by Mark Zuehlke
Operation Faust, the I Canadian Corps food-delivery plan, had only awaited a signal from Foulkes. Lieutenant Colonel M.V. “Curly” McQueen, the bald-headed deputy director of supplies and transport for I Corps, had twelve platoons each with thirty trucks bearing ninety tons of food and medical supplies ready to roll.32 Eight platoons were Canadian and four British. At 0730 hours on May 2, the first platoon departed Wageningen towards the depot on the German side at Rhenen. Every thirty minutes another platoon hit the road. The Germans had insisted that no trucks were to be inside their lines after 1800 hours, so a precisely timed schedule was established to ensure that the convoys met the objective of delivering one thousand tons per day.33
Captain Robert H. Parkinson’s platoon from 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade, Royal Canadian Army Service Corps, was first to enter the German lines. Each truck had a white flag mounted on the front fender, but the drivers all had a weapon discreetly hidden in the cab and were under instructions not to get out of the truck for any reason. “We knew we were taking food to the Dutch people. It was interesting and somewhat scary as we passed German soldiers who were fully armed and probably they were as interested or frightened as we were . . . We offloaded the food at the side of the road and turned it over to some kind of Dutch authorities . . . They took charge of the food and we didn’t at any time have . . . contact with the Germans.” 34 The twelve platoons continued moving food into Holland even after the war ended, delivering the last thousand-ton allotment on May 10.
Until the German surrender, the Canadians feared that the unofficial truce might collapse. Foulkes kept hammering at Blaskowitz, trying to persuade him to surrender or formalize the ceasefire. He and Reichelt met again on May 3 at the house outside Wageningen. To demonstrate the futility of their situation, he produced a map of Europe on which he had marked the few remaining small areas still in German hands. “I pointed out the ridiculousness of the 25th German Army [position] in Holland [and] a few Huns hanging on in Denmark. They were rather impressed with the map, and I told them to take it away with them, and I suggested now was the time to surrender. Then . . . Reichelt made a very impassioned speech, in which he said they were ready to blow the dykes, destroy the country, and fight to the last man, rather than be prisoners and sent to Russia as slave labour.
“This annoyed me. I told him there was no intention of putting the German Army into Russia . . . [but] if they flooded Holland they would be war criminals . . . and . . . punished accordingly. This rather shook the Germans and they agreed to surrender, provided that I would give them an undertaking that they would not be sent to Russia.
“I pointed out that my instructions were ‘unconditional surrender.’”35
That evening, Foulkes learned through First Canadian Army headquarters that Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery was negotiating with the German High Command the surrender of all forces in Holland, northwest Germany, and Denmark. In Germany, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division had been readying attacks on Aurich and Jever unless the garrison commanders surrendered on the morning of May 4. Crerar immediately ordered the attacks cancelled and sent instructions to his corps and divisional commanders to cease offensive action until further notice.36
On receiving a copy of the surrender agreement Montgomery was presenting in his negotiations, Foulkes sent instructions for Reichelt to meet him in Wageningen at 1100 hours to receive the Allied terms. Foulkes dictated the terms and ordered him to return with Blaskowitz to sign the surrender on May 5.37
At about 2000 hours on the evening of May 4, the BBC reported that the Germans had signed the surrender agreement and hostilities would cease at 0800 hours the following morning. Along the Grebbe Line, it was obvious the Germans had been monitoring the British radio, for immediately they fired off “all the Verey pistols they owned, along with jubilant bursts of tracer [ammunition]. Much singing and Schnapps-happy parties developed whilst our [forward] troops tried to cope with the hordes of the vanquished who came over to be made prisoners. Much explaining had to be done that such conduct ‘was not on,’ as the war did not end until 0800 the following morning.”
At 1100 hours on May 5, Germans, Canadians, and Prince Bernhard gathered in the Hotel De Wereld in Wageningen. The entire town had suffered in the recent fighting. Trestle tables had been set up in the dining room with kitchen chairs arrayed around them. “The wallpaper was torn, and through the glassless windows and the cracks in the walls the wind blew freely. But the sun was shining.”38
For the first time, the media attended, and the “remainder of the room was crowded with chairs for press photographers, movie camera-men, war correspondents and a variety of official onlookers.” 39 The tables were brilliantly illuminated by floodlights. Blaskowitz struck the I Corps intelligence officer as looking “very tired and disconsolate” when he and Reichelt took their places behind the table.40 Foulkes sat opposite with Kitching and Prince Bernhard on either side. A large number of staff officers and interpreters hovered close by and at times took places at the table to clarify one or another detail of the surrender document’s hundreds of paragraphs. Foulkes read each condition, Blaskowitz signifying approval with either a nod or the single word, “understood.” Rarely did he question a clause, and even more seldom would Foulkes write altered wording next to a condition and initial the change. One such occurrence regarded a clause requiring the Germans to safeguard United Nations personnel. What was the UN, Blaskowitz asked, and how were such people to be recognized? Foulkes eliminated the clause. “Looking old and grey,” Blaskowitz “never smiled.”41
The general terms were that the Germans would retain command of their troops and be responsible for their maintenance. All units were to remain where they were. German police would come under military command, and all personnel guarding concentration camps and other detention centres were to be arrested. Demolitions were to be immediately removed from dykes, and obstacles were to be cleared to allow barge traffic to use the canals to assist with feeding the Dutch. 42
When the agreement was signed at 1604 hours, Reichelt was asked to produce the dispositions and strength of German forces in western Holland. He said that including all army, navy, and air force personnel they numbered 120,000. Throughout the day, Reichelt had exuded a “dignified gloom.” But as the meeting broke up, one Canadian officer mentioned that the air force had been chasing Reichelt’s headquarters for some time. “He burst into a wide grin and replied, ‘I know, you got me out of bed twice!’”
As the German officers returned to their car, they each “gave a stiff periscope Nazi salute” before driving off.43 The German vehicles no sooner left than they “became hopelessly entangled with a food convoy winding through the village.”44
THE PROTRACTED NEGOTIATIONS that resulted in the surrender of Twenty-Fifth Army in western Holland were not replicated by II Canadian Corps in northwestern Germany. In the last days of the war, the surrender of various towns had been negotiated as the defences collapsed. On May 5, however, considerable effort was made to confirm that the German formations the Canadians had been fighting would accept the terms of the surrender. Establishing contact with the group’s commander, General der Infanterie Erich von Straube, proved complicated because the German communication system was in shambles. Finally, von Straube was reached, and 8th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s Brigadier Jim Roberts escorted him by jeep from Aurich to Bad Zwischenahn at 1630 hours.
While Blaskowitz had conducted himself wearily but professionally during the surrender, von Straube was much less composed. Having only recently assumed command, he demonstrated “noticeable ignorance” of his force’s composition. Only after much consultation could he confirm that they numbered 4,106 officers and 88,793 other ranks. He seemed “appalled by the number of detailed instructions involved [in] the surrender terms . . . and was also shocked to learn that he was to be held responsible for internment and concentration camps.” When he balked at this, Simonds directed his attention to Paragraph 3 of the surrender, which “prescribed stri
ct and immediate execution of orders by the German command.” Such clear direction seemed to accord with the man’s mindset, for he “rallied magnificently” and the documents were soon signed.45
Throughout the meeting, von Straube had seemed puzzled by the Canadian informality. From the back of the jeep during the return trip to Aurich, von Straube tapped Roberts on the shoulder and asked his pre-war occupation. The question unsettled Roberts, opening his mind to a future beyond the war—what until now had seemed an “improbable dream.” Before he could phrase a reply, von Straube asked with a hopeful expression whether he had been a professional soldier. Roberts thought for a moment, recalling the jobs he had drifted through in those days before the world went mad. “No, I wasn’t a professional soldier,” he said. “Very few Canadians were. In civilian life, I made ice cream.”46
A RETURN TO civilian life was not to come quickly for Canadians wearing khaki in Europe. While combat actions ceased, implementing and administrating the immediate peace remained. There was also the need to take stock and tally losses. From the launch of Operation Plunder on March 23 to 0600 hours on May 6, Canadian Army casualties were 6,289, with 1,482 of these being fatal. Of these casualties, 365 officers and 5,165 other ranks were Canadian.47 Excluded from this figure were the approximately 61 paratroops of 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion either killed or wounded during Operation Varsity and subsequent fighting through to the war’s end.48 How many men died during the last days of March was not recorded, but in April, 1,191 Canadian soldiers died, and during the first days of May, another 114 lost their lives.49
All Allied forces were engaged in the hunt for war criminals, the Canadians mostly within their sector of Germany. At times, entire communities were surrounded and methodically searched for Germans on wanted lists. 50 Seyss-Inquart, who had left the Netherlands after Hitler’s death to seek instructions from Doenitz at Wilhelmshaven, was caught by Canadians. Tried at Nuremberg, he was hanged on October 16, 1946. Arrested on the basis of trumped-up Russian charges, Blaskowitz was being tried at Nuremberg when he broke free of his guards and jumped to his death from a balcony on February 5, 1948. SS police czar Hans Albin Rauter was handed over to the Dutch by the British. On March 24, 1949, he was shot by a firing squad and buried in a secret site.
With the surrender, First Canadian Army found itself in control of 213,000 Germans who had to be disarmed, processed, and, in the case of the almost 120,000 still in Holland, repatriated.51 As Captain T.J. Allen, 1st Division’s historical officer, noted, Operation Eclipse, as this latter task was known, was without “precedent” and complicated by the fact that the Germans vastly outnumbered the Canadians. It was also being carried out “in a country whose friendly people and resistance forces are lusting to see the last of the Germans.” To prevent reprisals against the Germans, the Canadians prohibited the resistance from carrying arms and also stopped allowing the rounding-up of collaborators. Both restrictions were “not altogether pleasing to the Dutch.”52 On May 25, the German return home began. Moving mostly on foot in large formations numbering about ten thousand, the Germans “tramped homeward at the rate of about 15 miles each day.” Their route took them across the IJsselmeer causeway, then through northern Holland, and across the border to a concentration area in the Emden-Wilhelmshaven peninsula that was administered by II Canadian Corps.
While the Germans moved out of Holland, increasing numbers of Canadians came in from Germany to be based there until repatriation to Canada. Throughout May, the ongoing supply of food and other vital supplies to the Dutch continued. On May 12, “aid started pouring into western Holland,” as the transportation network increasingly improved. Seyss-Inquart had estimated this as the date when “acute starvation would commence.” The earlier aid, however, and the opening of the floodgates that day resulted in a better situation than expected. “Conditions in Western Holland were not as black as we anticipated, but it is obvious that we got there just in time,” SHAEF staff reported. The actual number of people diagnosed as suffering from starvation was 125,000. All hospitals were badly overcrowded with people stricken with edema. Fifteen thousand people in Amsterdam were hospitalized and 10,000 in Haarlem. In the large cities, hospitals were unable to take in many thousands more who were acutely ill.
On May 27, Netherlands District reported average weight loss during the occupation at twenty to thirty-five pounds per person. In most cities, 2 per cent of the population was considered to be suffering from “dropsy and wasting.” Amsterdam and Haarlem were harder hit, with the figure for both set at 10 per cent. However, virtually full recovery was predicted for the population “if given an adequate ration.”53
Approximately twenty thousand Dutch died from starvation. Three times the number of babies died in the first five months of 1945 as in the same period in 1944, and twice as many children between one and five years old succumbed. The occupation claimed many other Dutch lives. Of the 120,000 Jews sent to the extermination camps, 104,000 perished. Air raids killed 23,000, more than 5,000 died in prisons and concentration camps, 2,800 were executed, and of the 550,000 men taken to Germany as forced labourers, 30,000 never returned. The Dutch government concluded that from a population of 8.8 million, the war claimed 237,300.
The country itself had been laid waste. Most everything in the way of factory equipment, vehicles, rail stock, shipping and barges, and livestock had been carried off to Germany. Even the ubiquitous bicycles had been halved from a pre-war number of four million.54
Given the state of suffering throughout Holland and the brutality of the German occupation, it was easy to see why the Dutch were so grateful to their Canadian liberators. The Dutch recognized the price Canadian soldiers had paid. First Canadian Army in Northwest Europe had suffered 44,339 casualties since the Juno Beach landings of June 6, 1944. Of these, 961 officers and 10,375 other ranks were killed.55 Most of these men were volunteers, the largest such body to fight in the war. When the Dutch learned that these men had come to their liberation freely and at such great cost in lives, the depth of gratitude only deepened.
It was a feeling that did not lessen in the months that followed the liberation until the last Canadian soldier went home. Indeed, the bond between the Dutch and Canadians strengthened—a bond that still persists between the two countries. In the days following the Seaforth Highlanders’ entry into Amsterdam, Lieutenant Colonel Budge Bell-Irving captured the Canadian side of this sentiment well. “Before this,” he wrote, “few of our men could have given a clear reason why they came . . . But here in Amsterdam, in one day, all that was changed . . . Every life lost, every long day away from home, had been spent in a good and necessary endeavour.”56
[EPILOGUE]
The Liberation Campaign in Memory
IN DUTCH MEMORY, the last weeks of the war remain the “sweetest of springs.” Their Remembrance Day falls on May 4, followed immediately on May 5 by the less sombre Liberation Day. Over their course, people gather by the thousands or dozens—the crowd dictated by community size—at monuments, cemeteries, and other appropriate sites to both remember and celebrate the gift of freedom one country gave another. While Canadian troops did not fight alone in the campaign that freed the Netherlands from Nazi tyranny, they were the first soldiers to arrive in most of its cities, towns, villages, and hamlets. They were also the ones who remained stationed in such cities as Utrecht, Hilversum, Amersfoort, Apeldoorn, and Groningen during the long process of repatriation to Canada that was not concluded until the latter part of 1946.
During that time personal friendships developed, and various regiments established lasting bonds with communities their men were billeted in or had participated in liberating. Thousands of individual soldiers also became romantically involved with Dutch women. It is estimated that 1,886 brought a Dutch wife home, 428 of them also returning with a child. “Whatever you do, don’t fall in love with any of them. They’re all going back to Canada and you’re staying right here in Amsterdam!” Margriet Blaisse’s father had warned her
as she set off to welcome the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada to Amsterdam. She married the first soldier she saw, Wilf Gildersleeve. Wilhelmina Klaverdijk, the young woman who tried to kiss all the Canadians in Rotterdam that spring day, also married one after a whirlwind courtship.
Those months following the war were heady times for young people from two countries tossed together in the aftermath of a tragic era. For the soldiers, the cruelty of war and the ever-present fear of death or dismemberment was replaced by a world at peace and the dawning realization that they were among the lucky ones, destined to survive and likely to grow old. For the Dutch, a long, repressive occupation had passed. Many teenage girls had matured into young womanhood between the Dutch defeat in May 1940 and the liberation almost precisely five years later.
Thousands of their male cohorts were still awaiting return from Germany, where they had been imprisoned or detained as forced labourers. Most other young Dutch men were generally undernourished and attempting to pick up lives derailed by war. Their country was in economic ruins and required massive reconstruction. The Canadians were noticeably stronger, healthier, and wealthier than their male Dutch counterparts. There was also about them a slight air of the exotic. Little wonder that in their wake they left behind six thousand young mothers, of whom fifteen hundred were already married. The Dutch are noted for their long memories, but they are also unerringly pragmatic. So, while not entirely forgetting the issue of abandoned young women and babies, they set aside recrimination in recognition that the Canadians had given more to the Dutch overall than they took.