WO 171/1384 - 2 Royal Ulster Regiment - 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: 2nd Bn. The Royal Ulster Rifles
Month and Year: November 1944	(Erase heading not required).	Commanding Officer: Lt. Col. I.C. Harris

Place	Date	Hour	Summary	Reference
855354	30		Zero hour was at 500 hrs and soon odd bursts of spandau and shots of rifle fire were heard from advanced Bn HQ. At 545 hrs first reports came through from the two leading Coys. Both had successfully breached the belt of wire which marked the outher ring of enemy defences. C Coy on the left found some R mines attached to the wire but these were disarmed by our Pioneer Pl & breach made without difficulty. Opposite D Coy, however , the wire & had attached to it some concealed charged, they were inaccessible without moving the wire & so the Pioneer section working with D Coy had no alternative but to set them off. The explosion made an alarming noise but the strong wind must have concealed the sound and the explosion made an alarming noise but the strong wind must have concealed the sound and the first Platoon passed through. It was clear from the nature of the weather and the ground that this attack would not be an easy one. The night was clear and a strong wind kept the sky free of clouds & allowed a bright moon to shine down with unabated intesnity. The ground on both was extremely flat, & opposite C Coy quiet devoid of cover sp that in the moonlight the advance would plainly be frought with difficulties. At 545 the leading Platoon having advanced along WANSSUM RD came under heavy machine gun fire from the orchard on the left of the rd & houses on the right hand side. This little settlement is named HELLING & soon it proved to be strongly held.The Coy Comd, Majot Murphy, appreciating what had happened from his Headquarters by the wire , ordered the second Platoon to work up the left flank along the edge of the flooded BEEK. This Platoon had worked forward with succes to a point almost level with the first Platoon on the rd when it too was pinned by close range MG fire from the western corner of the orchard. Plainly the German had the ground well traversed by fire & that the moonlight allowed him a complete view of our tactical manoeuvres. There upon Major Murphy decided to withdraw these two platoons to the original joining up position in order to bring mortar & artillery fire to bear upon the stubborn position. Great work was done by the company runner Rfn Beattie in transmitting the message to the two platoon Comds under heavy MG fire. On the right however it was unfortunate that just after receiving this message Sjt Hammersly, the Platoon Comd, was wounded & evacuated , and it seems fairly certain that the order to withdraw never reached one section of his platoon or the Pioneer Pl Comd, Lt Shimmin, and his seven pioneers who had closely followed up to the right hand platoon. At all events only five men from the platoon and no Pioneers returned to the forming up position. Subsequently Major Murphy observed five riflemen being taken back under German escort. One carrying a Red Cross flag and another a stretcher from HELLING to WANSSUM. Later Lt Shimmin and Sjt Rafferty were also seen going back under German escort, and that afternoon a civilian told ud that he had witnessed the passage of 15 British soldiers through WANSSUM, 3 of whom were walking wounded. Six graves were subsequently discovered in the orchard at HELLING where our dead had been buried by the local Dutchmen. C Coys casualties in this action were 6 killed, 4 wounded and 12 missing, while the Pioneers Pl lost 1 Offr and 7 ORs missing. On the left, D Coy under comd of Major Bird were more succesfull. At 415 the Coy moved tto BLITTERSWIJK and its defensive commitmens fromnorth to west were taken over by A Coy and at 545 the leding platoon passed through through the wire and set off towards the first objective , the some 300 yards west of the breach in the wi The re. A Spandau opened up in the direction of this party at close range but hurt nobody, and Lt Campbell the comd led his men forward in a charge upon this position but found it abandond complete with spandau and panzerfaust. The platoon under Lt Hancock had aa similar experience in the left hand edge of the wood. Coming under intense MG fire from the wood, they advanced into the wood using the same tactics of throwing a grenade and then rushing the position. This was done by the great initiative and dash, but has the wood came thicker so progress became slower, and when they finally reached the objective it was to find that the enemy had fled. The third platoon was now ordered forward by the coy commander, and, having survived without a casualty a severer spell of German harassing fire along its line of aproach, this platoon under Sjt Brown advanced without further difficulty to the coys first objective. Nor wasthere any further trouble in gaining the second objective, a wood some distance north west of the Windmill. The third objective , a wood to the leftto the second was , however, not so easily gained. Two or three German positions were located and attacked with 2 Mortars and FIAT fire but not until two platoons had launched a joint attack was this stubborn resistance broken. Not until the end did the Germans leave, but then they left in a great hurry abandoning weapons and equipment. Now it was fully daylight it soon became clear that although the Boche had given ground before the determination of D Coys attacks, he retained a perimeter defence of WANSSUM, which he had as yet no intention of giving up. D Coy were now established firmly in the western end of the woods south of WANSSUM - BLITTERSWIJK road but two or three wooded areas to the north of the road were known to contain Boche. Between WANSSUM and D Coy the enemy ejected from the woods , had reorganized his defenceof withdrawal from the vicinity of HELLING. Equally plainly no further movement in daylight was possible for our troops, in view of the flat and open character of the ground There fore a plan by Lt. Col. Harris to renew attack by night, employing a third coy which was attack in the north westerly direction from a point south west of Coy wood. Extensive recconnaissance was carried out by its Comd Capt Gaffekin and his platoon comds but not much of the ground could be seen and the frequent doses of mortar and shell fire increased difficulties. More information and assistance was in fact obtained from air photographs. Finally a plan was evolved (see Appendix). Meanwhile C and D Coys had continued to be offensive. Accurate mortar fire and several "Mike" targets were put down on HELLING. D Coyspent the rest of the day sniping at the Germans, Rfn Hopper killed or woundedsix with a sniper's rifle and Rfn Roberts two more. On his side the Boche continuously our positions and occasionally harassed them with MG fire.

Source: Jeroen Koppes, TracesOfWar.com, transcribing: Theo Vervoort.

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.

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