HK Redeployment

Redeployment

We were soon on our way back through Portsmouth to Ostend and then to a monastery in Ghent. By now, it was winter and the barracks were unheated. People were stealing blankets and selling them on the black market. There wasn’t a good feeling there and I was anxious to get back to my friends in the regiment. On New Year’s day the German Luftwaffe strafed our parade square. A few days later, I rejoined my friends at Nijmegen in lower Holland. We were soon involved in the Canadian Army’s clearing of Germans on the west side of the Rhine. We were involved in the battles of the Hochwald and Reichwald. I had a strange feeling fighting in a country where the mother tongue was my mother tongue. After these actions, we were bivouacked in the Hochwald in preparation for the Rhine crossing. One night at midnight, all of our artillery opened up and we were soon called to “mount up”. It was daybreak when I crossed the pontoon bridge over the Rhine. The name of the town was either Reese or Wesel–I can’t remember accurately.

The Canadian 2nd and 3rd Divisions turned directly north after crossing the Rhine and stayed on the east side of this river until we got to Arnhem. One of the towns we passed through was Emerich where our driver was killed and we lost our vehicle. Poor Dube, he had just returned from England, after burying his wife who had been killed by a V-2 bomb. This was sad for me. We cut off poor Dube’s dog tag and rolled him in a blanket. The Sergeant Major came and sewed the blanket together. Lambert, another French Canadian who had been co-driver, became the driver until the end of the war.

Our advance north went quickly. The Dutch people welcomed us and as it was tulip time they showered us with tulips. There were many canals to cross and all the bridges had been blown and so we had to wait for the engineers to lay the bridging before advancing. At each bridge, the German 88’s were waiting.

When we reached the Zuider Zee we were in a province called Friesland. My mother’s name was Friesen. I knew that this was my heritage. The towns and small cities liberated were Sud Laren and Groningen. The people were very nice. They lived and acted mch like Canadians and best of all, most of them spoke English. Naturally, with my German and Plat Deutch I could always make out.

Without pausing at the Zuider Zee, the Canadian 2nd, 3rd and 4th Divisions turned right and proceeded across the Ems River into Germany. The Canadian 1st and 5th Divisions turned left and liberated Amsterdam, etc. The resistance at this point was light. The defenders were either boys or old men. However, we were now fighting the Germans on their own turf.

One afternoon, one of our sargeants, Sgt. Mace from Hamilton, was walking down the street entirely exposed. He was warned that there were still snipers and to take cover. To this, he replied “they haven’t got me and they are not going to get me now”. He hardly had the words out of his mouth when a sniper’s bullet killed him.

We soon reached the Keel canal on the Danish border and came down the other side of the peninsula to WilhelmsHaven. We had little resistance and took a lot of prisoners. We had captured Oldenburg in the German province of Friesland. The people spoke Plat Deutch. I again had that funny feeling about my heritage. One of the shops we passed was named “Erica Klassen”.

In early May, we knew that the war was just about over and so no unnecessary risks were taken. On May the 8th, it was announced that Germany had unconditionally surrendered. This was great news. We had survived this terrible experience to tell our children and grandchildren. War is obscene. It is horrible and makes no sense. The horror of war still makes me cringe.