LYING ACROSS ITS WESTERN APPROACHES, a barrier of mountains and great rivers form the historic natural defences of the Reich. Buttressed by them, inside its borders, lay the ‘West Wall,’ built by Hitler before the war. From the Swiss frontier to the northern border of Belgium, in places three miles deep, a defensive zone of mutually supporting fortifications, anti-tank obstacles, minefields, wire, protected command posts and troop shelters blocked the Allied advance. In 1944 the Siegfried Line, as it was known in the West, had been extended northward along the Dutch frontier.
Into it shattered units of the Wehrmacht had tumbled after their long retreat from Normandy, exhausted and bewildered.
Reacting with admirable speed and decisiveness, the German General Staff set about rebuilding fighting organizations and ensuring that defences were manned. Reinforcements and equipment were brought forward from depots in Germany and, within days, the whole frontier once more was guarded. Behind it, new recruits, boys and old men, were armed and trained and the Army’s striking force, its panzer divisions, began to receive new tanks.
Soon the Allies were faced with the unpalatable and unavoidable prospect of attacking a German army entrenched in defences as strong as any they had faced on the Western Front in the First World War. Montgomery’s bold attempt to outflank them had failed just short of success at Arnhem. There was no alternative now but to smash through. Then, beyond them, the Rhine would have to be crossed before the enemy could be engaged in the open mobile warfare in which the Allied superiority in armour would be decisive.
South of the Ardennes the Americans had been battering their way into the German defences for weeks. Driven by generals like Patton, little concerned by losses, the price they paid in blood was appalling.
Frontal assaults on the enemy could not be avoided, but, in the north, Montgomery and Eisenhower saw where two converging attacks might clear a long stretch of the Rhine at the least relative cost in lives.
On the right of 21 Army Group the Ninth U.S. Army had closed up to the River Roer which flows north-west into the Maas. From there Second British Army held that river northwards to where their front joined that of the Canadians opposite the Reichswald.
While Second Army blocked this line, the western edge of the battlefield, First Canadian Army, with almost every British division under command, would attack south-eastward from its six-mile front between the Maas and the Rhine. Two days later the Ninth U.S. Army would cross the Roer and advance north-east across the rear of the enemy opposing the Canadians. When they met in the vicinity of Wesel, they would have cleared the west bank of the Rhine as far south as Düsseldorf.
By constant patrolling and careful observation, the Canadians had established an accurate picture of the enemy forces opposing them. Most of their front was covered by the German 84th Division, a second-rate formation recently re-organized after being decimated in Normandy. The green troops who held the line at least had the virtue of being young and healthy. Behind them, one of the two units in immediate reserve was the 276th Magen (stomach) Battalion, formed of men with digestive complaints. Major-General Heinz Fiebig, the divisional commander, said that he had chosen them in preference to an Ohren (ear) battalion ‘who couldn’t hear even the opening barrage of an attack.’
A swift, violent thrust in overwhelming strength should burst through such a ramshackle outfit with little trouble and that, sensibly, is what Crerar planned.
But he was aware that other factors, not so easy to assess, would affect the operation. For one thing, the total opposition should not be judged by the example of the 84th Division. They formed part of the Fifth Parachute Army led by General Alfred Schlemm, one of the best and most experienced of German field commanders. He had been Student’s chief of staff in the airborne assault on Crete, he had commanded a corps in Russia and had performed a near miracle of military improvisation in containing the Allied landings at Anzio in Italy in January, 1944. He could be relied upon to react with embarrassing speed and effectiveness. Crerar’s intelligence staff reckoned that he had two divisions close enough to intervene in the battle within six hours of an assault.
And there was the ground and the weather. The battle would be fought between the Rhine and the Maas, both of which were prone to flooding, now likely after a winter of excessive rainfall. The extent of it would be limited by rising ground near the Maas but, if the Germans blew the winter dykes along the Rhine, it could in places cover half the battlefield.
Between the flood plains, higher gently rolling ground broadened toward the south-east, much of it open farmland suitable for armoured operations. But at its western end and again a dozen miles to the east were large state forests, inhospitable to tanks. They were mostly of young pines planted in regular rows about six feet apart. Within them narrow sandy rides, forming a grid pattern, gave access to the depth of the forests. From the Canadian positions near Groesbeek, the lowering black mass of the Reichswald could be seen rising up abruptly from the hillsides opposite. The others to the east were as yet known only by their names — the Hochwald and the Balberger Wald. But that each was defended there was little doubt.
Three main belts of defences faced First Canadian Army, each anchored on the Rhine. A formidable system of trenches, minefields, anti-tank ditches, fortified villages and houses lay across the western face of the Reichswald, then down the east bank of the Maas. Then came the Siegfried System itself, its main positions about five kilometres inside the Reichswald with a secondary belt east of the forest. These came together at the heavily fortified town of Goch from which they ran south, roughly parallel to the forward line along the Maas.
Ten kilometres to the east was the Hochwald ‘layback,’ two and sometimes three lines of trenches, 500 to 1,000 metres apart, belts of wire and anti-tank defences, running from the Rhine opposite Rees across the face of the Hochwald to beyond Geldern.
Because of the initial narrow frontage, Crerar decided that his attack would be led by 30th British Corps. As its divisions moved forward, the battlefield would widen and 2nd Canadian Corps would come in on the left. The strength of the successive German defensive lines would probably require him to mount deliberate well-supported attacks on each in turn. This would result, he concluded, in the operation taking place in three phases.
Phase 1. The clearing of the Reichswald and the securing of the line Gennep-Asperden-Cleve.
Phase 2. The breaching of the enemy’s second defensive system east and southeast of the Reichswald, the capture of the localities Weeze-Üdem-Calcar-Emmerich and the securing of the communications between them.
Phase 3. The breakthrough of the Hochwald layback defence lines and the advance to secure the general line Geldern-Xanten.1
But, he stressed, any opportunity for a breakthrough must be exploited with speed and vigour.
For the first phase, 30 Corps would have seven divisions under its command, some 200,000 men. It came to First Canadian Army with a record of success which dated back to Alamein and its commander, Lt-General Sir Brian Horrocks, cool, urbane, experienced, was treated by the press as a star.
The Canadians did not know Horrocks, nor he them, but they were prepared to be impressed. He did nothing to disappoint them.
At the initial conference at Crerar’s headquarters, he arrived in a shiny, flagged and starred, khaki-painted, open-topped Bugatti, escorted by immaculate motorcycle outriders and radio jeeps. Ostentatious perhaps, but no one was in any doubt that here was the commander of 30th British Corps. And Horrocks well knew that soldiers like to see their generals, especially near the front.
Next day the staff received an order to find an open touring car for General Simonds.
The 2nd and 3rd Canadian Divisions were to be under Horrocks for the attack. Brigadier James Roberts of the 8th Brigade described his first impression of the corps commander:
On 25 January, commanders down to brigade level were called to a conference held by General Horrocks. I was deeply impressed by this fabulous character, a born leader such as I had never met before. Horrocks was brief, strictly to the point, but so overwhelmingly confident and amusing that most of the Canadian commanders felt like cheering when the general completed the outline of his plan and his intentions.
Ten days later, Roberts took General Horrocks to a position held by a standing patrol of the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada.
Horrocks walked up to the group and spoke to its commander, enquiring about the state of the enemy, the amount of activity, and the best place to view the enemy’s forward lines. Then Horrocks suggested we move forward but, before leaving the patrol, he turned to a Queen’s Own corporal and asked for the loan of his dark rifle-green beret. The corporal obliged and the general took off his scarlet cap with general’s rank badge and plopped it on the corporal’s head. The whole Queen’s Own patrol stood with open mouths as we moved off.
We moved forward quietly on foot and finally, on our bellies, until we found a reasonable position from which both General Horrocks and I could view the enemy forward lines and the terrain before we pulled out and returned to the QOR patrol. Here General Horrocks exchanged his rifleman’s beret for his own magnificent staff cap and, with a cheery word of thanks from Horrocks, we returned to the jeep and to my HQ.
After the general had departed, I sat a few moments, thinking of the impact of his personality. Here was one of the finest officers in the British army, with a magnificent record of service and of personal gallantry. Here was a man who really led, a general who talked to everyone, down to the simplest private soldier. He called his officers ‘Joe’, ‘Peter’, ‘Reggie’, ‘Mike’, or whatever. I was ‘Jim’ before we crawled back to the Queen’s Own patrol. By his personal qualities of leadership he brought out a respect and an affection which made better soldiers of his officers and men. Why, I wondered, rather guiltily, were our senior officers not of the same personality; and we were supposed to be Canadians, less stiff and formal than the British. Our own army commander was a good soldier, a very nice man personally, and, I am sure, a man loyal to his troops as a whole. But his personality was not that of a leader of men. He addressed his officers as ‘Smith’, ‘Jones’, and ‘Roberts’. So did Guy Simonds and so, if I remember correctly, did Field-Marshal Montgomery. Some of them were, indeed, leaders, but none like Horrocks.
While preparations were being made for the battle, Horrocks set about discovering the Canadians. To him, they ‘seemed bigger than our men … tough, battle-experienced troops.
‘I also saw quite a lot of their commander, General Crerar, who, in my opinion, has always been much underrated, largely because he was the exact opposite to Montgomery. He hated publicity but was full of common sense and always prepared to listen to the views of his subordinate commanders. Every day after the battle started, he would fly over the front (a somewhat dangerous operation) in a small aircraft, and then came to see me wherever I might be.’3
Crerar was an artilleryman and as a young officer had served on the staff of the Canadian Corps in the First World War. From its two brilliant commanders, Byng and Currie, he had absorbed one cardinal lesson about attacking prepared defences — use guns instead of men.
For the attack on the 84th German Division, 1,034 guns would put down the largest concentration of fire ever seen on such a narrow front in the war in Western Europe. Nine tons of shells would burst on each of 268 targets. On the front of each attacking division, a ‘Pepperpot group’ — every available tank gun, mortar, medium machine gun, anti-tank and anti-aircraft gun — would sweep the area continuously with carefully coordinated short-range fire. To this would be added salvoes of ‘Land Mattress’ rockets.
Air support was to be on a massive scale — heavy bombers of the RAF Bomber Command, and the United States Eighth Air Force, mediums of 2nd Tactical Air Force and fighter bombers of Nos. 83 and 84 Groups and the U.S. Ninth Air Force. Before D Day, railways, bridges and ferries leading to the battle area would be hit, particularly those across the Rhine. The towns of Cleve and Goch were to be completely destroyed whilst other towns where cratering was not acceptable would be hit by incendiary and anti-personnel bombs.
Careful arrangements were made for the control of 84 Group’s fighter bombers which would provide close support for the attacking troops. No. 83 Group, which was largely made up of Royal Canadian Air Force squadrons, and usually supported Second British Army, would deal with the Luftwaffe and continue the interdiction of the battle area after D Day.
Daily the Canadians opposite the Reichswald kept a careful watch on the Germans to detect any sign of the 84th Division being reinforced. Only a small increase of enemy strength on such a narrow front would greatly increase the price which would have to be paid in lives in this frontal attack. Surprise was essential.
To achieve it, the obvious precautions such as concealment of tanks, guns and dumps, no movement by day and restriction on the use of radios were strictly enforced.
But a major problem was reconnaissance. Literally thousands of British officers and NCOs had to see the ground over which they were to attack. So much movement near the front, if unrestricted, would soon be discovered by the Germans. The activity of all reconnaissance parties was carefully scheduled and controlled. All were dressed in the darker Canadian battledress without formation patches, and travelled in Canadian vehicles escorted by officers of the 2nd Division. They carried passes valid only for the time needed for their reconnaissance which had to be produced at Military Police check points.
To deceive the enemy and distract his attention 1st British Corps along the lower Maas went through the motions of preparing for an attack aimed at liberating northern Holland.
On 5 February, three days before the battle, Rundstedt’s intelligence staff predicted that the next major British attack would take place at the bend in the Maas north of Roermond. Their situation map showed 30th British Corps as ‘whereabouts unknown.’
General Schlemm was sceptical. He thought that the Allies might well be attracted to an attack through the Reichswald but he could not sway his superiors. They attempted to reassure him by saying there was no sign of a large Allied concentration in the Nijmegen area. Schlemm was not convinced, but, without the approval of his army group commander, he could make no significant change in the layout of his army. He did, however, obtain a reinforcement — a regiment of the 2nd Parachute Division which he placed in the line on the left of the 84th between the edge of the Reichswald and the River Maas.
Even greater help came to Schlemm from another quarter. December and January had been cold, the ground frozen and snow-covered. Roads could carry heavy traffic and tanks could move fairly easily across country. If it continued, Crerar and Horrocks were in little doubt that they could burst through the enemy defences into the open plain beyond the Hochwald in two or three days. But February brought thaw instead of hard ground suitable for armoured formations and they were faced with that great enemy of mobility — mud. Later Horrocks wrote: ‘Fortunately for my peace of mind, I did not realize just how soggy it could become.’4
To the troops of 30th Corps nightfall on 7 February brought the sound of aircraft, followed by the distant rumble of bombs. Soon the horizon to the east glowed red with fires of burning towns. Then, precisely at 5 o’clock in the morning, the artillery opened fire. The whole sky to the west was lit by a flashing wall of light, and overhead came the rushing sigh of a thousand shells. Moments later, on the enemy positions opposite, orange flashes marked their explosion followed by a mounting, echoing roar of sound as the crump of their bursts merged into a continuous monstrous bellow. For two-and-a-half hours it continued, then suddenly stopped. High above the ground, puffs of grey appeared in the air as 25-pounder base-ejection shells, spewed out a shower of canisters which fell to the earth trailing white smoke. Soon a cloud blanketed the enemy, blinding their view to the west. To them, it meant that the attack had begun.
Immediately every German gun within range put down a screen of fire in front of their infantry positions.
For ten minutes the British and Canadian artillery lay silent as survey teams plotted the positions of enemy guns and mortars now in action for the first time and added them to the target list. Then the guns resumed their work.
At ten o’clock, half an hour before H Hour, the full force of the artillery and the Pepper Pot groups fell upon the German forward defences. To the almost unimaginable noise now was added the sound of aircraft overhead and of tanks grinding forward to their attack positions.
To avoid giving any hint to the enemy that other troops were present, the start lines of the attack were held by seven battalions of the 2nd Canadian Division. Behind them, ready to advance, were the 51st (Highland) Division, the 53rd (Welsh), the 15th (Scottish), the 3rd Canadian and the remaining two battalions of the 2nd.
At 10:29, a line of yellow smoke shells marked the last minute before the barrage was to lift. In tanks of the 6th Guards, 8th and 34th Armoured Brigades, the quiet order ‘Driver, advance’ was given, platoon commanders waved their lead sections forward and the infantry, pulling the brims of their helmets lower on their foreheads, began to walk eastward into Germany.
Instead of the expected hail of Spandau bullets, mortar bombs and shells, almost everywhere they met what commentators like to call ‘patchy resistance’ — a few brave riflemen or machine-gunners — and ‘sporadic shell and mortar fire’ — nasty concentrations of deadly high-explosive. They killed and wounded a few unfortunate infantry but did little to stop the tide of the advance.
Prisoners testified to the devastating effect of the bombardment. Dazed, disoriented, isolated, their communications shattered, opposed by what seemed overwhelming force, they had lost their will to resist.
From the crossing of the startline, it was plain that this was to be an infantry battle. Opposite the Reichswald, on the front of the 53rd Division, mud bogged the flail tanks which were to clear paths through minefields for the infantry and armour. Some of the broader-tracked Churchills managed to get through. But after the 71st Brigade had seized control of the north-west corner of the forest, the 160th’s advance eastward was virtually unsupported. Shortly after midnight its leading battalions were fighting in the main defences of the Siegfried Line, east of the Hekkens-Kranenburg road.
On their right, the 51st Division, attacking the southern shoulder of the Reichswald, ran into unexpected resistance from a battalion of the 180th Division which had been hurriedly thrown into the line the previous evening. The Highlanders outflanked it and, by early next morning, had advanced beyond the high ridge at the south-west corner of the forest.
On the low ground on the northern edge of the Reichswald runs the main road from Nijmegen through Cleve and Xanten, giving access to the Rhine bridges at Emmerich, Rees and Wesel. Between it and the river much of the land was flooded. Rising above the water, the buildings of drowned farms and villages formed islands joined by the trees which lined submerged tracks and roadways. As far as Cleve, the road itself was threatened by rising water but was usable. It was the only practicable route for moving tanks and guns beyond the Reichswald, a fact which was as apparent to Schlemm as it was to Crerar. The need for the road became a near obsession to Horrocks.
At the Nijmegen end two battalions of the 5th Canadian Infantry Brigade were to clear the enemy from it as far as Kranenburg. From there it would be the axis of advance of the 15th Scottish Division.
In the Canadian sector the road passed through the village of Wyler, the northern hinge of the enemy’s forward defences, protected in depth by road blocks, dug-in anti-tank guns, minefields and stretches of anti-tank ditch. That the garrison was alert had been proved in raids by the 3rd Division in January. Later that month officers and NCOs of the Calgary Highlanders were briefed for a battalion raid on the village, made detailed reconnaissances and rehearsed the operation. Then, early in February, the battalion was withdrawn from the line and learned of the importance of their forthcoming attack. If they failed to take Wyler quickly, the advance of 30 Corps on Cleve might grind to a halt.
They would have massive artillery support and their right flank would be protected by the advance of Le Régiment de Maisonneuve through the hamlets of Den Heuvel and Hochstrasse.
Despite the support he was promised, the prospect of a frontal attack held no appeal for Lt-Colonel Ross Ellis. Instead he decided to cut the main road south-east of the town. Then, having severed the garrison’s escape route, he would turn back northwest and clear it.
Leaning on the artillery barrage, the Calgaries moved steadily eastward through Vossendaal. By noon, despite losing several casualties in a minefield, A Company had reached the main road and advanced a mile and a half down it to meet a battalion of the 15th Scottish Division near Kranenburg. Behind them, two companies reached the road and turned toward Wyler. Almost immediately C Company met with disaster in a minefield. The Germans had laid several rows of Schu-mines on the surface. Gingerly, the leading troops picked their way safely past the first row, but in trying to avoid the next, men stepped on mines concealed below the surface. Two officers and several NCOs were among those killed. Heavy German mortar and machine-gun fire halted any further advance.
To complicate matters for Ellis, the radios of three of his companies were knocked out. He knew little but that they had run into strong resistance and were stopped, and that, with every moment that passed, the Army’s urgent need for the road through Wyler increased. Arranging for a new artillery and mortar fire plan to be set in motion by a radio signal from him, he set out across the bullet-swept enemy minefields to get the attack moving.
When he found C Company, he saw at once that they could make no further progress. Choosing another line of advance, he and his escort cleared a new start line for his reserve company, gave them their orders, then walked and crawled across to D Company to co-ordinate the attack.
As soon as the artillery and 4.2-inch mortars opened fire, the two companies raced forward into Wyler, clearing snipers from houses and ferreting the enemy out of strongly built bunkers. By 6:30 p.m. the last resistance had ended, the battalion capturing 287 prisoners, including a regimental commander and his staff and detailed information about the Siegfried defences. It had cost the Calgaries sixty-seven casualties.
The final note in the battalion’s war diary for the day recorded that one company had sent in an unusual prisoner. When the Intelligence section began their usual careful physical searches for documents and concealed weapons, they discovered that one German soldier was a girl: ‘… a member of the I section is going around with a very flushed expression.’5
To the west of Cleve and the village of Materborn, two kilometres to the south-west, a range of hills looks down on the road from Nijmegen and onto the open country to the east. No advance beyond the Reichswald would be possible until the enemy was driven from them. The 15th Scottish Division was ordered to take this ‘Materborn feature’ with all possible speed, having breached the main Siegfried defences on the way.
Major-General ‘Tiny’ Barber’s plan was in the best blitzkrieg tradition but outdid the original in the range of equipment he was able to use. Tanks he had aplenty, the 6th Guards Armoured Brigade, and the full range of ‘special’ armour, the ‘Funnies’ of the 79th Armoured Division. Flail tanks would beat paths through the minefields for infantry of the 46th and 227th Brigades to assault the German forward positions. Once these were taken a Special Breaching Force of the 44th Brigade in 300 heavy armoured vehicles would smash through the main Siegfried defences. Again Flails would open routes through the covering minefields, then AVREs carrying folding bridges and fascines would lay crossings over the next obstacle, a wide antitank ditch. The first to cross them would be the weapons the Germans feared the most, Crocodiles, whose long tongues of flame searched out and incinerated machine-gun crews in their bunkers. Then would come the infantry, 8th Royal Scots, 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers, 6th King’s Own Scottish Borderers, and 2nd Gordon Highlanders, every man mounted in Kangaroos of the 1st Canadian Armoured Personnel Carrier Regiment. With them would be the Churchills of the 4th Grenadier Guards and their own artillery observation officers mounted in tanks.
As on the front of the Welsh Division, rain and flooding produced quagmires. Only one Flail was able to reach the start line, and the 46th and 227th Brigades suffered more casualties from mines in the first hours than they did from enemy fire. But, by keeping close to their artillery barrages, by 6:30 p.m. they had driven through the forward enemy defences and captured Kranenburg on the Cleve road and the village of Frasselt two kilometres to the south.
Behind them, a route forward from Groesbeek had been opened along secondary roads and farm tracks for the vehicles of each brigade. Under the weight of tanks, carriers and heavy trucks these were soon reduced to mud. Sweating soldiers, too breathless to swear, heaved ammunition lorries, ambulances and command vehicles past the worst stretches. Early in the afternoon 227th Brigade’s route in the north broke down completely and the entire traffic of the Division was thrown on to the 46th Brigade’s. That night, when 44 Brigade’s Breaching Force attempted to follow it, they were brought virtually to a standstill as tanks and Kangaroos crawled belly-deep, their tracks churning the mud into viscid black porridge.
Lt-Colonel C.W.P. Richardson of the 6th KOSB went forward during the afternoon to a hill overlooking Frasselt to make final arrangements for his attack, scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. on the Siegfried positions beyond the village. The day for him, as for every commander concerned with the advance, ended in frustration. As it had in so many battles, mud had brought progress to a crawl. There would be no attack on the Siegfried Line before morning.
The northern flank of the battle area, between the Nijmegen-Cleve road and the Rhine, was virtually polder country. When in January, the 3rd Canadian Division was given the task of clearing it, its unpleasant resemblance to the shores of the Scheldt was obvious but there was a significant difference. So long as it remained frozen, they would be able to advance across its open fields in Kangaroos supported by tanks. Then came the early thaw and heavy rain. Daily the ground grew soggier. On 3 February the level of the Waal began to rise. On the 6th water started to flow through gaps blown by the Germans in the main river dyke. On the 8th the mile-long Quer Damm collapsed and by that evening, when the 3rd Division’s attack was to begin, most of their area was under water. Instead of using tanks and Kangaroos, they would ride to their objectives in Buffaloes. It did not take them long to realize that, while the Germans had delayed the advance of 30 Corps by flooding its main supply route, they had, in the process, drowned their own minefields, anti-tank ditches, wire entanglements and trenches. Most of the three belts of the Siegfried defences near Cleve were under water and the enemy’s forward positions north of Wyler, apart from a short stretch, were confined to the flooded villages of Zyfflich, Leuth and Kekerdom and to the crests of a few dykes which remained above water.
H Hour for the 3rd Division’s two attacking brigades was 6 p.m. Ahead the floodwaters gave off an eerie metallic sheen under ‘artificial moonlight,’ created by searchlight beams reflected from the low clouds above. Dykes and buildings were dark shadows on the surface.
After a ten-minute ‘Pepperpot,’ the assault began. Only on the extreme right were the infantry, The Regina Rifles, able to advance on foot. Supported by tanks of 13/18th Royal Hussars, in two hours they had seized the southern end of the Quer Damm and captured the village of Zyfflich, a mile to the east. In the meantime, other battalions of the 7th and 8th Brigades were learning new lessons in the strange art of Buffalo fighting.
Two companies of the Canadian Scottish, setting out in the ungainly craft to take the village of Niel, soon discovered how difficult it was to keep direction in the dark when crossing relatively shallow water. When one track of a vehicle touched ground, the craft would swerve violently, sometimes making a complete circle before coming under control. Knowing that they were vulnerable to enemy fire, the Scottish gave a wide berth to Zyfflich ‘whose numerous blazing buildings lit up the surrounding water-covered fields like a lighthouse.’6 Confused by the very number of burning villages, they mistook another hamlet for their objective.
That night atmospheric interference made radio communications almost impossible. At his tactical headquarters, Lt-Colonel Desmond Crofton had heard nothing from his leading companies since they embarked for Niel. After allowing what he judged to be sufficient time for them to reach their objective, he and his command group boarded two Buffaloes and followed. As they approached the village, some if its buildings afire, they could see no sign of their men and could hear nothing over the roar of the Buffaloes’ aircraft-type engines. As the leading craft eased between the first buildings, there was a blinding flash and an appalling explosion as the rocket of a panzerfaust burst inside, leaving the officers commanding the Buffaloes and the supporting artillery dead and eight others wounded or dying. Crofton, his right arm smashed, led a blinded lieutenant to cover in a nearby barn where they remained until rescued some twelve hours later.
The crew of the second Buffalo now under fire replied with their heavy Browning machine gun and their 20mm Polsten cannon as they backed away.
By this time, about 5 o’clock in the morning, the two missing companies were moving in to attack. In little more than an hour the village and nearly 100 prisoners were in their hands.7
On the left the 8th Brigade’s initial objective was a defended dyke which lay some 300 metres in front of a similar position held by them. Two companies of the North Shore Regiment were to cross the flooded polder in Buffaloes. Once ashore, a light signal would summon Le Régiment de la Chaudière who would cross in canoe-like skiffs to the southern half of the enemy dyke.
Immediately the first shells of the ‘Pepperpot’ exploded on the Germans, at exactly 6 p.m., the Buffaloes’ engines roared and their tracks began to dig them deeper and deeper into the soaking earth of the dyke. They did not move.
Brigadier Jim Roberts’ immediate reaction was concern that the attack would be delayed long enough for the enemy to recover from the effects of ‘Pepperpot.’ He radioed for a ten-minute extension, then ordered Major Marks, commanding the Buffalo squadron, to reverse the vehicles off the dyke and climb it diagonally. Slowly, one by one the huge machines clawed their way over the crest and plunged into the water. Only half of them reached the enemy dyke, not one of which carried an officer of the North Shore Regiment nor the means of signalling the Chaudière to follow.
Major Marks’ responsibilities to the infantry had ended with the landing of his Buffaloes’ load of soldiers. Fortunately he had initiative and courage. In his amphibian, he learned, before any of the men ashore, that they were without officers. Immediately he jumped from his vehicle, rallied the men nearby and set about capturing the dyke.
So swift was his action that, with only about one quarter of the men originally sent to take the position, he cleared it from end to end. Stunned by twenty minutes terrific bombardment, the aged ‘Volkssturm’ defenders, mostly veterans of the First World War, emerged from their dugouts, holding their ears, rolling their heads and drooling at the mouth.8
At headquarters of the Fifth Parachute Army, General Alfred Schlemm listened to Crerar’s guns on the morning of the 8th and could imagine that he was hearing once more one of ‘Koniev’s symphonies’ on the Russian front. Despite the lack of other indications, it could only mean the beginning of the long-expected Allied offensive. Before any report arrived from the front, he telephoned Col-General Johannes Blaskowitz, the commander-in-chief of Army Group H, to ask for reserves to reinforce the 84th Division. His request was refused.
By this stage of the war, German intelligence had been so discredited in the eyes of the generals that they preferred to make up their minds about Allied intentions by imagining what they would do if they were the opposing commanders. Blaskowitz and Rundstedt, his superior, had both concluded that the main attack would be launched toward the Ruhr by the Second British and Ninth U.S. Armies, from the great bend in the Maas north of Roermond. Any attack by Canadian formations opposite the Reichswald could only be a subsidiary ‘to deceive us regarding the real centre of gravity of the attack.’9
Wedded to their misconceptions, Schlemm’s superiors grudgingly permitted him to commit the 7th Parachute Division on the evening of 8 February. In their opinion, the attacks had been launched by the Canadian 2nd and 3rd Divisions and 2nd Armoured Brigade. Next day, though they had identified both the 51st and 53rd Divisions, they persisted in believing that the main blow would be delivered by Second Army from the Maas bend.
Further south, General Simpson’s Ninth U.S. Army were poised to begin their attack across the Roer on the 10th. The day before, while Schlemm raged at the collective stupidity of Blaskowitz and his staff, Montgomery was agreeing with Simpson that Operation Grenade would have to be postponed for 24 hours to allow the unusually high level of the Roer to subside. At almost the same time a unit of the First U.S. Army had reached one of the key dams on the Roer to find that the Germans had jammed open a sluice gate, unleashing more than a hundred million tons of water into the river. Within hours, the level of the Roer rose by another five feet, overflowing its banks across the whole of Ninth Army front and causing the Maas to flood in First Canadian Army’s area. By wrecking the sluice gate, instead of blowing up the dam, the Germans had created, not a short-lived torrent, but a flood which would last for at least eleven days.
On the 10th, when satisfied that any advance by Second and Ninth Armies had been blocked by floods, Rundstedt gave Schlemm the Headquarters of 47th Panzer Corps to take control of the battle and moved his armoured reserve — 15th Panzer Grenadier and 116th Panzer Divisions — closer to the scene. That he was becoming concerned by events on the Reichswald front can be seen from his signal to Blaskowitz at noon that day which emphasized the disastrous consequences of a break-through to the Rhine and the necessity of holding Cleve at all costs.10
The ancient and historic town of Cleve lies below the slopes of the Reichswald at its north-east corner. From it roads splay out to the east and south, into the heart of the Rhineland. If holding it was vital to Rundstedt, capture of the town and the hills above which dominate the road network was crucial to 30 Corps.
In the early hours of the 9th, General Horrocks listened to the rain driving against his caravan with the noise of a firehose playing on a window. With mounting frustration he learned of the rising flood waters and impassable roads which slowed the advance of the 15th Scottish Division. Behind, poised to move the moment. Cleve was taken, were the 43rd (Wessex) and the Guards Armoured Divisions — the breakout forces which would fan out to disrupt the German rearward defences.
To the east the 44th Brigade’s Armoured Breaching Force had struggled through the night toward the minefields and the anti-tank ditch which covered the Siegfried Line. In the darkness and the sheeting rain, a nightmare of traffic jams, diversions, bogged vehicles and mud broke up the planned order of advance. To make matters worse, trees on either side of the narrow tracks fouled the girder bridges being carried by the AVREs. Their supports snapped and the bridges fell forward into the lowered position making the vehicles virtually unmanoeuvrable. When the head of the Force reached the start line for the attack at 4 a.m. Brigadier H.C.T. Cumming-Bruce, its commander, decided that, despite disorganization, the attack could not be delayed. An hour later, Flails and AVREs reached the ditch, laying a bridge over it at one site and making a rough fascine crossing at the other. Only one rifle company of the leading battalion, Richardson’s 6th KOSB, had reached the crossing sites at Frasselt in their Kangaroos. Immediately they began to cross but an anti-tank gun towed by a Kangaroo fouled the bridge and blocked it. Using only the fascine crossing, the company soon established a bridgehead where they were joined by the other three companies of the Battalion who had been diverted via Kranenburg.
On the left the 2nd Gordon Highlanders attacked astride the main road to Cleve and, within an hour, reported that they had seized the main road bridge over the anti-tank ditch. Meeting little resistance, they reached Nutterden by 10 a.m.
So little sign of fight had the enemy shown that Cumming-Bruce ordered the KOSB to continue the advance rather than wait for another battalion to pass through them. Climbing into their Kangaroos, they drove eastwards to the next objective, the Wolfsberg, a hill which air photos showed was heavily fortified. With only a few casualties, the Borderers overran its defences, capturing four 88mm guns, the headquarters of an infantry battalion and an artillery regiment for a total ‘bag’ of 240 prisoners.
The main defences of the Siegfried Line had been breached, albeit some eleven hours behind schedule, a task which might well have exhausted a brigade. It had been achieved so cheaply that General Barber cancelled his plan for two brigades to move through the 44th for the final advance on Cleve and ordered Cumming-Bruce to press on. It was about noon on 9 February, the second day of the battle.
At that time Schlemm was the only senior German commander to recognize that First Canadian Army’s thrust was no diversion. He was well aware of the weakness of the Siegfried Line and its defenders but there was little he could do to prevent a breakthrough. The situation was deteriorating far too quickly for him to use the 7th Parachute Division, which had been grudgingly released to him, for a counterattack. As its battalions arrived, he placed them in rear of the 84th Division between the Reichswald and the Maas, and ordered a battle group to move with all possible speed to occupy the two hills of the Materborn feature which block the approaches to Cleve from the south-west.
When the 6th KOSB once more mounted APCs and, with a tank squadron of the 1st Grenadier Guards headed for the Bresserberg, the hill closest to Cleve, they did not know that they were in a race but their instincts and their orders left no doubt about the need for speed. Heading through forest tracks, they reached the hill about 3 p.m. to be met by bursts of machine-gun fire and the crump of mortars. Without dismounting, they drove forward almost a mile, incinerating pillboxes and raking a double line of trenches with fire. Within minutes the straggling hamlet of Bresserberg was aflame and grey figures with hands held high began to appear. As the leading company reached the slopes above Cleve they saw moving toward them the vanguard of the 7th Parachute Division. In the gathering dusk the Borderers beat off every attempt of the aggressive paratroopers to gain a foothold on the hill. That evening patrols of the 15th Division’s reconnaissance regiment found strong enemy resistance on the roads south and east of Cleve, but in the town itself the Germans seemed disorganized.11
That night Barber issued orders for the 227th Brigade to clear Cleve in the morning and for mobile columns of tanks, infantry and guns to drive south-east down the road to Calcar and northeastwards to seize the ferry across the Rhine to Emmerich. But, as the divisional history notes, ‘Floods, mud and traffic congestion — these three were to defeat all plans.’ Indeed they were — with some inadvertent help from Horrocks.12
All day the commander of 30 Corps had been waiting for news that the Materborn feature had been taken. When it had, the 43rd Division was to move forward from Nijmegen to advance across it and capture Goch, Üdem and Weeze. Having learned that the 15th Scottish Division were on the hills above Cleve and were advancing into the town, Horrocks
… unleashed my first reserve, the 43rd Wessex Division…. This turned out to be one of the worst mistakes I made in the war. The 15th Scottish had not reached as far as had been reported and one of their brigades had not been employed at all. The chief enemy at this time was not the Germans but the congestion caused by the flooding which almost precluded cross-country movement. The arrival of this fresh division bursting for the fray caused one of the worst traffic jams in the war…. My only excuse is that all too often during the war I had witnessed a pause in the battle when one division was ordered to pass through another, which allowed the enemy time to recover. In this case, speed was absolutely vital and I was determined that our attack should flow on.13
It was well after midnight when the leading brigade of the Wessex Division, the 129th, riding on their supporting tanks reached Nutterden. There they learned that the main road ahead was blocked and that Cleve had not yet been cleared. Lt-Colonel J.E.L. Corbyn of the 4th Wiltshires led his battalion by a secondary route around the north edge of the Bresserberg toward the town. As they neared it, bursts of Spandau fire raked the leading scout car. The infantry were off their tanks in a flash and swung out on either side of the track to outflank the road block. Having eliminated it, the advance continued on foot with the tanks firing into every house, their progress slowed by gigantic craters. As dawn was breaking, the Wiltshires reached a park on the southern outskirts of Cleve and could hardly believe their eyes at the scenes of devastation. Scarcely a house was standing. ‘Bomb craters and fallen trees were everywhere, bomb craters packed so tightly together that the débris from one was piled against the rim of the next in a pathetic heap of rubble, roofs and radiators. There was not an undamaged house anywhere, piles of smashed furniture, clothing, children’s books and toys, old photographs and bottled fruit were spilled in hopeless confusion into gardens from sagging, crazy skeletons of homes.’14
There their brigade commander ordered the 4th Wiltshires to halt and protect the northern flank, whilst his other two battalions by-passed them and advanced due south. In doing so, they began to move between the German main defences which were on the slopes above Materborn and the 6th Parachute Division which was moving to reinforce them. There followed a battle of such violence and confusion that the aim of both sides became simply to kill or be killed. All day the fighting raged and everyone in the vicinity was involved. 129th Brigade Headquarters fought off a German attack. Major-General Fiebig, commander of the German 84th Division, was caught up in a battle around his headquarters.
The history of the 4th Somerset Light Infantry tells what happened when the head of their column reached the eastern exits of Cleve.
At this point a German counterattack, in the form of S.P.s and paratroopers, came in from the South. No one can fully describe what happened. Small groups stood and fought where they were, forming a thin line with the general direction facing South. German S.P.s picked off vehicle after vehicle, and we certainly ‘bought it.’ The head of the column was blocked by huge craters in the road and it was impossible to move forward until bulldozers could be got up to fill in the craters and clear the way.
The action of one private soldier, typified the fighting spirit of the men involved.
[The carrier platoon] was attacked by a Panther, an S.P. gun and some infantry. The Panther came within 25 yards of the platoon position and the situation began to look desperate. Pte H.A. Tipple armed with a PIAT took up a position on the lip of a bomb crater but before he could bring his weapon into action, the tank spotted him and, firing a round of H.E. at point blank range, blew Tipple and his PIAT into the bottom of the crater. Undeterred, Tipple … crawled up again to the lip of the crater taking up another fire position, engaging the tank and scoring direct hits. Unfortunately he was unable to knock the tank out but the blast effect of the bombs on the hull of the tank so discomforted it that it beat a hasty retreat and was not seen again.15
To the acute frustration of General Barber, the presence of 129th Brigade on part of his objective meant that artillery could not support the advance of his 227th Brigade into Cleve on 10 February. Instead the day was spent by the Scottish Division in clearing the remaining hills above. Then, next morning, they relieved the 129th Brigade on the outskirts of the town and proceeded to clear it. As they were doing so, the 214th Brigade of the Wessex Division cleared Materborn village and advanced east and south to capture Hau which lies at the eastern edge of the Reichswald. Here they found their advance blocked by German infantry and S.P. guns.
Schlemm had moved swiftly to contain 30 Corps’ advance, preparatory to a counterattack by 47th Panzer Corps to recapture Cleve. He ordered the 84th Division to hold the prepared defences of the Siegfried Line’s rear position along the Eselsberg ridge between Hasselt on the Cleve-Calcar road and the rectangular Forest of Cleve which stands east of the Reichswald. But while the two divisions of the 47th Corps were concentrating near Üdem, General Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz, their commander, learned that Hau had fallen and that the 53rd Division was threatening the Cleve-Goch road in the eastern Reichswald. Instead of advancing directly on Cleve, he decided to move west into the Reichswald then swing north with all his forces to capture the Materborn heights.
The attack began at 9:30 a.m. on the 12th and immediately ran into the 43rd Division. Three efforts to break through the British failed and at nightfall Luttwitz’ Corps pulled back to take up defensive positions.
Mud, floods and traffic congestion were still restricting 30th Corps’ operations but now the full effects of the flooding of the Roer began to be felt. With that barrier thrown across the front of the Ninth U.S. Army, Rundstedt began to reinforce Schlemm with some of his best divisions. The soldiers of First Canadian Army would meet no more halfhearted resistance from shell-shocked troops west of the Rhine.
As the 43rd Division prepared to advance down the east side of the Forest of Cleve, the 51st (Highland) Division was driving eastwards south of the Reichswald. On the 9th their 152nd Brigade reached the Siegfried Line north of Hekkens and the 153rd, driving south, cut the road from Mook to Goch. Next day they advanced along it. That night the 5th Battalion, Black Watch crossed the Niers River in assault boats to take the town of Gennep in a surprise attack from the north-east, overwhelming its defences which faced the west.
There is one strange story of this village of Gennep. It has been told again and again, but always with a sense of wonder. Capt Donald Beales of the 5th Black Watch was standing in the doorway of a house in Gennep, where he had established the headquarters of his company. He sent his runner, Pte Smith, on a message, who, as he moved down the roadway, shouted back to his officer: ‘I’ll see you in twenty minutes, sir.’ The next minute Beales was killed, as Smith was exactly twenty minutes later.16
The way was now open for Second Army to begin bridging the Maas. Further east Hekkens was taken by the 154th Brigade after bitter fighting, and on the 13th, the Highland and Welsh Divisions met two miles to the east on the fringes of the Reichswald.
Fighting their way eastward through the dank, dripping depths of the forest, the 53rd (Welsh) Division broke through the Siegfried defences and reached the heights above Materborn on the 9th. The advance was far from easy and the Germans mounted several well planned counterattacks by infantry and SP guns against the East Lancashire Regiment on the Hekkens-Frasselt road. Only tracked vehicles could be used on the sodden forest tracks and frequently even these bogged down. Opposition was fierce. SP guns firing down the rides were difficult to destroy. On the 12th and 13th the Panzer Corps’ counterattack was met head-on by the 6th Royal Welch Fulsiliers and the 1/5 Welch Regiment. They stopped the advancing Panzer Grenadiers dead about 300 yards from their positions with artillery and machine guns — then continued their clearance of the south-east bulge of the Forest.
To the north the attacking brigades of the 3rd Canadian Division had reached their initial objectives in the drowned flood plain of the Rhine by afternoon of the 9th only to find that they were virtually cut off by rising waters. Vehicles which had been ordered forward were caught in the floods and drowned. Rations began to run short. Nonetheless, infantry fighting patrols swept the area east of Mehr to ensure that 9th Brigade’s start line for their attack next morning suffered no enemy interference. That day most men in the division learned they had a new nickname:
9 Feb 45
1. The Army Comd, Comd 30 Br Corps, Comd 2 Cdn Corps are all extremely pleased with the excellent work done by THE DIV in Op VERITABLE. In view of ops SWITCHBACK and VERITABLE Comd 2 Cdn Corps now refers to us as ‘THE WATER RATS.’ I have accepted our new nickname and I am sure that all ranks will agree.
2. Good luck, God bless, and keep splashing!
(DC SPRY) Maj-Gen
GOC 3 Cdn Inf Div
There were now more than 17 inches of water on stretches of the Nijmegen-Cleve road and it was still rising.
With their artillery marooned out of range, the leading battalions of the 9th Brigade moved forward in Buffaloes (‘Schwimm Panzers’ according to the Germans), across the watery wastes. In Donsbrtiggen on the Cleve road, the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders made contact with the 2nd Gordons of the 15th Division. By midnight they were fighting through the fortified houses of Rindern, a key bastion of the Siegfried Line.
Farther north, the Highland Light Infantry of Canada were held up by machine guns in fortified houses and pillboxes on the outskirts of Duffelward. Next morning they took the town and captured Wardhausen. By midnight the two battalions held the whole line of the Spoy Canal which joins Cleve to the Alter Rhein. On the 14th Brigadier John Rockingham sent the North Nova Scotia Highlanders to probe eastward and by nightfall they were in possession of the submerged road from Cleve to Emmerich on the Rhine.
While headquarters of the Glengarrians was being set up in a house in Rindern, a photograph of an ice hockey team caught the eye of Lt-Colonel Roger Rowley. It was of the victorious English Olympic team of 1936 with their German escort, an officer in uniform. Most of the players were Canadian students at university in Britain, its captain known to everyone in the 9th Brigade as its DAA & QMG, Major Don Dailley.17
