At the beginning of September 1944 Dick and his 61st Reconnaissance Regiment had at last broken out of the Normandy bridgehead and crossed the Seine at Vernon. Now they were leading the British 2nd Army across France on the left flank of XXX (30) Corps. On 1st September ‘B’ Squadron paused near Amiens on the infamous River Somme (scene of a devastating battle in WW1). Near here they encountered a Guardsman, dressed as a civilian, who had hidden out in France since 1940 and had “valuable information” so he was rushed to Regimental headquarters. The many prisoners they were collecting – Eric Brewer mentions more than 200 on 1st September - were more of a problem. On 2nd September Eric Postles’ troop commander, Lieutenant Soul, was badly injured and two of his troop killed when a prisoner ignited anti-tank mines in their carrier. Lieutenant Laing, a Scotsman, handed over some 40 prisoners to the local French to “hang on to” overnight and, misunderstanding his accent, they unfortunately hung them all!
Heading into northern France via Cambrai and Arras (between Lille and Amiens) the Recce ran out of large scale maps, which showed the small roads they were travelling on, and the Germans had smashed up the signposts. Nevertheless, by the night of 2nd/3rd September ‘B’ Squadron of 61st Reconnaissance were the first British troops to cross the frontier into Belgium, “despite continuous enemy resistance”. Don Aiken recalls mines across the roads, or sods strewn to simulate mines, and a trip wire loaded with a rocket grenade while Anthony Rampling exchanged fire with crack SS snipers. Eric Brewer’s unit took on a German convoy in flight in Belgium, knocking out six vehicles before they were ordered to move on.
‘A’ Squadron were held up in the village of Houplin near Lille where their action was recognised with a Military Medal for Trooper John Traynor and Sergeant Smeaton’s and Lt Griffiths’ Croix de Guerres.
The Guards Armoured Division (including Chotie’s brother-in-law, Ted Lewis) now took over the spearhead, liberating Brussels, the capital of Belgium on 3rd September. The port of Antwerp was taken undamaged by the 11th Armoured Division the next day but was still unusable until November while the Germans held the Scheldt Estuary approaches.
As the advance slowed to catch up with supplies, 61st Reconnaissance held the line along 35 miles of the Escaut Canal from Ghent/Gent to Oudenaarde/Audenarde. Dick wrote to Chotie on 5th September from Oudenaarde:
“It’s impossible to describe the last 10 days – it’s simply been a case of flowers all the way.
I got the job to guard two bridges in the middle of a large town – and we were the first Allies in the town! The welcome we had was amazing…we were already covered with flowers; we were soon to be covered with fruit and wine.
…They’ve been living very badly for four years but they had hidden wine and food for us, as they knew we’d arrive eventually.
…Had a very happy time ‘on guard’ with scores of civilians around to ask the usual barrage of questions. My French is improving immensely.”
Eric Postles had a less pleasant experience while guarding the bridge at Eine, just north of Oudenaarde. They were on the far side when vehicles approached at dawn and a German officer strode to the centre of the bridge. Eric’s new troop commander, Sergeant Atkins, took out the front vehicles with and anti-tank gun – when they eventually found the firing mechanism. They’d removed it to let the village children climb over the gun while celebrating their liberation the previous day! The battle, involving several hundred German troops, raged for a couple of days before the enemy surrendered. Sergeant Atkins was awarded the Military Medal.
Meanwhile on 6th and 7th September Eric Brewer had shifted to just outside Brussels and managed to make a couple of visits to the capital where “the civvies” gave them “as much as we wanted of everything”. Dick wrote to Chotie on the 8th, mainly about the good time he’d had in Oudenaarde and the generosity and friendship of the liberated Belgians. As the only fluent French speaker among the officers he’d “had the job of entertaining the daughter” at a party in a country house the previous evening. Fortunately they appreciated the same French literature.
Also on 8th September 61st Reconnaissance moved with 50th Division to the Albert Canal near Gheel/Geel. Their HQ and ‘C’ Squadron were surrounded when supporting the Durham Light Infantry on a bridgehead across the Canal. The Germans retreated but Eric Brewer writes that they put in 14 counter-attacks that day and the SS captured two carriers and their crews. C squadron’s Sergeant-Major Page earned his Distinguished Conduct Medal at Geel and Lieutenant Joseph Pilsbury his Military Cross. On 9th September Eric Brewer’s ‘B’ Squadron Assault Troop had turned back German reconnaissance patrols and “Gerry mortar and shells” were “still coming over, also a few bombs dropped in the night. Plenty of refugees coming into our lines from the Gerry side”. Dick received ‘a little bit of gold’ – the oak leaf from a ‘mention in despatches’ - at about this time for “lying among the German dead to gain information” (Chotie’s Story).
Dick's citation for a 'Mention in Despatches'
Reuters reported that “some of the most bloody battles of the whole campaign” were being fought along the Albert Canal. On 11th September 61st Recce were still on the canal south of Herenthals (between Geel and Antwerp). The Durham Light Infantry had reached the centre of Geel with Sherwood Ranger tanks on 10th September but the Germans counter-attacked and re-possessed the town by the 12th, when 50th Division was withdrawn and replaced by the Scottish 15th Division. Geel was finally liberated on 13th September.
61st Reconnaissance “shifted to harbour” near Bourg Leopold/Leopoldsburg, a former Belgian Army training centre. Here Eric Postles remembers they found a food depot: “At times both the Germans and ourselves were getting food from it.”
Dick wrote to Chotie on the 12th with no mention of the Albert Canal engagements – instead he’d had it “very cushy for the past few days” staying “in the grounds of a very old and famous château” where he enjoyed dinners with the Baroness and her sister – a Countess who had sheltered British pilots after they’d crashed in France. He certainly knew what Chotie would want to hear!
While ‘in harbour’ they managed to get into some towns “instead of the old perpetual fields and orchards”. He was also very pleased with the cafés, which were like pubs but had barbers inside “so that you can have a pint while waiting your turn”.
Eric Brewer was back on the front-line again on 15th September, carrying out reconnaissance across another canal to find the German positions. Their observations directed an artillery barrage on 17th September enabling the Royal Engineers to build a bridge across the canal for infantry. Eric wrote in his diary: “big push coming and going to push on to the Zuider Zee” (a large shallow bay east of Amsterdam). This was the beginning of Operation Market Garden.
On 17th September 1944, after an intense bombing of German airfields and anti-aircraft defences, Allied airborne divisions began to land in the Netherlands. The plan was for the Airborne to seize critical bridges on the rivers and canals in the south of the country, enabling the rapid advance of British ground troops on a narrow front to crack open the German line and a route to Berlin north of the well-defended Ruhr industrial area. The Germans still held the Channel ports or they were, like Antwerp, unusable and the Allies’ supply lines could no longer support the advance on a broad front.
‘Market’ was the code-name for the Airborne landings: the US 101st Airborne landed near to the Belgium border around Eindhoven, the US 82nd Airborne near Nijmegen and Grave and the unfortunate British 1st Airborne Division landed by the Lower Rhine near Arnhem. Within an hour some 20,000 combat troops and about 500 vehicles had been safely landed, although not all in the correct drop zones. The Germans managed to destroy the bridge over the Wilhemina canal at Son, north of Eindhoven, and the Arnhem railway bridge. However, by the end of the day Colonel John Frost's 2nd Parachute Battalion and some of Major Freddie Gough’s 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron (which Dick had joined in spring 1942) held the north end of the Arnhem road bridge.
‘Garden’, the ground forces advance, was the task of XXX Corps, spearheaded by the Guards Armoured Division. 43rd Wessex Division was behind the Guards, then 50th Division, which had spent three days re-organising at Paal, south-west of Burg Leopold. Breaking through the defences of the Dutch border the three XXX Corps Divisions had all reached Valkenswaard, south of Eindhoven by the evening of the 17th. ‘A’ squadron led 61st Recce’s advance on the left flank of XXX Corps and were involved in finding routes from Valkenswaard for the tanks which, forced along a single narrow road, were vulnerable to attacks exacerbated by traffic jams and supply problems.
Dick’s letter of letter of 18th and 19th September gives nothing away about his involvement in the advance, with a brief mention of “this latest Airborne effort”. However, he’s “met a lot of Ted’s crowd” (the Guards) and is “getting eggs & tomatoes (hundreds of them) instead of the endless run of sausage-meat” – the latter a Belgian speciality while tomatoes are typical of the Netherlands market gardening produce. Eindhoven was liberated on the 18th September but the Guards had to wait while a Bailey Bridge was constructed at Son. Making the crossing the next day they linked up with the 82nd US Airborne at Grave and added their strength to the assaults on the Nijmegen road bridge. This was at last taken on the evening of the 20th – the Guards crossed the Waal and halted for the night 8 miles from Arnhem. 61st Recce’s ‘A’ Squadron and some of ‘B’ Squadron, including Don Aiken, also crossed the Waal on the 20th.
A dwindling force of British 1st Airborne still held the Arnhem road bridge and the commander of 1st Airborne, Major-General Urquehart, had gathered the remains of the Division at Oosterbeek, west of Arnhem and next to the river. On the 21st September the Arnhem bridge was eventually taken by the Germans who streamed across to set up defences blocking the Guards between Arnhem and Nijmegen at Elst.
German forces were also continually attacking the ‘Garden’ corridor laid down by XXX Corps, succeeding in breaking through on several occasions and splitting 61st Reconnaissance in two. Sandy Handley of Dick’s troop wrote “Our part of the convoy was cut off, held up by enemy tanks”. ‘C’ Squadron stayed with 101st Airborne and 52nd Recce (Dick’s future unit) defending the corridor. Eric Brewer only crossed the border into Holland on 21st September. Tony Rampling remembers going up ‘Hell’s Highway’, the nickname given to the corridor “Gerry picked the bridges out to shell so you had to cross very fast”. They reached the air-landing zones, which were “littered with smashed up gliders, parachutes everywhere”. Everyone took bits of parachute silk to put round their necks: “wearing this coarse uniform, it was some comfort to have a silk scarf”.
Dick wrote to Chotie on the 21st from “a well-to-do surgeon’s town-house” saying “there’s only 50% officers with us now – which makes life much duller”. He doesn’t appear to have crossed the bridge at Nijmegen yet.
Beyond Nijmegen the Polish Parachute Brigade had dropped at Driel, just south of the Rhine opposite Oosterbeek, on 21st September. The next day 43rd Recce linked up with them and 35 Poles managed to cross the river joining Urquehart’s troops. German attacks on the Oosterbeek bridgehead were thwarted by the guns of XXX Corps with air support from the RAF and 200 more Poles crossed on the 23rd.
On the 22nd September the XXX Corps lifeline had been severed at Uden (south-west of Grave) and on the 23rd the line was cut at Sint Oedenrode (between Uden and Eindhoven). Eric Brewer was “firing shells at where Gerry broke through” and on the 24th he “shifted to the flank – plenty of mortar fire, shelling and spandos” (German machine guns). Major Alexander, commander of 61st Recce’s HQ Squadron, was killed near Uden that day.
Meanwhile most of 50th Division had crossed Nijmegen bridge and were engaged in the Battle of Elst. On 23rd they were tasked with capturing the village of Bemmel, to the east, and had succeeded by the 25th. Elst was liberated the same day.
Eric Postles and Don Aiken were on the south bank of the Rhine, west of Arnhem with 43rd Recce on the 24th September. 315 of the 43rd Division’s Dorset infantry (Dick joined up with the Dorsets) crossed the Rhine from here to safeguard the planned evacuation of the remaining 1st Airborne from Oosterbeek – 200 were captured but they succeeded in delivering the plans for the evacuation to Urquehart. That night 2,000 men were successfully evacuated including 160 of the Polish paratroopers and 75 of the Dorset infantry. Eric Postles recalls “When it became clear that the Arnhem Bridge was beyond 30 Corps' reach our squadron was moved to join 43 Division infantry where we protected their right flank as they advanced to the Waal, crossed it and helped the Airborne survivors back from the Osterbeek area. The crossing place was just downstream from Driel and the attack took place at night using moonlight (searchlights on cloud) and Bofar gun tracer to mark the boundaries. 43 Division crossed the river and surviving Airborne troops were brought back but the cost in lives of the 43 Division infantry was heavy.”
Dick Williams, our protagonist, had links to almost all the key forces in Market Garden, including his former units – 1st Airlanding Reconnaissance, 43rd Recce and the Dorsets, his future regiment - 52nd Recce, the US Airborne, who he was to fight beside in Holland and the Ardennes, and his brother-in-law in the Guards.
On 25th September the top commanders in Market Garden – Montgomery, Eisenhower and Browning (Chief of the British Airborne) stopped beside Eric Brewer to give out cigarettes, ask about their food and did they have any complaints? The bold plan for a rapid thrust into Germany from the Netherlands was dead and had cost 15,000 Allied lives.
There is a verse in the poem ‘Destination Berlin’ (written by the commander of 61st Recce’s ‘B’ Squadron, Major Frank Harding):
“Monty stood up in his car
Having espied from afar
Chutes in trees and gliders wrecked
Arnhem: he gave cigarettes.”
Dick wrote to Chotie on the 25th September finally admitting that “we’ve been on the move all the time with practically no rest and plenty of work to be done.” Everyone must have been writing letters since he had about a hundred to censure.
On 26th September Eric Brewer was on a hill next to a canal looking into Germany. He hoped “to be in there soon as the plan to go to the Zuider Zee has changed because the bridges across the Rhine are blown so we are pushing west into Germany.” (Actually, he was to be in the Netherlands for quite a while.) He’d found some film and borrowed a camera so there are a few photos from around this time:
Eric Brewer is in the centre in the half-track
Dick wrote to Chotie again on 27th September:
61st Recce Regt RAC, BLA
Wednesday Sept 27th
Chotie Darling,
I posted a letter to you yesterday, but as I have a free day today I thought I’d start another, anyhow.
I’m in a farmhouse writing this, a big rambling place with massive oak-beamed rooms – quite pleasant. There is also the most wonderful baby you ever saw who belongs to the farmer’s wife. In keeping with the place she’s a massive woman herself, who’s reared hundreds of children – and looks like rearing hundreds more.
It’s raining steadily at the moment, which makes it a double pleasure to be indoors – as farmyards are always so depressing in rain.
My friend Winsor* (‘The Duke’) has now returned, after an absence of some six or seven weeks, which makes life so much more bearable. He started off in true form last night by taking about 2 quid from me at pontoon….
I’ve been having a look at this demob. racket. It appears that I don’t come off too badly. Brinner of course is worse off, as he’s younger and has less service, so he’ll probably end up in Burma after all. How do you come off? I suppose I’ll have to marry you in the end, if only to get you out of the army….What a price to pay!
I’ve written a letter to Madelaine** to thank her for the books and general kindness shown at Oudenaarde. It was written in French with the aid of a Dictionary (my written French is pretty poor stuff), and I was quite pleased with the result, though I expect it will provoke some laughter in the family.
Have just received your letter of the 22nd, which I’m tacking on to this one. It’s rather a long time in the post these days isn’t it? Though I suppose it takes longer by having to go to your home address first.
Very pleased to hear that you saw the Queen and Princess – bet you were thrilled.
Congratulations on passing the course at all*** – I suppose you’ll be chucking me about when I get home again….
It’s lovely and bright this morning – really September – though I think the Autumn will be a little tardy this year, in these parts at any rate. It should be rather beautiful when it does come, as nearly all the roads are lined with trees.
Mother had a letter from Monica**** recently telling her that her husband has returned to England from France with gastric trouble and ‘shellshock’ (now called ‘mental neurosis’ I believe, which is a kinder name), so I suppose he’s out of it for good. I’d better write her, I suppose as she sent me a card on my last birthday. Mother said she was after my address – a bad sign.
I must close here, Darling as there’s plenty of work to be done, this sunny morn.
All my love, Chotie Darling
Dicker
*Geoff Winsor or Winzer or maybe even Windsor!
***Chotie was now a qualified PT Instructor and back at Dean's Farm, Hunt Court, Cheltenham where her Ack-Ack unit was stationed.
****Dick’s ex-girlfriend.
© Chotie Darling
50th Division, with 61st Reconnaissance, were now tasked with guarding the bridge and bridgehead north of Nijmegen, an area between the Rhine and Waal rivers known as ‘the Island’ – the new front-line. On 30th September a German infantry Division and seventy tanks attacked the section held by 69th Brigade (the East Yorks and the Green Howards). The battle for ‘the Island’ had begun.
Recent Comments