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ANNA HOEVE
AND HOUT BLERICK
Map 11
Go east out of Sevenum, being careful how you drive
round the sharp corners when you leave the centre of that small
town. Cross the railway line and go on between the straggling farms
until you come to the wide main road which runs south to Blerick,
parallel with the Maas. Turn right here, and drive a short way
towards Blerick. Then turn right again, this time on to a track
between fields without fence or hedge. (You may have to do some
adroit steering along here : there used to be a soft patch.) Turn
left and bump along another track towards Blerick again. Soon you
will come to Anna Hoeve. The country is flat, this country beside
the Maas, and if it is winter you will find it dreary. Just beyond
the long bulk of Anna Hoeve, and on the far side of the Blerick
road, the sombre woods seem to be frowning at you. On the farms the
few buildings rise, austerely angular, from the winter drabness of
the level, hedgeless fields. Such a farm is Anna Hoeve. Until
December 22nd it was the head-quarters of the three reconnaissance
squadrons in turn as, week about and under brigade command, they
guarded a long stretch of the Maas while the rest of the regiment
was out of action.
It was really too long a front to be guarded
adequately by one squadron. It stretched from just south of
Grubbenvorst to just north of Blerick, and it was a good
half-an-hour's walk from the northernmost troop headquarters—a
wooden bungalow in a clearing—to the southernmost a house just off
the Blerick road,
beyond the broad stream which the Royal Engineers had bridged and
the railway bridge which the retreating Germans had reduced to lumps
of masonry. And walk it was in the day time, at least along that
part of the main road where vehicles could easily be seen by the
enemy watching from Venlo. A railway the one whose bridge had
collapsed runs roughly parallel with the road and the river, between
them. To reach the Maas from Anna Hoeve you must cross fields, then
the main road, then open scrubby country, then the railway, a strip
of meadow, a tongue of wood and another road, which runs beside the
river. Down towards Blerick the main road and the railway run side
by side. From slit trenches, from the houses at the southern tip of
the tongue of wood, from the house perched above the railway
cutting, the squadron look-outs spied all day on the Germans across
the 150 yards of
water, and watched the distant white vertical trails which showed
where rockets were being fired at Antwerp. The Germans looked out
from similar hiding places on the other side. Sometimes their shells
shrieked over, ripping into the woods. Some-times, on cloudy days,
their new jet fighters swooped over, streaking ahead of their sound,
too fast for the Bofors gunners who were staying at squadron
head-quarters. Nights were tense. Look-outs were replaced by
listening posts close to the river. Ears were strained for the sound
of a German patrol coming across by boat ; eyes peered into the
darkness until familiar bushes became crouching men. It was not the
policy to cross to the German side, but the German patrols crossed
frequently at night and slipped easily through the thin screen of
outposts. Capt Kemsley, Sgt Sheppard, Cpl Russell and Cpl Stevenson,
looking for a fault in the field telephone line down the Blerick
road one night, found a cut in the cable that was obviously
intentional : the patrol had even crossed the main road and gone
into the woods to the west to bazooka vehicles of the Middlesex
Regiment parked at a farm
not far south of Anna Hoeve. The C Squadron troop
nearest Blerick found a German outpost of one man on the west bank
of the river. His relief was overdue, and he was a not unwilling
prisoner.
In the early part of the time on the Maas it was
impossible to drive all the way down the Blerick road because the
stream south of Anna Hoeve had not yet been given a bridge to
replace the one which the Germans had destroyed. It was at this time
that a Dutch-man arrived one night at an A Squadron post, saying
that his wife was about to give birth to a baby some-where on the
bank of the Maas. So Lieut Ray Parker set out with a small party on
the midwifery expedition which he describes
The Dutchman had arrived at Dalton's
troop position just north of mine. Dalton passed him over to me, and
it was arranged that an ambulance should come down behind the wood
which was my troop location. The ambulance arrived with Sgt James,
the squadron signals sergeant, and we set out on foot Sgt James, Sgt
Williams, the Dutchman and myself. We took a stretcher with us.
The Dutchman could not speak a word of English, and
I was suspicious. As we went along in single file I had my hand not
far from my pistol if it were a trap, he was certainly going first.
We clambered over the tree thrown over the stream, scrambled over
the wreck of the railway embankment and went along a very quiet path
to a silent battered farmhouse within fifty yards of the Maas. Still
suspicious, I left Sgt Williams outside with his Tommy gun while I
followed the Dutchman into the house. The only habitable place was
the cellar, and there, sure enough, was the woman, lying on filthy
bed linen.
Much relieved, I called the whole party in, and the
patient, thinking no doubt that I was the doctor, promptly displayed
the affected parts. I felt bound to attempt to judge how long we
had. There were
obvious signs of an approaching birth, but I felt
that we had at least an hour, so I decided to carry her back.
It was a frightful job to get her up the stairs.
They were too narrow for us to bring her up on the stretcher, and
she had to walk with what help we could give. Once on level ground
she rode safely on the stretcher, making so much noise that if a
German patrol had been about we would have been even more unhappy.
How-ever, things went well until we reached the blown railway
embankment. It was hard enough to get her over the rubble, but the
main difficulty was the stream. We could not carry her across the
tree on the stretcher, so there was nothing left but to let her more
or less walk over. One of the sergeants crossed first and held the
tree steady on that side and the other sergeant held it on the other
side while I went over with the woman clinging to me as best she
could. And how heavy a pregnant woman is !
Once across the stream it was plain sailing on to
the ambulance and off to hospital. The baby was born about two hours
later.
The days and nights on the Maas were a busy time
for the regiment's signallers. Field telephone lines had
to be laid alongside track and wood and road to connect all the
posts with the switchboard manned night and day in the front room of
Anna Hoeve, from which other lines went back to brigade headquarters
in Sevenum and north to whichever battalion of the 3rd British
Division was in Grubbenvorst. At any time of the day, along the
Blerick road or on either side of it, you might have come across a
small party, perhaps with jeep, perhaps without, but certainly with
drums of cable, " Don Five ", borrowed ladder, pliers and spades,
working under the direction of one of the three squadron signals
sergeants James, Sheppard and Dutch or Capt Kemsley, Sgt Davidson or
Cpl Stevenson from R.H.Q. The work was made harder by the fact
that
the regiment's official equipment,
bristling with wire-less, contained little for line communication
five field telephones, to be exact.
However, past scroungings and current borrowings
provided enough equipment to make the improvisation of
the rest worth while. (The regiment had a good friend in Jim
Shields, the Royal Signals quartermaster.) The lines to some
positions being under observation, could be laid only after these
mere is the signals officer's account of one of these
nocturnal expeditions
:
In the back room of Anna Hoeve Major
Gordon spread his maps among the litter of kit, and thought about
the German patrols. He decided to set a trap for them by- putting a
night post in some buildings near the river, on the far
side of the tongue of wood. That meant joining a line to the line
which already ran beside the wood to the houses at the
southern end, and taking the new line along the path which cut
through the wood, then across the road and into the
buildings. It was a job for darkness. At dusk off went
Lieut Peterson with his then to occupy the post, and off went Cpl
Stevenson with me to lay the line.' As we crossed the railway one of
the Middlesex at the post there warned us : " Mind our trip wires
across the track when you come back." We thanked him and went
on, The path through the wood was not long, but the wood
in the dark was through it
without comforting. I went through the other,without lingering, pistol in one
hand, cable in the Stevie paying out the line from the
edge wood behind me. When I
returned he was joining the lines, and not to be seen in
the darkness. Neither could, find the other until one of us hit on
the idea of softly whistling morse. Glad to have the job done, We
hurried back towards the railway. It was not until I
walked clean through it that I remembered the Middlesex
trip wire, but whatever flare or infernal machine was .attached
failed to go off. Next day, back in my billet at R.H.Q., I received
from Templeman asomewhat
dramatic welcome : " Whew ! If anything had happened to you out
there it would have been on my head. I forgot to tell you that I
took the ammo out of your pistol in case the kids here got hold of
it." But I was never much of a shot, anyway.
On December 9th the regiment, except
for the squadron at Anna Hoeve, went from the Sevenum area to
Lierop, near Zomeren and close enough to Helmond. to compensate for
the fact that quarters were mainly barns and hay lofts disposed
along muddy tracks. The Maas squadron and the rest of the regiment
were now .in quite different worlds : the one looking out
across a deserted river for glimpses of a hidden enemy ; the other
well out of range of German guns and near a canal which was soon to
be crowded with cheerful Dutch skaters. After calling for the
dispatches at the Lierop tailor's shop in which L/Cpl Holderness had
neatly spread his signals office (who will forget the jolly, friendly young people there ?), Tpr
Merryman or Tpr Yount would set off in the hard-worked signals jeep
on a daily round which covered nearly fifty miles, through Asten,
Meijel, Panningen (divisional head-quarters), Masbree and Sevenum to
Anna Hoeve, and back again. The arrival of the signals jeep bringing
the mail was always a great moment of the day at Anna
Hoeve.
Field Marshal Montgomery visited the
division again on December 13th and presented medal
ribbons,
twelve to members of the regiment. " In this fighting no
division has done better, and it is a first class show "
he said.
He gave details of the leave scheme which was soon to be started. In
the regiment the colonel drew
names from a hat to decide the
order in which people should go. Everybody was agog. The names
of
Capt Liddell and Sgt Gilbert came out first and second. It was
decided to replace the Anna Hoeve squadron
with infantry in order
to have more men on this long stretch of the Maas, and the regiment
was ordered to take over another
part of the front—at Hout Blerick, a mile south of Blerick—on
December zznd. On the night before the change the A Squadron
position at the southern end of the tongue of wood was rushed by a
strong German patrol, which clattered off jubilantly down the river
road with nine prisoners. The Royal Scots Fusiliers relieved A
Squadron on the afternoon of December zznd, and the same day C
Squadron went into Hout Blerick, taking over from the King's Own
Scottish Borderers.
To reach Hout Blerick
from the west you drive straight on from Maasbree instead of turning
left, which is the way to Sevenum. The road slopes gently down to
the river, and near the river you turn off to the right to go into
the village. That December it was advisable to turn right sooner and
go the " back way ", along a bumpy track beside a wood, because the
country near the river was under German observation. Hout Blerick
was badly damaged and almost deserted—eerie as only an empty village
in a grey December can be. Squadron headquarters were in the crypt
of what remained of the church, and connected with the troop
strongpoints by a complicated system of field telephones. The most
unpopular position was 150 yards from the river, and could be
relieved only at night. It was decided that the squadron at Hout
Blerick should be reinforced by members of Headquarter
Squadron.
The weather became
colder and colder, and the rutted tracks like iron. The vehicles had
anti-freeze in their radiators, but the engines had to be run at
intervals during the night. In spite of many pre-cautions, some
wireless batteries froze and burst. The canals froze. There was
alarm lest the Maas itself should freeze. The long nights in the
slit trenches were agony, and the rum ration the most precious thing
in the world. At Lierop the smooth running of R.H.Q. depended on the
Valor oil stoves, for which Sgt Davidson, the intelligence sergeant,
was made responsible. A burnt out wick was a major
crisis.
Sgt Davidson asked for
a new one. All the Scot in the colonel was shocked. " Heavens man !
A wick should last two years. All the rooms in my house are heated
by Valor stoves he chided. To which the harassed sergeant replied :
" I'm sorry sir. In England we use electricity."
The approach of
Christmas brought another crisis : a bomb fell on the Helmond hall
which had been booked for A Squadron's Christmas dinner by Lieut
Harry Whitham, who combined the manifold duties of P.M.C.,
entertainments officer and liaison officer with breezy efficiency.
But in Harry Whitham the hour had found the man, and both A and B
Squadrons had a gay Christmas Day in the town of their adoption, a
day for which thanks were shared by the entertainments officer, the
quartermaster, Lieut Hughes, and Major Kemp. Headquarter Squadron
spent the day equally cheerfully in Lierop, where the sergeants
ferried early-morning tea in jeeps and the sergeants' mess band
entertained after dinner. The only musical instrument in the band
was a cornet wielded by Sgt-Major Leslie Evans in a manner
reminiscent of the buskers outside Blighty's public houses. The
piece which proved most popular was " The Skater's Waltz ", possibly
because it was the only recognisable one.
C Squadron was still at Hout
Blerick. Its festival was postponed, but even at that desolate
village there was something of the spirit of the season. On
Christmas Eve the Germans decided to forego their routine 4 p.m.
shelling, and that night, which was cold, clear and very still,
sounds of festivity came from the far bank of the river. On a
Christmas morning white with frost the only sound was a church bell
across the Maas. The colonel came, and the padre, who con-ducted
short services. At dusk the enemy deemed Christmas over and began
shelling again. In the evening a " flap " was relayed to the
squadron from " higher up " : German patrols were expected. A trap
was laid ; all the way along the front a riotous party was simulated with singing, bagpipes,
trumpets and flares, which masked a general stand-to. No patrols
came. Relieved by B Squadron on December 28th, C Squadron swept into
Helmond two days later for its belated Christmas party, recounted by
Capt Liddell :
The entertainments
officer had done us proud. The party was in a Helmond cafe which
looked more like a church inside, with its gallery and organ. It was
so large that the whole squadron was able to sit together while
officers and sergeants rushed hither and thither as waiters.
Everything went off with a bang, , including the electric organ,
which was most popular. We started it with the help of the
proprietor. Then he disappeared, and we could not get it stopped.
Brigadier Cumming-Bruce, who had come along from 44 Brigade, did his
best to compete with it for a while, but we had to fetch the
proprietor and ask him " for Pete's sake " to turn it off. Major
MacDiarmid, representing the colonel, also spoke a few words in his
own inimitable way. Then the squadron got down to the serious
business of the day.
The Q department had
managed to procure real English beer. There was not much, but a "
hell brew " was also ladled out, and soon some wonderful acrobatic
feats were being performed. Nobody knows how Sgt M got up to the
statue twenty feet above the floor. How he got down again without
breaking his neck is an even bigger mystery.
Then we had Trooper F,
" Geordie ", loud in his praises of Lieut R. Using the adjective
which in the Army meant everything except what it really meant, he
declared Lieut R. to be the best officer of all the officers. The
other officers were not quite certain how to take this, but that
mattered not one whit to Trooper F., who proceeded to take them in
turn and deliver a short homily on their characters—in most cases a
very accurate sort of thumb-nail sketch.
By this time
everything was going with a swing, including some of the chairs, and
the proprietor was beginning to look a bit pale. Sgt-Major Ward
sized up the situation and decided that fresh air would be
beneficial to the company, so everybody was turned out to cool down
for a couple of hours before the dance, which started at seven
o'clock. It was amazing, the difference those two hours made. A
sober and respect-able, but cheerful, gathering welcomed the Dutch
girls, who turned up in large numbers. The organ played again from
time to time, and everybody had a grand time. One and all sang
loudly the praises of the entertainments officer, and voted this one
of the best, if not the best, Christmas in the Army.
The Tam O'Shanters,
the division's concert party, played Dick
Whittington magnificently in a long run at Zomeren, and a
Dutch concert party came from Helmond to Lierop to entertain the
regiment. This poem, written by one of the performers, was read with
great feeling by its author :
TO OUR
LIBERATORS
We sighed and
sighed in slavery; we cursed the horrid Huns. Then after years of
pining, hark ! The sound of saving guns ; Our trembling hearts cried
out for joy in spite of bomb and shell, For was not Heaven coming
after years and years of hell ?
We prayed and
prayed, and Heaven made our faithful Friends break
through.
They forced the
enemy's strong defence ; they drove him on anew. And lo ! From every
window burst our colours glad and free, Our long forbidden Orange
shone : a sun of victory.
A little shy, we
try and try to thank you, gallant Men Who came to bring us liberty
and make us live again ;
Our Dutch is
double Dutch to you, but may you understand The language of our
children's kiss, the shake of grateful hand.
God speed you on
your glorious way to Victory and Fame ; For ever in our history be
praised your Army's name ; Hurray for glorious England, Wales and
Bonnie Scotland too, For Irishman and for the States ; good luck to
all of you !
In reply to this tribute the following poem was reproduced in a
Helmond newspaper :
TO
HELMOND
Our stay with you,
so short has been but you have made us feel
t'was worth our
while in freeing you from the yoke of the NAZIS
heel.
From Scotland,
England, Ireland and Wales we came to set you free,
and pressing
forward we must go
to hasten
VICTORY.
But we shall not
forget you
and the kindness
you have shown
in this small
DUTCH town called HELMOND ; you have made us feel at
home.
We hope that when
this War is WON and free men have their say
we can return to
visit you
for a peaceful
holiday.
But meantime let
us forge ahead until that day is near
when we can meet
in quiet content and raise a hearty cheer.
FROM A
SOLDIER.
On New Year's
Day the Luftwaffe made its last really great gesture ; it was with
surprise at first that members of the regiment saw black crosses on
the wings above Lierop's roofs. But these fighters were not
interested in Lierop. There was more activity in other parts of the
division's area, and several of the attacking aircraft were shot
down. Major MacDiarmid, on a journey back to R.H.Q., had to dive for
a ditch.
On January 7th
all the regiment that was in Lierop was inspected by Maj-Gen Barber
on a snowy field, and marched to church behind a pipe band from the
Lowland Brigade. The squadron watch on the Maas continued in the
snow, and white overalls were issued.
There was one
never-to-be-forgotten exchange when one of the squadron patrols
returned on a freezing night :
Shivering
sentry in slit trench (whispering) : "Who's that ?
Patrol leader
(whispering) : " Who's that who said ` Who's that ? ' ?
Shivering
sentry : " Who's -that -who -said -who's
that-when-I-said-who's-that ?
On January 8th
the regiment was ordered to provide a squadron as the division's
mobile reserve, under command of a brigade group at Roggel, six
miles south of Meijel, and the new system was that the squadrons
spent a week in each position : Hout Blerick, Lierop, Roggel. R.H.Q.
and A Echelon moved south over the slippery roads to a camp of
huts—wooden, dishevelled and draughty—at De Heibloem. On January
20th the division was relieved by the 6th Airborne Division, fresh
from the Ardennes, and the 1st Commando Brigade. Two days later the
regiment, except for A Squadron (not yet relieved at Hout Blerick),
drove to Boischot in Belgium. Never again was Helmond to be near.
That was sad. But there was no grief in parting from the cold slit
trenches by the Maas.
On
November 29th, 1945, the Ost
Brabant, the daily newspaper
of Helmond, stated : " All British elite-troops have been stationed
at Helmond between November and December, 1944, including the 15th
Scottish Recce Regt (whom the Helmond people called their ` own army
') ".
On the Maas
front Tpr S. D. Roberston was fatally wounded.
In Holland the regiment had been joined by three officers from
the 59th Reconnaissance Regiment—Capt D. E. Jackson (to B Squadron),
Capt G. B. Salmon (to C Squadron) and Lieut G. M. Paton (to B
Squadron). Lieut P. G. Vroome also was posted to the regiment, and
he went to C Squadron.
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