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THE LOWLANDER - JANET OF GOCH
204 Plays11 months ago
Things are hotting up, literally. Crocodiles, Cleve, Afferden and XXXX XX XX - censorship. 15th Scottish, 51st Highland Division ... Andy and Merryn dig int to the isues of The Lowlander and catch up with the 52nd Lowland Division, dug in, in the Broderbosch.
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Transcript
Introduction to The Lowlander Newsletter
00:00:05
Speaker
From 1944 to 1945, the 52nd Lowlander Division is fighting its way across Northwest Europe. The writing is on the wall, but it's also on the page. The Army Education Branch sends a newsletter out to thousands of men, all pulling together, pushing the enemy back. This newsletter is called The Lowlander.
Favorite Articles from February 1945
00:00:42
Speaker
Hello, Andy. Hello, Mary. Hello, hello. We are back again with the Lowlander, picking out our favourite articles and news updates from the regular service letter that was sent out to the men of the 52nd Lowlander Division between the 12th and 19th of February 1945. Indeed, but there's not much news this week, as in we only have three days worth of Lowlander sheets. However, there's quite a bit going on in Europe still, so you just want to remind us what's going on elsewhere.
Key Events of the Week
00:01:08
Speaker
Well, this week was the bombing of Dresden. Again, we'd got the Mostar operation, which ended in victory for the Yugoslav partisans, about which I know very little. The Battle of Iwo Jima began with American troops under Spruance. And then this was the week in which the British SAS, the Special Air Service, started Operation Cold Comfort, which began with a drop just north of Verona in Italy. Unsuccessful, though. So shall we find out where the jocks are?
00:01:35
Speaker
Well you remember from last week we were talking about Operation Veritable and we're still in Operation Veritable now which is the first Canadian Army's operation to clear the Rhineland and the Reichswag Forest and the 52nd Lowland Division are actually going to join the other two Scottish divisions in 21st Army Group this week. That's the 15th Scottish and the 51st Highland Division and it's the only time really in the war that they've all been together in the same
Operation Veritable and the Rhineland
00:01:59
Speaker
place.
00:01:59
Speaker
So 15 Scottish, they cleared the city of Cleve or Cleve on the 11th and then the 51st Highland Division, not long after that, cleared the Dutch town of Gennep. Now they've secured that and then passing through them on around about the 16th of February
00:02:19
Speaker
is the 52nd loan division and they're on the extreme left flank of the whole of this operation. They're on the side where the river mass is and what they're going to do is they're going to clear a large forest called the Brodabosh. You might also know it as Afroden Woods because there's a little village called Afroden and a couple of the brigades
00:02:37
Speaker
in the division, clear that woods, it's very heavy fighting, they're fighting against German Fallschirmiger, the German parachute regiments, it's incredibly intense of fighting and eventually it becomes stuck on the edge of this wood and they can't really move for about a week afterwards because the fighting is so hard and so difficult.
00:02:53
Speaker
And one of the things that that that slow them up is this castle and it sticks out in the middle of no man's land between the two forests. It's called the Casio Blijsenbeck and in there are some German falchion makers and really they stay like that for the rest of this week and in fact on to next week as well and it takes attacks by typhoons and Spitfires bombing that before they can move forward. So it's all go and then all of a sudden it grinds to a halt and that's where we find the jocks.
00:03:19
Speaker
That sounds like a commando comic in the making. Should we dive straight in then and find out what's going on in the newsletter? Because these guys must be getting updates about all of this action all the time. Yeah, they are. Yeah, let's dive in. Brilliant.
00:03:36
Speaker
14th February 1945.
Allied Progress and Strategic Maps
00:03:39
Speaker
I'm going to start by looking at a map that takes up about half of the front cover of the Lowlander. It's a map of Central Europe and it's divided into two with a very graphic tear down in the middle and I think what it's trying to show us here is the the immense distance the Allies have now covered because on the left hand side we've got Germany, Mannheim,
00:03:57
Speaker
Karlsruhe, what else have we got on there, Cologne. And then the other side of the graphic tear, we've got Frankfurt and going all the way across Prague, Pilsen, all across to Beelsko and Bresl on the right hand side there. So this is just, it's not even actually showing us who's where or what's going on. It's just showing the progress of the Allies and the fact that we've gone so far.
00:04:22
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to work out how much of Germany they've cut out the middle. It's not that much. And actually, if you notice what they've done, it's actually quite an accurate map. They've obviously traced it off of a newspaper report. But if you see they've got lots of little dots, that is actually where the units are. So when we show it, if you want to go on Twitter to have a look at it, you'll actually see the area where the allies are advancing, they've dotted it.
00:04:47
Speaker
And then what's interesting, you can see the Soviets' main effort. They're all pointing towards Berlin, whereas on the Allied front, it's a much more of that straight line, which is, of course, traditionally the way the Supreme Allied commander Eisenhower wanted to fight his battle, which is small, little bits, biting little chunks off, keeping it all straight and nice and neat. Whereas the Russians just going, Berlin, let's go.
00:05:10
Speaker
Oh yeah, I can see what you mean now. We've got that Soviet salient there, haven't we? Yes, and it's actually not far from Berlin at all. It's on the river. I can't actually make out what that river is. It's not the Oder because the Oder isn't that side. But you also see on the top left-hand corner, when you see this map, you see what I mean, they've got the town of Arnhem, Nijmegen, Kleva and Koch. Kleva and Koch, we were just talking about because that's part of Operation Veritable.
00:05:36
Speaker
Yes. But that is where the British and the Canadians are. And then all the rest of that side is the Americans and the French. And it just shows you how big the American army is compared to the British army. That's a really small area the British are in. And these are all names that we should all be familiar with if you know anything about the Second World War.
00:05:56
Speaker
Picking up again on the day to the top right hand side there again, it being Valentine's Day, which I know they would, you know, talked about whilst they were over there. But this is volume two, this is number 109. Oh, what does that mean? Well, I don't know, because it's just occurred to me there haven't been 109 sheets, have there?
00:06:15
Speaker
Well, this is going to kick off an investigation because I wonder if the Lowlander... So we only have copies when they're in Northwest Europe, so we've really only got them from about middle of November 1944. This would suggest that perhaps they've started sooner than that. So I think we might have to go back into the archives and have a mooch. Yes, indeed.
Wartime Censorship Challenges
00:06:41
Speaker
14th of February 1945, censorship.
00:06:45
Speaker
The 250 censors at Shafe have read 100 million words submitted by war correspondents since D-Day. This is the equivalent to 1,700 novels. Now, let's just leave the novels aside for a moment. Yeah, that's a weird measurement. We'll come back to that.
00:07:01
Speaker
It's like, I don't know, football pitches or something. You've got to know how big your pitch is to start with. So a hundred million words submitted to Shave Since D-Day. That's seven months at this point in time, isn't it? Yeah. So there were 250 sensors, which means they were reading what, 4 million words each. Yeah.
00:07:17
Speaker
Okay. So if you're a slow reader, then you'll read probably somewhere around 170, 180 words a minute. So a hundred thousand words will take you about 10, 11 hours. So that means that each one had been reading for about 15 days nonstop, which, which is fine, but let's, let's add some more numbers into this. So there were 996 correspondence submitting their work through shape at this point.
00:07:44
Speaker
Yeah. OK. And by this time, the three army groups were handling something somewhere around 13 million words a month. PR copy on its own was about nine million words. And then there was a scrutiny job as well. So everybody was looking at the domestic press to see what was either being ceded there by foreign operatives or just checking what was actually getting to the press. That was about another 44 million words.
00:08:11
Speaker
And then on top of that, the shave sensors were also looking at amateur film, still pictures, movies, and photographs that were coming in from all over. It's an absolutely fascinating job what they have to do. Because they act like referees. They've got to keep a flow of information going to everybody who's at home. And they've got to make sure that's as complete as possible. And there's a kind of sense of duty to keep people engaged. They say there's no such thing as bad news.
00:08:41
Speaker
But what they are trying to do is to raise morale and yet at the same time, the other side of the coin is that they're also trying to protect the forces against all disclosures that would the aid the enemy. Yeah. Yeah. OK, so this this sounds fairly straightforward, but you think just how how difficult it is to be a censor and read something and work out which side of the line that falls on. All right. Well, it's open to huge amount of subjective differences between each censor surely.
00:09:10
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the archetypal examples are that in Normandy, a chateau is quite a common description. But do you leave the word chateau in there because it's common? Or do you have to make a judgment call to what point the white chateau standing against the pine trees on the side of the north facing hillside becomes a problem? Now, there were lots of examples where the senses
00:09:34
Speaker
made life changing decisions. There's an example in Okinawa, where an American correspondent had spoken to two Japanese journalists who told him the war was lost. And those those journals sent information off through shape. Somebody will call me for if I got this wrong. That's right.
00:09:55
Speaker
But the census then took those Japanese journalists' names out before sending the information across to Washington. Because from them onwards, I mean, the names had to be given to Shafe to establish credibility. But from there on in, upwards and outwards, sharing those names would have meant a death sentence.
00:10:14
Speaker
So there was this constant adjudication going on. It wasn't just, oh, you can't say that, but it was a real judgment call as to what could be said where and when. And then the other big example of the, I suppose, the remit and their reach was
00:10:33
Speaker
Policy censorship at the beginning of the war so it wasn't just about oh you can't mention the name of that place or that person or what's going on they were much higher far more far-reaching and ideals at stake.
00:10:48
Speaker
And the example here is that any material that was critical of Admiral Darlan, the Frenchman, the Vichy defence minister, it was all completely taken out because there was a huge debate as to just what was going to happen if
00:11:07
Speaker
Darland's plan came to fruition because Clark had met with him and negotiated a ceasefire. And the agreement came about that all of torture's immediate objectives could be realised. We could have the French, African army joining forces with us, with the Allies.
Strategic Censorship Decisions
00:11:23
Speaker
We could see Allied cargoes being unloaded in North Africa without any problems.
00:11:28
Speaker
But in return, what Dachlan wanted was to be high commissioner of North Africa. Now that put Eisenhower in a complete fix in the press, because if he agreed with Dachlan, then he'd be working with a man who everybody knew had got really strong ties with Hitler. But on the other hand, if he didn't work with him, then the entire North African campaign would be going up against this potential
00:11:56
Speaker
flare-up of vicious resistance. And so the newspaper editors, particularly in England, they were absolutely outraged that they've got to try and mask this sort of change of opinion. So Eisenhower's political bosses, Roosevelt and Churchill, they defended the decision on the grounds of military necessity
00:12:17
Speaker
temporarily. But as far as the press was concerned, as far as the census acting on press reports coming back from North Africa, there was a limitation as to how much of this was known by the public at the time. It's all fairly academic because Dalang was assassinated on December the 24th, 1942.
00:12:36
Speaker
But, but he was assassinated by a student who wanted to restore the French monarchy and he had been following Dalin's progress in whatever news was available. So, so it just comes, you know, the pigeons come home to roost really, censors are absolutely the judicators of life or death.
00:12:57
Speaker
Well, the interesting thing is, I mean, that sounds very un-French, like to be fighting amongst themselves. The interesting thing is that sometimes we've looked through some of the newspapers during this time and often they'll report on a town that was captured the day before and you think, well, how does that get through the censor? Like, Walde Feucht is a really good example we've talked about before. How does that get through the censor when the Germans know where that is? And of course, the other side of censorship is not covered in this report is the censorship by
00:13:26
Speaker
the platoon commanders and the troop commanders of the soldiers' mail and correspondence, which is going on. And you think the numbers there are swirling, but every single soldier that sends a letter home, it has to be censored by his officer. That goes up to his company commander and so forth before it gets sent back.
00:13:45
Speaker
unmeasurable almost because some people are writing every single day and in fact it's a huge burden for young patoon commanders who are tired, they've got lots of stuff done but they've got to sit down and they've got to go through and censor that mail and make sure it's not giving anything away.
00:13:59
Speaker
It's a constant source of amazement to me, the fluidity and the vast amounts of information that's actually traveling around in different... I'm not talking about carriers strapped to pigeons' legs. I'm talking about the reams of information that's traveling backwards and forwards at a very slow pace, relatively, to what we consider today.
00:14:24
Speaker
And the scope for information to leak here, there and everywhere, which is phenomenal. In some ways, it's a minor miracle that anything got done. Yeah. And of course, somebody in the 52nd is also censoring the Lowlander. Yeah, yeah. But that's for another time. Maren was talking absolute bollocks here. Okinawa censorship, of course, does not come under sheath, which is Europe.
00:14:52
Speaker
Okinawa sent a ship comes under Pacific Ocean Theater command under Admiral Nimitz.
00:15:10
Speaker
The requisitioning of Land Bill came up for its second reading today. The Bill has already been changed somewhat from its original form, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in presenting the Bill, emphasised that it did not apply to Open Spaces and Commons, as had been suggested by its critics. On this assurance, the Labour Party agreed to give their support. Requisitioning of what, Land?
00:15:37
Speaker
So this is to do with open spaces, green spaces, and it kind of has a connection to common land. But I think one of the reasons that I wanted to just have a quick look at this was we're starting to see a flavor of not political influence, but
00:15:56
Speaker
Just more mentions of what's going on politically at home. So bear in mind that we're ramping up towards the end of the war. There's an imminent change coming in in government. There's got to be a change in government coming in. Well, it's a due election coming up, isn't there? Well, yeah. And you think about the number of men that are coming home to what they don't know. I just wonder how much political influence and how much swaying newsletters like this actually had.
00:16:22
Speaker
Well, the interesting thing is, this is entirely what the divisional newspapers are for. The idea is that you're giving the men, in a respectful way, information that they can keep up to date with. It's a different army. It's not an old army that's been taken from the peasant stock and they've got to stand there behind a wooden pike or whatever. These are citizen soldiers that have been drafted into the army or conscripted into the army.
00:16:49
Speaker
they have to buy into it and part of that is giving them the right information in a newsletter or a newspaper and discussing it with them so they know what they're fighting for and also they've got something to something to look forward to because you've got the Beverage Report which came out before this there's obviously a feeling a sense that the Labour Party are going to be offering something different you know and we all know what happens once they get into power the
00:17:13
Speaker
creation of welfare state and all that sort of stuff. So unlike the end of the First World War where it was a home fit for heroes which just never happened, this is really important stuff. They will have remembered their dads, you know, talking about stuff and their mums talking about this stuff. But this is different. This is saying other people have got an interest in you when you get home and, you know, this is what your options are
Political Updates and Influence of Newsletters
00:17:34
Speaker
when it comes to voting. And of course, the Labour Party was voted in.
00:17:39
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I mean, in itself, this is quite an innocuous bit of reporting. It's about the land that airfields or factories have been built on over the last three or four years. And it's basically stating what this bill will try and do is make sure that that land goes back to the the the original owner and the taxpayers don't get burdened with a massive great bill for the transition into a war state and back again. It's just it's really interesting. We're starting to see these mentions of the Labour Party has to give their support. It's just
00:18:09
Speaker
A little bit of positioning going. Don't forget, Tommy... What am I saying? Tommy McAtkins has a vote. Nicely Atkins, come here Wugo man. Yes sir, Atkins I help sir. Do you see those chaps over there? Where sir? Those chaps there are about a hundred yards away, next to the corpse.
00:18:36
Speaker
Er, can't see any men standing next to a dead body, sir, but it's early in the day. Atkins, you blithering idiot, I don't mean dead bodies, I mean a corpse, a small group of trees. Yes, sir. Go and find out what they're up to, there's a bloody war on. Righto, sir. Back in a moment.
00:19:00
Speaker
Okay, sir. You're on a battlefield tour. A battlefield tour? We're in the middle of a bloody battle, man. Go over there and find out the details of this battlefield tour.
Humor on the Battlefield: A Tour
00:19:10
Speaker
Right, sir. One moment.
00:19:20
Speaker
Okay, sir! They're on a battlefield tour, following in the footsteps of Peter White and his jocks! That's not enough information, you clever idiot! Go over there and find out all the details and bring them back sharpish! Right, sir! You wait there, sir, and I'll be back in a moment!
00:19:46
Speaker
Okay sir, they're on a battlefield tour. It's the 11th, the 14th of October. They are following in the footsteps of the 52nd lowland division and they humbly suggest if you would like to find out any more you go online to walkingwithadocs.com.uk Don't worry sir. Bloody good show Atkins, good job. 15th of February 1945
00:20:16
Speaker
Blows from the east, west, north and south.
00:20:20
Speaker
The Crimea promise is being fulfilled. The first combined alleged assault foreshadowed by the conference has been struck and Dresden has borne the brunt of it. The city stands on the path of Konyev's onrush, a centre of military and civil administration, a junction from many railways and a resting place for thousands of refugees. On Tuesday night, 800 RAF bombers swooped on the target and meeting Little Flak dropped 650,000 in centuries, as well as many high explosive bombs.
00:20:49
Speaker
Late reports show that bombers from Italy were also very active yesterday over Vienna and South Austria, and that the hopes of a good day's hunting for the second tactical air force were amply justified. The second, of 1,400 sorties supporting the 1st Canadian Army at Cleaver, destroyed 80 locomotives, 220 railway trucks and 130 motor vehicles. So it was quite successful then? Yeah, is that... is that THE Dresden raid?
00:21:16
Speaker
Yeah, I think it might be the Dresden radio. Yeah, because 750,000 in centuries is a lot. It is. I'd have to double check the dates. But it's it's Cleve that catches my eye. Do you know why? Do you know why we kept attacking Cleve? Well, my understanding is because the Germans wouldn't give it up.
00:21:35
Speaker
There was something better than that. Cleve was where they'd got one of the two radio stations that served the, what's it called, the Knickerbine navigation system. So the Luftwaffe, their bombers used to use radio signals from Cleve. And there was a second station at Stolberg to navigate across to Britain. The Knickerbines, I keep saying Knickerbine, but it is its Knickerbine system.
00:22:03
Speaker
was eventually jammed by the allies and replaced by a higher frequency system, which was located on the coast, up on the French coast. But yeah, no, we took Cleave out because we wanted to get rid of the navigation system. And of course, it was Horrocks who had to live with the decision to bomb Cleave.
00:22:26
Speaker
Yeah, so Cleaver and got now, if you've been there, if you've been to Cleaver and Gok nowadays, it's very much like Stevenage. All the buildings are in the 1960s, and there's a very good reason for that, because of course, the towns were completely destroyed during the fight in the Reichswald, the Reichswald Battle and Operation Veritable.
00:22:43
Speaker
And in fact, it ended up actually not helping because the streets were so badly damaged that the vehicles and the armour couldn't move through it. And it also provided such a good environment and terrain for the Germans to defend. You know, they had loads of areas which they could hide and it was providing all sorts of protection, very similar to Monte Cassino and all those other things.
Controversial Bombing Decisions
00:23:03
Speaker
And in fact, one of the outcomes from Operation Veritable was that we really shouldn't just bomb a city if we're going to assault it because it actually gives the enemy a much, much greater advantage.
00:23:14
Speaker
Horrocks, was it in World at War that he said that Bombing Cleaves was one of the most terrible decisions he'd ever taken in his life?
00:23:23
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And not only because of the civilian population, which I'm sure troubled, but also Cleaver is one of the most sort of iconic medieval towns in Germany. And it was one of the best preserved. So there was all that. It was kind of like Coventry. And of course, if we see Coventry, actually Coventry is a really good example. Coventry today looks all, you know, 1960s modern architecture, but actually it was one of the most amazing medieval cities in Britain until the Germans bombed it. So it was very similar there.
00:23:50
Speaker
And of course the civilians as well, which were large numbers of them killed. Two bumper facts here. One of them is fairly obvious, one perhaps isn't. Anne of Cleves came from Cleave. Yeah, well we know that one.
00:24:06
Speaker
really yeah really but i always forget that because because we pronounce it cleaver and we don't say ann of cleaver we say anna cleaves and the other the other one funnily enough in terms of um language is coven is a german word meaning to raise to the ground oh oh that's a bit that's not good i know it is i thought you were gonna say there's a janet of goch but no no it's a bit
00:24:36
Speaker
15th February 1945. Hotter and hotter. Dragons in the fairy tales were always a safe bet for a nice spot of fire belching. But the old-fashioned dragon has nothing on the modern crocodile. It was about a fortnight ago when some Cosbys were forming up for an attack that their company commander had an idea it might be a good thing to show his men just how terrifying these monsters can be.
00:25:05
Speaker
With the help of the croc commander, he laid on a short demonstration. Having explained how demoralizing the weapon is and the need to follow up quickly, he selected a target, a deserted house nearby. For some seconds, the crocodile blazed away. There was no doubt about its effect. The commander was impressed and his men were impressed too. But there were others on whom the impression was even more pronounced.
00:25:33
Speaker
Because from that empty, deserted house, emerging with their hands above their heads and ejection on their faces, came 23 Bosch burning to go. And on behalf of Andy and Maren at the Lowlander podcast, I'd like to apologise to any listeners who were former members of the King's Own Scottish Borders. We use the word Cosby, which we understand is deeply offensive to you, and we apologise. Indeed.
00:26:01
Speaker
No, what? We had to get that in. That's an official statement because Cosby is the worst thing you can call. I know, I know. And maybe we'll talk about that one day. Crocodile Churchill. I mean, what a better kit that is. It's absolutely terrifying. What was it filled by?
00:26:18
Speaker
Well it was a mixture of petroleum, napalm jelly and some rubber and it fired a jet around about 120 yards or 110
Churchill Crocodile Tanks' Impact
00:26:27
Speaker
metres. Some people say you could get it up to about 140 metres but generally the range was about 80 yards, 73 metres.
00:26:35
Speaker
And it fired at a rate of about 18 liters per second, and it was terrifying. In fact, it's kind of a terror weapon in that, obviously, it can get into, and if it got into you, if you were a German in a bunker or a building and it got in, it would find its way into the building for all the nooks and crannies, and it would be horrendous.
00:26:53
Speaker
But quite often, and as you mentioned, there are people coming out, surrendering. You hear lots and lots of reports. Peter White talks about it, where people see the chart shot and they just put their hands up and say, right, that's it. I've had enough. And they were part of the 17th Armoured Division, which was the specialist armoured division in the British Army.
00:27:11
Speaker
and they had numerous other specialist tanks but there was a whole regiment of Churchill Crocodiles and they would be used for assault tasks if you were taking on the lights of Cleve and Gough or doing a particularly difficult clearance of woods and you would break out the Crocodile Churchill's and not very nice at all.
00:27:32
Speaker
So here's another technical question, fair enough, you don't know, but you talk about it going 120, was that feet or meters? So it's 120 yards or 110 meters, but some people say if you got it right, you could get up to about 150 yards or 140 meters. And presumably they carried a separate reservoir of fuel to burn.
00:27:53
Speaker
Yeah, so the reservoir fuel was actually in a trailer attached to the back at the rear of the tank. And it didn't take long to empty. It only took a few minutes to empty, so you'd fire it in short bursts. And refuelling took around about 90 minutes, and then they would have to build up the pressure, which took another 15 minutes. So you'd use them sparingly, but generally speaking, once they were used a couple of times, the Germans' inventory would normally just throw up their hands and surrender. OK, so that I think is the point I'm coming to, which is if you've got a crocodile
00:28:23
Speaker
troweling down this slope towards you, all its glorious fire blazing, that's one thing. But actually, they actually needed some planning.
00:28:33
Speaker
to get them in to do their job, didn't they? Yeah, definitely. You couldn't just say, oh, take the crocodile over there and do its work. You'd got to work out. You'd got to be there with enough fuel. Pressure had got to be up, et cetera. Exactly. And it would be used as a part of a combined arms operation. So you wouldn't just have a crocodile. You'd have inventory. You'd probably have some armour supporting them. And the other specialist tanks of the 79th armour. So for example, you'd have something like a Churchill Avrey or an armoured vehicle, Royal Engineers.
00:28:59
Speaker
which would have things like fissines, which are bundles of sticks on top to cross gaps, or switching tanks. So you wouldn't just use a Churchill Crocodile on its own, or certainly not without infantry supporting them to stop the Germans. Because of course, the other thing about a Churchill, a Crocodile tank, is it would be a priority target for the enemy as well. If they could see it, they would normally want to knock it out fairly quickly. Did the Germans have Crocodiles?
00:29:24
Speaker
No, not like that they didn't. They definitely had flamethrow... they had a man carried or a person carried flamethrowers. I'm not sure if they had a flamethrower tank. I'm sure the good people on Twitter or X or whatever we call it nowadays, they'll be able to let us know if the Germans had flamethrowing tanks, but they certainly didn't use them the way we did. Okay. 18th of February 1945. Speeding up.
00:29:50
Speaker
After the dire fighting of the past few days, the tempo of the cleaver battle seems to be speeding up and it's the first Canadian army which is setting the pace. From all the sectors the progress is described as useful. On the right, the Scottish infantry are forging ahead along the road running parallel to the mass. They have passed through the villages of Afordin and were last reported several miles south of Jeddip.
00:30:12
Speaker
In the centre the advance of two miles as one through three villages and a slight ridge which dominates the Gog Calcar Road. Both towns are ongoing, experience of being liberated by our gunners, a process which has lost none of its delight because the towns are German.
00:30:27
Speaker
The road itself has been cut at one point. Here on Friday night, over 900 prisoners, including parrot infantry, were taken by one brigade. In general, the flow of prisoners is increasing. On the other hand, the enemy artillery fire is considerably reduced. Eight German divisions, including the Vontied and frequently vanquished 116th Panzer, have been identified. Once again, only from the Ektenach bridgehead, now extending to further half mile into a network of Siegfried pillboxes, is an activity reported.
00:30:56
Speaker
The Third Army has thereby gained a viable stretch of high ground overlooking the next river valley. So it's all going on then?
00:31:04
Speaker
It is all going on and it's just starting to open up a little bit. I mean, the first part of Operation Veritable was really not very good
Allied Advances in Cleaver
00:31:11
Speaker
at all. It was very slow, very plodding. The traffic jam was one of the longest traffic jams ever recorded. That was when three or four divisions were trying to move down one road. The Germans had flooded the Rhine and so all the areas around the north and the east part of the area were flooding.
00:31:28
Speaker
Some people were having trouble moving and of course we talked already about the towns being bombed so that the divisions couldn't actually move in and out of the towns. So it's just starting to open up now but interestingly this is recorded on the 18th of February. What happens on the 18th of February is what I mentioned on the introduction to the episode where
00:31:48
Speaker
the 52nd low division get ground to a grinding halt at Aford and Woods. And they can't move any further. In fact, there's no will to move any further. They just haven't got the power to get across the open land and clear the Alar Forest to the south of it. So it's kind of moving in different places, but also certain parts of it are slowing up.
00:32:08
Speaker
I think what's interesting for me here is if you read this in isolation, just this article in isolation, you wouldn't get the impression of a manic battle with artillery firing. What you get the impression of is the Allies heading east and picking up hundreds and hundreds of prisoners as they go. That's it.
00:32:27
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And the fighting is very, very intense. And to be fair, 52nd fighting is only a couple of days of really intense fighting. But the divisions that have been clearing the towns of Cleavatt and Gough, and Gough especially, so divisions like the 43rd Wessex Division, the 15th Scottish Division, they really, really have some tough fighting in it, and they're taking lots and lots of casualties. And eventually,
00:32:48
Speaker
when the Canadians break out of their part and they head for something called the Hochwald which is a large ridge line, they really really do come stuck again by the Germans who are well dug in. Okay so progress but not all done. At a very high cost. 18th January 1945.
00:33:09
Speaker
land for setting sun. And I don't know whether to read this straight or to include all the tropes. As long as you don't do the accents, Mary, as long as you don't do the accents, we'll be all right. Okay, all right. Three great American fleets are singeing the Mikado's mustaches.
00:33:28
Speaker
The first still cruising 500 miles off the Japanese mainland has, according to Tokyo for the second day, sent off wave after wave of carrier planes in a six-hour pounding of naval and shore installations. The JAP Navy, possibly emulating the Italians, have remained in harbour.
00:33:49
Speaker
The second, with two battleships, continues to bombard the Bonins and may have carried out landings, while the third is silencing the guns of Korajidor. I wonder if the writer of that had a re-drink.
00:34:08
Speaker
I don't even know what he's trying to say. Yeah I mean I have to say the American naval battle in the Pacific is not my strong point and I have to say after reading that article I'm none the wiser. Me neither. And finally we go to this week's Thought of the Day from the 18th of February 1945.
00:34:32
Speaker
There is no surer way for men and for nations to show themselves worthy of liberty and to fight for its preservation. Hull's 17 points. So you know who Hull was, don't you? Oh yes, Rod Hull, the guy with the emu, isn't it? Who? Who's Hull? I have absolutely no idea who Hull was. So, so Cordell Hull was the Secretary of State who was put into place by Roosevelt in 1933. He was the longest serving Secretary of State. He served until
00:35:13
Speaker
In March 1944, he issued a 17-point statement
00:35:20
Speaker
covering off the US's foreign policy to date because they'd been a lot of burbling about the end of the war coming up and people not knowing where they stood and what was going to happen next and what the US's approach was going to be to widespread enemy action still going on and complete unrest after a war was over.
00:35:39
Speaker
What he did was he pulled together a 17-point rehash of his previous statements and speeches. It did not go down particularly well. His first point was that America's paramount aim was to defeat its enemies as quickly as possible.
00:35:56
Speaker
And then there were things like, we believe in international cooperation and there'll be no jumping the gun and assuming that everybody's guilty and we all support international courts of justice and each government. It was all fairly logical stuff, but I don't think this sentence comes from that speech. In fact, it's not even a case of I don't.
00:36:16
Speaker
I've tracked it down. It comes from a speech he made in 1942. And it was an address that was titled, What America is Fighting For, my address to the nation. It was 23rd of July 1942. And we can listen to it. There is no sure way for men and formations to show themselves worthy of liberty than to fight for its preservation in any way that is open to them.
00:36:43
Speaker
against those who would destroy it for all. I mean, it's always amazing to hear people's speech on this thing, you know, you hear the names and you see the names in somebody I've never heard of and you actually hear them talking. He's not the most inspiring speaker, I'm going to be honest. But you know what, it's actually quite interesting to hear somebody that's printed in the Lowlander. It is indeed. Well, on that note, I think we'd better leave it there for this week, don't you? I think that's a good idea, yeah.
00:37:11
Speaker
Alright, see you next time. See you, bye-bye. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Lowlander. The Lowlander was written, produced and presented by Andy Richardson and Mirren Walters. This was a hellish good production.
00:37:49
Speaker
And now we go to the classified football results for the week commencing the 12th of February 1945. English League North Cup. Atkinson 3, Blackburn 2. Aston Villa 6, Walsall 1. Bolton 2, Liverpool 1. Bradford 5, Leeds 2. Cardiff 4, Bristol 2. Chester 3, Crewe 3. Everton 6, Southport 0.
00:38:19
Speaker
Grimsby 5, Rotherham 0 Halifax 0, Oldham 2 Huddersfield 3, Manchester City 1 Hull 3, Barnsley 0 Leicester 2, Derby 2 Lincoln 5, Sheffield Wednesday 3 Lovels 4, Bath 2 Manchester United 2, Burry 0 Mansfield 4, Chesterfield 3
00:38:48
Speaker
Middlesbrough 2, Gateshead 3 Newcastle 3, Darlington 1 Northampton 8, Coventry 1 Nottingham Forest 1, Knotts County 4 Preston North End 2, Barnley 1 Rochdale 3, Blackpool 6 Sheffield United 0, Doncaster 4 Stockport 4, Tranmere 3 Stoke 8, Portvale 1
00:39:19
Speaker
Sunderland 6 Hartlepool 2 Swansea 5 Aberamham 2 West Bromwich 4 Birmingham 0 Wolverhampton 4 Wrexham 1 York 2 Bradford City 2 English League South Cup Brighton 6 Millwall 2 Charlton 2 Luton 1 Crystal Palace 1 Chelsea 1
00:39:50
Speaker
Fulham 1, Brentford 0 Portsmouth 2, Arsenal 4 Other match Royal Navy 0, Army 2 Scottish League South Hearts 2, Albion 1 Dumbarton 3, Rangers 6 Celtic 2, Falkirk 1 Adronians 1, Hibernian 1 Moreton 1, Hamilton 2 Motherwell 2, St Mary 0
00:40:20
Speaker
Partick Thistle 2, 3rd Larnach 6 Queens Park 2, Clyde Nill Scottish League, North East Rangers 2, Dundee 5 Abroath 3, Hearts 2 Falkirk 1, East 5-3 Dundee United 6, Dunferrland 3 Aberdeen 8, Braith Nill
00:40:47
Speaker
And this includes the classified football results of the week commencing the 12th of February 1945. It's interesting actually at the bottom, the rugby union. Just genuinely interesting. You go everything from Royal High School... Oh yeah! ...to Sonians, to RAF, to... South African service. Older shots service, wasp. There's some variation there, isn't there?
00:41:18
Speaker
I'm convinced that somebody's just made some names up there and put some numbers next to them. This is like Man City playing Quick Fit's best outfit, isn't it? Yes, probably to the same standard as well. They went in there and they just saw the bloody Germans off. They were hellish good.