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Category: Community
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 |
Thursday, 1st March 1945
Casualties seemed to be dwindling both in numbers and severity. Enemy prisoners were becoming fewer in number and younger in age. Lines of communication were becoming longer both in time and distance and I have no idea what unit, if any, was carrying the next stage of our LOC. Possibly for that reason, I have no mnemonic material from which to construct an account of the next few days. Some time in March, 1945 One high ranking officer has warned his troops, "You are now in Germany; no doubt you are thinking of rape, loot and pillage. - NO rape!" |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
About the same time
----------------------------------------Notices were now appearing informing German civilians that they were not allowed to keep certain items. Among these were cameras, binoculars, copies of Mein Kampf, and English or American cigarettes. Nevertheless, some enterprising military personnel were making contacts with the local black market and exchanging cigarettes for cameras, binoculars and other optical and technical equipment for which the Germans were famous. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Mar 3, 2009 1:17:47 PM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Sunday, 4th March 1945
----------------------------------------Ever since we left Kleve (Cleves) progress had been slow and painful, not only for us, but also for communications services like signals, dispatch riders, mail and war correspondents. The Germans seemed to have lost the few brand new jet planes that constituted their remade Luftwaffe, but they still had a few guns, and lots of rockets and panzerfaust, which were something like the American “bazookas” and created most of the casualties. Although we no longer dug in, we were happier in houses that had cellars. The American Eighth Air Force. bombed Berlin this day. http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=6731 [Edit 3 times, last edit by Former Member at Mar 5, 2009 9:38:17 AM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Monday, 5th March 1945
We “Canadians” were beginning to make good progress at last. We would soon be contacting the American ninth Army. An endless column of German P.O.W.s, looking very uncomfortable, had been marching past with hands on heads ever since we arrived in Goch. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Tuesday, 6th March 1945
An Army normally consists of three Corps, each of which has three Divisions, with three brigades of three Battalions apiece, but the Army honours this rule more in the exception than the observance. Two airborne divisions were still independent. The other (25th) was now the only division of any kind in the entire 2nd Army, while the rest of what had been that Army was now reinforcing the 1st Canadian Army. That Army was now 75% U.K., 5% Polish and about 5% French. The rest of the new French recruits were now under various commands, with headquarters in London (Col. Buckmaster), Algiers (General de Gaulle), their own local armoured division commander, General Leclerc and various American formations. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Wednesday, 7th March 1945 (roughly)
We withdrew to Belgium to sew our formation signs back on our sleeves. Those two company members, who went back to Army HQ because they had been prisoners of war, now rejoined us. The Germans had previously captured them in Crete, then released them in exchange for prisoners we had taken in Africa, but only on condition of their never fighting again (not that service with the R.A.M.C. can be considered fighting, but who knows how a German officer thinks?). |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Thursday, 8th March 1945
One blessing we had was up to date information. We still did not know exactly where we were on the map, but we knew something the press seemed not to know - the whereabouts of the Second Army - as we were now back in it and presumably the rest was not far off, since we now received daily signals, rations and dispatches. It seems two more Rhine bridges were in our hands. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Friday, 9th March 1945 The three airborne divisions now formed an independent corps, the Airborne Corps, and with another river crossing in the offing, this seemed significant. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Saturday, 10th March 1945
I received two days’ Brussels leave. I shared a room with two others in the Hotel West End. I arrived first and the other two arrived together and turned out to be the bridge master who suffered an injury on the Escaut Canal six months previously, and his sergeant. I gave them the double bed and moved to the single one. I then went out on a personal recce and came back with a map of Brussels, an officer’s khaki collar and tie and tickets for two concerts, one of which was for the same night, a light concert by E.N.S.A. at the garrison Music Hall. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Sunday, 11th March 1945
My hospitality appeared to have been wasted as the two recipients seemed to have some sort of accommodation elsewhere! They turned up for breakfast and left again together, leaving me to enjoy the sights and culinary delights of Brussels followed by an afternoon tour of the Waterloo battlefield. The evening concert, at the Palais des Beaux-arts, was a Czechoslovak gala by the orchestra de la Chapelle Musicalle de la Reine Elizabeth, with works by Smetana and Dvorak. |
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