ON 6 APRIL, Vokes’s 4th Armoured Division, beginning its thrust into Germany, reached the Ems opposite Meppen. The east bank was held by the enemy and the next day was spent preparing for an assault crossing.
On the 8th the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada stormed across the river and overran the town. By a seeming miracle, they suffered only one casualty. The reason may have been the inexperience of the enemy. Most of the many prisoners were 17-year-olds who had been in the army for fewer than eight weeks.
East of the river, the Division resumed its drive towards 2nd Corps’ next objective, the city of Oldenburg, 80 kilometres to the northeast.
The low-lying, boggy country effectively restricted tank movement to the roads and, as in the Scheldt estuary, the brunt of the fighting fell to the infantry. Mines and demolitions slowed the advance more often than did direct opposition by the enemy.
At Sögel, 25 kilometres beyond Meppen, the Lake Superior Regiment ran into unusually strong opposition from German infantry who counterattacked several times after the town had been cleared. German civilians joined in the fighting and cost the lives of several Canadian soldiers. This was a new experience with unpleasant implications. The Germans had to be taught a lesson — keep to the rules of war or suffer reprisals.
In comparison to the murderous behaviour of the Nazis when faced with resistance in the countries they occupied, the Canadian reaction was comparatively mild. Major-General Chris Vokes ordered his engineers to destroy several houses in the centre of the town to provide rubble for road work. The Division met with little trouble from civilians until, two-thirds of the way to Oldenburg, they came to the town of Friesoythe.
In a skillful operation the Argylls outflanked the town while the Lake Superiors made a diversionary attack from the front. Sadly it cost the Argylls their popular and very competent commanding officer, Lt-Colonel F.E. Wigle. A report reached Vokes which said that he had been shot in the back by a civilian. The General’s reaction was typical and forthright:
I was enraged. Not a few days earlier, during the fighting for the town of Sogel, civilians had taken part and inflicted casualties on soldiers of mine in both the Lincoln and Welland Regiment and the Lake Superior Regiment. I had caused a few houses in the centre of the town to be levelled by way of retribution and as a lesson to the populace to stand aside from direct participation in the war between my soldiers and the German soldiers.
Apparently they had not learned their lesson.
I summoned my GSO 1, Lt-Colonel W.G.M. Robinson….
‘Mac,’ I roared at him, ‘I’m going to raze that goddamn town.’
‘All right.’
‘Get out some proclamations.’ I didn’t want to kill or injure civilians, no matter the provocation. ‘Tell them we’re going to level their goddam place. Get the people the hell out of their houses first.’
‘That’s all right, sir,’ Mac agreed partly, ‘but you can’t put it in writing.’
He was right. I retracted that part of the order. It is fortunate perhaps that there was no voice-activated tape recorder at hand.
Friesoythe was levelled. We used the rubble to make traversable roads for our tanks. The ground around was overly soggy. The local roads were brick and torn up quickly by tank traffic.
Unfortunately it was verified later … that a party of fifty bypassed soldiers had accidentally come on Freddie and his outnumbered little group.
Freddie [Wigle] got it in the back all right, but from a German soldier with a Schmeisser who burst through a door in a building in which the Argyll’s had taken refuge. Freddie and the German both died right away, the German from Sten slugs from the weapons of Lieutenant R.W. Roscoe and a Private Fraser, one of the several Frasers who served in the Regiment.
I confess now to a feeling still of great loss over Wigle and a feeling of no great remorse over the elimination of Friesoythe.1
Ahead lay Oldenburg, a key to the German defence of the Küsten Canal which barred the great Emden-Wilhelmshaven peninsula. On 14 April Simonds asked that it be attacked by heavy bombers. In the usual way the request was sent to HQ 84 Group RAF and through them to 2nd Tactical Air Force. At every level it was agreed, but on the basis of an attack by medium bombers instead of heavies. Next day the Air Force, without reference to the Army, cancelled the attack. Army Headquarters protested. Two days later, with medium bombers on the way to the target, Air Marshal ‘Mary’ Coningham, the commander of 2nd TAF, recalled them, his excuse — the barracks in Oldenburg, now full of German soldiers, would be required for accommodation for Allied troops! Finally, three days after the original request, 60 medium bombers attacked the barracks with good results, and repeated the process next day.2
The officers concerned at Army Headquarters continued to be among the keenest admirers of the skill and bravery of the fighting air crew of their supporting air forces, a feeling shared by the soldiers at the sharp end. But too often, it seemed to them, when a major target was referred for approval to a senior air marshal, his decision was based less on the nature of the target than his mood of the day.
On 14 April both the 1st Polish and the 4th Canadian Armoured Divisions reached the 90-kilometre-long Küsten Canal which joins the Rivers Ems and Weser. This formidable 30-metre-wide waterway, only completed in 1936, lay across the approaches to a large area of northern Germany which included the ports of Emden and Wilhelmshaven and the city of Oldenburg.
Near the Ems two attempts by the 10th Polish Armoured Brigade to cross it were repulsed with heavy losses. Only a deliberate assault with heavy artillery support had any chance of success, and that took time to organize. On the 19th, after the German defences had been pounded by artillery and rocket-firing Typhoons, the assault went in. The 9th Infantry Battalion seized a bridgehead and, while engineers were rushing a bridge to completion, General Maczek completed his detailed plans for a breakout to the north. At that moment a large German force advanced to counterattack through the target area already registered by the 4th Medium Regiment RCA to support Maczek’s attack. They opened fire and the counterattack ‘ended right away with white flags waved all over the place.’3
From the canal the Poles met little resistance as they drove northwards toward the Leda River and the port of Leer. No Allied troops carried the war into Germany with more enthusiasm than did the Poles and the ruthless drive of their advance reflected it.
Next day, in the operations tent at HQ First Canadian Army, reports began coming in that the Poles had been halted by unexpected resistance, yet they seemed to be doing little about it. They refused offers of air support.
The ‘resistance’ turned out to be unusual — one of the more poignant episodes of the war. Within hours the story spread through the Army, often much garbled.
Dick Payan, the staff officer in charge of ammunition supply at Army Headquarters, had a direct telephone line to his opposite number, Joe Sarantos, at 2nd Corps Headquarters. The distance between them was now so great that even with a high-power phone Payan had to shout at the top of his voice to make himself heard. Work was impossible during their conversations as Payan bellowed, ‘What’s that you say, Joe? Three thousand rounds of 5.5?’ That day the whole Headquarters stopped work to listen, fascinated.
‘Yes, I got that Joe. What’s that first item again? 250 brassieres?’
The list went on, articles of women’s clothing, sheets, pillows, all items rarely found in a field army forward of its hospitals.
As he put down the phone, someone said, ‘What’s that about, Dick?’
The sympathetic Payan’s face was a picture of wonder, bordering on disbelief, his eyes moist. He blew his nose. ‘The Poles have overrun a concentration camp and it’s full of Polish women. Some of them are the wives and daughters of men in the Division.’4
Already 2nd Corps had sent doctors, nurses, food and medical supplies to the camp at Niederlangen. On 22 April 1st Polish Armoured Division resumed its advance.
The ground over which the two armoured divisions were now operating was difficult — boggy, intercepted by streams and drainage canals, and with limited roads. Vokes decided that the best approach to Oldenburg would be to cross the Küsten Canal north of Friesoythe to Bad Zwischenahn where the ground leading to the city was higher and drier. There was only one possible crossing place of the canal and it was defended by two battalions of a German marine regiment.
In the early hours of 17 April the Algonquin Regiment crossed in assault boats, supported by the fire of the divisional artillery, the tanks of the British Columbia Regiment and the machine guns of the New Brunswick Rangers firing from the south bank of the canal. By dawn the Algonquins were digging in and bridging had begun. The German marines, supported by a self-propelled gun, counterattacked with such speed and force that they penetrated almost to the canal. For a time the bridgehead was in danger.
Heavy enemy shelling and mortaring made the crossing of the wide and open canal difficult and dangerous. During the following night the Argylls and some of the Lincoln and Welland Regiment managed to cross, while the Royal Canadian Engineers worked steadily at building a long Bailey bridge. Under frequent, heavy and accurate mortaring and shelling and repeatedly swept by machine-gun fire, the bridging site was an uncomfortable place to work. Erecting the girder bracing with bullets whining as they ricocheted off the steel work was the most nerve-wracking and dangerous job of all. But brave men led by Sergeant Schell of the 9th Field Squadron worked on. By dawn on the morning of the 19th the bridge was completed and armour began crossing the canal. Gradually the enemy was forced back.
With the 4th Division moving north, a gap began to develop between the Canadians and Second Army’s left-hand division, the 43rd Wessex, advancing on Bremen. Montgomery instructed Crerar to shift an infantry division from north-eastern Holland to close the gap. The 2nd Division, which had almost finished with Groningen, was ordered to take on the task. Transport was limited but the more mobile elements left on the 18th and, within two days, the entire division had moved 250 kilometres and were in position to the south of Oldenburg.
On the 21st the 3rd Division moved east of the Ems to relieve the Poles and then began preparing yet another amphibious operation — to capture the port of Leer before advancing on the naval base of Emden. The Poles were to drive northeastward to Varel where they would relieve the pressure on the 4th Division and sever communications between Oldenburg and Wilhelmshaven.
At the beginning of the last week of April, the stage was set for the final operations in Germany.
