WEST OF THE IJSSEL and north of the Maas, the most densely populated area of Holland, the Dutch people waited in quiet desperation for the arrival of their liberators. They were hungry and their inadequate rations were being steadily reduced. Each cut brought starvation closer. Tens of thousands had been shipped to Germany to concentration camps or as forced labour and those who remained were at the mercy of the ruthless Nazi occupiers of their country.
Their hatred for the ‘Rot-moffen,’ as they called the Germans, had been honed to killing point. Everywhere, underground groups waited for the moment to rise and strike the enemy, yet everywhere there were collaborators who cooperated with the Germans.
There was little that the underground could do but plan, identify traitors and make life uncomfortable for the Germans. They took terrible risks to commit small acts of sabotage — the cutting of telephone lines or the polluting of enemy rations.
The Dutch could understand the military logic which called for the Allies to throw their full strength behind a drive into Germany, but with every day which passed during the last long winter of the war their positions had grown worse, even more so since the Rhine was crossed on 23 March. Surely the Allies must realize how desperate was their situation and come to their rescue before it was too late. Until then there was little but hope to sustain them.
Mercifully they did not know that the Allies had no immediate plans to liberate western Holland with its great cities of Rotterdam, Amsterdam and the Hague. Montgomery’s orders to First Canadian Army on 28 March were to ‘open up the supply route to the north through Arnhem and then to operate to clear north-east Holland, the coastal belt eastwards to the Elbe, and west Holland.’ But he made it plain to Crerar that he hoped that the last task, which he regarded as a diversion from defeating the German armies in north-west Europe, would be unnecessary.1
To open the supply route north to Arnhem would involve both Canadian Corps (see above — ‘Rhine to North Sea,’ p. 000). The 2nd, having taken Zutphen and Deventer, was to launch the 1st Division west across the Ijssel. Twenty-four hours later, the 49th Division of 1st Corps would take Arnhem. Then these two divisions, operating together under Foulkes, would clear the road from Arnhem to Zutphen and seize enough territory to the west to secure it from German interference. As late as 2 April Crerar envisaged them using both corps in the advance into Germany.
In the meantime, before these operations could begin, the socalled Arnhem island must be cleared.
Following its deliberate flooding by the Germans in December, the 49th Division held about half of this tongue of land between the lower Rhine and the Waal, in the form of a semi-circular bridgehead north of Nijmegen. During the last week of March, the 5th Canadian Armoured Division took over the western half of the perimeter from the 49th. Then on 2 April the two divisions swept forward together and met unexpectedly light resistance. For the most part artillery, tanks and fighter-bombers blew the opposition from the path of the advancing infantry. Everywhere mines, craters and road blocks gave trouble. The only real show of fight on the part of the Germans occurred in the 5th Division’s sector after the Perth Regiment had taken Driel. There the veterans from Italy beat off two counterattacks ‘without much trouble.’2
Early on 3 April men of the 146th Brigade crossed the Pannerdensch Canal (that stretch of the lower Rhine between its junctions with the Waal and the Ijssel) and seized Westervoort which lies east of the Ijssel less than two kilometres from Arnhem.
Preparations now began in earnest for the 49th Division’s attack on the town. It could not begin for at least a week until the 1st Canadian Division had crossed into western Holland.
In the past few months the problem of taking Arnhem had been studied by every headquarters concerned, by none more carefully than that of Major-General Rawlins’ 49th (West Riding) Division. The consensus was that the attack should begin with a crossing of the lower Rhine at one of two sites, 6 and 12 kilometres west of the town, followed by an advance up the north bank. When 1st Canadian Corps became responsible for the operation on 15 March, Foulkes and his staff agreed to this concept and the day after the Arnhem island was cleared, the briefing of the battalions chosen for the assault began.
Then things began to go wrong.
From the high ground on the north bank of the river, the Germans had a clear view over much of the island. A large smoke screen similar to those used for the Rhine crossing was laid along the river but air currents and shifting winds made it ineffective. At one point near Driel several infantry battalion commanders on reconnaissance were pinned down in the open by German machine-gun fire when the smoke shifted. When the town was later plastered by artillery fire, it was obvious that the enemy had spotted trucks dumping stores for the assault.
To Foulkes and his experienced staff it seemed likely that the enemy would now expect an attack west of Arnhem. The current plans were a recipe for disaster. On 7 April he ordered Rawlins to prepare to attack Arnhem from the east.
To regimental officers in the 49th Division, who had so recently been briefed on two alternative plans, the introduction of a third indicated that the Canadian commander could not make up his mind. When the grumbling reached the ears of veterans of the battles of the Italian river lines, the reactions varied from amusement to indignation. The most polite comment was that of the Chief Engineer: ‘Crossed more rivers than they’ve had hot breakfasts.’3
Thirty kilometres to the north-east, at 4:30 p.m. on 11 April, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada crossed the hundred-metre-wide Ijssel river in Buffaloes of the 4th Royal Tanks. They met little op position and within 90 minutes both battalions had landed on the west bank. Behind them the Royal Canadian Engineers suffered more casualties than the infantry as they built bridges and rafts under enemy shell fire. Next day the remainder of the Division crossed the river. By the morning of the 13th when it once more came under command of 1st Corps, its leading elements were moving west toward the city of Apeldoorn and attempting to open a route southward toward Arnhem.
There the 49th Division’s attack had begun at 10:40 p.m. the previous evening.
All day on the 12th RAF Spitfires and Typhoons strafed and rocketed the Arnhem defences. West of the city, enemy positions near the river were shelled by the Corps artillery, whereupon German guns retaliated on Driel and other nearby villages where an assault force might be concentrating. As darkness fell, the full weight of the Corps artillery switched to the south-east outskirts of Arnhem. When the 56th Brigade — South Wales Borderers, Glosters and Essex Regiment — crossed the Ijssel in Buffaloes, they had little difficulty in seizing a bridgehead in the fringes of the town.
Early next morning soldiers near the crossing site at Westervoort were astonished to see a complete Bailey pontoon bridge being towed toward them from the direction of the lower Rhine. It had been prefabricated eight kilometres away near Doornenburg by the 12th Field Company, Royal Canadian Engineers. Rafts were already in operation when it arrived, carrying Crocodiles and the tanks of the Ontario Regiment. During the day the remainder of the Division crossed into the town.
The second battle of Arnhem was not like the first. The enemy was neither as strong, as determined, nor as skilled this time and the British victory seemed easy by comparison. But street fighting of any kind is a dangerous and nerve-wracking business and no one who saw the wounded of the 49th Division or counted its dead would use the word ‘easy’ to describe their battle.
By the 14th Arnhem was free of the enemy.
In the meantime, the suffering of the Dutch population began at last to affect military plans. It was learned that in parts of western Holland the daily ration for a civilian was less than that of a concentration camp inmate in Germany. This disquieting news had resulted in Montgomery’s instructions to Crerar, on 5 April, to clear western Holland of the enemy. The orders were passed to 1st Corps.
On the 12th, while the 49th Division was crossing into Arnhem, Foulkes relieved the 5th Armoured on the island, with a mixed force under the 1st Armoured Brigade. From there it moved across the Rhine at Emmerich where it concentrated, ready to break out to the west through either of his two infantry divisions. As soon as these had cleared the Arnhem-Zutphen road, the Corps would strike westward to the Hague, Rotterdam and Amsterdam.
While this regrouping was taking place, another change in orders was imposed by the Allied governments. Montgomery had pointed out that if the Germans chose to offer more than token resistance, the attack into densely populated western Holland must inevitably result in heavy civilian casualties. At the same time there were indications that Seyss-Inquart, the Reichskommissar in Holland, might be prepared to allow relief supplies into the country. Foulkes’ orders were changed. He was to advance no further west than the Grebbe Line, a system of old Dutch field fortifications running from the south shore of the Ijsselmeer, east of Amersfoort to the Lower Rhine. On 14 April he passed on these new instructions to his divisional commanders.
To the east of Apeldoorn, the 1st Division met unexpectedly strong resistance from the 361st Volksgrenadier Division. Both the 1st and 3rd Brigades were able to make only slow progress against its rearguards of infantry and self-propelled guns. Air reconnaissance and intelligence reports showed that the enemy intended to defend the line of the Apeldoorn Canal which runs roughly north and south through the city. During the night of 13/14 April an attempt to cross by a company of the Royal Canadian Regiment and a squadron of the 1st Hussars failed with the loss of two Shermans.
Major-General Harry Foster had no intention of making a direct assault on Apeldoorn. ‘It was a friendly city, filled with refugees and I was not prepared to use artillery on it.’4 He planned to hold the enemy garrison in its prepared positions by threatening an attack by the 1st Brigade while the 3rd crossed the Canal to the south and swung around to isolate the city.
During the afternoon of the 14th Charles Foulkes saw that the 49th Division’s rapid success at Arnhem and the Germans stubborn resistance at Apeldoorn had presented him with an unexpected tactical opportunity. He ordered the 5th Armoured Division to advance at once with all speed through Arnhem, north to the Ijsselmeer, thereby cutting the escape route to the west of the forces facing Foster at Apeldoorn. By early morning next day the Division had moved to the northern outskirts of Arnhem and was ready to attack. Their first task would be to break through the enemy’s 346th Division and seize the high ground north of the town.
At first light, 6:30 a.m., the British Columbia Dragoons and the 8th Princess Louise’s (New Brunswick) Hussars roared forward into the densely wooded sand hills. Tanks crashed through the trees, by-passing road blocks as they sped toward their first objectives. The speed and direction of the advance took the Germans by surprise. At Deelen the Hussars captured the commander of the 858th Grenadier Regiment and his staff. Swinging toward the north-west Lord Strathcona’s Horse passed through, heading for Otterloo. By nightfall they were on the outskirts of the town with the 8th Hussars harboured to the south-west. Late the next afternoon the Strathconas and the British Columbia Dragoons, having by-passed Barneveld, were at Voorthuizen, threatening to cut the Apeldoorn-Amersfoort highway, the enemy’s escape route to the west. Here the Germans were prepared to fight.
In failing light the Dragoons attacked and, despite slow going across the surrounding marshy ground, succeeded in cutting the vital highway.
To the east, near the Ijssel, brigades of the 1st and 49th Divisions were advancing toward each other along the Arnhem-Zutphen road. Near the start the Seaforths of Canada and the Loyal Edmonton Regiment had to break through the young fanatics of a parachute training regiment who fought to the death, even when attacked with flame-throwers. Flanking them to the west, the Patricias swept southward, rounding up groups of wandering Germans: ‘A patrol, wearying of foot-slogging, borrowed bicycles from the Dutch Resistance and rode in carefree fashion into the south. Out of the ditch beside the road a balaclaved head rose and in broad East Anglian shouted “ Close.” As one man the Patricias replied “ Shave.” It was the joint password and the gap between the 1st Canadian and 49th British Divisions had been closed.’5
At Dieren the Edmontons crossed the Apeldoorn Canal and turned north up the west bank. The right flank of the enemy defending the city had been turned.
West of Arnhem, the 49th Division moved down the north bank of the Lower Rhine toward the Grebbe Line and by nightfall on the 16th were half-way to Ede and Renkum.
Except for a narrow corridor between Voorthuizen and the Ijsselmeer, the German escape routes to the west were virtually closed and as yet there was no sign of them attempting to pull back. Next day the ring should close as the 1st Division began their attack on Apeldoorn from the south.
At noon on the 16th Charles Foulkes might have been pleased at the development of his tactical plan but for an order he had just received from Crerar. Within 48 hours he would lose his blocking force. In two days’ time the 5th Division was to move to 2nd Corps near Groningen. There was little he could do but urge his divisions to speed their operations.
At about the same time General Philipp Kleffel, commanding the German 30th Corps, became aware of the deadly threat to his 361st Division at Apeldoorn and his 6th Parachute Division north of the city. He ordered them to withdraw that night to the Grebbe Line. Conscious of the danger that might lie in their path, the German infantry were moving in tactical formation when, shortly after midnight, they met the Canadian road blocks.
At Voorthuizen paratroops tried repeatedly to break through the British Columbia Dragoons but made no progress against the withering crossfire of the tanks. Their efforts finally ceased when the Dragoons brought a tank-mounted Badger flamethrower into action.
South-west of Apeldoorn, Headquarters of the 5th Armoured Division was in the village of Otterloo. Warned by a radio intercept that enemy might attempt to move through the village, they had halted the Irish Regiment of Canada, who were following the Armoured Brigade, and ordered them to block the Apeldoorn road. Three hundred metres north of the village, two batteries of the 17th Field Regiment RCA were deployed, with a third to the south of the village alongside a battery of the 3rd Medium Regiment Royal Artillery.
Shortly after midnight a German patrol burst into Otterloo, shouting wildly and spraying the street ahead with automatic fire. They were the vanguard of a group of some 800 enemy commanded by the colonel of the 952nd Volksgrenadier Regiment. Using tracks parallel to the main road, the Germans probed forward trying to find routes through or around the village. When they ran into opposition they called down artillery and mortars and attempted to burst through with every weapon firing. Soon the forward batteries of the 17th Field were in action, firing over open sights, fuses set at ‘zero’ so that their high explosive shells exploded as they left the muzzle. In F Troop, Lieutenant Alexander Ross issued orders that rifle ammunition would only be used for a sure hit, ‘as a result when the enemy arrived in strength, only visible targets were engaged, that is at about four yards.’6 Within minutes the troop was completely surrounded and cut off as the enemy attack swept on towards the left battery position.
In the rear the 60th Battery’s guns were growing hot as they answered calls for fire from their hard-pressed sister batteries. Soon they themselves came under mortar fire, then Sergeant Edward Knight saw enemy soldiers appearing out of the dark. He shot the first to approach his gun, then his pistol jammed. He grabbed the next and strangled him with his bare hands while one of his men dispatched a third with his rifle butt. ‘While all this was going on he still continued to pass fire orders to his gun which remained in action the whole time.’7
At divisional headquarters everyone from the General down was involved in the battle. Matthew Halton of the CBC, who was there, compared it to an Indian attack on a wagon train even to the extent of saying, ‘Nearly everybody in the headquarters has at least one notch to carve on his gun. Some have as many as ten.’
For more than six hours the confused battle went on. There was little the Canadians could do in the darkness but stand their ground. At daybreak the enemy made a final attempt to break through and this time the Canadian reaction was violent. Major-General Bert Hoffmeister brought the four tanks of his protective troop into action with the Wasp carriers of the Irish Regiment and obliterated a final enemy thrust.
Soon the fighting was over and the Canadians began to count the cost. A patrol from the 17th Field Regiment approached the site where F Troop had been surrounded, expecting it to have been wiped out. They found Ross and his men cleaning their guns and having breakfast. For six-and-a-half hours the troop had beaten off attack after attack and had not lost a gun to the enemy.
In all the Canadians had suffered less than 50 casualties while three guns and several vehicles were destroyed. Some 300 Germans had been killed or wounded, another 250 captured. To quote Matthew Halton, ‘Man for man, those gunners and headquarters soldiers had out-fought the Germans. They killed more of the enemy than I have ever seen in such a small area.’8
A warrant officer of the 17th Field Regiment later remarked, ‘The remaining action in North-West Europe was really dull after Otterloo.’9
Further north the Germans fought hard to keep open an escape route near the shores of the Ijsselmeer. On the morning of 17 April, while the British Columbia Dragoons and a company of the Westminster Regiment were clearing the last of the enemy from Voorthuizen, the remainder of the 5th Armoured Brigade struck north. On the left the Strathconas, advancing toward Nijkerk, ran into dug-in infantry with anti-tank weapons which knocked out three of their Shermans. They were probing for a way around when they received orders to break off the engagement and support the 8th (New Brunswick) Hussars who were making better progress towards Putten.
Moving through close country, the Hussars were fighting a difficult battle against paratroops who as usual were handling their anti-tank and self-propelled guns and their aggressive Panzerfaust teams with skill and obstinacy. During the afternoon of the 17th they knocked out 14 of the Hussars’ tanks and halted them about one kilometre south of Putten. During the night much of the 6th Parachute Division escaped to the west.
Early next morning the 8th Hussars, supported by a company of the Westminsters and members of the Dutch Resistance, smashed their way into Putten. Bypassing the town, the Strathconas headed for Harderwijk, 10 kilometres to the north. With the help of the British Columbia Dragoons, the Perth Regiment and the Resistance, they occupied it that afternoon. Arriving at the shore of the Ijsselmeer, their tanks opened fire on boats carrying the last escaping Germans westward across the sea toward Amsterdam.
With all of their escape routes blocked, 1st Corps completed the round-up of the enemy and closed up to the Grebbe Line. On 22 April Field-Marshal Montgomery confirmed that, pending further instructions, 1st Corps ‘will not for the present operate further westward than the general line now held east of Amersfoort.’
The Army’s attention now turned to the urgent problem of feeding the starving Dutch. Already thousands of refugees in Apeldoorn were being supplied by its Civil Affairs organization. Further west, troops reported signs of malnutrition bordering on starvation among the people. Many a Canadian and British ration was shared, particularly with the young and the very old.
On 27 April Seiss-Inquart, the evil Reichskommissar of the Netherlands, agreed to discuss the entry of food into western Holland. That night verbal instructions were circulated within 1st Corps that from 8 o’clock next morning, the enemy would not be fired upon unless he was seen to be taking offensive action.
Negotiations with the Germans began next day, but two more meetings were needed before the noticeably hostile enemy officers agreed to procedures for the Canadian Army’s road convoys to enter their area. On May 2, Canadian and British Army Service Corps units began delivering some 1,000 tons of food per day into distribution depots inside the enemy lines. Farther west, aircraft of Bomber Command and the United States 8th Air Force were already dropping millions of rations close to Rotterdam and the Hague. After the war it was estimated that mass starvation had been avoided by only a matter of two or three weeks.
The war for 1st Canadian Corps was over. Referring to its final offensive operation, the Official History commented:
Not a particularly formidable task by the standards of the war in Italy from which the Corps had come, it had nevertheless not been simple. Since entering the new theatre, the Corps had taken 8,860 prisoners. It was now to sit out the final fortnight of the war in front of the Grebbe Line.10