159 BATTLE OF THE REICHSWALD, AFTER THE BATTLE
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//-->BATTLE OF THEREICHSWALDNo. 159£5.00NUMBER 159© CopyrightAfter the Battle2013Editor: Karel MargryEditor-in-Chief: Winston G. RamseyPublished byBattle of Britain International Ltd.,The Mews, Hobbs Cross House,Hobbs Cross, Old Harlow,Essex CM17 0NN, EnglandTelephone: 01279 41 8833Fax: 01279 41 9386E-mail: hq@afterthebattle.comWebsite:www.afterthebattle.comPrinted in Great Britain byWarners Group Publications PLC,Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH.After the Battleis published on the 15thof February, May, August and November.LONDON STOCKIST for theAfter the Battlerange:Foyles Limited, 113-119 Charing Cross Road,London WC2H 0EB. Telephone: 020 7437 5660.Fax: 020 7434 1574. E-mail: orders@foyles.co.uk.Web site: www.foyles.co.ukUnited Kingdom Newsagent Distribution:Warners Group Publications PLC,Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PHAustralian Subscriptions and Back Issues:Renniks Publications Pty LimitedUnit 3, 37-39 Green Street, Banksmeadow NSW 2019Telephone: 61 2 9695 7055. 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E-mail: si@sipublicaties.nlThe ‘Veritable’ offensive was extensively covered by the photographers of the ArmyFilm and Photo Unit (AFPU). Sergeants Norman Midgley, Harry Ames and ‘Slim’ Hewittcovered the operations of the 15th (Scottish) Division; Sergeant Albert Wilkes went withthe 53rd (Welsh) Division and Sergeant Johnny Silverside and Ken Higgins accompaniedthe 51st (Highland) Division, while Sergeants Charlie Crocker, Jimmy Christie and ArthurJones stood ready to cover the actions of the follow-up divisions later on. Captain ColinMcDougall and Lieutenant Michael Dean covered the two Canadian divisions.Aboveand opposite:On the morning of February 8, Sergeant Hewitt pictured men of the 2ndArgyll and Sutherland Highlanders, part of the 15th Division’s 227th Brigade, movinginto battle near Groesbeek. The Churchill tanks are from the 3rd Scots Guards.OPERATION ‘VERITABLE’Planning for what later became Operation‘Veritable’ — a south-easterly push betweenthe Maas and Rhine rivers from Nijmegen inthe Netherlands through the Reichswald for-est and into the German Rhineland — wasfirst begun by Lieutenant-General Sir BrianHorrocks’ British XXX Corps in early Octo-ber 1944, after the failure of the Arnhem air-borne venture. The outline plan made byXXX Corps (known as ‘Wyvern’) was handedover to the Canadians when they relieved thatcorps in the Nijmegen area in early Novem-ber. At Headquarters First Canadian Army,the tacit assumption was that the operation(then known as ‘Valediction’) would beundertaken by Canadian II Corps.On December 6 Field-Marshal Bernard L.Montgomery, commander of the British 21stArmy Group, visited Lieutenant-GeneralHarry Crerar, commander of the First Cana-dian Army, and discussed his army’s futureoperations. There is no actual record of thediscussion but the following day Crerar’splans section recorded that it was understoodthat Montgomery desired that ‘Valediction’should be ‘under the control of British Sec-ond Army’, and that the Americans shouldtake over from his army group the area southof Roermond (then held by XXX Corps).That same day, December 7, at a confer-ence at Maastricht, attended by the SupremeAllied Commander, General Dwight D.Eisenhower, and his two principal land com-manders, Montgomery and Lieutenant-Gen-eral Omar N. Bradley of the US 12th ArmyGroup, the question of future Allied strategyfor the war in north-western Europe wasargued out. It was agreed to keep up thepressure on the enemy through the winter.The main attack was to be north of the Ruhr.This was now again to be entrusted to Mont-gomery’s 21st Army Group, with an Ameri-can army under command.Just before the conference, on the out-skirts of Maastricht, Montgomery had metGeneral Horrocks and discussed the opera-tion to break through the Reichswald posi-tion south-east of Nijmegen with him. Hor-rocks said he would need five divisions — thenumber indicated in the ‘Wyvern’ plan — ifhe was given the task; and after the confer-ence, Montgomery telephoned to say that hewould get them and that he was to startthinking out the operation.That same evening Montgomery tele-phoned Crerar and said he had had a talkwith the Supreme Commander and that theAmericans would take over the southernpart of the British front. Having thought overthe Reichswald operation, Montgomery nowconsidered that the Canadian Army shouldhave the responsibility for it. The target datewas January 1, 1945. Crerar’s memorandumof the conversation proceeds: ‘I would needanother corps for this, and XXX Corps,including up to four infantry and onearmoured divisions, would be at disposal.Whether I decided Canadian or XXX Corpsto do [the operation], XXX Corps wouldrequire to be brought in on right of CanadianArmy for future reasons.’Although Montgomery had courteouslyleft the formal decision to Crerar, in the cir-cumstances he had described logic demandedthat XXX Corps should conduct the offen-sive; and at a conference at HeadquartersFirst Canadian Army later that evening it wasexplained, ‘First Canadian Army’s offensivewill, initially, be undertaken by British XXXCorps.’ The code-name ‘Valediction’ wasnow changed to ‘Veritable’.Detailed planning for ‘ Veritable’ contin-ued through the second week of December,with close consultation between British andCanadian headquarters. Following a confer-ence with Montgomery on December 9,Crerar issued a preliminary directive to CorpsCommanders on the 10th. On the 14th he sentan amended directive. The initial phase was tobe the business of XXX Corps. SubsequentlyCanadian II Corps would come in on the left.However, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Divisionwas to take part in Phase 1 under XXX Corps.CONTENTSTHE BATTLE OF THE REICHSWALDNORTH AFRICAWestern Desert Battlefield ToursGERMANYThe International Tracing ServiceUNITED KINGDOMThe Kingsclere MassacreNEW BOOKThe Desert War Then and Now241444854Front Cover:This Sherman on display outsidethe Groesbeek Liberation Museum commem-orates the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry for theirpart in the liberation of the Netherlands and theReichswald battle. (Karel Margry)Back Cover:A field cemetery at Sidi Rezeghwhere fierce battles raged for days inNovember 1941 — pictures fromThe DesertWar Then and Now.The old tomb of a holyman still stands, exactly the same as it didseven decades ago.Acknowledgements:The main text for theBattle of the Reichswald story is taken fromThe Victory Campaign(Volume III of theOfficial History of the Canadian Army in theSecond World War) by Colonel C. P. Stacey(Roger Duhamel: Ottawa, 1960) published byauthority of the Canadian Minister ofNational Defence. For help with theReichswald story, the Editor would like tothank Martijn Bakker, Marco Cillessen, CoertComans, Fenny Visscher and Colonel NickLock. Our thanks also to Kathrin Flor of theInternational Tracing Service.Photo Credit Abbreviations:IWM — ImperialWar Museum; LAC — Library and ArchivesCanada; NIOD — Nederlands Instituut voorOorlogsdocumentatie, Amsterdam; USNA —US National Archives.2IWM BU1719On February 8, 1945, the First Canadian Army launched Operation‘Veritable’, a massive offensive designed to conquer the northernhalf of the German Rhineland and obtain positions favourable fora later assault across the Rhine. From jump-off positions nearNijmegen in the Netherlands, British XXX Corps (operating underCanadian command) launched three British and two Canadianinfantry divisions in a concentrated assault towards the south-east and into Germany. Their area of operations was narrow andconstricted by the Rhine river in the north and the Maas river inthe south. Prime obstacle to their advance was the ReichswaldForest, an impenetrable area of dense woodland right on theDutch-German frontier, stretching some 14 kilometres from eastto west and eight kilometres from north to south. Through it ranthe northern spur of the daunted Siegfried Line, its defensive for-tifications anchored on the towns of Kleve in the north and Gochin the south. In two weeks of grim and costly fighting, the Britishand Canadians battled their way through and past the forest,overcoming mud, rain, floods and fierce German resistance. ByFebruary 21 they had emerged from the woods, broken throughthe Siegfried Line and captured both Kleve and Goch.THE BATTLE OF THE REICHSWALDMontgomery issued his own directive on‘Veritable’ on December 16. The generalconcept was thus stated: ‘Before we canbegin to develop successfully large-scaleoperations across the Rhine we must clearthe enemy completely from the west of theriver, and must join up with the AmericanNinth Army coming up from the south; wemust in fact be in undisputed possession ofall territory west of the Rhine from inclusivethe general line Orsoy-Venlo northwards.’On the morning Montgomery issued thisdirective, the Germans launched their majorcounter-offensive in the Ardennes in a finalgreat gamble for victory in the West.Throughout the critical battle in theArdennes, in spite of commitments there andthe threat to the northern front, neitherMontgomery nor Crerar lost sight of therequirements of their Rhineland offensive.On January 16, in conference with Crerar,Montgomery outlined his plan ‘to get Alliedforces across the River Rhine, north of theRuhr, in strength’. This plan, presupposingclearance of the Rhineland, could only becarried out with extensive American assis-tance and, at the time of the discussion, theRight:Without farms or roads to identifythe location, matching up photos in therolling countryside around Groesbeek isdifficult. The Argylls jumped off frompositions along Wylerbaan, the road link-ing Groesbeek with Wyler further north.This is the view from that road, lookingeast across the fields towards Germanyand the Reichswald. The silver-steel col-umn on the right is the Veritable Memor-ial, erected in 1990 and commemoratingthat this was the starting point for Mont-gomery’s great offensive.3question of whether the US Ninth Armywould be left under Montgomery’s controlhad not been decided. However, this diffi-culty had been resolved when, five days later,Montgomery issued a formal directiveannouncing his intention of destroying ‘allenemy in the area west of the Rhine from thepresent forward positions south of Nijmegenas far south as the general line Jülich-Düssel-dorf, as a preliminary to crossing the Rhineand engaging the enemy in mobile war to thenorth of the Ruhr’. The enemy’s situationwas described in precisely the words used inthe earlier directive issued the day the battlebegan in the Ardennes. Following the pat-tern then outlined, Montgomery visualisedconverging attacks by the First Canadian andUS Ninth Armies. The target date for ‘Veri-By Colonel Charles P. Staceytable’, the Canadian operation, was February8; but that for ‘Grenade’, the American one,could not yet be fixed.Commencing on January 18, BritishXXX Corps, 51st (Highland) and 53rd(Welsh) Divisions and ancillary formationshad returned to General Crerar’s commandfor ‘Veritable’. When the Army Comman-der addressed his senior officers on the22nd, he noted that the concentration of‘most of the additional forces required forthe operation’ was well advanced. Theoverall plan for ‘Veritable’, he pointed out,had not been materially changed during theATBIWM BU1716CANADIAN OFFICIAL HISTORYmonth-long delay imposed by the emer-gency in the Ardennes, but remained as hehad outlined it in December. He empha-sised how vital it was to achieve surprise —chiefly by the elimination of ‘prolongedpreliminary bombardment’ and the substi-tution of ‘really overwhelming fire’ fromthe air and the ground as the operationcommenced, or was about to commence.He reminded his hearers of the conse-quence of ‘keeping the initiative, maintain-ing the momentum of the attack and of dri-ving on, and through, the enemy withoutlet-up’. And finally he directed them toensure that ‘all ranks taking an active partin the operation are adequately briefed andthat all obtain a clear appreciation not onlyof what is expected of them, but of theimportance of the contribution which eachman can, and must, make’.4Although the push through the dense Reichswald forest was the most daunting partof ‘Veritable’ (a task for which the 53rd Division, in close co-operation with itsassigned supporting armoured units, had organised extensive special training in for-est fighting in its staging areas around Helmond in the weeks prior to the operationto discover the best methods to overcome the problem), the operation entailed morethan a push through the woods. In the north, where the Germans had flooded nearlyall of the low-lying area stretching between the forest and the Rhine river, the Cana-dians had to resort to amphibious operations in order to carry their attacking units tothe isolated village objectives. However, most important of all was the opening ofthe roads that led north and south of the forest, to Kleve and Goch respectively,which were needed to gain the open country beyond where armoured exploitationcould take place. The most vital task fell to the 15th Division which had to open upthe narrow corridor to Kleve, requiring a rapid push between the inundated area inthe north and the forest in the south.On January 23 Field-Marshal Mont-gomery indicated that preparations by theUS First Army for an offensive towardsBonn might have a delaying effect on ‘Veri-table’ and ‘Grenade’, since the latter couldnot begin until the Ninth Army had beenbrought up to a strength of 12 divisions.However, he assured General Crerar that hewould have six days’ warning of any post-ponement of ‘Veritable’. In the interests ofGetting all the troops, guns and supplies for ‘Veritable’ concentrated into the constrictedarea around Nijmegen was a major logistical operation, particularly because there wereonly two good roads leading into it from the south; one across the Maas bridge atGrave, the other across a Bailey bridge built over the Maas at Mook. The heavy trafficwreaked havoc on these and all other roads, especially when it began to thaw, and thou-sands of pioneers — 50 engineer companies, three road construction companies and 29pioneer companies — were employed to maintain them. Sergeant Higgins picturedDutch civilians helping to repair the damage to a road in Nijmegen made by the passageof tanks on February 8, the first day of the offensive. As they work, an endless column ofwheeled transport continues to roll past on their way to the front.THE ADMINISTRATIVE FOUNDATIONWhile senior commanders and their staffshammered out final details of the opera-tional plan, a great administrative ‘build-up’provided the sinews for ‘Veritable’. The widescope of these requirements can only be sug-gested here, but their importance to the suc-cess of the operation can scarcely be exag-gerated. Basically, there were threeessentials: rations for the troops, ammunitionfor their weapons and what military termi-nology described as ‘POL’ — that is, petrol,oil and lubricants for their vehicles. Since thestrength of First Canadian Army was to riseas high as 449,865 during the operations, withcivilian labour, prisoners, etc, raising thetotal number of mouths to feed to 476,193 atits peak, the problem of supplying rationsalone was no small one.From the outset a heavy burden fell uponthe Royal Army Service Corps and RoyalCanadian Army Service Corps for the actualmovement of supplies, and on the RoyalEngineers and Royal Canadian Engineersfor the maintenance of routes and bridges.But maintenance depended, in turn, on theweather, and this proved fickle. Althoughcold weather and firm ground persistedthroughout most of January — the tempera-ture sank to 5° Fahrenheit on the 26th — athaw set in at the end of the month, androutes soon deteriorated under the heavytraffic. By February 5 a section of the Turn-hout-Eindhoven road was ‘impassable evento Jeeps in four-wheel drive’ and the ChiefEngineer at Army Headquarters commentedruefully, ‘We have had every disadvantagepossible in weather with the highest floodingin 14 years in November, the lowest waterlevel ever recorded in January, a severe frostfollowed by very rapid thaw, bad icing condi-tions and now another flood.’ For a time,nearly 50 companies of engineers, plus threeroad construction companies and 29 pioneercompanies, were fully employed in maintain-ing the roads in the British-Canadian sector.surprise, ‘no forward assembly of formationsconcerned’ would begin until February 2.Lieutenant-General Willam H. Simpson,commanding the Ninth Army, was requestedto make every possible effort to launch‘Grenade’ by the 15th. General Crerar issuedhis own directive on Operation ‘Veritable’ tothe commanders of the British I and XXXand Canadian II Corps on January 25.One week later he was advised that D-Day had been confirmed for February 8. Itwould go in whatever the weather. ‘The C-in-C considered that the urgency was sogreat that it was undesirable to delay theoperation, even by 24 hours, in order toobtain air support.’ This presumablyreflected a SHAEF directive issued thesame day which instructed Montgomery tomount ‘Veritable’ ‘at the earliest date andnot later than February 8’.The same houses still stand along Graafseweg, the main road into Nijmegen from Grave.5ATBIWM BU1774
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