Corporal Preston Duncan Campbell
Winter on the Maas
Following Operation SUITCASE, the 4th Canadian Armoured Division spent some time resting and recovering in the Steenbergen sector, but soon they and the rest of II Canadian Corps were relocated further to the east to guard the Nijmegen sector. Following the fighting at the end of 1944, the Allies had fought their way east to the German 'west wall' defences known as the Siegried line; a position of great defensive strength stretching from the Swiss Alps north along the valleys of the Rhine and Meuse rivers. Nijmegen had been captured during Operation MARKET-GARDEN in September, but Montgomery had been unable to push his 21st Army Group all the way across the Rhine and into Germany itself. The result was a salient that was both integral to further Allied operations to occupy Germany, but also a defensive liability.
The Algonquin Regiment had a week of rest and leave before they were shifted to the Nijmegen sector. With recently arrived reinforcements, the battalion strength now stood at 802 men; the highest number in the battalion since they had arrived in Normandy. 4th Division also received a new commander about this time; Major-General Chris Vokes, recently arrived from commanding 1st Canadian Division in Italy during the capture of Ortona and the breaching of the Hitler Line at Pontecorvo. The aggressive nature of Vokes would become renowned, having earned the nickname 'butcher' by his troops at Ortona. In the Rhineland battles to come, he would prove an equally aggressive field commander.
On the 9th of December, following their rest period, the Algonquin Regiment moved east to Kaatsheuvel, just north of Tilburg, to take positions on the front lines once again. On the 11th they moved further east still, to Waalwijk. Surprisingly, the Dutch locals were not so overjoyed at being liberated as the Belgians had been. Apparently, the pre-mature celebrations by the Dutch after Operation MARKET-GARDEN kicked off in September had been met with violent German reprisals after the Allies were forced to withdraw. Many of the Dutch resistance leaders were ‘…mercilessly hunted down and punished.’ (Cassidy p. 203).
Planning for the 1945 Spring Offensive
As early as the beginning of November, Montgomery had been planning for future operations designed to clear the area South-east from Nijmegen, in the land between the Maas and the Rhine. Originally known as Operation VALEDICTION, this task was to be given to 2nd British Army despite lobbying from General Crerar, commander of 1st Canadian Army that his units should lead this offensive. It was only following a meeting with Eisenhower that Monty handed the planning for this operation, now known as ‘VERITABLE’ to 1st Canadian Army who were to be reinforced with Lt. Gen Brian Horrocks' XXX Corps to lead the attack. (The plan for this operation had originally been drafted by Horrocks’ staff under the codename ‘Wyvern’)
Lt. General Simonds, commander of the II Canadian Corps, was furious that the Canadians were being relegated to a subordinate role, so a compromise was made whereby both 2nd and 3rd Canadian Divisions would be placed under XXX Corps command for VERITABLE. So while 1st Canadian Army was notionally leading the planning of VERITABLE, it would be executed by Horrocks, with 2 x Cdn Divisions under Command. In so doing, Montgomery kept Crerar, whom he thought incompetent, from having any direct control of the operation, and Simonds, whom he thought a good General, lost control of his 2 x Infantry Divisions. Monty’s favourite general, Horrocks, was set up well for success and to earn the credit.
The Ardennes Offensive
The 'Battle of the Bulge'
With plans for a new spring offensive in development, General Crerar issued directives on the 10th and 14th of December emphasising that the Canadian Army needed to maintain pressure over the winter to enable Operation VERITABLE. He indicated that the intent was to strike at the most decisive point, the Ruhr valley, and that the Allies aimed to force the Germans into open warfare where they would be at a disadvantage due to dwindling supplies of tanks and petrol. To that end, a number of raids were undertaken by Canadian units over the period 13-17 December intending to determine the truth or otherwise of a rumoured German build up of a new German Army. (6th Panzer)
Similarly, Montgomery issued a directive to all of 21 Army Group on the 16th that outlined the plans for the upcoming Spring offensive and the intent to clear the enemy from the western bank of the Rhine. He issued a now infamous statement that the Germans were 'completely defensive', and that they no longer possessed the strength to launch new offensives. That same day, the German Ardennes offensive began. More than half a million German troops had been assembled in the relatively quiet Ardennes Forest sector of the front completely undetected by the Allies. Now, they surged across the Rhine intent on re-capturing the important Belgian port of Antwerp, denying its use to the Allies, and at the same time aiming to capture the entirety of Montgomery's 21 Army Group.
Within only a couple of days, some German units had penetrated 50 miles from their start line. On the 19th, the seriousness of the situation caused Montgomery to re-allocate XXX Corps (minus 51st Highland Division) from 1st Canadian Army to 2nd British Army and move them 15 Miles west of the Meuse.
Any preparations to launch ‘VERITABLE’ as soon as possible after the 1st of January quickly disappeared. There was much speculation based on reports from locals that the Germans were concentrating near the Nijmegen sector and there was considerable concern about a possible airborne landing behind their lines forcing reserves meant to counter the 5th and 6th Panzer Armies to be held in the north. The delay to the start of Operation VERITABLE caused by the Ardennes Offensive had significant consequences that at this point nobody could foretell.
Breda & the 'Hangover' Raid
The Ardennes Offensive had been a close-run thing, and while it was ultimately defeated in a few weeks with the Allies regaining all of their territorial losses, it was a very real reminder that the Germans were not ready to simply concede defeat. There would be many moths of hard fighting left before the Allies would be able to claim victory.
Once it became clear that 1st Canadian Army was unlikely to be threatened, the Algonquins and the rest of 4th Armoured Division once again moved off the front line for a period of reconstitution and training. Taking up shelter around the town of Breda, the Algonquins set about integrating their newly joined troops and preparing for Operation VERITABLE. Breda was located away from the front and had a good training area and there was a continuous training regime enforced, including especially the P.I.A.T. This part of infantry conversion training back in Canada had been sadly lacking. Preston’s own training documents speak to this fact, and it was later highlighted again famously by Conn Smythe.
A considerable amount of training took place in infantry / tank cooperation – implementing lessons learned in the Autumn of 1944. The Divisional Training School in Udenhout focused during this period on developing Senior NCOs from those who had shown promise during the fighting of the previous summer and autumn. The training went through tactics and administration, including field tours to the nearby Scheldt battlegrounds of the previous Sept-Oct which provided superb insight and training for the new NCOs.
While in the area around Breda, the Algonquins and virtually everyone else along the front were caught offguard by the 'Hangover' raid; an air attack launched by the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) on New Year's Day. “The Luftwaffe was around in strength, and it had timed its raid perfectly. Surprised at first, the anti-aircraft units in the vicinity rallied quickly. […] They did considerable damage in their swift swoop, and comments later indicated that had their personnel been better-trained or more experienced, they would have dealt a really crippling blow to our close-support aircraft. As it was, the blow was a sobering one, making us realize again that the enemy was still a force definitely to be reckoned with.” (Cassidy p. 225)
Cassidy also notes that the damage would have been much worse but the air defences set up around Antwerp were significant and bolstered by the new secret proximity-fuse shells that ignited when it came within a specified radius of a target rather than having to directly impact the target. Along with ME-109s, the Germans were launching a considerable number of V1 and V2 flying bombs from somewhere around Utrecht to inflict damage and terrorise the important port city of Antwerp which the Canadians had fought so hard to capture from September to November 1944.
Heusden
On January 7th, the Algonquins re-joined 10th Brigade near their former positions on the Maas River. They were assigned to the Heusden-Herpt sector – an 8 mile sector to be covered by a single battalion which meant their strength was diluted due to the wide area needed to be covered. Cassidy notes that “the area was a troublesome one, hard to man with the limited forces available, and with the opposite shore held by an aggressive enemy.” (Cassidy, p. 228) Preston’s ‘C’ Company took up its position on the night of the 8th of January near the village of Doeveren and Heesbeen.
Heusden, an ancient medieval town that had a double moat and Vauban, star-shape fortifications surrounding the city was a picturesque place, especially when the cold January weather coated everything in fresh white snow. “Heusden made a fairy-tale picture on those January mornings, frosted and gleaming like a huge wedding cake.” The Canadians all had white camofluage winter combat dress, but the Germans did not, making them easy to distinguish in their grey fatigues against the white background.
The Germans patrolled only lightly until a noticeable shift on January 24th to more intense patrolling coincided with the arrival of 6th Parachute Division, part of a new Parachute Army that had been put together under Hitler’s orders prior to the Ardennes offensive. This was met by an equal increase of the aggressiveness and apparent confidence on the part of the Algonquins and the rest of 4th Division under General Vokes, who seemed determined to get on and finish the war.
A series of prisoner raids in mid-January were a complete success punctuating the good work that had been done in integrating the new troops and focusing on training in December and early January. Cassidy notes, “It seemed to be the end of that dismal, fate-dogged era of failure and frustration when nothing seemed to go right. This time nothing had gone wrong.” (Cassidy, p. 235)
These patrols gathered good information on the enemy’s strength and positions across the Maas and helped lay the groundwork for the upcoming Operation ELEPHANT which, commencing on January 26th, was to be a feint attack to the North of the Maas to convince the Germans that the next big Allied push would come from the Canadian sector and would aim north, threatening to surround German forces along the Dutch coastal areas north of the Rhine/Waal. Deception activities involving false ammo dumps and false artillery pieces made of wood were rolled into the area to support the deception plan (similar to OP CHESTERFIELD in Italy, which Vokes had taken part in.)
Meanwhile the real build up of ammo and forces was occurring at night aimed at attacking south-easterly along the left bank of the Rhine in order to meet Eisenhower’s desire to force all German troops across the Rhine before then undertaking the final phase of the war – crossing the Rhine, surrounding the Ruhr valley industrial heartland, and striking east to Berlin. The intent was to convince the German commanders that the Allies intended to attack toward Utrecht, thereby drawing forces away from the Reichswald sector which was the real area for the VERITABLE attack. The Algonquins played only a supporting role in this attack providing some diversionary fire and smoke screens, but this was fortunate as in the event, the battle went on for four days and cost 10th Brigade a considerable number of lives lost for no tangible gain.
During the period, unbelievably, intra-Divisional sport still managed to go on. The Algonquin Regiment hockey team defeated that of the Lincoln & Welland regiment 7-1 at a game in February, but they lost in the boxing ring to the Divisional champs from the South Alberta Recce regiment.
The Algonquins received their next move orders on 17 Feb, nine days after VERITABLE had commenced, to move into position near Boxtel in order to prepare for their upcoming role in the press to Wesel and across the Rhine.