Armageddon - Max Hastings [258]
The British 7th Somersets set off from Nijmegen aboard Shermans on the evening of 9 February, in a heavy downpour. The sky was lit up by flames from a brief and unusual German air raid on the Dutch town. The infantrymen clung to the tank hulls in sodden misery, fearful of falling off into the path of the vehicle behind. The rain was interrupted only by sleet. Early on the morning of the 10th, the column paused for the men to drink a few cans of self-heating soup. Private Len Stokes found that his hands and feet were utterly numbed, “at the last stage before frostbite.” They rode onwards all that day, and in the middle of the night reached the Reichswald. They crossed their start line at 1600 hours on 11 February, under orders to take the village of Hau. The attack stopped for a time, when the leading company reached a crossroads which was under heavy artillery fire. “Everyone was exhausted,” Stokes wrote in his diary, “the conditions were appalling—cold, wet and sleet, very dark between farms.” Eventually they all fell asleep on the floor of a farmhouse. The battalion reached its objective, but spent the following day and night under incessant mortar and shellfire. Late on 14 February, they were attacked by three German tanks with infantry support. The British had seen the Germans forming up, but were unable to make wireless contact with their supporting artillery. Stokes was sent as a runner to the rear, to pass map references orally. He had gone only sixty yards under German fire when he met the battalion commander, moving forward in a Bren-carrier to see for himself. The colonel dismounted, sprinted forward, checked the positions, ran back to his radio and called down devastating artillery fire which crushed the German advance in its tracks. Such was a typical single-unit action in Germany in February 1945.
The 21st Army Group’s month-long battle in the Reichswald became as miserable an experience as that of the Americans in the Hürtgen. Dai Evans, a private in 53rd (Welsh) Division, saw his neighbour looking ashen after a German mortar “stonk” and called to him: “What’s up, Frank? Are you hit?” The man replied simply: “No. I’ve shit myself.” His mates helped to get his trousers off, and wiped him with grass as best they could. Here was an uncommonly vivid demonstration of comradeship. Nor was it only private soldiers whose fears overcame their bodily processes. Soon after, as the platoon advanced Evans was dismayed to see their officer fall, apparently wounded. “It’s my ankle,” he said. Evans looked at the lieutenant’s leg and could see no blood. The officer said again: “I think I’ve sprained my ankle. I can’t go on.” Evans “suddenly realised that he was a bundle of nerves, scared almost out of his mind.” The private said, “You’d better stay there, sir. I’ll tell the stretcher-bearers where you are,” and marched onwards with the leaderless platoon. Evans was honest enough also to record, as few unit war diaries ever recorded, an occasion when his platoon simply ran away. They were in the midst of a Reichswald attack when he suddenly found himself alone. He called out by name to some of his squad. Nothing happened. “In the end, I had to give up the search and admit that they had done a bunk . . .”
On 14 February, Montgomery reported to Brooke that the British were opposed by all or part of four parachute, three infantry and two panzer or panzergrenadier divisions: “This is a pretty good party.” Three weeks later, he acknowledged grimly: “It is tough going, and many of the enemy paratroops refuse to surrender even when they have run out of ammunition, and have to be shot.” Allied soldiers often felt unembarrassed respect for German courage. One night, an enemy patrol crossed a river in front of the 6th Cameronians. The Germans were obliged to withdraw after being fired on, leaving a wounded man under