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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 |
Saturday, 7th April 1945
Up sticks again and off to yet another unfamiliar place. We had bypassed the Ruhr, the Saar, and all the regional capitals. I would learn, much later, that there was a good political reason for this. Denmark must not fall into Russian hands, so we must aim to reach the Baltic before them. 15th Scottish would spearhead the onrush, with the Americans guarding our right flank, the rest of 2nd Army aiming for Lubeck on our left flank and the Canadians mopping up the coast behind us - and a giant mopping-up operation it was! Each division, on average, was trying to move the equivalent of a brigade of enemy troops every day. There was no time to erect the penthouse, so we had to make a tailboard CCP at every stop. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Sunday, 8th April 1945
We were woken by the sound of prisoners marching past. They stopped to have breakfast with us and we took charge of the wounded ones. Their guards (Seaforth Highlanders) told us they had a long trek ahead and this was their first chance of a rest. Enemy troops, they say, were trying to surrender in greater numbers than they could take. The rest of Second Army has been busy repairing or replacing all those Rhine (and other river) crossings - no doubt aided by those prisoners in the queue for surrendering. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Monday, 9th April 1945
There was no longer any reason to ask, "Where is the Second Army?" Most of it was where it should be, just ahead of the rest of 21 Army Group, which had swung over to the coast to liberate the rest of the Netherlands. We now had seven class 40 pontoon bridges, at least one of which (the one we used) was class 70. Evacuating casualties was now no problem, but DP’s (Displaced Persons) could still hold us up. They could not use military transport or travel with army personnel. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Tuesday, 10th April 1945
This day we liberated what appeared to be sweatshops, hand-making badges and brassards for semi-uniformed forces and services of the third Reich. There was no sign of the workers, but they seem to have been some form of slave labour. We spent some time rummaging through the materials left behind, but there was nothing of any souvenir value. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
]Wednesday, 11th April 1945
The streets here were empty, except for a few displaced persons, ex slave labourers. I tried to talk to two of them, a Pole and a Frenchwoman, and walked past A Coy billets with them. The sergeant of that company called me over for an explanation, and the civilians walked on. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Thursday, 12th April 1945
21 Army Group took over the rail junction of Celle on the Aller River. 194 F.A. took over a school near the station. We did not know it at the time, but the Bergen-Belsen group of concentration and forced labour camps was 12 miles north of there and this was part of the complex. President F.D. Roosevelt died; President Harry S. Truman took the oath. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Friday, 13th April 1945
We set up the C.C.P. and showed our formation sign and Red Cross over the door. All the arrivals were civilians, suffering from fatigue, starvation and lice. The first treatment we gave them was a dusting with D.D.T., the current treatment for infestation. One said, “Ah, le bon Keating’s”. It soon became clear that these people were not Germans but D/P’s. Most of them had been slave labourers, handling dangerous materials. Like the people of Buchenwald, which the Americans relieved today, they were now free, but for what? There was no way they could battle their ways home across the Rhine or any other river. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Saturday, 14th April 1945
----------------------------------------More people in the same condition arrived; we opened up more wards and gave them the same treatment. Apart from that, the only job was to feed them and make them strong enough to rise from their stretchers. I took on an extra job – to write home for the Frenchman who was thankful for “Keating’s”, and others who had lost contact with their families. The letters would barely have passed censorship, but in the absence of the officers, I was in charge and I considered the military situation too fluid for strict censorship. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Apr 14, 2008 9:44:43 AM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Sunday, 15th April 1945
We were now, once more, a cottage hospital, at least as big as, if not bigger than, the one we ran as a temporary Air Landing Field Ambulance in the dropping zone. The whole Company was now mucking in, and I had time for a little recce. I scanned an art book full of “German” reproductions, of artists such as Albrecht Durer. This was not my idea of art. I prefer Rembrandt, but of course there was nothing of his there. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Monday, 16th April 1945
We set out for our next destination, across the river Aller, in Uelzen, at the edge of Luneburg Heath. This was a street of middle class semis, all either deserted or hanging out white sheets. This they usually did, apparently, at the last minute, as it was now a capital offence for a man to be living in a house with anything white hung out while the Nazis were still in charge. The front doors were all unlocked; presumably to prevent damage to the doors or locks. We just picked out a few of the more suitable houses for our quarters. |
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