4th Field Regiment’s guns quickly subdued. This proved to be the regiment’s last day “of intensive firing.” There were thirty calls from the battalions for concentrations to break up resistance between 0630 hours and 1600 hours, with six more called in during the night. Most targets consisted of “Germans firing 40-mm and 20-mm ack ack guns at almost point blank range at the infantry moving forward. The effectiveness of the firing was proven when the infantry followed up the successes of that day; the enemy were found to have withdrawn and were not bumped again until just short of Oldenburg.”41

  From inside a Sherman, Captain George Blackburn directed much of the regiment’s fire. Blackburn had served in this hazardous occupation since Normandy, and his nerves were close to snapping. Day and night he carried a canteen filled with rum buttoned into the front of his battledress, but even the liquor could not prevent him getting his “wind up.” The war was going to end soon; “you’ve made it this far . . . you’ve got to make it the rest of the way.”

  There were no large battles. Instead, the war had “degenerated into crossroads ambushes, with the Germans showing no tendency to form a line.” Blackburn thought they sought only delay, buying time to prepare for another major canal fight behind the Ems-Jade Canal in front of Wilhelmshaven. They blew trees across roads to create a “tangled mess” of branches and shattered trunks behind which the ubiquitous MG42s, Panzerfausts, and 20- or 40-millimetre anti-aircraft guns waited. Their fire would knock out a carrier or a tank, injure or kill a few infantrymen. Blackburn would call in shells to quell the opposition. The pioneers would saw the trees into sections, and the tanks and carriers would drag them off the road. Then the advance would continue to the next roadblock and the same scenario would be replayed.42

  By April 27, the division reached Oldenburg’s southern outskirts. A small part of the city lay south of the Küsten Canal, while most of its population of 79,000 lived and worked north of the canal. Dating back to the 12th century, Oldenburg had escaped Allied bombing, and its ancient and attractive heart remained unscathed. Now the Canadians were at the gates, with 4 CIB and 6 CIB driving German forces out of the southern part while 5 CIB closed in from the east.43

  Fighting in small groups from behind their endless network of roadblocks, the Germans were able to avoid being overrun. But each day, their losses—as men surrendered or were killed or wounded—grew exponentially. With 4th Division outflanking the city to the west, 8th Fallschirmjäger Division withdrew northward to avoid being cut off from Wilhelmshaven. Left behind was a motley collection deemed incapable of maintaining any bastions.

  Intelligence staff had also learned that “the civilian element in Oldenburg is unwilling that the town should be defended. Several PW and line- crossers have reported that the Burgomaster has attempted to have the place declared an open city, as it contains at least a dozen medical installations and many wounded [including] some Allied personnel. It is not believed that the military commander will be influenced by civilian pressure but there are some indications that the defence will be half-hearted, and two [captured officers] have stated that the town will not be held.”

  To emphasize the folly of further resistance, Major General Bruce Matthews had propaganda leaflets printed that warned of dire consequences for the city unless its garrison surrendered. These were stuffed by the thousands into airburst shells and fired towards the city centre—each explosion showering paper rather than shrapnel on its inhabitants.44

  On the evening of May 1, Canadians on all fronts learned through BBC radio broadcasts that Hitler had died the day before. How the Führer met his demise was rife with speculation. One theory—supported by translations of German announcements—credited a stroke. Others thought he had been assassinated by cronies eager to negotiate an armistice, while still another explanation held that he had fallen victim to a Russian shell or bullet in the ruins of Berlin.45 The true explanation that Hitler had committed suicide was never considered.

  Any thought that an immediate end to hostilities would result was dismissed by news that Grosseadmiral Karl Dönitz now headed the German government and had vowed to “continue fighting.” Hearing this news, 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade’s commander, Brigadier Bill Murphy, confided to his diary, “We still have our war for awhile.”46

  Around Oldenburg, 2nd Division continued closing in. Brigadier Jean Allard’s 6th Brigade had reached the Küsten Canal. Although the main bridge was jammed in a raised position, Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Dextraze put Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal unopposed across in assault boats. Engineers hurried to inspect the bridge controls but reported they were beyond repair. Deciding to destroy the screws that controlled the lifting mechanism, sappers first cleared the bridge of mines and then wired their own explosives to the screws. Allard was on hand to view the explosion, which when the detonator was pushed proved to be “enormous. There was
dust everywhere. When the dust cleared, we saw the bridge fall heavily into place.”47

  The bridge decking had aligned so perfectly with the off-ramps that tanks of the Fort Garry Horse were soon trundling over and reinforcing the Fusiliers. A subsequent report deemed the likelihood of the bridge being rendered usable with explosives as “one chance in a million.”48

  More luck presented itself on the evening of May 2, when the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry Regiment established its headquarters in a building just south of the canal. Major Jack Drewry, the 4th Field Regiment’s FOO attached to the Rileys, found an operational telephone. Summoning the Riley’s interpreter, Drewry placed a call to the city centre and requested the garrison commander. “After about two hours, the Commandant came on the telephone and he was asked to surrender. He said it was impossible, and the conversation ended abruptly. However, the cause was not given up and the [Burgomaster] . . . was called. [He] was much more encouraging and said it looked to him as if the soldiers might be pulling out of town. Through the interpreter, he was told that the city of Oldenburg must be surrendered intact and that the artillery would drop large numbers of shells all over it and wipe it out if it wasn’t done quickly. A deadline was finally set at midnight.”

  Drewry briefed his commander, Lieutenant Colonel MacGregor Young, and “asked to have the regiment and the rest of the divisional artillery laid on a target in the centre of the town. Actually the target the guns were laid on was the park with the intention of giving it a blast if necessary as a sample and then again asking the [Burgomaster] for his answer.

  “At five minutes to midnight, the gunners were sitting ready at their loaded guns waiting for the order to fire, but instead the order, ‘Stand Easy,’ came down. The [Burgomaster] had phoned back and said that the town would be empty of soldiers by seven a.m. For the remainder of the hours of darkness the regiment fired harassing fire on the roads leading north of the city” to catch the retiring German troops .49 In a subsequent conversation with the Burgomaster, he agreed to meet the leading company of the Rileys “and deliver the city to them” at 0800.

  At 4 CIB’s headquarters, Brigadier Fred Cabeldu was elated, but wary. “All night situation very tense, it not yet being certain that there was not to be a fight,” the brigade diarist wrote. 50

  Oldenburg’s Burgomaster had been busy on other fronts to prevent the city’s destruction. At 2130 hours on May 2, he had contacted 6 CIB’s South Saskatchewans to discuss “the surrender of the city.” Given a slightly more lenient deadline, he had apparently decided to err on the side of caution by surrendering to the Rileys.51

  At 0700 hours, the Burgomaster approached the Rileys and offered to “take patrols across to occupy the city.” Lieutenant Colonel H.C. Arrell was in no mood for cautious probing, so the entire battalion piled by companies into assault boats crewed by Russian and Polish ex-prisoners for the crossing. By 0830 hours, the Rileys marched intact and unopposed into the city centre.

  “Fantastic scenes in the city,” 4 CIB’s war diarist recorded. “One or two [Canadian officers] armed only with pistols marching back with 50 or 60 enemy [troops] armed to the teeth. Most of the citizens kept in doors greatly assisting the checking. The Burgomaster proved very helpful, particularly in organizing the local police to help in the patrolling. In a very short time all houses had been checked and the citizens had posted up their lists of household personnel. The troops had a wonderful haul of enemy pistols and cameras.”52 Oldenburg had fallen without a shot fired, and 2nd Division’s war was almost done.

  [25]

  Bitterest Battle

  IN THE LAST days of the war, only I Canadian Corps’s 1st Canadian Infantry Division, 5th Canadian Armoured Division, 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade—all Italian campaign veterans—the British 49th (West Riding) Division, and a few supporting units remained in the Netherlands. The two infantry divisions and the armoured brigade stood before the largely inactive Grebbe Line, hemming Twenty-Fifth Army up inside western Holland. Although the ceasefire negotiations between the Allies and Reichkommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart, which were being brokered by representatives of the Dutch resistance movement, were still underway, both sides had effectively stood down to await a final outcome.

  In northern Holland, however, the war was still very much ongoing, with 5th Division working to collapse the Delfzijl Pocket. While the divisions fighting in Germany engaged in small but intense skirmishes against slowly retreating forces, the Delfzijl Pocket offered the last full-scale battle Canadians would fight in World War II.

  With a pre-war population of ten thousand, Delfzijl was one of Holland’s largest secondary ports. The defensive pocket surrounding it was about twelve miles wide west to east and just over a mile deep. A continuous trench system protected by barbed wire and wide swaths of heavily mined ground marked the pocket ’s inland perimeter. While the Germans were too few to man the trench’s entirety, they had established strongpoints at regular intervals along the portions not inundated. The backbone of the defence rested with three naval fortress battalions, Nos. 359, 360, and 368, all lacking experience in open warfare. Remnants of other units driven north into the pocket by the Canadian advance added strength. Canadian intelligence estimated fifteen hundred defenders, but later determined the number to have been about forty-five hundred at the battle’s outset.

  Although they had only eighteen 75-millimetre guns, field artillery was not important to the defenders. They called instead upon the heavy 28-centimetre coastal batteries on Borkum Island in the estuary’s mouth and those surrounding the German port of Emden on the opposite shore. Several coastal batteries were also situated within the pocket itself, including one at Nansum and the other at the base of Reider Spit on the eastern flank. The guns at Nansum Battery were mostly 105-millimetre, while Reider Spit boasted four 128-millimetre anti-aircraft guns that could be lowered to engage ground targets. Every battery’s guns were mounted in strong concrete emplacements virtually impervious to the Canadian artillery. Defensive positions bristling with 20-millimetre flak guns and machine guns also ringed the batteries. There were enough MG42s inside the pocket to arm every man in eight German battalions.

  Topography favoured the defence—ground flat, lacking natural cover, riven with ditches and canals. Tanks and carriers were confined to existing roads generally running along the tops of dykes. The many small villages were transformed into defensive strongpoints. In the autumn of 1944, the Germans had inundated the ground on either side of the Eems Canal to block a direct approach from the south, forcing any attacker to approach against the narrower flanks to the east and west.1

  With the war in its twilight days, the pocket’s defensive advantages were so apparent that questions would later arise as to why the Canadians did not merely surround and contain it. Major General Bert Hoffmeister understood that the offensive was required to prevent the Germans from destroying the port facilities. “Dutch authorities,” he later said, “were most anxious that Delfzijl be damaged as little as possible, because they were desperate for a port into which ships could move immediately and relieve the terrible suffering that was going on in Holland.” The Germans were also using the port to ship stores and evacuate troops from Holland to Emden to strengthen the garrison there. To minimize damage to port facilities, Hoffmeister was instructed by Lieutenant General Guy Simonds to “take it on without any air preparation and without guns heavier than 25-pounders,” From intelligence reports, Hoffmeister knew the port quays and cranes were already wired with explosives so they could be destroyed at any time. But the port was also the only viable avenue of escape for most of the garrison, so the Germans were expected to delay destroying it until the last moment. If 5th Division could overwhelm the defenders with a rapid attack, the port might be won intact.

  Hoffmeister realized this battle would cost lives. “At that stage of the game, I was really worried about that decision.”2 Accordingly, Hoffmeister said he would agree to it only under one condition, which Simonds consented to.3
Summoning his two brigadiers, Hoffmeister explained “just what the score was, and told them I wanted them to go back to the troops and see what they think about it. I said, ‘I think this is something that can’t morally be decided by me or by you. I think we have to refer it to the men.’ The answer from the men was, ‘let’s go.’ There wasn’t the slightest hesitation or any objection raised, they were prepared to lay it on the line for the Dutch people, take Delfzijl without the usual support that we had from medium and heavy artillery, without air support, and so on.”4

  THE 5TH DIVISION relieved 3rd Canadian Infantry Division on April 23 and went directly into combat. Initially, the operation was to be directly overseen by 5th Armoured Brigade’s Brigadier Ian Cumberland. Added to his command were 11th Infantry Brigade’s Perth Regiment and the Irish Regiment of Canada, which were immediately deployed on opposite flanks. On the western flank, the Perths relieved the Regina Rifles, while to the east the Irish took over from the Canadian Scottish.

  At 2300 hours, two platoons of the Perth’s ‘C’ Company advanced towards a position one thousand yards north of the village of Holwierde. Arriving on its objective without incident at 0315 hours, they sent back fifteen prisoners. As the men started digging in, the area was struck by prolonged artillery fire.5 The fire was so accurate that it was quickly concluded that the Germans had previously zeroed their battery guns so that any section of the pocket could be targeted on a moment’s notice. Minimizing the effectiveness of the gunnery, however, was the fact that many of the large, heavy shells plunged deep into the muddy ground and exploded harmlessly.

  When ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies passed through towards Holwierde, they were heavily opposed by Germans positioned on the village’s outskirts. At dawn the Perths were still well short of the village, and ‘B’ Company was under fire from three self-propelled guns shooting at point-blank range. Only the intervention of artillery against the SPGs and the laying of a smokescreen to blind the German gunners at Nansum Battery enabled the advance to continue. At 1015 hours, ‘B’ Company was tight in the village. Proceeding towards Nansum Battery in daylight was judged impossible, so the Perths dug in to escape the relentless shelling. By day’s end, eight men were dead and another twenty-four wounded. Unlike what had happened in weeks past, when prisoners numbered in the hundreds, the Perths had taken just twenty-two.6