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Category: Community
Forum: Chat Room
Thread: On this Day |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Friday, 29th September 1944
About this date, we went to Gemert town for a pep talk. We heard that the Germans were not resting and I wondered why we were. Were they going to steal a march on us? No answer was forthcoming, but the delayed arrival of operational training material, as well as the lack of friendly gunfire, baths, NAAFI comforts and cigarettes should have told us something. On reflection, it would seem that we had overstretched our lines of supply and communication. Time would tell. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Saturday, 30th September 1944.
Somebody discovered a supply of Blanco, so we all had a web cleaning party. The cooks boiled up water and the drivers contributed petrol for dissolving the grease from the Escaut canal. Now someone needed to discover supplies of boot and brass polish, and our morale would be near perfect, but we would all still be unhappy until somebody restored tobacco supplies. I had been chewing on my empty pipe all month, and now nobody else had anything to smoke either! In retrospect By early October 1944, the Allies controlled the harbours north of the Seine. This, however, had not yet solved the supply issue. The R.E. had opened Dieppe, Le Tréport and Ostende but could not handle the high volumes that Allied troops in Europe required. Le Havre, Boulogne and Calais were not serviceable having suffered major destructions. Farther north, the Allies had liberated Antwerp on September 3rd, but the city was located on the Scheldt River, some 80 kilometres from the open sea and the river's mouth was still under German control. The only way to make sure that the supplies required by the campaign in Europe could enter the continent was to capture the Scheldt. This was to be the mission of the First Canadian Army. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Sunday, 1st October 1944
The Scheldt flows to sea by a very wide mouth divided in two by a long peninsula made of three separate islands, South Beveland, North Beveland and Walcheren. Located in the Belgian-Dutch border area; this was a region of polders, low-lying fields conquered from the sea and bordered by a network of dykes and canals. The roads were on top of the four- or five-metre high dykes. In this totally flat and wet countryside, no one could move covertly. This was where the First Canadian Army had to fight and dislodge the Germans, who knew we would not spare anything to protect the access to Antwerp. Walcheren Island to the north and Breskens to the south were the two most solid positions. Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds commanded the attack of the First Canadian Army against the Scheldt, replacing General Harry Crerar who was recovering from a bout of dysentery. Before giving the signal for the assault by ground troops, he ordered aerial bombings to puncture the dykes and flood Walcheren and some of the lowlands south of the river's mouth. This forced the defenders to dig in on top of the dykes. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Monday, 2nd October 1944.
It seemed, therefore, that we would be going back to the left flank, to support the Canadians. If I had known what had happened to their General, I would have been very sympathetic. The same infection had struck me and Capt. Makin, and hundreds of others, during the break out from Normandy. Meanwhile, the whole unit was anxious to get back into action, if only to help clear the Scheldt Estuary and have their cigarette ration restored. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Tuesday, 3rd October 1944
Maybe the presence of an entire spare Corps on the right flank had kept the Germans busy anticipating an attack there, and our secret weapons were in the forward centre base, waiting for us to collect them with a swift counter march. In retrospect, it certainly seems that way, as we now found the lateral routes well cleared, signed and policed as we swung across to the left flank. Where did the Field Ambulance go? B coy returned to their hospitable hospital - the lunatic asylum. We saw no enemy aircraft monitoring the move; in fact, we had seen none since leaving France. All was quiet across the railway lines; it seems probable that the Desert Rats or 101 Airborne had taken them for us from the other side, so the first few miles would be a doddle. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
A day or two later.
The last time we had seen a working railway we were in England, the country that invented the railway and where they still ran by the same form of power – steam. Diesel engine technology was still in the future, and electric railways were only for short urban routes, used a third rail and generally had underground sections. Now we made our way across a network of railway lines with overhead electric wires - like those of tramways but with catenoid suspension and state-of-the-art insulators, such as we had never seen before and would not see in Britain until the electrification of the West Coast Line. A mile or two further on, we turned left towards Tilburg, which should have been our first objective in the Netherlands. Perhaps we were attempting to return to Plan A, by the back door? |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Thursday, 5th (approx.)
Further, along this road, we passed fields in which were a number of wrecked gliders, not just badly landed but with actual damage. We had heard that 101 Airborne had suffered heavy damage and casualties, but if it was put out of action, who then gained control of these locations? This was no time to worry about such past matters, so on we went to our new concentration area, had a meal and bedded down. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Another vague date, possibly 6th October, 1944
While swinging rapidly from flank to flank via unsigned farms and other temporary quarters, none of us had any idea where we were on any particular day. It was worse for the cigarette smokers, as they had nothing to smoke. I was becoming frustrated as we were never in the same place long enough to offload and open the company library. We took comfort in the almost complete absence of casualties - the only one that comes to mind was a signaller who, unaccustomed to mains electricity, erected his aerial, which then came against an overhead non-insulated cable and, as a result, he succumbed to a fatal electric shock. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Yet Another vague date
Now we were on the way back to Gemert – don’t ask when, or by what route or what we did on the way. We relieved the tedium and tension of the journey by community singing. The only songs we knew were at least six months old, as most of us had had no contact with British civilians since well before D-day. While all the last minute hitches were sorted out, we sat on the blankets over the medical panniers and food crates, trying to work out where we were likely to be going, but as soon as the trucks moved we broke into “WE’RE OFF to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz.” Our harmony was a little rusty but we did have near perfect pitch, thanks to the harmonica which was proving more familiar and manageable. Each note started quietly and became louder as it proved to be correct in pitch and tempo. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Tuesday, 8th October, 1946
Now I was a “civilian” (actually a soldier on discharge leave – the fourth and longest leave in the sixteen months since D-Day), I stated to renew my registration as a medical student at Liverpool University. New students ex service could claim £100 p.a. grant, but this was not available to students embarking on revision courses. However, I had enough money in the post office to get me through one year before having to think ahead any further. |
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