WO 171/703 - 185 Infantry Brigade - November 1944

Instructions regarding War Diaries and Intelligence Summaries are contained in F.S. Regs., Vol. 1. and the Staff Manual respectively Title pages will be prepared in manuscript.	WAR DIARY or INTELLIGENCE SUMMARY	Army Form C.2118
	WAR DIARY or INTELLIGENCE SUMMARY	Unit: HQ 185 Inf Bde (incl Def Pl)
Month and Year: November 1944	(Erase heading not required).	Commanding Officer: Brig. E.L. Bols

Place	Date	Hour	Summary	Reference
MERSELO	1		The month opened with the Bde Gp holding VENRAY and the approaches to it. The enemy was determined but elusive. We estimated that probably not more than one coy of GAF troops was holding the area in front of us centred on OOSTRUM. Our patrols went out vigorously but were unable to capture a PW. On the other hand the enemy's patrolling appeared to be done by some different body of men coming fwd at night through the thinly held posns. The enemy held very close to us in LUL and we had several shoots with HE and AP on houses that he was known to hold. However it was to his credit that the enemy only withdrew in very rare instances and invariably went back to any building that we neglected for long. During this period we continued to see a large number of V.2 being launched. Enemy artillery and mortar effort increased from day to day and what was handed over to us as a very comfortable area became extremely unpleasant. We organised retaliation shoots of both guns and hy mortars but although the Nebelwerfers appeared to dwindle away, the enemy continued to fire at regular hours guns from over the river, lighter calibres - particularly SP 88 mm and SP guns from this side, and medium and hy mortars often fired in batteries.

Source: Jeroen Koppes, TracesOfWar.com, transcribing: Hans Houterman.

Disclaimer: This War Diary is based on its original, but typos might be corrected. Locations are calculated, so might not be in the correct place. For historical research, always check the originals.

Domains

More information

Contact