Delaforce - Montys Highlanders : 51st Highland Division in the Second World War

O n 8th May HD moved to a concentration area in and amongst the German units of 15th PZ Div, 152 Bde was at Bederkesa, 153 at Bremerhaven and 154 Bde in Bexhovede. Div HQ was in Schiffdorf, a village outside Bremerhaven. All ranks found comfortable billets in houses and flats. Guards were also needed for the docks and warehouses to prevent looting by the Displaced Persons (DPs) of all nationalities. 5/7th Gordons A Coy area included a food store filled with luxuries for provisioning submarines. On 12th May a Victory parade was held at Bremerhaven when HD marched past Lt General Sir Brian Horrocks GOC 30th Corps, played past by the Massed Pipe Bands of the division. 5th Cameron Highlanders supplied the only fully kilted contingent on parade. General Babe Macmillan himself led his division. Private Ian E Kaye, Bde HQ watched the parade:

From far, far away in the distance we heard a faint command Pipes and Drums, By the left... Quick March and the skirling of the bagpipes could be heard all over the town. As they came into view with kilts and sporrans swinging in unison and the glitter of silver and brass in the sunlight it was quite breathtaking; the smart drum majors, each swinging his mace with immaculate precision and the famous bearded Piper Ashe of the Seaforth Highlanders who stood out on every parade. As they marched past the General, the sound of the pipes just seemed to lift you, and we cheered our heads off. One by one the regiments passed us, and it was a blaze of colour with all the different regimental tartans on display. The sound of Highland Laddie echoed round the chimney pots.

HD had made prisoner in North-West Europe almost 24,000 and during the whole of WWII (except the BEF tragedy) the division had suffered 16,469 casualties, including 3084 killed in action. 1st Gordons had fought some 36 actions and suffered nearly a thousand casualties in north-west Europe. I shall never get over the sadness of these losses. To the day of my death [Major Martin Lindsay] I shall remember David Martin, George Stewart, Arthur Thompson, Donald Haworth, the best platoon commander that ever was; Albert Brown our doctor; Glass the young Canadian, Jimmy Graham, my first servant; Carrots Chamberlain for so. long my signaller and Sgts Dunlop and Coutts, together with General Thomas Rennie and many others, as gallant and lovely Highlanders as have ever been. Lt Col John McGregor, author of The Spirit of Angus recalls some of the 25,000 miles travelled by 5th Black Watch from Butterburn School, Dundee to Bremerhaven:

From the heather of Scotland, the woods and fields of England, half way round the world to the heat, dust and flies of Egypt. The baptism of fire at Alamein, across the deserts of North Africa, to the mountains of Tunisia. The brief respite on the sun soaked beaches of Algeria, then through Malta to the sultry plains of Sicily. Back across the winter seas for a few precious months at home and preparation for the Normandy landings. Then from the treachery of the small fields and woods of Normandy, across Northern France to the waterways of Holland and Belgium, the bitter cold of the Ardennes, and the bloody battles in the Reichswald, before the Rhine and the advance into the strongholds of Germany. An epic journey full of incident, endeavour and triumphs for the Battalion.

We remembered friends who were dead. It had been a long time. Sometimes we [Alastair Borthwick, 5th Seaforth] could not remember their names. We talked of drought in Africa and floods in Holland and how the 88 had come down on the olive grove at Sferro. We argued about which truck had sunk on Nan beach and whether or not there had been a rum ration after Francofonte... it seemed strange in the following days to find the same drab landscape outside our windows. This, we felt, was not the way wars should end. We should feel suddenly different. Perhaps we were too tired. Perhaps the abnormal had become too much our second nature. The war had just petered out and left us, disillusioned and weary in a world where even peace had lost its savour. There was nothing left but anticlimax.

Eclipse was over and on 14th June Field Marshal Lord Montgomery visited HD to present medals to his Highlanders.

THE END