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By Maj (Ret) Tony Hibbert, Pegasus Journal, winter 2005
(And the Canadian connection - Ed)
The Challenge:
Liberation of Denmark from Germany: In Denmark, the end of World War II is celebrated on May 4th, when the German High Command signed the instrument of surrender of their Forces in Denmark. Brigadier Lathbury, with the Headquarters of 1st Parachute Brigade landed on Copenhagen Airfield on May 7, 1945 to take the surrender.
The Russian threat
On April 28, the Allies had obtained firm intelligence that the Russians intended to take and hold Denmark in defiance of the Yalta Agreement and had dispatched an armoured division to invade Denmark from the south via Lübeck, Kiel and Flensburg. This adventure had to be stopped but without incurring the armed conflict between Russia and the Allies for which Hitler and his High Command had been praying.
The Allied Response
On May 1, Eisenhower ordered the immediate move of a strong Royal Navy flotilla to Copenhagen and a light cover of specialized troops to Kiel and Denmark, but the key to the plan was the dispatch of a strong force to reach Wismar at the north end of the Yalta demarcation line “before the Russians arrived and to stop the Russians there.”
At 0800 hours on May 1, the 3rd Parachute Brigade, under its famous and charismatic commander, Brigadier James Hill, was allocated the Divsional Artillery, a squadron of the Royal Scots Greys and transport for some of his troops and was ordered to punch a 60-mile corridor to Wismar through a strongly defended area with many German units still resisting. So close to the end of hostilities there was an understandable reluctance by commanders not to expose their troops to unnecessary risks. Nevertheless Hill’s leading 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion under LCol G.F. Eadie reached Wismar at 0900 hrs May 2 and the main body was in position by 1200 hrs – 60 miles in 25 hours, a truly heroic feat – four hours ahead of the Russians.
The leading tanks of Rokossovskii’s Armoured Division hit Hill’s Brigade at 1600 hrs and there they were stopped; four hours that saved Denmark.
Wismar
Wismar was the key to the whole operation. If the door could be bolted before the Russians arrived, Denmark would be safe. If the Russians got there first, all the forces sent to Kiel and Denmark would be too little, too late and Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein might remain on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain for the next 50 years.
The nearest Allied unit to Wismar was the 6th Airborne Division, which had fought all the way from Normandy and had just completed an assault crossing of the Elbe at Lauenburg, 60 miles south of Wismar.
At 1800 hrs on April 29 their commander, MGen Bols, received urgent and peremptory orders to advance immediately to capture and hold Wismar, “before the Russians get there.”
For this operation, he had the 3rd and 5th Parachute Brigades and was allocated an escort of a squadron of the Royal Scot Greys (of Balaclava fame), the divisional artillery and transport for his lightly armed parachute troops. It took 14 hours to assemble ‘Wismar-Force’ on the start line.
May 1
0800 hrs: 3rd and 5th Parachute Brigades ordered to advance 60 miles to Wismar at maximum speed on separate parallel routes converging on Gadebusch, 20 miles south of Wismar. After this there was only a single route. Whichever Brigade reached Gadebusch first would win the race to Wismar. 3rd Parachute Brigade was commanded by the legendary brigadier James Hill who had commanded 1st Parachute Battalion in North Africa where he was seriously wounded. On his return to the UK, he commanded 3rd Parachute Brigade and led them from D-Day onwards receiving another three wounds.
One of our most experienced and decorated fighting commanders; he was determined to be the first into Wismar. The two Brigades had to plough their way through more than a million terrified German refugees fleeing from the approaching Russians. The fully armed German troops lining the roads had received no instructions of any Cease Fire discussions (which did not start until three days later) and Hill met frequent roadblocks and pockets of resistance. The speed of the advance took the Germans by surprise and where there was resistance, the guns of the Scots Greys shot their way through. Urged on by Brigadier Hill, the 3rd Parachute Brigade was the first to reach Gadebusch and Wismar.
May 2
0900: Brigadier Hill’s Advance Guard of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion entered Wismar and cleared the town with the help of the Scots Greys. A fighting advance of 60 miles in 25 hours, much of it by night was no mean feat.
1200: Remainder of 3rd Parachute Brigade arrived and set up defensive position facing East.
1600: Advance Guard of Russian Armoured Division entered Wismar. Some Russian tanks slipped through Hill’s position and reached the outskirts of Lübeck (over 40 miles from Wismar). When the Russian main body arrived in Wismar, their leading tanks surrounded the Canadian position and held them and brigadier Hill under restraint. When the Brigadier threatened his Russian opposite number with the weight of the Divisional Artillery and the firepower of a rocket-firing Typhoon squadron, the Russians withdrew from Wismar. This stalemate was maintained for a further five days until Field Marshal Montgomery flew up to meet the celebrated but very disgruntled Russian Marshal Rokossovskii who had been give the task of capturing Denmark.
Condensed from the original by Brigadier (Ret) Maurice Tugwell, who was a platoon commander in the race to Wismar – Ed.
By LCol (Ret) J.C. Berezowski
Exercise HOLDFAST was one of the largest NATO exercises staged in northern Federal Republic of Germany during the Cold War. Conducted by the 1st British Corps, it was the operational test of the Bundeswehr’s 6th Panzer-Grenadier Division (6PZ) to confirm operational readiness for assignment to NATO. (Because of the existing terms of occupation at the time, no German formations were permitted above divisional level.) HOLDFAST involved sea, land and air forces with some 80,000 troops participating. The Blue Force 6PZ was to defend south along the autobahn from east of Hamburg to Lübeck on the Baltic coast. In behind were a Danish division on the Kiel Canal and a second Danish reserve division being mobilized in Denmark.
For the exercise, the autobahn was declared the Kleine Mollige (an excellent local beer) Canal.
The enemy Orange Force was built around 4 Canadian Infantry Brigade Group (4CIBG) concentrated southeast of Hamburg about 20 kilometers from the Soviet Zone and south of Wismar. Their mission was to simulate a Warsaw Pact force, attacking northwest forcing a crossing of the hypothetical canal; then proceeding northwest to capture a crossing on the Kiel Canal into Denmark.
Under cover of darkness, 2nd Battalion, The Black Watch (RHC) was vanguard for 4CIBG and succeeded in “winkling” across the “Canal” in a number of spots. After the brigade reorganized in the forward assembly area, the Black Watch pushed off on the Violet route to the west while 1st Canadian Guards moved east and north along Scarlet route, heading for the Kiel Canal. The 2nd Queen’s Own Rifles were brigade reserve; A Battery, 1 RCHA and A Sqn 8th Canadian Hussars with Centurion tanks supported the Guards. B Battery, 1 RCHA and B Sqn 8th Canadian Hussars supported The Black Watch battle group.
The advance northward proceeded unimpeded for some while. The Panzer Grenadiers were awaiting the massed attack prescribed by Soviet doctrine of the past (war). Meanwhile the Canadians pushed forward along two axes causing some havoc in the rear areas of 6PZ. The FOO with the vanguard on Violet route spotted a bundle of telephone cables laid out along the roadside ditch. Knowing that the Germans preferred land line over radio, he cut the bundle with pliers wrapping one end around the spare tire of his jeep. After driving some 100 yards, he cut the other end and drove off.
Mid-afternoon, the vanguard encountered its first serious opposition from 6 PZ at the major highway and railroad junction of Innien. A battle group attack was mounted with tanks and artillery in support. The umpires declared the town captured about 1600 hrs when the German troops were caught sun-tanning outside their tanks, by a regimental artillery fire plan (hypothetical) that bombarded their positions. In the meantime, during a right flanking by a troop of four centurion tanks from B Sqn, three tanks ended fouled in a peat bog. The grand finale to this phase was one of the most horrendous traffic jams in Innien since the Second World War.
The next day saw a British airborne assault go in at three drop zones on the Canal and a British assault landing on the eastern edge of Kiel by a battalion with a squadron of tanks, all as part of Orange Force. Meanwhile, intensive air sorties were flown against both sides.
For the grand finale, the Canadians were umpired back from the Kiel Canal (having penetrated too swiftly) to defensible high ground. After 6PZ had redeployed to a new start line, they had the opportunity to launch one final assault on the dug-in units of 4CIBG.
Some of today’s RUSI VI members participated in Ex HOLDFAST. They are:
Undoubtedly, the author of Exercise HOLDFAST was familiar with the Russian attempt to occupy Denmark in the final days of the Second World War.
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