Today In Military History - Moyland Wood 18 Feb 45

[Rifleman62]

Feature in the current The Devils' Blast. LCol (Retd) Norm Donogh participated in the battle. Posted in seven parts.

THE RHINELAND CAMPAIGN
By
Lieutenant-Colonel Norman R. Donogh

AUTHOR’S NOTES

In September 2008 I was invited to Europe to deliver three lectures and to participate in British Army on-site battlefield studies of the German Rhineland campaign of February-March 1945.  It was centred, as far as the Royal Winnipeg Rifles were concerned, on the Battle of Moyland Wood.

This was a great, cleverly-designed and fiercely-fought battle by our Regiment.  It was cited for its planning and execution but above all for the determination and courage of members of the Regiment that made the plan work.  The casualties were heavy:  we lost 44 percent of our rifle companies’ strength in killed and wounded in one short day.

The editor of The Devil’s Blast, Rifleman62, firmly requested “a detailed report” on this. 

Fifteen years ago I had written a monograph on the battle, largely based on an excellent memoir of Brigadier-General George Aldous, MC, plus my own recollections, some extensive research, a good after-action report by 7 Canadian Infantry Brigade, and a weekend meeting with General Aldous and Sergeant Fred Bragnalo of Thunder Bay.  This, plus some updated material by historian Lieutenant-Colonel Brian Reid, formed the basis of my three lectures.  Two of these are reproduced verbatim (plus certain additions in parenthesis relating to Regimental people), with a lead-in section on OPERATION VERITABLE.  I have omitted PART TWO – the second lecture – involving 2nd Division’s operations from Winnipeg lines at Louisendorf to the Goch-Calcar Road. 

So here goes … !

BACKGROUND

On 8 February 1945, OPERATION VERITABLE – that opened the great battle for the Rhineland – commenced.

For the First Canadian Army it involved breaking out of its winter position in the Nijmegen-Groesbeek area of The Netherlands and attacking through the northern end of the Siegfried Line to destroy all German formations on the west bank of the Rhine river opposite Wesel.

The U.S. Ninth Army was to strike from the south to reach the junction point near Wesel.  But this part of the plan was heavily delayed.  The Germans released water from the Roer dams, flooding the areas in front of the Ninth Army, successfully keeping it out of the operation until 22 February – a day after the fierce Battle of Moyland Wood was completed.

This critical time gap enabled the Germans to move several additional divisions north against the First Canadian Army sector.

One essential area in the Canadian Army advance was a ridge of high ground just short of the Goch-Calcar Road, the final Canadian Army objective of VERITABLE.  The conifer-covered ridge was called Moyland Wood, and south of it was a vital piece of hilly ground at the village of Louisendorf.

Around midnight 7/8 February, as a prelude to VERITABLE, the German town of Cleve – the first major centre behind Germany’s Siegfried Line – was virtually destroyed by some 700 RAF bombers.

Five hours later – at 0500 hours 8 February – VERITABLE commenced as Canadian and British artillery undertook an unbelievably heavy concentration of fire in a deafening 5 ½ -hour cannonade.  One planned 10-minute stoppage in the fire plan for the 1,034 guns and rocket launchers – in which smoke was used to draw, and spot, defensive fire – was the only break in the heavy fire that rained 2,500 tons of explosives on enemy positions and supply routes.

At 1030 hours 8 February, 2nd Canadian Division and British forces launched an attack in the Reichwald Forest area, a northern anchor of the Siegfried Line.  Later that afternoon and early the next morning, 3rd Canadian Division attacked to the north of the Reichwald Forest and Nijmegen-Cleve Road.

For the next three days the Royal Winnipeg Rifles fought both enemy and rising flood waters as the Germans blew holes in dykes and deliberately flooded areas, including the Nijmegen-Cleve Road, along the line of advance.  First on foot, then in lightly-armoured buffaloes (amphibious tracked vehicles) the battalion took objective after objective; towns and outposts above the water.

In this action the attacking companies boarded the buffaloes at Wyler Meer and were carried across flooded land toward Keeken and the Custom House at Alter Rhein.  Dismounting on dry ground “A” and “B” Companies surged forward to take Keeken; “C” Company took the Custom House and “D” Company held the area between.  A number of prisoners were taken at no cost to the Regiment.

But throughout the action rising floodwater finally poured into the houses and, mission accomplished, the Regiment was ordered back to Nijmegen when buffaloes became available for house-to-house pickup.  In “D” Company, the withdrawal order was carried from platoon to platoon by the Company Commander, Major L.H. Denison, who rode bareback through the flooding on a commandeered farm horse.

By 12 February, the now-dubbed “Water Rats” reached Cleve, and prepared for the next major advance through the Rhineland.

In the next stage of battle, the 15th (Scottish) Division, advancing on the Cleve-Calcar Road, met stubborn opposition.  Two of its brigades – 13th and 46th – had difficulty moving from the Bedburg area southeast of Moyland, two miles away.

Because of flooding between Moyland and the Rhine, the advance had to be through high-ridged Moyland Wood that ran from Bedburg to a point south and east of Moyland.  Fighting was bitter indeed, and for the 46th Brigade was “the worst experience they had endured since the campaign began”, according to its divisional history.  The brigade managed to reach a lateral road which ran from the village of Moyland southwest through the forest.  It could go no further.

On 15 February the 3rd Canadian Division took over the 15th (Scottish) Divisional front.  So narrow was the front between the flooded Rhine flats and the corps on its right moving toward Goch that only one brigade could be fed in at one time.  The brigade was the 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade – the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Regina Rifle Regiment and 1st Canadian Scottish.


PART ONE: RHINELAND CAMPAIGN
(First Battlefield Lecture, September 2008)

May I please be permitted some general comments before dealing with the subject at hand.

At the outset I want to thank you for inviting me to join in these battlefield studies.  I also want to bring warm regimental greetings to all participants and to those gallant United Kingdom units with which our Regiment served in the 1884 Nile campaign, the South African war around the turn of the last century, the two World Wars, the Korean conflict, NATO operations in Germany during the Cold War and peacekeeping duties in various areas, including the Balkans and, currently, Afghanistan.

Also, when my band director learned that members of a Gurkha regiment would be involved in these studies, I was asked to give them a salute to pass on to the Band of the Brigade of Gurkhas.  At the Quebec International Military Music Festival in August of last year, the two bands, plus the green-clad Voltigeurs, formed a natural and close association including marching at the proper rifle rate of 140 paces to the minute.  I wouldn’t recommend it for the kilted 15th Scottish.  The Gurkha band, as befits the bold and active Gurkha tradition, sometimes pushed it to 150 paces.  This left our band with only one counter-measure, to double-past at 160 paces while lustily playing The Keel Row on their brass and reeds.  I understand the Gurkhas first earned their green jackets in the mid-19th century while serving alongside the 60th Rifles in India.

I also want you to excuse my constant referral to my text.  What prompted it was that when I wanted to pay tribute to Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Horrocks, whom our division highly esteemed when we served in 30 Corps, I found I had to grope for several minutes before his name came to mind …    a fading 85-year-old memory.

As you know, there were constant shufflings in the first Canadian Army, reminiscent of the couplings and partner-trading in a free-love hippie commune.  Our involvement with 30 Corps is one example.  And, just before the action I am about to describe, the 15th Scottish Division returned to 30 Corps while its 46th Brigade remained under command of 2 Canadian Corps.

The ferocious fighting undertaken by the 15th Scottish from the Bedford area southeast to Moyland was surely a top example of courage and endurance.  In taking two-thirds of the three-mile-long Moyland Wood down to a lateral road that cut northeastward through the forest to the village of Moyland, the bitter fighting by its 46th Brigade, was described in the division’s history as “the worst experience they had endured since the campaign began”.

On 15 February 1945 the 3rd Canadian Division took over the 15th Scottish front.  So narrow was the front between the flooded Rhine flats and 30 Corps to our right that only a single brigade could be fed in at one time.  That brigade was the 7th Canadian, consisting of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, the Regina Rifles, and the Canadian Scottish of Vancouver, all from Western Canada.

For 7th Brigade the Battle of Moyland Wood began the next day, 16 February.  The task:  a two-pronged attack to open the road to Calcar.  The Regina Rifles, supported by a squadron of Churchill tanks from 3rd Scots Guards, were to pass through 46th Brigade, cross the lateral road, and clear the southeastern section of Moyland Wood, a heavily-defended pine ridge some 1,800 yards long.  The Royal Winnipeg Rifles, on the right, were to capture the hilly feature of Louisendorf two miles south of Moyland.  1st Canadian Scottish, in reserve for the initial action, were to attack along the southern edge of Moyland Wood towards the farmsteads at Rosskamp and Heselerfeld.

 

[Rifleman62]

Louisendorf

On the right the Royal Winnipeg Rifles’ assault on 16 February, with support from two squadrons of Churchill tanks from the 3rd Scots Guards, went well from its well-organized start.  Instead of the usual procedure of having the infantry march from its assembly area to the Forming-Up Place (the FUP) and then arrange its assault formations prior to crossing the start line, this was a mobile action from the beginning.
 
The Rifles were picked up from an assembly area back near Bedburg by Kangaroos (converted Ram tanks with the turrets removed) from the 1st Canadian Armoured Personnel Carrier Regiment, and moved to the FUP.  Here the British tanks, mine-exploding flail tanks and Kangaroos with the assault companies aboard shook out in battle formation and rolled across the start line at 1000 hrs with “A” and “C” Companies leading and “B” and “D” in a second wave.

The German artillery and rocket fire was extremely heavy, but both the speed of advance and the protection offered by the Kangaroo armour meant that casualties were light on the approach to the village.  Each troop of Kangaroos carried a company of Rifles, and on reaching their various objectives the troops leapt over the sides and assaulted.  (Lt. Harry Badger of “A” Company won the Military Cross for his leadership role.)

The flexibility of Kangaroo-mounted troops was proven when “D” Company, held in reserve at the start line for one hour before heading straight for its objective (a group of outlying farm buildings), was just ready to dismount at its delivery point when it was ordered to reinforce “A” Company in the village because fighting was fierce.  The troop leader turned right, changed formation to line ahead, and carried the company right up to the village square in front of the church.

Louisendorf was defended by a battalion-strength battle group, and casualties were high on both sides in the ensuing battle.  But the village was taken by the tanks and infantry by 1700 hours.  Some 240 prisoners were taken:  the rest were killed, wounded or driven out.

The Germans obviously realized that Louisendorf provided a jumping-off place for an assault toward the Hochwald and then on to the Rhine.  They saturated the village through all of the 17th and 18th with fire.  The war diary described it as the heaviest shelling the battalion had ever been subjected to.  Despite this the Rifles were able to move “C” and “D” Companies and the Carrier Platoon several hundred yards to the far edges of the village.  There a patrol from the Scout Platoon reported that increasing enemy movement indicated a counter-attack was pending.

At 0300 hours the next morning – the 19th – a wireless-equipped patrol from the Scout Platoon slipped from its forward position to a building in a small hamlet south of Louisendorf in enemy-held territory. 

Its job was to report on enemy activity, and to return by 0900 hours, because at noon the 4th Brigade of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division was to launch its attack under a heavy bombardment through the Rifles’ forward positions.

Not only that, our Regiment had been ordered to move out of the line that night, as it was badly needed for action at Moyland Wood. The Rifles’ 26-year-old Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Lockhart (Lockie) R. Fulton, DSO, ED, offered to lay down a smokescreen to extricate the Scout Patrol, but its commander, Sgt. J. Ivan “Red” McIvor, said his basement position would be safe during the artillery barrage and the scouts could assist advancing troops.  And that is precisely what happened.

The Essex Scottish of 4th Brigade, supported by a squadron of tanks from the Fort Garry Horse – a Winnipeg armoured regiment – launched their attack on the right wing of the Brigade but had to go to ground temporarily just after leaving the Winnipeg Rifles’ forward positions because of very heavy small arms and mortar fire.  But the tanks continued forward. This action was best described later by the Fort Garry Horse squadron commander – Major Alex Christian, a Winnipegger whom we called Fletcher.  Major Christian reported that, as he lacked infantry support, he was at the mercy of the Germans who were knocking out his tanks with their Panzerfausts (bazookas).  “Suddenly”, he said “a Winnipeg Rifles soldier appeared and wanted to know if we needed help.  From then on it was like a Wild West shooting spree.  We’d move a tank around the corner and with these fellas shooting from the hip it wasn’t long before opposition ceased.”  The Scouts had led one tank to a group of enemy-held buildings and proceeded to clean up the area.  The enemy tried to use a Panzerfaust on the tank, but were immediately killed by the scouts.  Seventy prisoners were taken.

By the time advancing elements of the Essex Scottish had reached the scene this particular area had been cleared.  Sgt. Red McIvor won the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his leadership.  (The scouts with him were Cpl. Ian G. Sutherland, Cpl. W.C. Morgan and Rfn K.D. Chapman.)  The entire action in the Louisendorf area cost the battalion 78 casualties, 18 of them fatal.

Now I could have shortened this account considerably by quoting from Volume 3 of the Official History of the Canadian Army in WWII, which dealt with Northwest Europe.  In its 770 pages it managed to devote a total of 35 words to this short fierce Louisendorf battle.  I’ll read them:  “The attack on the right went well.  Kangaroos carried the Winnipeg Rifles through heavy shelling and rocket fire to their objectives, which they consolidated by five o’clock.  Suffering remarkably few casualties the battalion took 240 prisoners.”  The history at least could have mentioned the 70 prisoners taken by the Scout Platoon, bringing the Rifles’ total for the Louisendorf action to 310.

PART THREE:  MOYLAND WOOD
(Third Battlefield Lecture, September 2008)

On 16 February, the same day the Royal Winnipeg Rifles launched their attack on Louisendorf, the Regina Rifles tried to move southeast across the lateral road into the final 1,800-yard section of Moyland Wood.  They were hit with heavy flanking fire from a wooded area on the west side of the lateral road on their left that reportedly had been cleared earlier.  It took the entire day for the Reginas to secure the woods west of the lateral road.

On the first day of battle, the “B” Company Commander came across a Cameronian officer and five men who had been held by the enemy for 24 hours, and incorporated them in his defensive position which he was establishing as a base for the next day’s operation.

One Regina company, attacking eastward along the south side of the wood, sent one platoon into the wood.  The enemy actually allowed it in, by simply moving to higher ground, then closed in behind it.  Counter-attacks by the Reginas to free the entrapped platoon were driven off.

When the Reginas renewed the attack on the 17th, they were stalled by heavy mortar and artillery fire.  Their difficulties were compounded by deadly air-bursts as shells detonated in the treetops.

Meanwhile the reserve battalion, 1st Canadian Scottish, advanced through open country on the Reginas’ right.  Despite very heavy fire, the battalion took Heselerfeld and Rosskamp, and held them for three days despite repeated counter-attacks and constant fire.

In that three-day action, Can Scott Acting Corporal P.P. Katchonoski, who took charge when both the commander and sergeant became casualties, won the DCM for boldly directing his platoon’s defense.

On the 18th, the third day of the battle, the Regina Rifles again attacked, this time from the southwest side of Moyland Wood.

The enemy, to this point, had been from the 346 Fusilier Battalion, 60 Panzer Grenadier Regiment, and 116 Panzer Division.  They were relieved first by a battalion from the 6th Parachute Division, newly arrived from North Holland, and soon by the strong 19th and 21st Parachute Regiments and, later, the 18th Parachute Regiment, all from the 7th Parachute Division.

Again, despite strong, determined advances, the Regina Rifles were counter-attacked and repulsed.  Heavy machine gun fire from the woods, and continuous heavy artillery fire from across the Rhine River, stalled the advance of the exhausted battalion and supporting infantry from the Canadian Scottish.  The Canadian Scottish did manage to push a weakened, 64-man company into the southeastern tip of the wood to cut off the enemy between them and the Reginas, but it was surrounded during consolidation and in the counter-attack only nine men managed to get back to their original position.

The Canadian Scottish northern flank, left open by this disaster to “C” Company, was quickly sealed off by the regimental carriers and a troop of tanks from the Fort Garry Horse.  The remaining companies made little headway towards Calcar and during the evening had to beat off six counter-attacks by German paratroopers, while a Canadian Scottish outpost at Heselerfeld was overrun.

The crust of the German defences showed no signs of cracking and it was apparent the strength of the German defenders had been severely underestimated.

The time had come for a new tack.  Failure to drive the stubborn enemy from the Moyland Wood salient was seriously delaying the planned advance of 2nd Canadian Corps.  The Royal Winnipeg Rifles, still holding the Louisendorf sector after their successful attack, were withdrawn on 20 February and shifted to Moyland Wood for the final attack the next day.

Rifles Action at Moyland

In switching from Louisendorf to Moyland Wood the Royal Winnipeg Rifles took advantage of every hour at their disposal.  The Brigade “O” Group, at which Colonel Fulton was to receive his orders for the February 21st attack, was set for 1330 hours on 20 February, but he knew the outline of the plan and early that morning he pre-briefed the company and platoon commanders and supporting arms, enabling them to study the ground from concealed observation points.  He then gave his own full orders at 1830 hours that evening for the attack, which would begin the next morning at 1000 hours.

Before dealing with the detailed operations, I would like to make two general comments:

1.  The significance of the whole Moyland battle was how a very determined body of enemy infantry who, regardless of cost in lives, could so strongly delay our advance with fire and constant counter-attack, forcing us to mount a set-piece attack.

2.  The strength and quality of the enemy was seriously underestimated. At the beginning of OPERATION VERITABLE the Canadian Army faced one reinforced infantry division, the 84th.  During the Rhineland Battle this increased to a peak of ten divisions: three infantry, 84th, 180th and 190th; three panzer, 15th Panzer Grenadiers, 116th Panzer (which finally absorbed the greatly weakened 84th) and the Panzer Lehr, and, from the First Parachute Army, the 2nd, 6th, 7th and 8th Parachute divisions.  The history stated that “the German opposition had been formidable in both quantity and quality”, and singled out what it described as “the skilful and hard bitten paratroopers as the ones who continued to offer the fiercest resistance.”  It was on February 16th, the opening day of the Regina rifles/Canadian Scottish attack on the southeastern peninsula of Moyland Wood that Lt.-Gen. Herman Plochers 6th Parachute Division had relieved the 84th Division between the Cleve-Calcar road and the Rhine River.

That is the background for the final February 21st attack on Moyland Wood by the Royal Winnipeg Rifles.

The Battalion “O” Group, conducted by Col. Fulton at 1830 hours 20 February involved a plan that was both doctrinal and novel, in that it was based on proven tactical principles with some innovative tactics.

The southeast portion of Moyland Wood was a natural peninsula.  It extended for 1800 yards – one mile – from the north-south lateral road, and tapered to a point.  In the plan, this portion of the enemy-held wood was divided into six 300-yard-wide sectors, lettered A to F, each in turn to be systematically cleared, using all available support.

The Plan

This included a continuous fire plan designed to saturate the wood, beginning 30 minutes before H hour.  It would employ medium and field artillery, 4.2 inch mortars from the support battalion, the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa, 3 inch mortars from the infantry battalions in the brigade, and with unit anti-tank guns and machine-guns firing enfilade over open sights from the south flank.  The artillery would then be directed ahead of the advancing infantry at known or likely enemy positions north and east of the wood.  The lighter-calibre weapons – anti-tank guns and Vickers medium machine-guns from the CH of O – would continue to fire over open sights on the wood for a further 45 minutes in B Sector, 75 minutes in C, 120 minutes in D and 150 minutes in E Sector – a continuous fire coverage.

Four tanks from the Sherbrooke Fusiliers were to support the leading troops, two per company.  A major feature of the plan was to have twelve Wasps (carrier-borne flamethrowers); six each from the Winnipeg Rifles and Canadian Scottish, so employed that at all times three Wasps would be with each forward company.  These were rotated on a planned refuelling system.  This was to be the first use of flame by the battalion in forest fighting.

The attack was to begin on a two-company front:  “B” left, “D” right, with three Wasps each, striking northeast through A Sector over the central wooded ridge up to the forest’s edge facing the village of Moyland.  “A” and “C” companies, with rotating Wasps transferred to their front, would then enter the wood and strike southeastward to destroy the enemy systematically in B, C and D Sectors.  As a final move, “B” and “D” Companies would hand over their captured positions in A Sector to the Reginas.  “B” Company would then consolidate behind “A” and “C” Companies, while “D” Company would skirt the forest on the southwest side to attack and clear the southeastern tip of the wood in E Sector.

H hour was set for 1000 hours 21 February.

That was the plan.  Now I will discuss the action which, happily, closely followed it.

 

[Rifleman62]

The Costly Battle

Prior to the assault, the two leading companies – “B” and “D” – moved into the Regina Rifles area to form up.  They dug in, anticipating, quite correctly, heavy defensive fire.  The start line was a road running eastward from the lateral road along the southern edge of A Sector.

Even before H hour, enemy machine gun fire from a flanking position required “D” Company to clean them out.  This was accomplished by H minus 5 minutes.

Both “B” and “D” Companies were on the start line by H plus 10 minutes; the Sherbrooke Fusiliers were forward to give supporting fire.  The attack was accompanied by ear-splitting explosions as bursting shells and mortars combined with the crack of anti-tank guns and constant whine of ricocheting machine-gun bullets.

The advancing infantry moved through the woods under heavy fire from enemy machine guns and an artillery concentration.  A particular problem was enemy machine gun fire from the left flank, until that post was neutralized, and from machine gun fire in the centre.  The enemy paratroopers finally began to withdraw; most were killed by return fire before they could escape to a defended house just northeast of the wood on the edge of the village of Moyland.  Enemy paratroopers who managed to reach the house were hit by rocket fire from supporting typhoons of 84 Group RAF.

In the advance to the northeast side of the wood overlooking Moyland and its famous castle, the clearing of A Sector took 40 minutes. (Lt. Bob Gannon of “D” Company was killed; Lt. J.M. Millespie and Lt. F. Marlyn of “B” Company were wounded.)

The next phase of the attack was a two-company assault – “A” right and “C” left – from B Sector southeastward.  B Sector was cleared without opposition and on schedule.

But the clearing of C Sector was hotly contested.  Subjected to heavy machine gun and mortar fire and determined resistance, the attacking riflemen took mounting casualties, much from enemy air-burst artillery, and some from our own guns.  The enemy, being dug in, did not suffer as much.

The same opposition continued throughout the clearing of D Sector.  But the attack prevailed, with support from Wasps and covering fire from tanks at the south side of the wood.

“The flamethrowers terrified the enemy”, the after-action report stated.  “The method of working the Wasps was to have three with each forward company at all times:  when their fuel was expended they withdrew, and the six in reserve replaced them.  This leapfrogging and relieving kept Wasps continually with the infantry.  It proved of double value, first to bolster the morale of our troops, while undermining that of the enemy.”

Let me deal specifically with each company during the clearing of Sectors B to D.

In “A” Company, all four officers were put out of action, two killed and two wounded. (Lt. P.E. Walsh and Lt. K.P. Pritchard were killed, and the two wounded were Capt. J.R. Morgan, the company commander, who was hit by a sniper, and Lt. Harry Badger.)

The advance was painful and step-by-step, with close-quarter fighting controlled by the remaining NCOs.  The enemy positions were revealed only when they opened fire at close range.  The German paratroopers were well dug in and camouflaged, and the advancing troops had to crawl forward determinedly to reach cover and fire back.

At that stage the decimated company regrouped under the leadership of Sgt. Alf Richardson, MM.  Wasps and the remaining riflemen and NCOs, supported by tank fire from the road southeast of the wood, made a co-ordinated assault up the ridge – the final objective of the company – and dug in.

The high ground in front of Sgt. Fred Bragnalo’s point platoon provided an excellent view of the open ground below and a small wooded area 200 yards further east.  Three enemy counter-attacks of 30 to 40 paratroopers each were launched from the wooded area, but were caught in the open by artillery fire directed by a forward observation officer in the “A” Company position.  A heavy toll was inflicted.  Indeed, throughout the entire day’s operation, casualties were heavy on both sides because of the determined resistance by enemy paratroopers and the equally determined assault by “A” Company.  At the end of the day only 29 men were left in the company.

In “C” Company’s sector-by-sector advance, its total casualties equalled those of “A” Company.  Two of its platoon commanders were wounded (Lt. E.E. Gridley, wounded for the third time in action, and Lt. Bruce MacDonald who won the Military Cross).

The depleted company, (commanded by Major C.S. Platts), aided by flamethrowers, attacked an enemy position containing a pocket of paratroopers reportedly numbering 250, on high ground in the wood.  The enemy was dug in and supported by mortar fire and air-burst artillery, its position ringed with mines and trip-wire.  But with flame, heavy machine gun fire and assaulting infantry, the position was stormed and overrun.  Some were killed, a number escaped, and only five were taken out alive.

By the time “A” and “C” companies had consolidated their positions at 1330 hours – three and a half hours after the beginning of the battle – Sectors B, C and D had been taken despite determined opposition.  The Carrier Platoon Commander who had directed the leapfrogging and refueling of the Wasps took his platoon to reinforce “A” Company and to take over the composite group.  “C” Company was left with two officers and 40 men.  “B” Company, which had moved forward to consolidate with them, had two officers and 50 men left.

The final stage of the battle – the clearing of E Sector to the eastern tip of the forest – was assigned to “D” Company.

On turning over its northern position opposite Moyland to the Reginas, “D” Company withdrew, skirted the south edge of the wood, and moved in to link up with the heavily-depleted “C” Company.  From here it attacked, beginning at 1400 hours.

One of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers’ tanks had been knocked out, but another helped shoot in the assault.  The artillery fire plan for F Sector – beyond the wood – had to be repeated to prevent enemy reinforcements from entering E Sector, and to cut down enemy trying to retreat.

E Sector was defended by machine-gun fire and paratroopers in pits, surrounded by anti-tank and anti-personnel mines hastily strewn through the area.  But “D” Company, with three tanks up with the leading troops, pressed forward, despite heavy casualties.

When E Sector was cleared to the southeast tip of the woods, “D” Company attempted to push forward to capture some houses in F Sector, full of enemy with machine guns.  Tanks could not support the attack because of mines.  The enemy paratroopers then launched a wild counter-attack.  Throwing grenades and firing Schmeisers from the hip, they charged “D” Company positions but were driven back.

The still-determined enemy continued to harass the positions with machine gun and mortar fire.  (At this point Lt. George Aldous, commanding the leading platoon, was temporarily blinded by grenade fragments, but after medical attention returned to direct his platoon throughout the night.  He was awarded the Military Cross.)  Casualties continued to mount, and “D” Company stretcher-bearers, with visible Red Cross armbands, were targets.  One, Rfn. Mervin Milson, although wounded when a bullet penetrated his helmet, continued helping casualties.  For this he was awarded the first of two Military Medals he won during the final months of the war.

“The company’s success,” wrote Canadian Army historian Col. C.P. Stacey, “owed much to the skill and inspiration of its commander, Major L.H. Denison, who went from platoon to platoon keeping his men moving forward despite increasing casualties, and led the assault on the final enemy position.”

Major Denison, who won the Distinguished Service Order for his actions, went on to organize the company’s defenses at the edge of the trees.  They repelled two sharp counter-attacks during the night.  “D” Company was to end the day with three officers and 50 men.  (The fatal casualties included company 2/ic Capt. Bill Ormiston and Cpl. George Quovadis when a mine blew up their carrier.)

As part of the night defence, tanks were brought forward to cover enemy-held houses in F Sector, and the Scout Platoon was dispatched to patrol nearby crossroads, where they repelled another enemy counter-attack.

The Battle of Moyland Wood was over.  But the cost was high.  Of the 183 casualties sustained by the Regiment in the Louisendorf-Moyland action, 105 – 26 of them fatal – occurred on the final day among the conifers of Moyland Wood.  Of the 105, 92 were from the four greatly-under strength rifle companies:  they entered the battle with a combined strength of 207, and suffered 44% casualties in a single day.

(One surviving example of the fierce Moyland Wood battle is Harold Prout, a bren-gunner on a Wasp Carrier who had his jaw and most of his tongue shot away by a German 88-millimetre shell.  He has constantly worn a thick bandage over his lower face for 65 years.  He was later enrolled in the French Legion of Honour.)

An Assessment

This bitterly-fought, one-day operation, while costly, did overcome fanatical resistance from fire-supported dug-in paratroopers.

Casualties would have been higher, save for the use of tanks, the aggressive employment of flame-throwers and a well-coordinated fire plan.

The following comments are repetitious, but worth emphasizing:

“The fire plan”, stated the after-action report, “employed all the available weapons of neighbouring units, including divisional artillery and the 4.2 inch mortars and machine guns of the CH of O.  The field and medium artillery were most effective once our infantry were in the wood, firing at known enemy positions outside the wood, and sealing off approaches and escape routes.  Anti-tank guns and light machine guns of units in the area, and the machine guns of CH of O fired across the wood on flat trajectory – preventing the reinforcement of the assault sector.

“84 Group RAF gave great assistance on 21 Feb.  They flew approximately 100 sorties against the enemy machine gun and mortar posts.  They too helped seal off approaches and escape routes.”

With this support, the infantrymen and highly effective flamethrowers fought a ferocious step-by-step battle, suffering mounting casualties against a determined enemy.
But the attacking Rifles were equally determined and fully committed.  And they prevailed.  The German 6th Parachute Division pulled its front back beyond Calcar.  The road to Calcar was open.

 

[Rifleman62]

Picture Captions

Buffalo Amphibious Vehicle and infantry, Nijmegen, 8 Feb 45

Infantrymen of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles in a Buffalo amphibious vehicle taking part in Operation VERITABLE en route from Niel to Keeken, Germany, 9 Feb 45

Personnel of the Regina Rifles preparing to attack enemy in Moyland Wood near Calcar, Germany, 16 Feb 45

Kangaroo

 

[Rifleman62]

Picture Captions

Tac-Sign 55. Rear view of Wasp flamethrower carrier moving through Dutch town. Note the one large flame fuel tank across the back.

Close-up of the vulnerable crew stations of the Wasp flamethrower carrier

Harold Prout

17 Sep 08-Louisendorf, Germany- LCol Norm Donogh describes the Royal Winnipeg Rifles 2000 yard open field assault on Louisendorf near Moyland Wood to a group of British officers.

 

[dangerboy]

Interesting reading, thanks for posting it.

 

[Rifleman62]

Valour in the Rhineland Campaign

The following two posts are PDF's of the actual valour decoration recommendation. It is interesting to view the staffing and signatures as the recommendation went up the chain of command.

 

[Rifleman62]

Valour in the Rhineland Campaign

 

[vonGarvin]

Seeing the Tac Symbol of "55" makes me ask the question: Wasn't that the number assigned to The Royal Canadian Regiment for their tac symbols in World War Two?

 

[mariomike]

Around midnight 7/8 February, as a prelude to VERITABLE, the German town of Cleve – the first major centre behind Germany’s Siegfried Line – was virtually destroyed by some 700 RAF bombers.

R(C)AF bombing of Goch and Kleve 7/8 Feb 1945 in support of Operation VERITABLE:

"Goch:
464 aircraft - 292 Halifaxes, 156 Lancasters, 16 Mosquitos - of Nos 4, 6 and 8 Groups. 2 Halifaxes lost.

This raid was preparing the way for the attack of the British XXX Corps across the German frontier near the Reichswald. The Germans had included the towns of Goch and Kleve in their strong defences here. The Master Bomber ordered the Main Force to come below the cloud, the estimated base of which was only 5,000ft, and the attack opened very accurately. The raid was stopped after 155 aircraft had bombed, because smoke was causing control of the raid to become impossible.

Considerable damage was caused in Goch but most of the inhabitants had probably left the town. Approximatley 30 local people died. There were heavy casualties among Russians, Italians and Dutchmen who had been brought in as forced workers to dig the local defences; they were quartered in 2 schools, which were bombed, and more than 150 of them died. The number of German soldiers killed is not known.

Kleve:
295 Lancasters and 10 Mosquitos of Nos 1 and 8 Groups. 1 Lancaster lost.

285 aircraft bombed at Kleve, which was battered even more than Goch. Few details are available from local reports, and casualties may not have been heavy ( most of the civilian population was absent ) but, after the war, Kleve claimed to be the most completely destroyed town in Germany of its size.

The British attack, led by the 15th (Scottish) Division, made a successful start a few hours later but quickly ground to a halt because of a thaw, which caused flooding on the few roads available for the advance, and also because of the ruins which blocked the way through Kleve. Lieutenant-General BG Horrocks, the Corps Commander in charge of the attack, later claimed that he had requested that Kleve should only be subjected to an incendiary raid but Bomber Command dropped 1,384 tons of high explosive on the town and no incendiaries."

Horrocks later said that this had been "the most terrible decision I had ever taken in my life" and that he felt "physically sick" when he saw the bombers overhead.

“One thing, during this preparatory stage, caused me almost more worry than anything else; the handling of the immense air resources which were to support us. General Crerar told me that in addition to the whole of the 2nd Tactical Air Force the heavies from Bomber Command were also available. And he put this question to me: ‘Do you want the town of Cleve taken out?’ By ‘taking out’ he meant, of course, totally destroyed.

This is the sort of problem with which a general in war is constantly faced, and from which there is no escape. Cleve was a lovely, historical Rhineland town. Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII’s fifth wife came from there. No doubt a lot of civilians, particularly women and children, were still living there. I hated the thought of its being ‘taken out’. All the same, if we were to break out of this bottle-neck and sweep down into the German plain beyond it was going to be a race between the 15th Scottish Division and the German reserves for the hinge, and all the German reserves would have to pass through Cleve. If I could delay them by bombing, it might make all the different to the battle. And after all the lives of my own troops must come first. So I said ‘Yes’.

But I can assure you that I did not enjoy the sight of those bombers flying over my head on the night before we attacked. Generals, of course, should not have imagination. I reckon I had a bit too much.”
General Sir Brian Horrocks, ‘A Full Life’

Kleve:
http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/images/c4963.jpg

Operation VERITABLE:
http://ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/Canada/CA/Victory/Victory-18.html
http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/all-anniversaries/24078-operation-veritable-65-years.html

Trivia:
It is believed that all fallen Canadian soldiers of the Rhineland battles, who were buried in German battlefields, were reinterred  at Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery in Holland.  General H.D.G. Crerar, who commanded Canadian land forces in Europe, ordered that Canadian dead were not to be buried in German soil. 
The Canadians buried at Reichswald, and other German cemeteries, are entirely RCAF, with the exception of one Chaudière regiment soldier, whose remains were found in 1948.
It is one of the few cases where bodies were moved across international frontiers.

 

[exspy]

R62,

Great post.  The battles undertaken towards the end of the Second World War were among the costliest fought, but the most unreported.  Your example of the official history's version is a case in point.

Thanks for making this available.

Technoviking - The senior battalion in the senior brigade of each Infantry Division had the same tac sign of a white '55' on a red square.

Cheers,
Dan.

 

[vonGarvin]

Technoviking - The senior battalion in the senior brigade of each Infantry Division had the same tac sign of a white '55' on a red square.

Thanks! 

 

[Nfld Sapper]

Technoviking - The senior battalion in the senior brigade of each Infantry Division had the same tac sign of a white '55' on a red square.

Wouldn't that cause confusion?

 

[Old Sweat]

Wouldn't that cause confusion?

The vehicles also had a tac sign indicating the division. As it also was unlikely that troops from the Royal Regiment of Canada of the 4th Brigade of the Second Division and the Royal Winnipeg Rifles of the 7th Brigade of the 3rd Division would be in the same area. If they were, the blue sign of the 2nd Division and the french grey sign of the 3rd Division would distingusih them.

Further to Rifleman 62's post, then Lieutenant Donogh, despite his mild manner, was a warrior. It was and remains frustrating to me that he refused to allow me to mention his exploits in the regimental history. The one that escaped his eagle eye happened at the closing stage of Moyland Wood. Norm was commanding Scout Platoon at the time, and his stalwart bunch of soldiers ambushed and broke up a German counter-attack as it was forming up.

 

[Infantry_wannabe]

Reading this thread I noticed one of the pictures posted showed an elderly veteran with a bandage on his face. I was curious and googled his name: Harold Prout.

You don't get any more heroic than that man in my opinion.

http://www.canada.com/national/features/veday/story.html?id=75b17841-4cfb-4555-b028-768c1d47372c

 

[Rifleman62]

Harold Prout died this morning, 18 May 10.  We have lost two today, Harold and Col Parker.

If you ever feel sorry for yourself, read this story (as per the link at the previous post and as published in The Devils' Blast):


The price of freedom

Gwen and Harold Prout are examples of why Canadians of their age, those who fought and lived and died through the Second World War, are often referred to as members of "the greatest generation." They have the basic requirement for membership. They don't complain.

By The Ottawa Citizen May 1, 2005
 

  WINNIPEG - Gwen and Harold Prout are examples of why Canadians of their age, those who fought and lived and died through the Second World War, are often referred to as members of "the greatest generation." They have the basic requirement for membership. They don't complain.

They don't even complain that in their 55-year marriage, they've never been able to truly kiss. Harold lost his complete lower jaw and most of his tongue in February 1945 as retreating German forces were pushed into Germany and, with their backs to the wall in the Fatherland, fought with intensified ferocity.

He became the man in the plaster mask. The phantom of the war. The disfiguring wound seems to have been considered too unpleasant, and until now his story hasn't been told in the mainstream media. It should be, because it's often said that freedom has a price, and rifleman Harold Prout of the Winnipeg Rifles paid a big one.

There's a bumper sticker showing up during this 60th anniversary of the end of the war, declared by the federal government to be the Year of the Veteran: "If you can read this, thank a teacher. ... If it's in English, thank a veteran."

Thank Harold.

Sitting at the kitchen table in their upscale home in the Linden Woods subdivision, they were asked about the missing kisses. Gwen leaned across the table and drilled her forefinger into the centre of Harold's forehead. "Sure I can kiss him," she grinned. "Right there." They both laughed at length. Harold had to wipe tears from his eyes.

Harold's laughter is muffled under a large bandage that appears to cover an injury to the lower part of his face. It masks the fact there is no lower part to his face. The bandage is empty.

The gaping wound costs them more than kisses. His food has to be put through a blender, and then it's loaded into a special glass tube with a bulb on the end, much like a turkey baster. He feeds himself by removing the bandage and squeezing the food into his throat, a mouthful at a time. Gwen sits at the table facing his chair, which is usually empty. He sits immediately behind it on a sofa, looking away from the table. They read while they eat.

He wouldn't think of eating in public. He feels he would be uncomfortable sitting at a table with other diners and not eating. Worse than that, he fears he would make others uncomfortable. As a result, in 55 years of marriage the Prouts have not dined in restaurants, travelled, or accepted dinner invitations.

There's an upside, says Gwen, indicating with a sweep of a hand their beautiful two-storey home. "We saved a lot of money."

Like most veterans, Harold has a collection of war memorabilia. Some of it's scattered on the table with old and new photos. The old ones show a young man with a strong jaw. At some point when he was told the damage couldn't be repaired, he must have been depressed. Did he ever think suicide?

The question caused him to flare.

"Never! Never! I survived. I'm alive. Why would I ever consider such a thing?"

It's said nobody appreciates life more than one who has come close to losing it, and Mr. Prout is living proof. At the centre of his comfortable postwar life is a successful marriage. "Oh sure. There were lumpy spots," says Gwen, looking at Harold. She throws a beaming smile, and Harold returns it. His smile crinkles around his eyes. These two are probably closer than most couples. Gwen often finishes his sentences, and he doesn't object. For him, speaking requires more energy. He has to work harder to manipulate his stub of a tongue, and shout to be heard through his bandage/mask.

To a newcomer, his speech is at first fuzzy. His words filter through the mask and come out with a mushy quality. But after a few minutes the newcomer picks up the cadence and forgets there's anything unusual about the conversation. The man's eyes are so lively and expressive they more than compensate for the missing mouth.

Asked what he had for breakfast that day, Harold rhymes off a hearty meal. Orange juice. Oatmeal. Toast with peanut butter. He says he likes sausage and eggs but Gwen is in charge of both diets and she limits the intake of fats. She knows what she's doing. At 85 she's a striking woman and appears quite fit. Harold is stooping with age and has had heart surgery, but he too is agile, and, at 87, still drives.

Since everything is blended, would he notice if, for example, somebody skimped on the peanut butter?

"Oh, he'd know," laughs Gwen. "Actually, he's got quite a sweet tooth."

There's unintentional irony there. He doesn't have a tooth. Ice cream is one of his major weaknesses. His palate doesn't come in contact with his food, and it touches only the back of his shortened tongue, but he says he has a keen sense of taste and even though his food is blended, he can taste all ingredients. Perhaps in the same way a blind person develops more intense hearing, his remaining taste buds have become hypersensitive.

After two hours of conversation the interviewer was concerned Harold may be getting weary. The question went to Gwen. Is he getting tired? He's starting to sound like Donald Duck.

She burst into laughter again, pointed at Harold (she never calls him Harry) and said: "See? See? I told you." And then to the interviewer: "As he gets older his voice starts to sound funny when he gets tired. When he was younger it never changed, but now -- yes. A duck. That's good. He's starting to sound like a duck." Harold was wiping his eyes again, and laughing.

The laughter died when they were asked for details about their childhoods. These two were forged on the Prairie in the hard times of the Great Depression. They first met as children turned over to the Province of Manitoba for care, and housed in the Winnipeg Children's Home -- an orphanage by any other name.

"You'll have to bear with me," said Gwen. "I'll talk about it. But I'll cry."

- - -

Carefully preserved by Gwen is a letter written by Harold in England and postmarked Feb. 13, 1945 -- eight days before he lost his lower face. It's addressed to her in Winnipeg. It isn't a love letter, but the kind of newsy missive one would send to a close friend. The word "swell" appears often. He tells of a night out with a buddy and two American flyers. The Yanks were curious about the war at ground level and being members of the world's best paid military force insisted on buying all the drinks. British wits of the day said the problem with the Americans was that they were over-paid, over-sexed, and over here.

The letter didn't give details about the eight months after landing at Normandy's Juno Beach. The Winnipeg Rifles, nicknamed the "Little Black Devils" by the forces that had to face them, had been in the thick of it.

Harold was in the first wave at D-Day. He experienced battle at the Scheldt and the Leopold Canal. He was at Caen, the Breskens Pocket, Carpiquet and many mind-numbing smaller actions. He had been steeped in so much mud and blood he knew there was no glory in war.

There was no mention about how vulnerable he felt fighting from a Wasp flame thrower. Little bigger than a pick-up truck, the tracked carrier was open and had a crew of three. In the front seats were a driver and the flame gun operator. In the back was a man armed with a Bren gun to protect the rear, and trained to take over either of the front seats should one of those men be hit. That was Harold's position. He didn't mention how vulnerable a Wasp crew was in battle, with a large tank of jellied gasoline under pressure in its midst.

He joked about how, when the American flyers said war was better fought in the sky and away from the mud, he told them it made him comfortable to think if he was hit, "I wouldn't have nearly as far to fall."

Gwen and Harold had such similar backgrounds that they shared the same life. He was born in Portage la Prairie in 1918. His mother died before he reached school age and his father, unable to find work except in northern camps, placed his son and younger daughter in the care of the Winnipeg Children's Home. His kid sister, Florence, developed a close friendship in the home with a girl her age, named Gwen. Part of Gwen's role was playing big sister to her kid brother, Gordon Reid. They used their mother's maiden name, feeling anger at their father for dumping them. Even now she doesn't want to mention her original name.

When boys reached age 11 they were moved out of the home to attend the Knowles School for Boys. At age 16, with a Grade 10 education, they were sent into the world to fend for themselves. Girls stayed in the children's home to continue their education. At 16, they usually started supporting themselves by cleaning homes. Harold regularly visited his sister after he left the home. Gwen and Florence were always together and Harold shared their dreams and was their contact with the outside world.

Life in the home wasn't bad, says Gwen. It's talk of the earlier years that bring tears. Her parents went through a bitter divorce and her father won custody, then promptly dropped his children at the children's home. Because she was so young, about five, there were attempts to place her and Gordon with a foster family in the hope adoption would follow. They had bad luck. "People took in foster children because they needed the money, not because of a love for children. I never felt part of any family I was placed with."

With the tears increasing but her voice never faltering, she described their worst foster home. "There was a big heavy dining room table with fiddle legs. There were two big dogs. They terrified us. When the woman went out she'd tie us under the table and tell us to stay there or the dogs would get us. And she said if we soiled our underpants the dogs would get us. Sometimes I thought she would never come back." Eventually Gwen got up the nerve to tell a child protection worker what was happening, and brother and sister were moved to the children's home.

She remembers Saturday movies. "Every Saturday we could go to a movie, but they made us march there in a line. Everybody knew who we were and that we didn't have homes. It was embarrassing."

Harold knows the stories, and as Gwen tells them again, he wipes his eyes. When he picks up the conversation he tells of finding work on farms and at work camps in northern Manitoba. When war was declared, he joined the Rifles on June 14, 1940.

Late in the conversation, when asked if he would do anything differently if he had his life to live over, he laughed and said: "I wouldn't have gone to war!" Then he settled down and corrected that. "No. I would do it again. You couldn't say no. Your country needed you. All of your friends were joining up."

The pressure on young men included posters exhorting them to stand up and be men, bands playing and flags waving, and, from the previous war, there was a Rudyard Kipling poem called The Question.

If it be found when the battle clears,

Their death has set me free,

Then how shall I live with myself through the years

Which they have bought for me?

Like most soldiers, Harold had a nickname. He was called "H.E.," as in high explosive, not because of a character flaw, but because those were his initials. His middle name is Edward.

On the same day he wrote the letter in England, the Allied attempt to dislodge the Germans from the area west of the Rhine River failed, after having pushed them out of Holland and into Germany. While the two sides regrouped, the Allies built up strength, including Rifleman Prout, and drew new battle plans. The Germans dug in at Moyland Wood. Some planners claimed that when the push began along a 16-kilometre front, it would be another D-Day. Historian Terry Copp described the woods as brooding and dark, "a forest right out of Grimm's Fairy Tales." It provided cover for a determined and battle-hardened enemy.

"You have to understand," says Harold, "once an attack is launched you can't stop for anything or anybody." An armoured attack of this type moved ahead at 50 metres a minute.

Mr. Copp, writing in Legion Magazine in December 2002, says: "The Royal Winnipeg Rifles displayed outstanding skill as well as courage in the day-long battle that cost them more than 100 casualties, 26 of them fatal."

Harold has a copy of the regiment's casualty report for that day, Feb. 21, 1945, and it shows 105 casualties. Serviceman H-40711 H. Prout is listed among the wounded. There are no details about how individuals were wounded, or the extent of the wounds.

Up close and personal, it looked like this to Rifleman Prout: "It was an airburst from the best gun in the war -- the German 88. It blew me out of the carrier but didn't knock me out. The driver and gunner weren't injured. The man in the rear position in the Wasp beside me was killed."

His jaw wasn't just damaged, it was completely gone. His neck and left shoulder were chewed up and filled with shrapnel. Once on his feet, the wounded man had to save himself. The choice was wait and bleed to death, or try to make it back to the forward dressing station. With a bundled coat pressed into the gaping wound, he followed the tracks left by the advancing armored column. As he tells the story his surprise still shows. He made it.

"I walked right into the dressing station, and passed out. When I woke up, I was on a stretcher and they were pouring blood into me by tubes in both arms." At that point he decided he wasn't going to die.

- - -

When the Second World War started, Canada was still caring for some 2,000 in-patient wounded during the First World War. Across the nation, there were eight veterans hospitals. After the second war, there were 25,000 in-patients being cared for in 36 hospitals, and treatment centres across the country. The biggest was Sunnybrook, just north of Toronto. Named after the area in which it was built, Sunnybrook opened in 1946. Its several buildings stretched over three-quarters of a kilometre to accommodate 1,500 patients.

One of them was Harold Prout. By 1949, he had been through more operations than he cared to remember. "At least 20." Most surgeries simply tidied up the edges around his missing jaw. There was no hope of creating a prosthetic jaw. There was nothing to attach it to. The good news was he had put on weight. He spent so much time in hospitals in Europe being fed intravenously that his six-foot frame got down to little more than 100 pounds from his fighting weight of 150.

In 1946, Gwen travelled from Winnipeg by bus to visit him at Sunnybrook and after that they conducted a romance by correspondence. A group of Toronto teachers had made it a mission to visit Sunnybrook veterans. They were drawn to the quiet man in the mask. Eventually they came to know Gwen, then working at the Canadian Wheat Board in Winnipeg. They encouraged them to marry and helped arrange the ceremony. The newlyweds settled in Toronto, and for 26 years Harold worked as a technician in Sunnybrook's Prosthetic Services Centre. The teachers were their closest friends.

Getting Harold to feel comfortable enough to consider marriage also required some effort from another close friend, a young lawyer working in Ottawa and on his way to heading up the War Amps of Canada.

Cliff Chadderton was an officer with the Royal Winnipeg Rifles and lost his left leg at the Leopold Canal Oct. 10, 1944. He frequently chatted with Harold as the latter tuned Mr. Chadderton's artificial leg or refitted or modernized it. They had a lot in common. Harold had also been in the battle of the Leopold Canal. But what made them brothers was the realization that they were among 1,000 Winnipegers who stormed ashore at Juno Beach on D-Day.

In May 1949, the war amp was getting his leg tuned and talked to Harold. "He wouldn't leave the hospital. He wouldn't go out on the streets. I said enough. Get in the car. He spent some time at my home in Ottawa. My boys were small then, but they quickly got used to the bandage and I think Harold realized he didn't scare anybody." Without being asked, Harold brought up that visit during the interview. He said that visit, and the rambunctious boys, gave him confidence. A few months later, on Sept. 12, he married Gwen in the back yard of one of the teacher's homes.

Gwen says she knew there would be restrictions in her marriage. Their social life would be curtailed, but behind the bandage was the same guy who was so important to her during those tough growing up years. "We hoped for children, but there were miscarriages."

When Harold retired from Sunnybrook 18 years ago, they looked around and realized they had outlived most of their Toronto friends. Their relatives, lots of them, were in Winnipeg. They went home. The real estate markets in the different cities meant they were able to trade their modest Toronto house for a small mansion in Winnipeg.

"We used to play here," says Harold. "Where this subdivision is used to be mainly swamp. We used to be allowed to hike out here (from the children's home) and picnic and play." It amplifies their sense of having come home.

Epilogue

Harold appreciates irony, and at the end of the interview asked for time to get something from another room. He returned with a wrapper with printing on it. He explained he's having trouble keeping himself in bandages because the company that makes the best has gone out of business.

The kind of bandages that turn into plaster when soaked wouldn't have worked. They would have been to heavy, and they wouldn't absorb moisture. Saliva would trickle out at his neck. He found a special bandage that would be firm when dry, but softer than plaster and absorbent. Unable to find a new source, they bleach and clean old masks, but they're starting to look frayed.

Harold put the wrapper on the table. The eyes above the mask showed wry good humour.

The printing on the wrapper said: "Bande Elastique. Made in Germany."

© (c) CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc