Private Robert. G. Love, Bren Gunner, 7th/9th Royal Scots, in the battle for Bremen

Private Robert Love, wearing his preferred style of steel helmet, manning his Bren-gun sited at the corner of Bismarck Straase, Bremen.In the early hours of the morning of Friday, 20th April 1945 the 7th/9th Royal Scots set of for Verden. It was the Divisional concentration area, Bremen lay twenty miles down stream. The 51st Highland Division was to approach Bremen from the south-west; the 3rd Division from the south; and the 52nd (Lowland) Division with the 43rd Division in reserve was to attack straight down the valley of the Weser on the northern side of the river.The 7th/9th Royal Scots opened up the attack for 155 Infantry Brigade by advancing into the village Usen amd then capturing part of the town of Achim. This leap-frog down the line of the Weser was to push forward and capture the straggling village of Mahndorf, just three miles from the Bremen’s city boundaries and reckoned to be the main outer defence of the city.Joe Brown.Private Robert Love in his War memoirs (printed for the family by his Son, Mr Robert Love, Jun.), writes: Our three ton trucks took us up to the front where we were told our next objective was the city of Bremen, but we had a few small towns and villages to clear on the way. I remember one town in particular, the Germans were fighting more ferocious than ever, they seemed reluctant to give up any more ground and as we were moving cautiously through the streets of the town we flanked a Churchill Tank from the Scots Greys Regiment, in other words us infantry from the Royal Scots were in single file on either side of the tank when all of a sudden there was a tremendous explosion. The tank was blown completely on its back, I remember the Officer who had been looking out from the turret of the tank lying there with the tank on him. All you could see of the Officer was his head, his left arm and shoulder; he was still alive but crying out in pain. The tank was already a mass of flames as it was one of the flame-throwing type, shells and ammunition were exploding everywhere.We tried to get the Officer out but realised it was hopeless, the whole weight of the tank was on him. We all ran to the houses opposite as it was getting very dangerous, all except one man who having already rescued an unconscious member of the crew, had gone back to try but failed to rescue the officer. He was awarded the Military Medal.It was miraculous that none of us were seriously wounded. Some of us had a few scratches but nothing else. The tank had hit a mine which the Germans had planted in the road; we all felt very saddened about the Officer but there was nothing we could have done. The rest of his crew must have all been killed in the explosion as we didn’t see any sign of them.We continued with our advance on the other side of the town, and a few miles further on we were ordered to dig in, another Battalion from the Brigade were to pass through our lines in pursuit of the enemy. There was to be no let up and after a period of maybe 24 hours we carried on with our advance, it was like a game of leap frog.Finally we reached our main objective, Bremen and half the city was in ruins. The part of the city which the Royal Scots had taken was to be our objective. We were billeted in a street named I think as Bismarck Strasse.We took over houses that were habitable and carried on with our usual guard duties while the British High Command was in touch with German officials and gave them an ultimatum: surrender the other half of the city or it will be reduced to rubble. So we had to carry on until they had sorted it out.There was a great railway embankment that went straight through Bremen; we were on one side and the Germans the other. We used to mount a two man guard on top of our side of the embankment and one night another lad and myself were on guard. On previous occasions when we had been on guard at this point nothing much happed, not much sign of any Germans, only civilians so we weren’t as vigilant as we had to be, we all had this feeling that the war was as good as over.Well that night we had been on guard for nearly an hour and we were half asleep when suddenly we got a shock. Six Germans were behind us demanding our surrender and as there wasn’t much we could do we went quietly, we were hustled down the other side of the bank to a house about 100 yards away where we were questioned but of course all they got was our rank, name and number. I got the impression that they weren’t very interested; they locked us in a room where there were a couple of beds so we decided to get some sleep. Next morning they brought us a cup of coffee and a piece of brown bread. We sat there talking and wondering what was going to be our fate. We had heard stories about what the Germans do to some prisoners.Around about midday they gave us some potato soup and another piece of bread, luckily we had plenty of cigarettes and then we didn’t see much more of them until the next morning. We were summoned into another room where there were quite a few German Officers, we were told that the German garrison of Bremen had surrendered and that we could return to our own lines. We needed no second telling and off we went, quick as we could in case they changed their minds. On returning to our own lines we had some explaining to do, at first our Officer thought that we had deserted, but after a while we managed to convince him that what had happened was true.Next day we received orders to move out, this time to a village some few miles east of Bremen where we were to stay until the War was over which was about ten days later. The High Commands of both sides were negotiating a peace treaty and all over the front the troops on both sides were ordered to stay put and not get involved, the purpose being to save lives. When word did come to us that the War was over I can remember that there was no great excitement just a calmness that is hard to explain. Perhaps we couldn’t take it in, I suppose we had been involved for so long in a war that we were at a loss as to know what to do with our selves.