High wide and handsome, and on the way to victory in Bremen.

Progress from village to village along the main axis was not yet to be a walkover. Whilst little opposition was met at Recke, just along the road at Weese heavy shell fire came down on the 156th and 4th Armoured Brigade positions. D Company had a bitter fight at Neuenkirchen (not to be confused with the town of the same name behind Rheine) on the 10th April, but about this time it appeared that the enemy were breaking and withdrawing. Patrols found outlying positions weekly manned. Then, the inevitable surprise as sharp fighting was again needed to enter Alfausen. Lieutenant Scarth-Johnson, who was six feet of skin and bone with an eight inch red moustache and a mop of red hair, charged forward into some hostels with my dad, Rafferty, and the others in his platoon, and immediately became stuck due to a machine gun nest about fifty yards away. Scarth got another platoon ready to fire when he blew his whistle, and they would then attack the machine guns head on. But the other platoon opened fire at the same time he blew his whistle, and as the rest of Scarths platoon had their heads down, they didn't hear it. The next thing they saw was the fearsome sight of Scarth-Johnson charging forward on his own towards the machine gun nest. He looked round for a moment, saw he was on his own, and carried on running. The Jerrys were so surprised at this wild, raging maniac coming at them, they nearly dislocated their arms getting them above their heads in surrender. By this time the rest of the platoon had caught up with him and they took several bewildered prisoners. The tanks of the Black Rats, the 4th (Independent) Armoured Brigade, presently set the town alight.

By the time the Battalion reached Bruchhausen Vilsen on the 12th, they knew that their next objective was Bremen. To the South-east the 6th Battalion had reached the banks of the River Aller. Beside Rethem church there lay a wrecked road bridge. The Germans had lined up a batch of Welsh prisoners against a wall there and mowed them down with automatics. One of the Welshmen had fallen with the rest only pretending to be dead and then had the good fortune not to be finished off with those not quite dead by a pistol shot in the head, so he was able to reveal the foul crime, which the bodies later confirmed.

By the 13th several battalions were holding the south bank of the wide River Weser, D Company being at Einste. The fatal Heath of Luneberg was not far away. The prize city of Bremen was now only 20 miles away, and the 52nd Lowland Division was destined to be the first in Bremen.

(April 13th - Soviets enter Vienna. British Army liberated Bergen Belsen)

For a timeline of the Holocaust and number of murders click here

(April 15th - Allies capture Arnhem)
(April 17th - The U.S. Seventh Army capture Nuremberg)
(April 20th - Nuremburg falls to Allies)

The 53rd Welsh Division started the ball rolling on the 18th by clearing Dauelsen, 2 miles north of Verden, while D Company remained in Schede. The 1st Glasgow Highlanders with two troops of the Royal Scots Greys tanks in support then fought their way under heavy shelling to Langwedel, 2 miles on, and the following morning pushed on into Daverden. D Company meanwhile was having a hard time on the right flank near Otersen, but by the 20th the 52nd was again reunited and complete on the main axis. By the 23rd D company had helped to clear Borstel and Embsen and were resting up in Baden when they received the order to attack Bremen, which was now about to receive a pounding by Lancasters in an 800-bomber raid.

The Germans were to fire with all the power they had left in defending the road to Bremen. From heavies to Spandaus, but particularly the vicious 88mm. gun, and the intimidating nebelwerfer that fires its huge rockets five at a time. At Oyten the Wermacht also fought like devils to the very last hour of the battle for the town. German snipers had to be shot off the roof of a farmhouse burning under them. Ten 88mm guns and twenty, four-barrelled 20mm guns fell to the Borderers on that same day. Simultaneously the 7/9th Royal Scots had another difficult action at Mahndorf, three miles from the Bremen boundary.

The road to Bremen was now open to a final assault. This began late on the night of April 24th. The 1st Glasgow Highlanders set out towards Hemelingen and the Focke-Wulf factory there. Two hours later the 6th Cams. started to attack in a north-westerly direction from Arbergen with the 4th Armoured Brigade at their backs. Bremen was about to fall to the 52nds direct assault. The 3rd Division was coming up from the south, and the 43rd (Wessex) Division was coming up to protect the 52nds exposed right flank. Covered by a memorable barrage, the 1st Glasgow Highlanders had their factory objectives in their hands by 04:00hrs on the 25th. The 6th Cameronians had cleared their objective by dawn, and the 4/5th R.S.F. passed through and by the afternoon found themselves in the heart of Bremen. It had taken the Lowlanders eight days fighting to reach Bremen from Verden, a distance of 20-odd miles. They had in fact beaten the enemy before they entered the city.

(April 28th - Benito Mussolini, Clara Petacci (his mistress), and sixteen of Mussolini's body-guards are assassinated in the village of Giulino di Messegra, on Lake Como)
(April 29th - Americans liberate Dachau Concentration Camp. Field Marshall Sir Harold Alexander receives the German surrender of Italy)
(April 30th - Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun, Goebbels, and his wife commit suicide in the bunker under the Reich Chancellery in Berlin)
(May 2nd - Berlin falls to the Soviets)
(May 3rd - British forces recapture Rangoon, Burma)
(May 5th - Liberation of Concentration Camp Mauthausen, Austria. End of German occupation of the Netherlands at 8.00 am)

Bremen was effectively the last great battle of the 52nd (Lowland) Division. The surrender of the German forces in north-western Europe was signed at Montgomery's headquarters on Lüneburg Heath on May 4. At 08:00hrs on May 5th, 1945, the soldiers heard the regimental Buglers sound the Cease Fire.

A letter of tribute to the Division from Lieut.-General B. G. Horrocks, commanding XXX Corps, addressed to Major-General Hakewell Smith read:

    I am writing to congratulate you on the very fine performance put up by the 52nd (Lowland) Division during the recent fighting.
    The division came under my command just after it had reached Verden on the 19th April. Since then it has been continuously in action. By day and night it has been hammering the German defences and thanks to this relentless pressure it was able to penetrate the Bremen defences two days ago. In 48 hours it has worked through and reduced one of the largest towns in Germany.
    At times the right flank of the division was completely open yet, nothing daunted, the 52nd Division pushed on, until finally today, the city north of the River Weser is completely in your hands. This is a great achievement.
    I have watched the progress of the division with great admiration, and am certain that there is no finer fighting division in the British Army today than the 52nd (Lowland) Division. I should like to congratulate all ranks on writing another glorious page in Scottish history.
    Well done, the 52nd (Lowland) Division!

On May 7th 1945 General Alfried Jodl signed the unconditional surrender at Rheims in the presence of Soviet, U.S., British, and French delegations

At midnight on May 8, 1945, the war in Europe was officially over.

At the end of Montgomery's war diary, a special note, written by the famous general, stated...."And so the campaign in northwest Europe is finished. I am glad; it has been a tough business...The Supreme Commander had no firm ideas as to how to conduct the war and was 'blown about by the wind' all over the place....The staff at SHAEF were completely out of their depth all the time. The point to understand is that if we had run the show properly the war could have been finished by Christmas 1944. The blame for this must rest with the Americans. To balance this it is merely necessary to say one thing, ie. if the Americans had not come along and lent a hand, we would never have won the war at all"

(May 9th - A ratification of surrender is signed by Marshal Zhukov of the Soviet Union and Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel of Germany in Berlin-Karlshorst. Soviets occupy Prague. Liberation of Channel Islands)
(June 10th - Australians invade Borneo)
(June 21st - U.S. Army and Marines (with 7th Infantry div.) complete the capture of Okinawa)
(July 16th - The first atomic device is exploded at Alamogordo, New Mexico)
(July 17th - The Potsdam Conference convenes with Truman, Stalin, Churchill and Atlee to discuss post-war Europe. Lasting until Aug 2nd , several agreements were completed and the "Potsdam Declaration" was issued demanding Japan's unconditional surrender)

(Aug 6th   - Atomic bomb "Little Boy"dropped on Hiroshima)
(Aug 8th - Soviets declare war on Japan)
(Aug 9th   - Second atomic bomb, Fat Man, is dropped on Nagasaki)
(Aug 14th - Emperor Hirohito accepts an unconditional surrender)
(Aug 15th - VJ Day declared)
(Sept 2nd  - Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the instrument of surrender aboard the battleship U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Japan)
(Sept 5th - British land in Singapore)
(Sept 7th - Japanese surrender Shanghai)
(Sept 9th - Surrender of remaining Japanese forces in China)
(Sept 13th - Japanese surrender in Burma)
(Sept 16th - Japanese surrender in Hong Kong)

End

link to The Holocaust\Shoah Page

link to holocaustforgotten.com

Sources:
Battalion Memorial Booklet
Extracts from war diaries
Mountain and Flood (Blake)
History of the Cameronians Vol III (C.N. Barclay)

Thanks to Frans Van Beers for your invaluable continuing help, and Hans Houterman, Arie Biemond, Jos Tax, Jaap Been, Leonard Vis, Ed van der Heyden, and Jan Heykoop for the information you have sent me. And thanks also to Malcolm Fergusson for putting me on the right track initially.