Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21: INTO GERMANY

THE BRITISH ARMY IN NORTH-WEST EUROPE 1944-45© IWM (BU 2890)

Photo shows Sherman Firefly tank of 7th Armoured Division near Stadtlohn, 31 March 1945.

Xanten and Wesel are two small towns that lie on the Rhine about sixty miles north of Cologne. Beyond them, two other considerable rivers, the Ijsell and the Lippe, join together and flow into the Rhine. This was the front on which the Seventh Armoured Division was to play its part in the decisive thrust into the heart of Germany.

We moved our guns into a position not far from the banks of the Rhine on the 23 of March. That night, Lancaster bombers dropped a thousand tons of high explosive on the far bank. Later in the night we fired a barrage to cover a landing by the Commando Unit who crossed the river in small boats near Wesel. The following day, our guns were ordered to keep silent during Operation “Varsity”, the great parachute drop on the eastern bank of the Rhine. The 6th British Airborne Division and the 7th U.S. Airborne landed on a five mile front. They were to secure the Rhine crossing and to seize bridgeheads over the Ijsell and the Lippe.

On a brilliant spring morning, and with artillery silence — we could not have fired without endangering our parachutists as they dropped — we enjoyed a grandstand view. Hundreds of parachutes swayed gently in the wind as the airborne troops descended on the German forces defending the Rhine. We crossed the Rhine next morning by a pontoon bridge put in place during the night by the Royal Engineers. We were elated at entering the real Germany — crossing and re crossing the Dutch/German frontier during the winter had never sparked off the same exhilaration. But we saw that the parachutists had had a hard fight to gain their objectives. We passed scores of bodies unburied by the roadside, mostly German but some British. This sombre spectacle reminded us that there was another side to war besides the sight of white parachutes swaying elegantly against a blue sky on a spring morning.

We now advanced on the left flank of the Allied thrust into Germany. Our route took us through a succession of small towns, some reduced to rubble by bombing, some relatively untouched. The main area of devastation was behind us in the Ruhr. At one time I looked back from high ground. With grim satisfaction I could see smoke and flames covering a wide swathe of Germany's industrial heartland.

At first the advance was slow and bitterly contested. The leading tanks were held up by road blocks, mines and blown bridges. There was no continuous front held against us once we were beyond the Rhine: the opposition took the form of strongly armed and well disciplined groups concentrated at strategic points. As a result we were often called on to bring down the fire of the whole regiment on an enemy position. Shell fire controlled by Troop Commander Alfie Burn knocked out three self-propelled guns that were holding up the Durham Light Infantry on the outskirts of the small town of Weseke. The next towns on the line of advance, Sudlohn and Stadtlohn, were little more than heaps of rubble.

Where towns had been heavily bombed, our progress was held up by craters and debris. The tanks could not easily leave the roadways without getting bogged down in muddy fields. When we passed through relatively intact towns, we saw something of the German civilian population — for the most part, of course, women, children, and old or disabled men. They showed little emotion at our appearance. They must have been stunned at the sight of the Allies advancing in such formidable strength into the territory of the invincible Reich. It must have been difficult for them to accept, after being fed a continuous diet of propaganda lies, that the German armies were in retreat after years of glorious victories.

On occasions when the advance paused, we would establish our headquarters in a German house, requesting the inhabitants to make room for us. By this time I was possessed by a cold hatred of the Germans. The ghastly truth about the concentration camps was beginning to emerge. We could see for ourselves the way that Czechs, Poles, and people from the other occupied countries were treated. We had heard — and seen — more than enough of the atrocities perpetrated by SS troops.

An order came from above that we were not to ‘fraternize’ with enemy civilians. This gave me no problem: I was ready to reprove any of my soldiers whose behaviour contravened the order. More than once I turned out a family from their house without ceremony in order to establish a headquarters or command post. I was aware that some of my more humane soldiers would probably stow them away in another part of the house and — for all I knew — pass on a few army rations to the hungry civilians.

Non-fraternisation was designed chiefly to discourage the soldiery from relationships with German women. On the rare occasions when we were static for a while — and of course after the war ended — our soldiers naturally had affairs with the local women, sometimes out of genuine affection on both sides, sometimes in exchange for rations, sometimes simply nature taking its course in the absence of partners of their own nationality. ‘A bit of frat’ replaced, in military slang, the ‘bint' that had served as the descriptive word since desert days. Such relations increasingly came to be tolerated: erring soldiers were not generally disciplined unless systematically diverting rations. Eventually the non-fraternisation policy was formally abandoned, long after it had ceased to be observed in practice.

The Colonel ticked me off once for directing our tank straight across a well-kept lawn to its position alongside our headquarter house. He thought I should have kept to the drive. For my part, I didn’t see that I had any responsibility for German lawns.

At this stage I was still Survey Officer, sharing a tank with the C.O., who was now the taciturn Colonel Farquhar, promoted from another regiment. He took over from the gentle Paddy Moore who had been promoted to Brigadier. We had a new second-in-command too, Peter Gillett, a former staff officer of elegant appearance but no battle experience.

German opposition to our advance began to weaken. Increasing numbers of deserters gave themselves up or vanished into the countryside. There was one last example of what the official histories call ‘fanatical resistance’. It could equally be described as heroic.

This took place at Ibbenburen, a strategic road junction overlooked by a wooded ridge. It was the site of a Cadet Training Unit. The cadets, some of them barely out of school, some of them middle-aged NCO’s training for commissions, together with their battle-hardened instructors, held out for two days and nights. They fought against overwhelming odds of tanks, infantry, and artillery. They held up the might of two armoured divisions, fighting skilfully and with the utmost courage and determination. Many died at their posts, firing to the last.

After Ibbenburen, we moved forward faster against weaker opposition, though there were occasional pockets of strong resistance. The Luftwaffe now put in an appearance, as our fast advance took us out of range of our own airfields and nearer to those of the enemy. Their planes were of high quality, but not their pilots — boys who had been rushed through a hasty training. One afternoon, a squadron of Messerschmidts had the sky to themselves over our position and dropped a few desultory bombs, without causing any damage - though it was disconcerting to see German planes overhead instead of the RAF.

It was becoming clear that we were nearing the end of the war in Europe, short of any final stand in the Bavarian mountains. This prospect did not move us to new feats of gallantry: instead it induced an enhanced sense of caution. It would have been unforgivably stupid, we felt, to have survived the desert fighting, the Italian campaign, the Normandy beaches, and other hazards without number, only to perish on the Westphalian plains within a few weeks of the end of the war. I remember lying under a large tree — no doubt a bushy-top tree — during a lull in the battle. I watched the play of wind and dappled sunshine on the underside of the young pale-green leaves. Suddenly we had a report over the wireless that fifty German tanks were approaching from the unguarded left flank. I found this most upsetting at so late a stage in the war. But before we could spring into action, the tanks changed course, or turned out to be British tanks — I don't recall which. I do remember an overwhelming sense of relief.

ENDGAME

We were now entering what proved to be the last month of the European war. Of course, we had no idea that the war would end so suddenly. The exhilaration of the dash through Belgium and Holland in the late summer of 1944 had long since been obliterated by a hard winter's fighting. Ahead of us lay a succession of wide river obstacles, including the Weser and the Elbe, and canals — ultimately the Kid Canal — as we battled our way north. The intelligence reports we received from Army HQ gave no promises of an early German surrender. On the contrary, we were told that Hitler was planning to hold out to the last man in the ‘Southern Redoubt’, an impregnable fortress in the Bavarian mountains. The cadet heroes of Ibbenburen had given us a warning that some Germans, at least, were prepared to fight to the last against overwhelming odds in defence of the Fatherland and the Fuhrer. Certainly our forces now had numerical superiority, but this was no great consolation to us when faced at close quarters by a Tiger or Panther or an 88 millimetre gun that could blow our armour to bits.

Still, there were signs that it was not the entire German nation that was ready to go down in a flaming Gotterdammerung. By-passing the doughty defenders of Ibbenburen, 5th Royal Tanks, with my regiment in support, drove fifty miles to seize an intact bridge over the Ems-Weser canal. We advanced another twenty miles towards the town of Diepholz before being held up by two 88's which ‘G’ Battery engaged and knocked out. Although strafed by a dozen Focke Wulfs and a couple of rather large Junker 188's, we entered Diepholz without any further opposition on the ground.

Next on our route was Sulingen. Through an intact civil telephone line, a German-speaking captain from Brigade HQ issued a pressing invitation to the Burgomaster to surrender the town. The Burgomaster said he would be ready to oblige, but was hampered by the presence of a Panther tank. He helpfully reported the location of the tank. 5th RTR knocked out the Panther and we drove into Sulingen.

I was now posted to G Battery (G Battery war diary, mentioning Lt. Liverman), to be Assistant CPO to ‘K.D.’ Jamieson. He was always known as ‘KD’, ever since our time in the desert when KD stood for khaki drill, our tropical uniform. KD was a pleasant man, usually very competent though inclined to ‘flap’ in moments of excitement. He had had the same crew in his truck for a long time, and was on first name terms with them, Australian style: the Major would have been horrified if he had known. (After the war, KD joined the Diplomatic Service, finishing up with a knighthood as Ambassador to Venezuela. Other comrades in arms also achieved distinction in public life. Archie Lamb, who flew Typhoons in operation Goodwood, was knighted as Ambassador to Oslo; Ian Bancroft, a fellow desert rat in 1st Rifle Brigade, became head of the Home Civil Service before elevation to the House of Lords. Robert Maxwell, already mentioned in these pages, achieved a different notoriety.)

By now we had driven a huge salient into the German lines, as had 11th Armoured Division to our right. Our troops were extended over a wide area, often encountering tough pockets of resistance. Powerful enemy forces, including our old desert foes the 15th Panzer Grenadiers, withdrew to Bremen under cover of vigorous counter-attacks. One of these, led by a Tiger, was spotted by our Air O.P, a young pilot flying a small slow Auster. Peter was under our direct command and was very useful at spotting enemy concentrations: he would have been an easy target if the German defences had not by now largely disintegrated . Aided by Peter's observation, we brought down fire to disperse the counter-attack. Next day, we shelled enemy troops in the outskirts of Bremen, but here the Germans organized a fierce resistance that held up the advance and required the deployment of an Infantry Division. While the infantry battle raged, we moved our armour east to cross the Weser at Nienburg, which had been delivered to the neighbouring 53h11 Division, with an intact bridge, by a co-operative Burgomaster.

There was still hard fighting to come. We battled through difficult wooded country to a stoutly defended Soltau and on to the city of Harburg — a sort of industrial extension of Hamburg on the south bank of the great river Elbe. Meanwhile, a squadron of the 8th Hussars arrived at the huge prison camp in the woods southwest of Fallingbostel. Here they found that 10,000 British and American prisoners and 12,000 of other nationalities had already taken over from their prison guards. The guards had fled, and the senior British prisoner (officers being kept apart in separate camps), Regimental Sergeant-Major Lord of the First Airborne Division, had installed himself in the Commandant's office. He had appointed Orderly Warrant Officers and issued them with orders of the day. Strict discipline was maintained. Among the liberated prisoners were several from our Division captured nearly a year before at Villers-Bocage.

Other, more disquieting, discoveries were being made. Mass graves of slave workers were found in the woods near Soltau. We made civilians disinter the bodies and give them a proper burial. The unforgettable horrors of Belsen were discovered by the 11th Armoured Division. This intensified the hatred and contempt that we felt for the German forces and civilians.

By April 21St we had fought our way to the outskirts of Harburg against a series of skilful rearguard actions. One of my troop, Gunner Dent, was killed by shell fire, and Pat Burroughs, a newly joined officer, was wounded. An enterprising troop leader of the always adventurous 11th Hussars captured, by a surprise attack, the charming town of Buxtehude. Here he secured the surrender of a naval training establishment, including a Rear-Admiral, 500 seamen, and 500 German Wrens: he said the Wrens were the most reluctant to surrender.

From Buxtehude we had a good view of the Elbe and much of the shipping on the river. I took a turn at an OP from which I could see the great Blohm and Voss shipyard. My desire to shell the shipyard was frustrated by orders from Army HQ, who by now were concerned to limit any further damage to Germany's ravaged resources. An additional inhibition was rationing of our ammunition to 1 1/2 rounds per gun per day (at the height of the Normandy battles we were firing an average of 400 rounds per gun every day).

THE SURRENDER OF HAMBURG

At Hamburg the Elbe divides into two branches. The approach to the city from the south crosses two long bridges. We expected that these would be destroyed by the retreating Germans. The Allies made plans for a set-piece attack on a Corps front, crossing the river some miles to the east in order to encircle the city. However, by the last week of April, the Soviet armies had completely broken through on the Berlin front, and the German High Command was in disarray — as we now know, Hitler in his bunker was sending frenzied orders to armies that no longer existed.

8th Corps, on our right, crossed the Elbe on 29th April. 11th Armoured Division drove virtually unopposed to Lubeck on the Baltic. On the same day, the German armies in Italy surrendered to Field Marshal Alexander. The American forces were driving deep into Bavaria and Czechoslovakia.

We did not need to fight our way across the Elbe and take Hamburg by storm. The surrender of the city (never a Nazi stronghold) had lively elements of comedy. On 29th April, two German staff officers and a civilian approached our lines to negotiate. At first they wished to discuss the possibility of saving the hospital at Harburg from being shelled. The civilian member of the deputation, in private conversation with the Divisional Intelligence Officer, sought immunity for the Phoenix Rubber Works, which he owned. He then opened up the question of the surrender of Hamburg itself. After some discussion, he was invited to take back a letter to Major-General Wolz, Commander of the Hamburg garrison, demanding the surrender of the city and suggesting a procedure for carrying it out. The letter argued that there would be no dishonour in surrendering on humanitarian grounds, but backed up the argument with an unmistakable threat:

“The population of Hamburg will not easily forget its first large scale raid by over one thousand heavy bombers. We now dispose of a bomber force five to ten times greater numerically and operating from nearby airfields. After the war, the German people must be fed: the more Hamburg ‘s dock installations are damaged, the greater are the chances of famine in Germany.

If this offer is refused, we shall have no alternative but to attack Hamburg with all the forces at our disposal.”

General Wolz agreed, on his own authority, to the terms of the proposal. Together with other high-ranking German officers he signed the instrument of surrender at 8 a.m. on 3rd May. In late afternoon we drove over the undefended bridges into the centre of Hamburg, or what was left of it after the appalling damage wreaked by the bombing of the previous months. In an eerie silence we passed through the ruined streets, camping for the night in a police barracks. Not a shot was fired. No roadblocks barred our passage. Next morning we continued our advance northwards. The German tanks and guns had fallen silent.

As we left the ruined city behind, we found ourselves driving through an unscathed landscape, the rich dairy farmlands of Schleswig-Holstein. There was little sign of war. Though the menfolk had been called away to fight, their place on the farms had been taken by slave labourers from the occupied territories. We were to find that the main hardship suffered by the German inhabitants, according to their own statements, was their obligation to house their fellow countrymen evacuated from Hamburg.

Two nights later, we were quartered in a small farming town. I had rejoined Regimental Headquarters: we had settled into a large mansion with a well-stocked wine cellar. Rumours reached us of the surrender of the entire German Army, and were confirmed over the wireless by a Divisional Officer who had taken over the Hamburg radio station. The long-awaited news took time to sink in. I remember being gradually overwhelmed by a miasma of dazed relief, to which the contents of the wine cellar no doubt contributed. The signallers were having one hell of a time. They had connected themselves to the European telephone network and were calling up their pals in Brussels, Paris, Rome, and elsewhere, who had done likewise.

Next day the news was official. Monty received the unconditional surrender of the German Army on Luneburg Heath. The war in Europe was over.

Next: Chapter 22: Victory and after