Ten-month slog ends in longed-for victory in Europe
Infantry and flail tank clearing mines in Holland.
VERY few of the "Scottish Red Lion" Division had seen action before they were thrown into Operation Epsom, General Montgomery’s first great battle to force the river Odon, south of Caen.
On the rainy 26th June, 1944, the Seaforths tried and failed to capture their objective and in five days of fighting in and around Le Valtru they suffered 310 out of the division’s 2500 casualties. It was a tragic start.
Next came Operations Greenline and Bluecoat where the Seaforths reached the top of Hill 309. "Life became a mixture of walking, digging slit trenches, standing to at dawn, hiding behind hedgerows and in ditches, dodging shellfire, bullets, mortar bombs and snipers," Private Alan Warburton wrote.
"Sometimes a huge Tiger tank would come running down on us. The armour could not get moving through the bocage country, so we foot-sloggers had the grim task of flushing out the enemy."
Operation Bluecoat, the great advance south, saw the Seaforths, with Coldstream tank support, battling in Lassy and Estry where there were 90 casualties and their second Commanding Officer, Lieutentant-Colonel Robertson, was mortally wounded.
In the Normandy campaign 37 out of 50 days had been spent fighting and the division had lost 5300 casualties — reminiscent of the Battle of the Somme in the First World War.
Meanwhile, the Highland Division spent a miserable month in a triangular area near Colombelles in every kind of danger, including from ferocious mosquitoes, but by 1st August they were out of the line at Cazelle, northwest of Caen, with a rest camp by the sea that offered NAAFI beer, bath units, cinema shows, Balmoral concerts, regimental games, reasonable food and unofficial cider and calvados.
On 7th August, Major General Rennie sent an encouraging message to the Division. "We are about to take part in the decisive battle of France," he declared.
Operation Totalise with the Canadians was a massive night operation under "Monty’s Moonlight" — searchlights bouncing their beams off the clouds, but the 2nd Seaforth attack on Tilly-la-Campagne failed and their new Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel F.L.W. Andrews, ordered a new attack from different sides. They were helped by Lieutenant-Colonel Walford’s 5th Seaforth, whilst 5th Camerons cleared Lorquichon and Secqueville. The crack German 12th SS Division were formidable opponents, but eventually the Division struggled out of Normandy and were again in trouble.
In the period from the 16th to 20th August, RAF Lancasters, Spitfires, Typhoons and Lightnings strafed and strafed Highland Division positions, wounding many Scots including Lieutenant-Colonel Andrews. (Patrick Delaforce was in the neighbouring 11th Armoured Division, whose orders were "if attacked on land or by air, fight back", so their many machine-gunners were given permission to deter the gung-ho RAF.)
General Rennie and Brigadier Cumming-Bruce even had to dive into ditches to avoid Typhoon fire.
On 1st September the Highland Division made a sad nostalgic visit to St Valéry, scene of the "old" 51st Division’s 1940 surrender, amid intense joy from the French at their liberation and 3rd September was declared St Valéry Day. The massed drums of the Division beat the retreat and played "Flowers of the Forest" at Cailleville in a sad three-day memorial to the 12th June, 1940 disaster when the original Division was sacrificed to try to keep our French allies fighting.
Operation Astonia on 10th to 12th September was a brilliant combined operation with the 49th Polar Bear Division to capture the key port of Le Havre.
The 51st then laid siege to Dunkirk, but had to bypass it to move north into Holland. On 25th September, 5th Camerons received reinforcements including six young Canadian officers, under the CANLOAN scheme, who fought well in the next six months and were all wounded in the process.
The Division had a leave camp in Eindhoven and another in Antwerp, under bombardment from Nazi V1 and V2 rockets, before Operation Colin, the plan to clear Brabant, the Dutch province south-west of Nijmegen, which was followed by Operation Guy Fawkes on 4th November and by Operations Ascot and Noah to clear the area south of Arnhem, scene of October’s unsuccessful airborne invasion.
In mid-winter Highland Division found itself in deep ice and snow around Laroche in the northern Ardennes, fending off the German panzers in the Battle of the Bulge. Operations Veritable and Blockbuster were then launched to break the Siegfried Line, with the Division’s advance towards Kessel and Goch starting from Mook. Lieutenant-Colonel Walford, who had been the 5th Seaforth’s Commanding Officer since D-Day, was appointed to command 9th Seaforth in Scotland and was replaced by Lieutenant-Colonel John Sym.
2nd Seaforth fought the determined young paratroops of the German 7th Parachute Division, but after 17 horrible days of intense close quarter fighting in the dense waterlogged forests of the Reichwald, the whole of Monty’s division finally reached the river Rhine.
Following a week out of the line around Nijmegen, Highland Division had to absorb many reinforcements and was visited by Churchill and Field Marshals Alan Brooke and Montgomery who heaped praise on their Scotsmen.
They had done so well in Operation Veritable that Monty asked both Scottish divisions, 51st and 15th, to lead the way over the Rhine in Operation Plunder — hence their army nickname of the "Crossing Sweepers".
Once across the Rhine, 5th Seaforth had a terrible battle in Groin on 25th March, 5th Camerons captured Isselburg on the 28th and 2nd Seaforth forced a bridgehead over the Oude Issel river.
The next month was spent in almost daily small actions on the way to Bremen via Enschede, a Dutch border town where they had a lovely welcome, Salzbegen, Lingen and Delmenhorst.
Four British divisions, including the 51st, surrounded Bremen, and early in May it was all over.
On 12th May a grand victory parade was held at Bremerhaven where Major General "Babe" MacMillan led the Division, poor Thomas Rennie having been killed by a mortar on 26th March, and 5th Camerons supplied the only kilted contingent on parade.
A bystander wrote: "They came into view with kilts and sporrans swinging in unison and the glitter of silver and brass in the sunlight was quite breathtaking; the smart drum-majors, each swinging his mace with immaculate precision and the famous ‘bearded Piper’ Ashe of the Seaforth Highlanders stood out on every parade.
"The sound of the pipes just seemed to lift you. One by one the regiments passed, a blaze of colour with all the different regimental tartans on display. The sound of ‘Highland Laddie’ echoed all around."
The 51st Highland Division had suffered 16,469 casualtes including 3084 killed in action, from Alamein onwards.
They had travelled 25,000 miles from the heather of Scotland, to the heat and dust and flies of Egypt, across the deserts of North Africa to the mountains of Tunisia, to the sultry plains of Sicily, to Normandy for the treachery of the bocage countryside, the waterlogged polders of Holland, the bitter cold of the Ardennes, the bloody battles in the Reichswald and the many river battles across Germany.
7th Seaforth in 15th Scottish Division had moved more or less in parallel with 2nd and 5th Seaforth and 5th Camerons all the way from Normandy to Hamburg.
Patrick Delaforce’s book "Monty’s Highlanders" quotes Monty’s own personal accolade.
"I have a very great affection for the Highland Division," the Field Marshal stated.
"It was the only infantry division in the armies of the British Empire that accompanied me during the whole of the long march from Alamein to Berlin."
? Patrick Delaforce, author of 17 World War Two histories including "Monty’s Highlanders" (Pen & Sword Publishers), is a veteran officer who fought in Normandy, Belgium, Holland and Germany, was wounded twice and was awarded the Bronze Cross of Orange Nassau and two Mentions in Despatches for bravery.
His latest book are "Operation Eclipse" and "The Rhine Endeavour" from Amberley Publishing (£19.99). Together with "Monty’s Highlanders" and his other publications, it is available from book shops, Amazon or the publishers’ websites.
