Hi all, I collected some links and information about this about two years ago and then I guess kind of sat on it and am only writing about it now. I thought it might be useful to post links to everything relevant and any additional information I can upload, such as the account by 99th Anti-Tank Battery. For starters here is an image previously posted by alberk . I believe I have identified it as PA-145743, which has the description "First heavy armoured tanks to reach Canadians; paratrooper greets commander of tank; men pictured include Private F.M. Estok and Lieut. J.E. Foley". It appears in Army Numerical album 90 - this is one of a series of what were books but are now available as PDFs for download from Library and Archives Canada. These two thumbnails are from the album - I assume the Dingo was probably of the 15th Recce attached to the column. I'll double-check the markings later.
Alberk posted a description of the action from the German POV here: Nature of German actions after Veritable
Trux posted a mention in a description of 44th Brigade's action in Operation Plunder, here: Crossing the Rhine.
Finally (for now) - these pages from the 15th Division's history apparently mis-attribute the tanks as belonging to 3/4 County of London Yeomanry.
Ok, one more - these give the account of 99th Anti-Tank Battery of 102nd Anti-Tank Regiment. This battery was 100% equipped with Archers and I think was the only part of the regiment to participate in the battles after the crossing. (The other batteries had sent off a troop each to get Archers.)
44 RTR's war diary is here: 44th Battalion The Royal Tank Regiment It makes it pretty clear that the divisional history is wrong, and even points to when 3/4 CLY did arrive to relieve them. 26th March 1945 Place: 170499 0155 - C Sqns fwd troop at 194513 reported much enemy activity and position was extremely uncomfortable, the nearest enemy MG being only 75x away. During the night the Bn moved via the route mentioned above and by - 0750 - were in a position to report 200 Enemy at 153845. 0815 - Received Orders from 4 Armd Bde:- Bn was to be relieved by 3/4 CLY and would then concentrate in any area suitable, apart from the area occupied at present, B Sqn however was to remain with the 6 A/B Div. When I first started looking into this I thought the divisional history was right and even asked the curator of the 3/4 CLY museum if he had photos I could use. They're nice photos, but if I had just gone off the divisional history it would have been kind of embarrassingly wrong.
6 KOSB's war diary is here: https://www.15thscottishdivisionwar...d/29af12_8fb2dbee1e7c4e039cddba49aefe8044.pdf Unfortunately 15th Recce's regimental war diary has no info really, though it does identify the recce troop in support of 44th Brigade as 'C' Squadron. https://www.15thscottishdivisionwar...d/29af12_b2aff90fa8a24d4ebb0c294373b96091.pdf
Not sure, but there was a Wüstmannshof in the area, which phonetically to a British ear will sound like Wissman
Spent some time this morning mapping the locations mentioned in the 102 Anti-Tank Regiment's battery's account. I'm adding 44 RTR information to the map next but I don't expect this to affect this part much - the German counterattack at 04:00.
Hi alberk, I was looking at the BAOR tour maps again and saw this. Wissmann is around the top of the Dingden map. So maybe there was a question for going for Wissmann OR Gervershof, and then the two became conflated in the text.
I might have to redo this using the 1953 map, or otherwise find a way to add the autobahn to this map. However, my combined progress so far. I still have some points on a separate 44 RTR map I need to transfer. From what I can tell - and I don't know if I've seen this SPECIFICALLY stated - the 44th Brigade / 44 RTR column was supposed to head north to the intersection I've marked "Main road destination, abandoned". They were then supposed to head along the road to the east-north-east, do a little dogleg, and then go along the road to the north of the blue area. The blue area is Drop Zone B of 5th Parachute Brigade. The infantry got as far as the middle intersection at 13:30 (orange text) and then I'm not sure what happened but they had to withdraw. Ugh, I think I just trashed my base map file. Stupid software. Anyway, does anyone know where 44 RTR laggered overnight? I don't see anything in the war diary except for the HQ location along that north-south road. (170499) I may not really need to know this but it's annoying. alberk ?
Hi. is there any mention anywhere of any destroyed / abandoned 88’s at Vockingshof? There were 2 active guns there during the drop. Lt Burkinshaw of 12 Para led the attack to disable them. I haven’t seen any pictures or post battle mention in any diaries. Alex.
Hi Alex, I ran across a mention of avoiding a road because of active 88s but I haven't seen anything about a Vockinshof. After all, if the guns were silenced they wouldn't be interfering with 15th Div movements. Chris
Spending some time looking over 44 Brigade messages (MASSIVE thank you to alberk ) and now looking at the overnight positions of 44 RTR. Actually READING the section of the war diary indicates that they did take that route around the drop zone ending at 194511 and then stopped. Hence "C Sqns fwd troop at 194513 reported much enemy activity and position was extremely uncomfortable, the nearest enemy MG being only 75x away". However there is then a bit which reads: "During the night the Bn moved via the route mentioned above and by - 0750 - were in a position to report 200 Enemy at 153845." This mystifies me as that location is off the north side of the Dingden map, and even if we supposed the 8 and 4 were transposed, we would still have a position far to the west of 194511. However since I'm not writing a history of 44 RTR I guess I just won't care. So 44 RTR remained in place at the NE corner of the drop zone - and actually quite close to 6 KOSB. They were relieved by the Sharpshooters at 1150 after coming to help 6 KOSB in the morning.
Another day, another little question. I'm making some good progress on describing the actions up until the changeover from 44 RTR to 3/4 CLY. I was just looking at one of the books about 8 Royal Scots, who were on the left flank of 6 KOSB, A Regiment at War by McBain. p297 says this, which surprised me: alberk You live in the area, is this correct? I saw that in a previous post you also described the Issel as a "rivulet" at that point, which made me think it was something like 10 feet wide.
