Armageddon - Max Hastings [261]
Meanwhile the Cameronians’ B Company had launched its own attack. One platoon successfully crossed 200 yards of open ground to reach its objective, a factory. But as soon as Jocks entered the yard the Germans fired on them, severely wounding the platoon commander. His men spent the rest of the day pinned down in the factory’s outdoor earth latrines. By the time another platoon followed across the open ground, the Germans were thoroughly awake. The rear two sections and platoon HQ were almost wiped out by machine-gun fire. The platoon commander, nineteen-year-old Cliff Pettit, found himself pinned down in a gully with some twelve survivors, alongside a dozen German prisoners. “We were completely surrounded,” he said. When they attempted to reach cover, several prisoners as well as six Cameronians were shot down. Pettit was left with just six men of the thirty with whom he had started the day.
At 1900 that evening, the Germans withdrew under orders. Hitler had acknowledged that the west bank of the Rhine was no longer defensible. Alpon was the last significant British action on the near shore. That night the Allies heard heavy explosions as the river bridge ahead of them was blown. Sixth Cameronians had lost four officers and 157 men. Next day, 10 March, the battalion searched the battlefield for its dead. They found one officer of C Company, Lieutenant Ken Clancey, still alive but mortally wounded. He was the third son of his parents to die in the Second World War. Bill Kilpatrick, Cliff Pettit’s platoon sergeant, was awarded a DCM for fighting on through the battle after being three times wounded.
Cliff Pettit felt afterwards that his first serious action exposed the inadequacy of his training. He had been taught how to handle setpiece operations, but was at a loss about how to behave when command broke down. “I’d no idea how to operate with tanks. I had no wireless training. I felt very conscious of the lack of flexibility in British Army tactics. We had not learned nearly enough about how to cope with unexpected situations.” Nor, it seemed, had his senior officers. The brigade commander was sacked after the battle. The 6th Cameronians were relieved that their CO returned to take over command from his incompetent temporary replacement. The men of 4th KOSB, who had seen hard fighting on the Cameronians’ flank, were infuriated to hear the BBC describe the German stand at Alpon as “of nuisance value only.” In reality, this little battle for an obscure German hamlet displayed the defenders’ usual energy and determination, together with familiar shortcomings among the attackers. Here, once again, was a situation in which the Allies had been unable effectively to employ the huge paper advantage of their firepower. There was never an easy way to win the struggle for Germany, but bungling on the scale which took place at Alpon on 8 and 9 March 1945 contributed mightily to the Allies’ difficulties.
GERMANS
AS THE ARMIES drove deeper into Germany, many American and British soldiers recoiled from the human misery they beheld. “I do loathe all this destruction and suffering,” Captain David Fraser wrote home on 15 March.
I haven’t got at all the right temperament for war. I loathe the sufferings of the old and the children, of whatever nationality. It is only possible to hate from a distance. You know people chuckle and say “1000 more bombers over somewhere last night” with glee, but when one sees the results one feels nothing but pain. Please don’t misunderstand me—I know very well that the Germans started it . . . They deserve it back and it’s probably no bad thing that they’ve had it—but it’s still impossible to relish the sufferings of civilians.
It was a nice question whether the young British officer would have considered twenty-five-year-old Maria Brauwers deserving of his sympathy. She found it harder