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Forum: Chat Room
Thread: On this Day |
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Thread Status: Locked Total posts in this thread: 716
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Wednesday, 28th March 1945
There was no sign of our own division. Presumably, it was far ahead somewhere, as all the casualties and other troops were wearing the maroon berets of the Airborne Corps. There was no sign of Armour either. I discovered later that they had transferred all our armour to XXX Corps for their sweep along the Heligoland Bight to Lubeck, to cut off Denmark from the Wermacht and the Russians. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Thursday, 29th March 1945
----------------------------------------I cannot recall having seen our own M.O. since crossing the Rhine. Were we too busy to remember, or had he gone off for more orders, leaving the occasional airborne officer in charge? Most of the time, we worked independently; we were behind any recognisable HQ and if we had an M.O. he was from a strange unit. We no longer needed houses with cellars; the nights were strangely quiet. If we had any artillery, it was either way behind or taking another, more capacious, route. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Mar 29, 2008 11:12:08 AM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Friday, 30th March 1945
Good Friday passed unnoticed, still the same slog. There was barely time for eating or sleeping and none for moving. The Airborne officer (if we saw him) would not have had any time to censor our letters home, so there were no letters home from which to construct the diary. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Saturday, 31st March 1945
Churchill called an end to the "Carpet Bombing" of Germany. I welcomed the arrival of ambulances to evacuate the casualties to a new CCS, (Casualty Clearing Station); I now wanted, and received, news of our old division (15th Scottish). It had been spearheading the attack and was now dismantling V2 rockets near the Ruhr. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Sunday 1st April 1945
U.S. Troops land on Okinawa Now the casualties were safely transported, we could rejoin the rest of the Company, and move eastwards until we caught up with, and rejoined, the division. We no longer had time or need to dig in, so we must have stopped in some town or village where there was accommodation to spare. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Monday, 2nd April 1945
Most of my predictions and presumptions had proved right, but there are a few corrections to make. What we saw overhead while crossing the Rhine was not the main airdrop, which went over this day. A few had to drop early to protect the bridge builders from possible counter attack, but the main body had to be sure of a bridge. The reason we saw nothing of the rest of our division was simple. They were the first to cross, not counting the "Buffalo" (swimming tank) crews who took some of them and the engineers, who built the “Rhino” ferries, which took more of them and the 20 man canvas, folding, pontoons, which took the rest. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Tuesday, 3rd April 1945
----------------------------------------With the casualties evacuated, it was time for the now complete Company to rejoin the rest of the unit and take to the roads to attempt to catch up with the rest of the Division. We kept seeing road signs saying, "YOU ARE BACK IN GERMANY DO NOT FRATERNISE" Ever since we left Groot Berg en Dal, the house windows had not been welcoming us with national flags any more. Instead, they were hanging out white sheets, despite the fact that Adolf Hitler had made this a capital offence. [Edit 3 times, last edit by Former Member at Apr 3, 2008 9:53:18 AM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Wednesday, 4th April 1945
----------------------------------------From now on it was a matter of 'move by day - sleep by night', until we caught up. Places were still unfamiliar, but I think we had our mid day snack at Munster and set up for the night in Osnabruck Barracks. U.S. forces liberated the Nazi concentration camp Ohrdruf in Germany this day. The Ohrdruf death camp was the first Nazi concentration camp the American Army liberated, on 4 April 1945. According to a book written by the German historian Rainer Karlsch and published in 2005, Ohrdruf may have been one of two locations where the Nazis tested their nuclear energy project, in the process killing prisoners of war under the supervision of the SS. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohrdruf_forced_labor_camp [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Apr 4, 2008 10:08:01 AM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Thursday, 5th April 1945
Hamelin Town's in Brunswick (according to Robert Browning), and somewhere about there was our next overnight stop. We do not seem to have caught up with the rest of the division, despite the infantry having the problem of sending back POW's and the engineers having that of rebuilding the bridges, thus holding up the advance. . . |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Friday, 6th April 1945
. . . and the Weser is an obstacle which needs the expertise of the Pied Piper There was another reason why the 21 Army Group advance had slowed down so much that we had caught up with it. The group was now only two armies, as the American Ninth Army had rejoined the 12th Army Group, and most of Second Army was swanning round on a broad front as a result. |
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