Across the Rhine by moonlight - Thursday 29th or Friday 30th March 1945

As usual.

Friday 29^th (sic) Mar

Chotie Darling,

                                    I’m writing this in a windowless ‘brewed-up’ house with half a gale blowing but having so much spiritual warmth I’m not unduly cold.  My cushy post has gone with the wind and I’m now back on the job again.

            Received your letter form yesterday.  Glad to see you can manage a walk on the beach on occasion – makes a change anyhow.

            Do you know what regiment Edie’s husband was in?  There’s always a chance I may know him as we get a pretty fair knowledge of Recce types.

            The cutting you enclose is of Ralph’s* school – it’s the junior school to Dulwich .

            If Nan wants to write anyone, she can write

                                    Lt. Geoffrey Winzer

                                                49 Recce Regt**

                                                            BLA.

I’m sure he’ll reply - instanta! – with pleasure.  Just mention my name!

            Thanks very much for scrounging the choc for mother.

            The ‘tache is coming along but it’s dead slow….

            Enclosed find a German fashion (?) mag.  I’ll send some more if you’re interested.  There seem to be plenty about.

            I’m still struggling through the Aunts’ letters.  The one I wrote Averil was returned as I put the wrong address!

            You might send some more tabac – I’ll send a cheque when I get some ink in my pen…

            Thanks for the tie, Darling – I’ll have to soak it in tea to tone it down a bit!

            Nothing very thrilling to write about – so I’ll close here.

                                                            Your loving husband

                                                                        Dicker.

*Dick's uncle.

**Geoff Winzer, Dick’s friend in the 61^st Recce who was injured in the Ardennes had obviously joined the 49^th (West Riding) Recce instead of the 52^nd (Lowland) Recce when the 61^st was broken up.  The 49^th were the only reconnaissance regiment in NW Europe not involved in Operation Plunder.  Instead they were river watching along the River Waal in the Netherlands for the first three months of 1945, harassing the Germans on the opposite bank.  (From ‘Only the Enemy in Front Every other beggar behind…’ The Recce Corps at War 1940-1946’ by Richard Doherty, Tom Donovan Publishing Ltd 1994)

© Chotie Darling

 

Dick may have already crossed the Rhine when he wrote this last letter.

“We crossed over about three in the morning on March 29^th by the light of a full moon and took up a position near Mehr*.”  (From ‘Time Spent or The History of the 52nd-Lowland-Divisional Reconnaissance Regiment January 1941-October 1945’ by Trevor D.W.Whitfield, published by Mountain 1946.)

 

“The ‘Recce’ moved over the Rhine under a full moon in the early hours of Good Friday, 30^th March, 1945; crossing on one of the various pontoons and bailey bridges built in record time by the Royal Engineers.  Mile after mile of vehicles queued for the limited space on the roads, therefore it was before the regiment was concentrated near the town of Mehr, just a few miles east of the Rhine, ready to take part in what was becoming a rapid advance into Germany.”

(From ‘The Fighting Fifty-Second Recce’ by Carl Shilleto, Eskdale Publishing 2001)

 *Mehr is between Rees and Xanten, on the west bank of the Rhine

 

After the Rhine crossing there was the push across Germany.  “Resistance was patchy, but it was the recce troopers who were the first to run into the occasional pockets of Nazi diehards, and nerves were tested by the thought that these final days would be a particularly cruel time to die.”

(From ‘The British Reconnaissance Corps in World War II’ by Richard Doherty, Osprey Publishing 2007)