Arriving on the Floodbanks
On the morning of the 7th of March, I went and had a look round 169 Brigade’s front on the Senio, which we were to take over on the 10th. The greater part of this front was already on the floodbank and our orders were to keep it there. Our army consisted of the three battalions, the Bays, 56 Reconnaissance Regiment, ‘D’ Support Group, 254 Anti Tank Battery with, in support,17 Field Regiment and 501 Field Company, who were to be relieved by our own 214 Field Company, at that time away at a bridging camp.
There had been several changes in personnel lately. Dick Findlater had arrived from the 2 RIrF to be Second-in-Command of the Skins. Marcus Mahon was now commanding 56 Reconnaissance Regiment, Kendal Chavasse having gone off to a Staff job on promotion. Ronnie Denton had become CRE and Bill Cooper was now in command of 214 Field Company. John Barker came to Brigade Headquarters as Liaison Officer after nearly two years as Pioneer Officer with the London Irish.
The majority of the reliefs could be done in daylight, which was a great help and the administrative problem was nil compared with anything we had dealt with before.
On the evening of the 9th, COs and Company Commanders went forward to spend the night with their opposite numbers of the 169 Queen’s Brigade.
We were to have three battalions forward. On the right, 56 Reconnaissance Regiment were opposite Cotignola in considerable depth, having only two positions on the floodbank. Unfortunately, Cotignola overlooked this area and movement by day was not advisable in front of their RHQ. The Faughs were in the centre, up on the floodbank. The Skins were on the left, with all on the floodbank except their left company. On the Skins’ left was the Lwow Brigade of the 5 Kresowa Division. These were the people who had taken over from us in that vile area near Monte Cassino nearly a year before. We were very glad to see these warriors again, who had done so magnificently in the battle of Cassino. On the Skins’ immediate left were the Carpathian Lancers, who were temporarily under command of the Lwow Brigade. The Polish Corps were not occupying the floodbank and did not intend to do so and so there was no object in trying to get the Skins left up on to the floodbank as the Carpathian Lancers would not be conforming.
We carried out the relief of the three forward battalions without incident on the night of 10th/11th March.
When the Brigade took over this sector, there were only five enemy outposts on the reverse of our floodbanks. One or two tunnels had been dug through our floodbank, which enabled the Bosche to see what was going on. On his own floodbank, on the western side of the river, a lot more tunnels had been dug. These tunnels enabled the enemy to cover the river.
The river was not straight. There were several bends and twists in it, which helped both sides. It enabled us to deploy troops of field artillery in such a way that they could fire from a flank straight into the river with absolute accuracy. In some cases, it enabled the Bosche to see behind our floodbank from such observation posts as Cotignola. The enemy had built a number of rafts and footbridges across the river, which enabled him to man outposts on the reverse of our bank and made it possible for raiding parties to come across almost anywhere. These bridges were very difficult to destroy owing to the angle of fire. Any attempt by our troops to peer over our own floodbank almost always caused casualties, though at night PIATs came into their own for smashing up the bridges.
By day, sniping and a few odd stonks were the form but as soon as it got dark, a veritable furore used to start up. It sounded like a rifle meeting gone mad. Grenade duels, machine gun fire and mortar stonks were continually going on from both sides. Most of the raids on our side were swept by spandaus in the forward company areas. This racket used to go on most of the night. There was very little shelling. The real characteristic of this fighting was that the infantry were in very close contact – sometimes only about 8 to 10 yards apart – and that it was the infantryman’s war almost entirely. There was now an enemy that our soldiers could get to grips with, relying on their own skills and their own weapons entirely. There was someone that they could vent their spleen on.
Cautiously at first, but getting ever bolder, the battalions started out making life unpleasant for the Germans on their side. Patrolling, in the ordinary sense, was inappropriate. The technique was to locate and gain full details of some Bosche position and then, during the night, send a section along the floodbank to deal with it. Mines were the biggest curse and, over uncharted floodbank, it was necessary for mine prodders to lead the way.
Some fine feats were carried out in the elimination of German positions. Sergeant Doherty, with the Skins’ Battle Patrol, eliminated a Spandau position, which had been giving them some trouble on their left. After the attentions of this patrol, it never showed its leg again. There was considerable scope for ingenuity in finding new ways for eliminating the Krauts. Some horrible contrivances were put together by various experts. Sergeant Cross of the Faughs spent all day inventing novelties for the entertainment of the Germans. We certainly gave them plenty to think about. Tanks used to come up and fire point blank into any Bosche positions that could be spotted on our side. Sometimes, they clambered up the floodbank and lashed into positions on the other side as well. I do not know how they got away with all this, because the Bosche had plenty of Bazookas. However, we certainly had no tank casualties. The squadron of Bays, who were forward with us at this time, used to have some sort of diversion laid on almost every day and we kept the tanks trundling round at odd hours just to keep the enemy used to the idea.
The Skins were rather troubled at first by a gap in the floodbank through which the Bosche used to shoot and snipe. One night, therefore, they erected a system of screens, even the large cover of a carrier was used in one place. They had considered painting a picture of Hitler on this screen, but time and the necessary paint were not available. This screening was very effective and, oddly enough, the Bosche never tried to remove them. I suppose they must have thought they were some sort of trap.
Periscopes were very much to the fore and, after strafing the opposite floodbank, it was not difficult to assess the damage to the Bosche by watching the activities of their stretcher bearers through a periscope. Unfortunately, people began to get a little over bold with their success and tried looking over the bank instead of using the periscope. We lost two very good officers like this, George Murray of the Skins and Bartlett of the Faughs.
The close contact, which the forward companies had with the Germans and the endless grenade duels and raids that used to go on, made life on the floodbanks a great strain, and 48 hours was about as much as anybody could do with. 56 Reconnaissance Regiment, owing to the depth of their positions, were able to ring their own changes.
The reserve battalion, at first the London Irish, was near Brigade Headquarters. They had an emergency role of occupying Granarola, a mile in front of their billets. We were able to ring the changes so that no battalion had more than eight days in the forward area, while the Faughs had two ‘goes’ of four. Except for those on the floodbank, everyone was very comfortably established in houses.
When I arrived at our Brigade Headquarters, I noticed strong fumes of alcohol pervading the atmosphere. I thought the Queen’s Brigade must have been doing themselves pretty well but closer investigation revealed that a shell had hit a butt of wine in an outhouse on the previous night and the contents were flowing all round the place. This incident discouraged me from living in my caravan but actually I need not have worried; no more came our way while we were there.
On the 11th, I went to call on my old friend. Colonel Nowina, Commander of 6 Lwow Brigade. We greeted each other with great affection and told each other all about our battles since we last met near Monte Cassino. His English had improved out of all recognition – especially his slang. A couple of days after that, I had lunch at the Carpathian Lancers where he was also a guest. The entente cordiale with our Polish neighbours was excellent. We established direct communication with them at all levels and they gave me a most amusing person as Liaison Officer – one Count Andrew Tarnovsky. Andrew was a great character and caused us a lot of laughter at one time or another. He was a pretty hard case.
We were in the line on St Patrick’s Day so, of course, we could not do much about it. There were only two incidents that marked it. ‘Jon’ produced an excellent ‘Two Types’ cartoon in the ‘Eighth Army News’ depicting an officer wearing a caubeen and hackle cutting shamrocks out of a billiard table cloth – presumably to make “flashes” for the Irish Brigade, while the other scoundrel said ‘”Isn’t that going a bit too far, Old Man ?” It may have been, but I think the story was founded on fact!
In the evening, somehow or other, news that there might be a party at our Headquarters had leaked out to the Carpathian Lancers – possibly through the bold Count Andrew. Anyway, about midnight some of them turned up to see if anything was going on, so of course, they had to entertained. One of them brought an accordion with him so there was evidently malice aforethought in their visit.
The Faughs did the first change over with the London Irish and came into reserve. On the 18th, the London Irish started getting busy. That morning, one of the Bays’ tanks very successfully fired solid shot through the floodbank into an enemy outpost in G Company’s outpost, so successfully that six casualties were seen evacuated over the small footbridge immediately below the enemy position. As a result of this success, the London Irish laid on another party in the afternoon. At half past three, the tank fired in an attempt to mop up the outpost and blew up the foot bridge. A small artillery barrage was laid on and incredible amounts of two inch mortar smoke were fired on to the opposite floodbank to cover the operation. It was impossible, due to fixed lines of enemy fire, to eliminate the outpost but a fierce grenade duel took place and the London Irish were able to establish successfully a section post on the floodbank.
Later on that evening, John Gartside hopped over the floodbank and found that the enemy post was unoccupied. He set in the enemy trenches and was rewarded for his patience by seeing two Germans start crossing the footbridge to come into the position. He opened fire, wounding one – who unfortunately managed to escape – and taking the other prisoner. A small enemy counter attack developed about 2 o’clock the next morning and was driven off.
The Reconnaissance Regiment had a bit of a party on the 20th when some Bosche got round them and made life unpleasant. They beat them off, however, and so were none the worse off. The Reconnaissance Regiment had been anticipating trouble for several days. They had reported awful subterranean rumblings. They thought the Germans were trying to tunnel under their bank with a view to blowing it up. Stories were beginning to grow about some horrible camouflet equipment they might have and people resurrected last war stories, saps and so on. It was not for several days that these rumblings were eventually attributed to grenades, and the like, exploding in the river on the other side of the bank.
On the same day, one Colonel Tozer arrived from AFHQ, with all sorts of comical equipment. His object was to hang things over the floodbank with a view to intercepting Bosche telephone conversations. He had several interpreters, who also operated and were to expect all sorts of spicy pieces of news from these activities. However, the results were disappointing, not so much from a technical point of view as from the fact that the Germans were extremely security minded in their telephone conversations. We deduced from this, not incorrectly, that they must be playing the same sort of game on us – which turned out to be true – though the main items of interest that they probably heard were heated arguments about whether the NAAFI rations were up to standard or not. Wireless was used very little during this stage, as line communications was prolific and not very difficult to maintain. The Germans found the same. The result was that the usual fun and games over wireless intercepts was not going on and Colonel Tozer’s machinery was designed to try and fill this gap.
On the 21st, there was a great Cloth Model Exercise at Divisional Headquarters to try and formulate a common doctrine in the use of ‘Kangaroos’. Heated arguments occurred all round but, by and large, we were all, more or less, thinking on the same lines and the next thing to do was to try it out in some form of exercise. The difficulty was getting hold of the wretched ‘Kangaroos’. Their commitments in training were so extensive that we should be doing well if we could mount part of each battalion once.
London Irish Raid on the Floodbank
On the 22nd at 1500 hours, the London Irish carried out a most successful and very well rehearsed raid. I will include here their description of it:
“The floodbank war takes a little getting used to. We felt that perhaps the Home Guard might have been resurrected to take over from us. They might know a great deal more about this sniping, tunnelling and periscope existence than us. There was a ridiculous resemblance to the stories of the last war’s activities.
For nearly a week, the Battalion watched and learned many things. It learned not to throw grenades over the floodbank from its established posts, it learned where the enemy snipers fired and it learned that the PIAT is an excellent weapon for blowing in German dugouts and breaking bridges. It learned many other things and, incidentally, expended a large amount of ammunition annoying the Germans and getting good individual weapon training at the same time. A thousand No 36 grenades in one night was no abnormal expenditure. Quite a few egg and stick grenades came back.
The Senio River, in this particular sector, is sunk well below the level of the surrounding country and has floodbanks twelve feet or so high on both sides of the river. There is a flat shelf about ten yards wide between each floodbank and the river and then a final drop of several feet to the river itself. Most of the way along the sector, we held the near side of the eastern floodbank but in no place were we established on the inner or river side. On the other hand, the enemy had several known posts dug into the inner side of our floodbank and, in one instance, what came to be known as the “Bund”, he dominated both sides of our floodbank. His presence in this particular place made this very awkward for two of our posts who, in consequence, could only be supplied by night.
It was decided to raid the enemy position, mop up the troops holding it and establish a post of our own opposite the enemy one and on our own side of the bank.
(NA 23241): The smoke screen is started to cover movements of our troops
The story of the raid must begin with an explanation of the “Bund” which, through close association with the Company Commander of the sector began to be called “Fitz’s Bund” as opposed to “Ted’s Bund” farther up the river. The “Bund” was a floodbank slightly higher than the others, which ran in a semi circle out from the straight river floodbank and rejoined the bank about 160 yards further on. It had apparently been built when the river had followed a former winding course. It was in the middle of the straight piece of river floodbank, which formed the diameter to the semi circular Bund that the undesirable German post was located. There was a big gap, about fifteen yards wide in the Bund, about a third of the way along it, which could be covered by snipers from the enemy post. The other way into the Bund was over the top of the Bank, which was under constant observation.
A previous attempt to occupy the interior of the Bund had cleared a path in the Schu mine through this gap and along the inner side of the Bund, as far as a point just opposite to the enemy post.
(NA 23242): Hand grenades are hurled as our infantry go over to the attack.
Preparations for the forthcoming raid were commenced three days beforehand. Firstly, smoke from two inch mortars was put down indiscriminately all along the battalion sector at any time during the day. Secondly, two patrols per night went along the mine swept path into the Bund to make sure the way was still clear and also to get the enemy used to movement there by night only. Almost invariably, they had grenades hurled at them but little damage was suffered. Thirdly, a tunnel was started, to cut right through the Bund very near where it joined the river floodbank and so give another method of access to the interior of the Bund then through the gap. Fourthly, a party from the reserve company was detailed for the raid and commenced rehearsing on another bank about a thousand yards in rear. In addition, various activities with grenade throwing, mortaring and shooting with tanks in the area of “Ted’s Bund” on the left, kept the enemy’s interest centred elsewhere.
The plan was to be as follows. The raid was to be carried out at about 1500 hours when the enemy might be expected to be fairly idle. As he normally spent most of the night shooting off his Spandaus and throwing grenades, he had to sleep sometime. The assault and covering parties would enter the Bund via the tunnel and line up under the bank opposite where the enemy post was situated. At three minutes to zero, large smoke canisters would be lit and thrown over the bank at six points along the Battalion sector. At one minute to zero, the artillery and mortars opened up on targets along the enemy bank and continued until ten minutes after zero. Fire on bank targets immediately across the river from the post to be raided ceased at zero.
(NA 23248) A 2-inch mortar team of 2nd London Irish Rifles in action during an attack on a German strongpoint on the River Senio, 22 March 1945.
Snipers and machine guns stationed on the highest part of the bank of the Bund opened up at zero on known enemy positions. Snipers were told to be especially watchful when the smoke cleared. A diversion was staged at “Ted’s Bund” three minutes before zero, where a three inch mortar firing at about 150 yards range using the primary and one secondary only in the bombs, battered a German position in the back of our floodbank while a tank ran up a ramp on to our floodbank and shot at anything it would see on the far bank. All along the Battalion front, liberal use was also to be made of two inch mortar and PIAT bombs for spraying the enemy bank.
Rehearsals went well and no one believed the assault party when they talked about the whole thing being over in one minute. Two battalion pioneers were detailed for the job of laying a charge on the enemy footbridge over the river behind their post. Air photographs gave very detailed information about the position and showed no wire on the inner side of the bank at the selected spot. A mine clearing party went out night and it was estimated that there was only a stretch of about feet at the top of the bank, which might be mined. As Germans had been seen in that area by day, this risk was accepted. Almost everywhere else, the enemy side of our bank was heavily mined and wired with low stake wire.
The tunnellers had an exciting time. Three men worked on the tunnel and, at midnight on the raid, it still had not broken out into the Bund. We were also faced with the problem of how to disguise the mouth of it during the nine hours of daylight. At 0430 hours, “Fitz” himself phoned up the Commanding Officer to inform him that that the tunnel was through, not to the Bund but into a German dug out on the river side of the river floodbank. A short flap ensued, after which this information was discredited and it was found that the tunnel was through but luckily to an old German dugout inside the Bund. This was fine luck and shelved the necessity for disguising the exit. The tunnellers, after working from 0800 hours until 0400 hours and nearly getting buried in the loose sandy soil whenever a shell went off nearby, retired to bed.
From 0900 until 1030 hours, another short range three inch mortar pounded the raid’s objective with forty bombs and thereafter the post was carefully disregarded until the afternoon.
The smoke and fire plan went down exactly on time. An observer, from a factory behind the lines, remarked that it was just as if a button had been pressed. The 25 pounder shells burst along the far floodbank with great accuracy, being fired in enfilade along the various stretches of the river.
(NA 23244): German prisoners come from their strongpoints at the double.
The raid party filtered through the tunnel and lined the bank. Each man, just before zero, threw over the bank, one smoke grenade and one home made bomb consisting of a Bofors shell case packed with explosive. At zero, the covering party, consisting of an officer and two men, got on top of the bank, whilst the assault party of a corporal, five riflemen and two pioneers, rushed over the top at the selected spot. Inside one minute, the assault party was back, having captured five, killed one and wounded three Germans. The pioneers and covering party were back seconds later, the pioneer having laid his charge after getting lost in the smoke. Four minutes after zero, the prisoners were appearing out of the rear end of the tunnel.
Several enemy machine guns opened up, most of them too late and also merely fired blind into the smoke. Another section was already digging the new post while pioneers prodded the ground feverishly for mines and a signaller ran out a line. Later, German stretcher bearers were seen on the other side of the bank carting off their dead and wounded. The prisoners, some of whom were a pale green colour with fear, had no idea how this thing had happened to them. At “Ted’s Bund”, the diversion had more than ordinary success and all periscopes reported at least three more stretcher cases being carted away across a footbridge. The snipers had a busy time with three certain hits.
And so the Bund settled down to its new masters. Dugouts grew and flourished, periscopes sprouted and a place that yesterday one had peered at with bated breath through a periscope became part and parcel of the normal life of the sector. The Germans never tried to re-take the area of the new post and so the post was able, by next morning, to report that phrase, well worn by soldiers of the Po Valley, ‘Normal floodbank activity.’ “
Visitors to the Irish Brigade
On the 23rd, the Faughs, who had now relieved the Skins, had a bit of excitement on their floodbank. It mostly concerned in their B Company area and seemed to go on one way and another for about 24 hours. It reached its peak in a fierce hand to hand battle, which lasted about three hours and, in which one of the Bays’ tanks was able to give support. The main credit was due to Lieutenant KEG Taylor and his platoon, who fought off the attack with great spirit and inflicted considerable casualties on the Germans.
A good deal of Red Cross display went on by German stretcher bearers during this period. We found it difficult to decide whether the Faughs had really knocked out all these people or whether the Germans were using their Red Crosses incorrectly to have a good look around. Anyway, one afternoon, one came too close and was promptly taken prisoner, quickly followed by a Polish deserter, who said anything up to twenty five casualties had been inflicted by us. The grenading started up again as soon as it got dark and was pretty fierce for the first couple of hours. It looked as if they were trying to counter attack – if they were, our defensive fire kept it from materialising. Between 0430 and 0545 hours, no less than three hundred mortar bombs landed in the centre of the Faughs’ area.
The next morning, the Faughs took two more prisoners, who put the casualties we had inflicted during the previous day up to three killed and forty seven wounded. They said that reinforcements had had to be brought in from other Companies to bolster them up.
On the afternoon of the 24th, John Coombe (Commander 2 Armoured Brigade) and I held a cloth model exercise at Brigade Headquarters to get a bit more detail and guidance down to Company Commanders for the ‘Kangaroo’ Exercise that the Skins were going to do. This mighty exercise was called “Hossanah” and the ‘Kangaroos’, we were to use, were of the ‘Priest’ variety carrying fourteen men. The Skins had with them an Armoured Regiment, representatives of all supporting arms, ‘Rover David’ – who actually called on fighter bombers and a flood of Umpires and other people cruising around with wireless set listening to what was going on.
The general argument that arose at this stage was whether infantry or tank commanders were in command of any particular phase of the battle. This is the sort of thing that can easily cause a breakdown if either side are not prepared to play full out but if both parties are good chaps and know their business and each other, it is a matter that sorts itself out quite logically when the time comes. This is precisely what happened when the time did come. There was never any difficulty.
A feature of the floodbank war about this time was that both sides started verbal propaganda from behind their lines. The armies were nice and close for this sort of diversion. The Bosche asked the London Irish one night, “Why sit on the floodbank with your wives in England?” Why indeed! Why were the fool Germans waiting on their side of the floodbank to be annihilated. We told the Huns that they’d got to pipe down on their stretcher bearers; they were using far too many and it was very questionable as to who they all were. These remarks were really in response to the Huns, who wanted their stretcher bearers, whom the Faughs had captured, sent back to them. Incidentally, the last thing the stretcher bearers in question wanted to do was to return to their comrades!
While we were on the Senio, we had an absolute spate of visitors. On the 13th, General Wimberley, Director of Infantry came. On the 14th, the Army Commander, General McCreery, had lunch with us. On the 15th, the CCRA 5 Corps – Dolly de Fonblanque turned up. On the 17th, the General brought Clare Boothe Luce. When she arrived, I could not for the life of me remember who this distinguished American lady was, or what she was doing. I told her I thought all politicians were a menace. That remark soon made it clear who she was; no less than a member of the United States Congress. I had quite an amusing quarter of an hour baiting this good lady about Ireland, politics and any other controversial subject I could think of. Apparently, it went down quite well. General Nye, Deputy CIGS, came with the Army Commander on the 21st and visited the Skins and London Irish. The Corps Commander came one afternoon and told me how pleased he was with the offensive actions of our chaps on the floodbank.
It was unfortunate that we had a certain number of casualties that we could ill spare during this period on the floodbank but, on the other hand, it had given our warriors an opportunity to prove their individual superiority over their immediate opponents. They had to use their own weapons and use them skilfully. They had unquestionably established a man to man superiority over the Germans. I believe that this really hundred percent infantry experience, where you could rely on nobody but yourself to fight your own private battle, was an extremely useful prelude to the offensive that lay ahead. We had been rather given to relying on the more remote forms of support but this party had rubbed it in that there are many times when the infantry does well to handle its own weapons skilfully.
Arthur Weldon, who had been commanding our 254 Anti Tank Battery for so long, left about this time and handed over to Murray Anderson.