Last Days In Belgium - October 1944

At the beginning of October, the 11^th R.S.F. were to be found in the area of Zondereigen, a few hundred meters south of the Dutch border. Here they spent five days in a defensive position that provided protection to the left flank of the Polish Armoured Division as it pushed north into Holland.

The Battalion was very mobile in the first weeks of the month as they criss-crossed the Divisional front. A new defensive position was taken up on 11^th October at Maerle for a further week. 

On 19^th October the Battalions moved westwards to Oostmalle from where on the following day they crossed the Antwerp-Turnhout Canal in their initial advance into Holland. As part of 1^st Corps the 49^th Division were positioned in the centre of the line of advance with the Polish Armoured Division on their right and the 4^th Canadian Division on their left. The Polar Bears were directed towards Roosendaal, whilst the Poles and Canadians aimed for the towns of Breda and Bergen Op Zoom respectively.

49^th Division were to advance along a line of axis that ran from Oostmalle and passed through Brecht, Wuustwezel, Nieuwmoer, Essche and Roosendaal, a distance of approximately twenty miles. The advance was to be lead by 56 Brigade and 147 Brigade, with 146 Brigade concentrated in Oostmalle.

The Polar Bears were opposed across their front by 245 Division a fighting unit of 88^th Corps of the German 15^th Army.

The lines of advance into Holland

On the morning of 20^th October ‘Operation Rebound’ was launched which was intended by the combined efforts of the Canadian 4^th Armoured Division and the 49^th Division to secure the Belgian-Dutch border area and in doing so facilitate the liberation of the Scheldt Estuary. With the estuary under Allied control the key port of Antwerp could be utilised.

It was the task of the 49^th Division to advance towards Loenhout from the area of Brecht. Having secured Loenhout, the plan was for another composite taskforce named ‘Clarkeforce’ (under the command of Brigadier W.S. Clarke of 34^th Tank Brigade) to punch their way through into Holland.

21^st October saw the 11^th R.S.F. located in and around Wuustwezel which was captured with relative ease. However, on 21^st and 22^nd 245 and 346 Infantry Divisions launched savage counter attacks with heavy tank and SP supporting fire. These attacks came in from the Wernhout area just over the Dutch border. These counter attacks were halted in a series of fierce engagements in the hamlets of Braken, Kruisweg and in the area of Stone Bridge (the only crossing of the Weerijs that could bear the weight of heavy armour).

In his 1990 Imperial War Museum interview Colonel William Douglas recalled some of the fighting in Kruisweg, not to mention his brush with death.

‘October 23^rd, we’d ended up in a place called Kruisweg, Kruisweg Ridge. I’d been out on another night patrol, a recce to find the enemy, we’d found them and reported back and I went back to my platoon headquarters just as first light was coming up. And, the sergeant had been in charge all night obviously, and when I got to the position he had the entire platoon in a beautiful Dutch barn, a big fire going. All the chaps were drying their socks and having breakfast.

 ‘What the Devil do you think you are doing?’

‘Where are the sentries?’

Why haven’t you got anybody out?’

 ‘Oh, it was a dark night Sir and I thought the lads needed a bit of a cheering up.’

‘They’ll need cheering up in a minute, the Germans are only half a mile away!’

So I chased some sentries out, scattered them out and got them all into positions and we set the headquarters in a cellar in the village and I’d just taken my socks off and thought I’ll get some breakfast now when the sentry came running in saying ‘Come quick, come quick! There’s a haystack coming down the village street!’.

‘Now you’ve been drinking the rum laddie!’.

Anyway, he was dead right, there was a haystack coming slowly down the village street, about I suppose three quarters of a mile away. I got my field glasses and had a look. It was a German Panther and he’d put loads of hay on top by the turret, I suppose for camouflage. He wasn’t too sure what we had in the village and he was coming along pretty carefully, you know, having a good look and swinging his turret from side to side. I thought ‘My God, if he gets in here, it’s curtains for us. So I grabbed the PIAT anti-tank projectile and a couple of bombs and headed down to the front garden.... here’s Douglas’s chance for the VC or something!

I got down behind a low wall, I suppose about two feet high. Now the trouble with the PIAT was that it was most effective when it hit its target, but its range was about 100 yards, so you had to wait and wait and wait and this chap came on 400 yards, 300 yards, 200 yards, waiting, waiting, waiting and this great big gun came round and he tried to lower it like that, but of course you can only lower a tank gun so far and then you hit the hull where the driver is and he couldn’t get it any lower. Stupid me, I should have realised that the tank commander is eight feet up and I’m two feet behind a wall and he could see me and he knew what I’d got, so he let fly with his great 88mm round. Well he couldn’t hit me because he couldn’t get the gun barrel down, but it thundered into the wall of the old rickety farmhouse behind me and the whole thing came down on top of me. In fact it saved my life. He then apparently came down the village , put a round into the cellar, killing most of the HQ chaps, caused absolute pandemonium in the platoon, they all got down in their trenches, my sergeant, that I’d just given a rocket to, got a military medal out of it I heard later. He dashed down to the crossroads and got an anti-tank gun, which a detachment of anti-tank gunners had there and he swung this gun round and fired at this thing and knocked it out and the infantry who were coming with the tank got a bit dispirited at this and they put a rather poor attack in on our position and were driven off. I by this time had been dragged from under this farmhouse and carted off on a stretcher and woke up in an ambulance on the way to the Canadian Hospital in Antwerp. I only heard what the sergeant had done weeks later when I got back to the Battalion’.

The Sergeant that Douglas refers to was Sergeant William Little of No 16 Platoon of ‘D’ Company. As such he was my Grandfather’s Platoon Sergeant and he will feature again in this narrative.

As stated Sergeant Little was awarded the Military Medal for his actions in Kruisweg. The citation which recommended the award reads as follows:

On 23^rd October 1944, L/Sjt Little was platoon Serjeant of a platoon detached under the command of Carrier platoon to hold a defensive position at KRUISWEG – 1:25,000 Sheet 24 NW 814160.

Following a very heavy and accurate concentration of mortar fire the enemy attacked with infantry, a tank and two SP guns, and L/Sjt Little’s platoon commander [William Douglas] was seen made a casualty leaving him to command the platoon.

The tank and an SP gun penetrated the positions and the infantry gradually approached within short range.

The action lasted about two hours before the arrival of another Coy and a sqn of tanks dispersed the enemy forces.

Throughout this timethe majority of L/Sjt Little’s platoon were on the enemy side of the buildings and they were in the nerve-racking position of being faced by enemy infantry and having an enemy tank and SP gun in their rear.

The citation document bears the signature of one B.L. Montgomery – Field Marshal Commander-in-Chief 21 Army Group.

The 11^th R.S.F. Summary of Operations adds a little more detail to the action recording that ‘A force composed of the Carrier Platoon, one platoon from D Coy and two A/tnk guns that RA were holding one sector which was counter attacked by SP guns and infantry. One SP gun actually got behind our lines and Sgt Little, Platoon Sgt, D Coy was magnificent in control of the men. The two A/tnk guns RA had been put out of action, one by a direct hit and the other because it was in a burning house. Showing admirable courage and coolness, Sgt Little got his gun out and with the help of others of his platoon dragged it back to a position from which it could be fired at this troublesome SP gun and knocked it out’.

Recollections of the Liberation of Turnhout June 2016

Following on from my earlier correspondence with Francis, I contacted the local museum in Turnhout to enquire about the availability of an article entitled ‘In het spoor van de IJsberen’ (‘Tracing the Polar Bears’) that was published in the local annual journal Taxandria in 2008. An archivist from the museum duly responded and confirmed my suspicions that the article, whilst available, is in Dutch (a language over which I have no command whatsoever).

However, the helpful archivist also provided me with another contact within the town, a gentleman by the name of Jacques Boone. I subsequently emailed Jacques with my now well-rehearsed potted history of my Grandfather’s service, the website and book plans and within a couple of hours I received the following reply:

Dear Mr Andrews,

Many thanks for your interesting mail.  Every information  about the  11th Btn, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, does interest me very much, indeed. On 24th September 1944,  as a 17 years old boy, I was living in Turnhout and attended the liberation of the town,( I kept it vivid  in my memory, almost as if it happened yesterday) by the 49th Reconnaissance Rgt of the 49th Polar Bear Division,  followed immediately by the 11 Btn, the R.S.F. and the 7th Btn, the Duke of Wellington’s Rgt. 

My text  on the liberation of Turnhout  was published by “Forces War Records”in their Magazine , issue 10, Special Edition , ‘Your Stories’, December 2015. Some photographs of me were  shot on 24th September 1944 by a late cousin of mine, on the Turnhout Market square , while I was fraternizing with  the Recces.

A friend of mine, Ken West, was a  member of the 11th RSF. Hereby some correspondence. I read his book “An’ it’s called a tam- o’- Shanter”, Ken’s war memoires.   I opened my contact to him with  my letter of 1st October 2007, I asked him if he knew the 11th RSF man whose  photograph I had taken in Normandy in 2007.  Ken did not;  he actually  did not “liberate” Turnhout,  on 24th September 1994 he was in an hospital in England, in treatment for severe burn wounds he  had gotten in action on the Normandy front.

I am convinced that my friend John Peters (address provided)  knows  English very well  and I am almost certain  he could give  you some interesting data . Tell him I gave you his address.

With kind regards,

Jacques Boone
Member of the 49th (WR) Infantry Division  Association.

Belgian teenagers and British tank crew on a Sherman (Jacques Boone is standing third on the left, in a long raincoat)

Turnhout 24th September 1944

(photograph taken by François Boone (Jacques's late cousin) and shared courtesy of Jacques Boone)

I replied, thanking Jacques for the link to his article and the additional contact. I explained that Ken West was indeed a mutual acquaintance and sent on a photograph of Ken and I in Leicester in 2015. In addition,

Jacques bounced back with another prompt email:

Dear Adrian,

Thank you for the nice photograph of you with Ken.  The last time of our meeting was in 2014, in Normandy, in front of the Polar Bear monument at Fontenay-le-Pesnel. He was leading an important group of Normandy Veteran Association members. What a pity this association has been dissolved. We met several times in October at a memorial ceremony  at Wuustwezel in Belgium  next the PBA monument  and also one time at Merksplas, at the monument of Cpl John HARPER, VC.

My motto is: Remember ! Often, I attend ceremonies , last week to remember crashes  of 3 RAF bomber command bombers, for a Manchester, a Halifax and a Stirling at the village of Kasterlee.  I had again the pleasure of meeting there British and Canadian acquaintances to members of the crews. I had to make a speech in English at the Manchester monument.

Kind regards,

Jacques

Eykynforce and the Assault on the Depot de Mendicité

The success of the crossings forced by the Polar Bear Regiments in comparison with the failure of the attempts made by the Canadian 2nd Infantry Division was, in the opinion of Francis Huijbrechts, Chairman of the Hoogstraten Heritage Association, was due to the more thorough reconnaissance carried out by the Polar Bears across the stretch of the canal from Sint-Lenaarts and the areas north east and east of Turnhout from which the latter and also the area in front of Rijkevorsal were considered to be the most favourable for a successful crossing.

The task of the first crossing of the canal in the area of Turnhout was given to the 7th DWR. They were to attempt the crossing just to the east of Blown Bridge No. 2 to the north west of the town. Planned to take place a 7.30 am on the 25th it was first postponed and then cancelled. The 26th September saw the 7th DWR transferred to the area of the Rijkevorsal bridgehead.

Later in the day on 25th, at 1500 hours, a daylight crossing was achieved by the 11th R.S.F. on the stretch of the canal to the north east of Turnhout in the area of Meirgoorhoeve a short distance from the town.

The line of advance, once over the canal, for the 11th R.S.F. was westward to the road and railway that ran northwards to Baarle- Nassau inside Holland. In the advance towards Baarle-Nassau, it was hoped that the 11th could roll-up the German defences to the north of Turnhout. However, the German opposition was effective and the Battalion was ordered to withdraw on the afternoon of the 26th September. In the advance at least seven Fusiliers were killed in action or subsequently died of their wounds. The men lie in the communal cemetery in Kwakkelstraat.

On the same day as the withdrawal Eykynforce was established. This was a short-lived, composite formation comprising the 11th Battalion R.S.F along with anti-tank units, Royal Engineers, machine gun and heavy mortar sections, as well a Carrier Platoon of the 7th DWR and ad-hoc units of the Belgian White Brigade (elements of the Belgian resistance). Such composite formations were formed out of necessity. Since the breakout from Normandy, the war on the ground had become highly mobile, meaning that units were required to defend and patrol very large areas. In the case of the Polar Bears, by 27th September, eight out of a possible nine Infantry Battalions of the 49th Division were active in the area surrounding the Rijkevorsel bridgehead, an area estimated to be around four to five kilometres in both width and depth. Further to the west, the 11th R.S.F. as part of Eykynforce held the sector on the canal to the north of Beerse all the way across to Arendonk.

In the weeks that followed, other composite formations were brought into existence such as Bobforce and Clarkeforce (which again included my Grandfather) when were allotted specific tasks for the brief period of their existence.

The Summary of Operations of the 11th Battalion describes that function of Eykynforce in terms of holding ‘the thin red line’ of this broad sector, meaning operating as a thinly spread military formation holding the line in the face of a determined opposition (the term ‘thin red line’ has its origins in just such a situation the the British Army found themselves in at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War).

On 2nd October the 11th R.S.F. were to be relieved by 146 Brigade. In the event, two Battalions arrived for the relief. After some degree of confusion, the Hallams completed the relief, the 11th Battalion returned to command under 147 Brigade and Eykynforce was disbanded.

The men of 146 Brigade were engaged elsewhere along the Divisional front. The 1/4th KOYLI attacked the village of Rijkevosel on the 24th September with the aim to widen the bridgehead.`A highly notable Polar Bear action in this period was the capture of the Depot de Mendicité. This was a formidable complex that was located between Rijkevosel and Merxplas. In peacetime, Depot de Mendicité functioned as a prison, workhouse and asylum. For his part in the action, Corporal John Harper was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. His remains lie in the Leopoldsburg cemetery and a memorial to his feat can be located in the area of the Depot de Mendicité where he fell.

Canadian 2nd Infantry Division Assault at Sint-Job-in-‘t-Goor 24th September 1944

The main attack referred to in Colonel Douglas’s account was carried out by the Canadian 2^nd Infantry Division who attempted a crossing further along the Canal in the area of Sint-Job-in-‘t-Goor. On 24^th September Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal and The South Saskatchewan Regiment were to cross on the right and on the left respectively on the sector facing the village of Lochtenberg. Having established a bridgehead, the plan was, once over the Canal, to push on in a north westerly direction towards Camp de Brasschaet.

The assault commenced at 0700 hours and the Fusiliers managed to cross over the canal and make it to the cross-roads in Lochtenberg village before German machine gun fire halted the advance. To their left the South Saskatchewan fared less well as their attempts at a crossing were thwarted by effective sniper and machine gun fire, Later the plan was modified such that they tried a crossing further to the east in closer proximity to the Fusiliers. This second attempt commenced at 1300 hours and within an hour the crossing had been achieved. In the meantime however, the Fusiliers positions had been infiltrated by the Germans and at 1700 hours their positions were overrun and a heavy toll in terms of casualties was paid by the attackers. The bridgehead was too small to defend effectively and the Fusiliers were driven back over the canal and subsequently the South Saskatchewans withdrew to the south bank. The attempted crossing had resulted in a high casualty tally, especially amongst the ranks of the Fusiliers Mont-Royal.

Further Canadian efforts to effect a crossing also failed, despite air and artillery support. Subsequently the decision was taken to push the Canadian 2^nd Infantry Division across the bridgehead established by the 49^th Division at Rijkevorsal from 28^th September. In doing so they also extended the extent of the bridgehead in a westerly direction.

Colonel Douglas on the Antwerp-Turnhout Position on 24th September 1944

Churchill tanks crossing a Bailey bridge over the Antwerp-Turnhout canal at Rijckevorsel during the attack north of Antwerp, 22 October 1944 © IWM (B 11112)

(Note the Polar Bear insignia on the sign at the bridge exit).
http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205202583

In his account, Colonel Douglas describes how ‘D’ Company, having crossed the Canal came under fire from powerful 20 mm ack-ack guns.

‘24th September we hit the Antwerp-Turnhout Canal, a pretty hefty canal , about I suppose 50 yards wide with quite high, steep concrete banks. Our Battalions job was to do a diversionary attack so that the main attack could go in further down towards the sea. We attacked in the dark and got over at first light, knocked out the, erm, lock-keepers house where the Germans were and moved forward to the line of the road which I suppose was a couple of 100 yards in from the canal and there we waited because we’d been told that the Germans use this road, particularly for their transport, to communicate with one side of the low line and the other. And there we waited to get a suitable ambush. And unfortunately, the first thing that came along was one of, or a group of these 20mm ack-ack trucks which were very nasty weapons. They had four or six barrels on the open back of a truck and they fired very nasty 20mm shells which I suppose were about 10 inches long and a couple of inches across and they were exploding shells for firing at aircraft and if fired at human beings they didn’t do an awful lot of good. You know it took great chunks out of you and we unfortunately took this thing on, knocked a few of them off the  back of the trucks with our first volley , but they were brave guys and they swung these things round and began to wreck the top of this bank that we were on. Several chaps got great pieces shot out of them and it didn’t do them any good at all. We then realised that the way to do it was to throw hand grenades at them and we started throwing mills grenades over, which they didn’t like a bit. So they gave us one last volley and set off, and hared down the road again. We hung on to this position then, waiting for the main attack to go in further down the canal, until by mid afternoon we were told we could pull back over the canal. The attack had gone through and our diversion had done what it was supposed to do. We had of course by this time dug quite a good position in the middle of a field with the correct spacings and with some roofs on it, an excellent position which we would have held very nicely. We got back over the canal onto the far bank when an enormous bombardment came down on the position tyhat we had just vacated and the entire field disappeared in clouds of dust and flames and a great German attack came in supported by tanks on fresh air, we were awfully chuffed, we thought that was very funny and we pulled back then to a safe distance and let them have it’.

At midnight on the 24^th the Hallams launched a diversionary attack from Beerse, which attracted much German fire. In this action, their ‘beachmaster’, Captain Douglas Bell, was killed and under such fire the Hallams were unable to launch any boats. The assault was halted. Later in the day, on 25^th September,  the 4^th Lincolnshire Regiment were able to establish a small bridgehead, two kilometres further to the east, at Sluice 1 at the Sint Jozef-Rijkevorsal  section of the canal. This action also resulted in the Lincolns taking ninety German prisoners.

Despite determined counterattacks over the following three days, it was the Rijkevorsal bridgehead that became the main crossing of the Antwerp-Turnhout Canal.

The 11th R.S.F. move up to the Antwerp-Turnhout Canal 21st to 24th September 1944

After three days in the Dieppe area, the Battalion started the move north early on the 21^st September and crossed the border into Belgium at about 1600 hours. By 1800 they had reached the outskirts of the town of Tournai where they spent the night. The movement into Belgium continued the following day via Brussels, through Malle and onto Turnhout on the Antwerp – Turnhout Canal.

The progression of the Battalion was unglamorous even by Army standards. Colonel William Douglas described the move in the following terms:

‘I think it was about 10th September we moved into Belgium and it was a comic old move because we’d had to lend all our transport to other divisions in the Corps when we swung left to Le Havre because they were heading on as fast as they could towards Brussels and Antwerp and swinging right, keeping on the flank of the American advance and all our transport went on and we were either marching or travelling in the most awful collection of German junk, French civilian junk, these trucks that had gas tanks on the back, they worked on some kind of gas, frightful things, you were all rather embarrassed to be in these things. Anyway, there wasn’t a great deal of fighting going on so it didn’t greatly mater’.

At the time of this movement into Belgium, the men of the Battalion were cheered at the spectacle of hundreds of aircraft, many towing Horsa gliders, passing overhead as they flew north bound for Arnhem. This was of course the Market Garden armada and such was the scale of the operation, that soldiers reported that the skies above were full of aircraft for a full ten minutes or more.

146 and 147 Brigades of the 49^th Division crossed the Albert Canal on the 22^nd and 23^rd September and the 11^th R.S.F. moved up with the right hand column of the Divisional advance. The Battalion moved up towards Turnhout at approximately 1100 hours on the morning of the 24^th, advancing from Herentals to Turnhout.

Based upon information contained in 147 Infantry Brigade Operational Instruction No. 19, issued at 0200 hours on the morning of the 24^th, the Brigade were to anticipate resistance from the enemy in the environs of Turnhout. The following instruction was issued ‘147 Infantry Brigade will advance on 24^th September with the object of capturing or investing the town of Turnhout’. In this endeavour, the Fusiliers were to take the lead. The task was to be achieved by the infantry with support from 756 Fd Coy R.E., a battery of 143 Fd Regt R.A., 160 Fd Amb (Casualty Clearing Post) and a Detachment of Provost (a Military Police unit assigned the responsibility of bringing order to the chaos of moving large volumes of men and armour). The 7^th Duke of Wellington Regiment (DWR) of the 147^th Brigade were ‘to be called forward when required’. The task of the 49^th Division was stated in the following terms ’49 Div is to establish a bridgehead across the canal 24 Sep with 147 Bde RIGHT and 146 Bde LEFT’.

The first elements of the 49^th Recce Division entered the centre of Turnhout on the afternoon 24^th September with ‘A’ and ‘D’ Companies of the 11^th R.S.F. passing into the town in the late afternoon. By 1845 hours, both companies were positioned on the southern bank of the canal, but no suitable crossing points were found, all bridges having been destroyed. Troop movements brought down accurate fire from the German defenders of the opposite bank. One 19 year old Fusilier,a Robert Marshall Pratt,  was mortally wounded by mortar fire in these exchanges on 24^th September. Fusilier Pratt lies in Geel Cemetery. Two further Fusiliers were also injured at this time.

One of the original wartime documents that I have in my possession is a postcard, written by my Grandfather to his wife, June, in the week of the fighting over the Antwerp-Turnhout Canal.

The photograph features a photograph of the Grote Markt in which St. Peter’s Church is visible. A visit to the same location in May 2015 showed the Square to be little changed, although the building on the left, which then served as the Town Hall is long gone.

On the reverse of the postcard, my Grandfather describes how his unit passed through the town on Sunday morning [24^th September], however, as already described this is an inaccuracy since ‘D’ Company did not arrive in the centre of Turnhout until the afternoon of the 24^th. He goes on to briefly describe the reception that the Fusiliers received from the newly liberated townsfolk, and more tellingly of the perils of coming under shell-fire having secreted gifts of tomatoes and cigars inside one’s battledress!

‘We came through here on a Sunday morning, all the people turned out to greet us, giving us cigars tomatoes, which I stuffed in my Tunic Blouse, which I regretted later. The Germans holding the other side of the river held us up we had to dive for cover. I had a Blouse full of Tomatoes & Cigars you can imagine what a mess that made. Later met a woman from Manchester who married a Belgian.

JIM XXX

Interview with Bruce Reynolds - Talk Radio Europe (Spain) 28th April 2016

I had an email yesterday from Bruce Reynolds, who I had recently been in contact with in connection with my search for information concerning the September '44 fighting over the Antwerp-Turnhout Canal. Without wishing to give too much away, Bruce has written a very personal book about his experiences in the area in which his Father's mate served.

Tonight an interview with Bruce that was conducted for The Book Show on the Spanish radio station Talk Radio Europe was broadcast. A link to the edited broadcast can be found here.

The book can be purchased here:

http://www.amazon.com/Gift-story-friendship-heroism-rock-ebook/dp/B01AOI4H0G/ref=la_B01APELNF6_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453028788&sr=1-1