Clearing the Scheldt

At this stage Allied strategy was going nowhere. The Americans were following a policy of ‘everyone attacking all the time’ which tended to leave stretches of front with few troops on the ground. 21 Army Group had a long ‘finger-salient’ which was vulnerable to counter attack anywhere along its length, and still Antwerp was unusable. The decision was made (a) to give priority to making Antwerp a port fit and safe for Allied shipping, and so to shorten appreciably the lines of communication, and (b) to clear all enemy between the corridor and the banks of the Maas.

The Canadian Army was given the difficult and messy job of capturing the Zeeland peninsula comprising Walcheren and Beveland, and 12 Corps was ordered to attack westward through ‘s-Hertogenbosch and to Loon-op-Zand to enable 1st Canadian Army to finish its hard work. Col. Clegg writes of this:

"12 Corps achieved a classic deployment with ‘s-Hertogenbosch its first main objective with D Troop, supporting 53 Division, deployed westward. Weather was indifferent, and this operation proved to me the vital value of sound-rangers under these conditions, repeated again and again until the end of the campaign, as the main locators of hostile batteries."

C Troop worked extremely hard during these operations, moving forward no less than three times to catch up with the battle, and in so doing registering just under 200 HBs during the period 17 October to 6 November. Sadly the Hostile Battery Report contains the comment ‘CBO policy almost silent’ - a state of affairs no doubt induced by continuing ammunition shortage. D Troop deployed to the north of C Troop near Dinther before moving nearer to ‘s-Hertogenbosch itself at Manaburg. In all the Troop located 94 HBs, nearly all of them being 88 mm.

By this time 4-Pen had grown to a two-section unit commanded by Capt. Jack Tasker (who had relinquished his job as adjutant) with David Duncan under him, retaining command of the original Section formed in Normandy. One of these two sections filled in the gap that existed between C and D Troops. When they deployed . The other Section deployed near Dinther, but there was little activity to register. Another Section took over the C Troop base of Helvoirt and found a number of the C Troop HBs still active. In all, this base found 30 HBs, about one third being mortars and was closed down on 6 November.

The weather throughout these operations was dreadful - rainy, dank, low overcast clouds, and, of course, the ubiquitous mud. Aerial observation was impossible, and HB location lay solely on the shoulders of the sound--rangers. The CO jubilantly maintained that their results were sufficient to supply the CBO with 80% of the enemy batteries opposing us. These conditions were of little use to the flash-spotters, but they did deploy in support of the Regimental objective in St Oedenrode, Veghel and finally in the cathedral in ‘s-Hertogenbosch where they stayed until 6 November.

The CO records the upshot of this effort to capture ‘s-Hertogenbosch in the following words:

"Complete surprise was achieved and 53 Division was almost immediately in a position to attack and capture ‘s-Hertogenbosch. I think the city was taken within a few days of the initial attack. 53 Division with 54 Battery under command remained there while 12 Corps continued a rather unpleasant progress towards Loop-op-Zand and beyond."

Clearing to the Maas

12 Corps would therefore shortly be in a position to address the second part of the task set it - to clear the enemy from all ground between the corridor and the Maas.

For 12 Corps this meant attacking eastwards of the corridor and clearing the enemy from the tract Weert to Venlo, through which the Maas passes. 8 Corps were attacking on our left. The sound--rangers were especially active during this phase. D Troop deployed six bases at Nolenbeers, Harik, Hijthuijzen Rolight, Egschel (the Derivation Canal), Onder Loo and Maasbree. Although a total of 244 HBs were located, only the Harik and Maasbree bases were truly productive, providing 77 and 127 of this figure. The success at Maasbree was of special importance because D Troop’s plots were the only contribution to the Counter Battery intelligence. Sgt. Carter’s AP took a great deal of punishment during these operations, and he was justly awarded the MM for his leadership and courage. But disaster struck the Troop at this time - During a sustained air attack on the assault area with anti-personnel bombs, one landed near D Troop HQ and killed two of the Met Section who were launching their balloons. This was especially regrettable since a number of shells that had landed near the HQ had not exploded. It was also at this time that the Troop was most unfortunate to lose its commander, Capt. Sam Small who was injured when his half-track hit a mine.

An incident at Maasbree is worth recording. Field Section had parked their vehicles in the yard of an unfriendly and taciturn farmer. He spoke for the first time as the Section was moving out, asking if the men would be good enough to remove a mine that had been placed under a tree - on the other side of which the 3-tonner had been parked. A burst of Bren gun fire brought the tree crashing down on one of his farm buildings!

The amusing experience of an AP observer on a base near Weert must also be given a place. The AP had been told by the infantry that they had fitted a trip wire to which tin cans had been attached. If the cans rattled during the night the observer was to fire in the direction of the noise immediately. Rattle they did, but the observer withheld his fire, unwilling to be the first to shoot. No-one fired. In the morning the infantry NCO told our AP, "One of our - officers backed his jeep into the trip-wire!"

C Troop also did extremely well. They deployed along the Maas and beyond Roermond to do what they could about the Siegfried Line guns. From two deployments (at Molenbeersel and Haelen) they registered no less than 342 HBs, 293 of them at Haelen. To the Troop’s credit this base managed to pick up some rockets, which are very difficult to ‘read’ on film. Bearing in mind that the met conditions at the time were unfavorable, C Troop did extremely well.

The surveyors had their own problems during this part of the campaign. Y Troop commander comments:

"The land around Weert was very flat and muddy and it was very difficult to know where the front line was. I went forward along a towpath in a very wooded area in order to establish a reference point for a forthcoming gun position. I did this with one of my observers and we came under rifle fire. Later we found that we had been several miles beyond our front positions... Later we went into Tilburg which had been left during the Arnhem offensive. I found an HQ which had just been abandoned by the local collaborator. The Sunday lunch was still cooking in the oven..."

The 4-Pen deployed several times, at Weert, Panningen, Kessel and a number of other bases, some short-lived, of which only Westen, Kirkenmoor and Rotenburg provided a goodly number of HBs - that at Rotenburg yielded 44, mostly 88 mm. The Panningen base was a nightmare because of the extensive minefields which had to be negotiated to lay the lines, and the repeated shelling that was forever putting them out of action. However, Kessel also did well, locating 45 HBs during the period of occupation, 24 November to 6 December.

Two cameos of life with the 4-Pen are vividly presented in letters submitted by two correspondents who were members of the unit - one a comparative ‘rookie’, the other a battle experienced officer. The first, Jock Stubbs, describes his initiation into life at the Advanced Post:

"...The next morning the party set off. The half-track was taken only part of the way, and from there we began the climb to the farmhouse where the AP was situated. It was on the west bank, roughly equidistant between Venlo to the north and Roermond to the south, and about 400 yards from the river. The farmer, his wife and family (four or five daughters from about 16 to a babe in arms) were in residence. There was no need to do any digging for we were able to use a spacious ‘hidey-hole’ which had been used during the occupation when the Germans came looking for labour for the land or for the factory. The cover over it had now been removed of course, and a little ladder led down to a vault lined with straw.

As a novice AP man I was given training in the skills needed before my first stint. Any information about movement of transport, armour etc. that might be useful had to be passed back. There was some enemy mortar and patrol activity. Each day the mortars went round their HF tasks, and our time came round about 1040 hrs most days. Fortunately the farmhouse was not hit. It was some days before the surveyors (at HQ) got clear enough readings to locate their positions and pass it to the gunners who signaled when fire was to be expected. As we squinted out of a side window it was just possible to observe the fall of shot. Satisfying!!

A German patrol did pass within 20 yards of the post when Mr. Duncan (a visitor for the night) was taking an early watch, but I, asleep below, knew nothing of it, until he wakened me before alerting the others. No more was seen of it, but some shots from the rear indicated contact with an infantry post.

Thus passed our days at the Maas AP, till we tramped back down the way we had come after taking fond leave of the family."

These conditions were succinctly endorsed in a letter sent home on 14 November by a more experienced hand:

"...I am sleeping in a little room off the stables - that is when I am not on duty at our more advanced position where we live like rabbits under the ground. It is really quite comfortable under the ground, as they have candles stuck in the walls, a tarpaulin and two feet of earth overhead and heather and straw on the floor..."

Sleeping in the open in ditches stopped almost immediately after the crossing of the Seine, and one was forced to use buildings for protection. Always there was the mud. Dutch mud is not like English mud: it is glutinous and somehow brush-resistant, it stains and stiffens the cloth, and it strikes a sustained contralto chord with every lifted footstep. There was another problem one forgot about at one’s peril in the Dutch countryside - that of being observed, and therefore shelled. Jack Bobbitt, on a Field reconnaissance for D Troop, was in the act of crossing a double railway track when he attracted a stonk of shelling about 200 yards distant. He and his fellow passengers threw themselves behind an embankment before realising that the track on which their truck stood perched was in full view of the stacks in Venlo. The only way out was to rush for the truck before the guns really got their range, and this they did with commendable athleticism. Adrenaline is the most efficient drug! All things considered this was probably the most unpleasant part of the campaign for most of the army.

It was during this phase of the campaign that an AP heard the distinctly unusual sound of both gun and shell-fall behind it. A quick call to HQ established that a ‘friendly’ gun crew had put the wrong range on their piece.

So much for the sound-ranging and survey effort in this battle. B Troop (flash-spotters) set up OPs in the neighbourhood of Panningen. C Post were unlucky to receive a direct hit on their observation post in the Town Hall and were forced to set up another OP in a monastery. The next deployment was at Baalo where, on 25 November, one post was again made untenable by heavy and sustained shellfire. Thence to a deserved rest at Weert where Sgt. Margerrison and Bdr. Cubbon received their Military Medals for their handing of the situation at Winkel. (9 to 16 December). Before leaving the flash-spotters however, the siting of one post in the Dutch flat countryside deserves mention as an example of the ingenuity that has to be used to gain height in flat territory. The Section concerned erected at night (because anything done in the daylight would have been observed) a post on the first stage of an electricity pylon. The floor-boarding and sandbags had to be hoisted up by a pulley system, and the post could only be occupied at night. Enemy aircraft flew over, firing tracers at the infantry below, but fortunately, did not spot the flash-spotting post. Nevertheless, a nerve-wracking location.

At the end of this operation the whole of the territory west of the Maas was cleared of the enemy: 8 Corps had cleared the north and 12 Corps to the south as far as Roermond. Yet again the deplorable weather had shown how essential the sound--ranging effort was in counter battery work when the RAE was grounded. There is one more reason why we remember Weert. It was while the Regiment were there that the first jet-propelled German aircraft attacked the town (13 December). Two radio "Tiffies" have reason to remember the visit. Having pulled up outside a plumber’s shop and employed their charms to weadle a bedroom from the proprietor and his family, they stood outside chatting up the teen-age daughter when one of the two (by now) battle-hardened Tiffies, hearing something that sounded too unfamiliar to be friendly, threw himself on top of the young Dutch girl and wedged her between a wall and a cast-iron bath. The jet dropped a large bomb in the road. It killed some civilians and ripped off the roof of the intended billet, at the same time depositing its ceiling on to the bed the soldiers had prepared. Well - it was good while it lasted!