Up the Gatineau! Article
This article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 22.
The Instant Commando, or Hot Sweet Tea
from the diary of Captain J. H. S. Geggie RCAMC, November 1944
| Objective: | Seaborne frontal assault on the town of Flushing, Walcheren Island, Holland. |
| Qur forces: | 4 Commando (Br) with Free French Company attached, 6 Field Dressing Station Light Section (Cdn) attached. |
| Means: | LCA (landing craft assault) from Breskens to Flushing 7 km. across the estuary of the Scheldt River. |
| The enemy: | Garrison troops manning heavy guns denying the river to shipping. Recent reinforcements from the regular German army. Total enemy formation (estimated) 3000-5000. |
| Details: | Enemy expected to stand fast as commanded by special Fithrer order. Simultaneous assault by Royal Marines on West Kappelle, west of Flushing. Centre of island flooded via breaches blown by RAF in seawall. Lieutenant-Colonel Hillsman’s FSU (field surgical unit) (Cdn) attached to Marine brigade for West Kappelle operation. |
Into LCA number 821, at Breskens 0400 hours. Met with hot reception yesterday during boat drill — shell fire from Flushing. I was determined not to duck until the Brits did but when I saw a huge timber blown sky high from the dock, I didn’t wait to see where it fell! The handiest shell hole was already full of Brits but with displacement of my bulk in water, there was room for me!
The LCA was a 25-foot all-steel boat designed especially to land troops on a sloping beach. Its wide, square bow had a hinged steel door which could be kicked down to form a loading or disembarking platform. A powerful motor at the stern was operated by a crew of one. It was the work horse of the army and had dozens of uses, such as unloading larger ships for a run into a landing area and transporting troops and supplies across rivers. It was light enough to be transported by lorry.
The medical personnel had been with the Commando three weeks studying mock-ups of the objective, organizing stores, medical supplies, and so on. Colonel Dawson found a use for a Canadian officer early on: I was sent to a nearby American unit to “borrow” eighteen tommy guns with the words: “You Canadians know the Yanks better than we do.” It was becoming evident that a commando medical officer had other than medical responsibilities! After three weeks in unit lines near Ostend, we found ourselves in the totally destroyed town of Breskens, 7 km. across the Scheldt estuary from Flushing. The terrain was a shambles, having been fought over for weeks. The shell holes were almost Hip to lip and full of water. Passchendaele must have looked like this in 1917. As was true in that other war, it rained continually and the water table was in some places above ground, making digging in impossible.
Jean Le Mun, the Free French medical sergeant, and I found a comparatively dry spot in a corner of a house with just enough roof above to deflect the rain. T was awakened at 0300 hours by my batman, Dick Feighen, with a hot cup of tea and a hastily contrived Spam sandwich, On the way to the dock, I was horrified to come upon a human torso hanging from a window. Further investigation revealed it to be a dress-maker’s model. Some joker with a macabre sense of humour. We boarded our boat in a driving rain and were reassured to find we shared LCA 821 with ammunition and gasoline!
Dawn was just breaking when we cleared harbour. The Jerries were not asleep either and were making much use of their big guns but the shells seemed to be aimed at our start point. It was assumed also that much of the noise was from our own guns — reassuring even if untrue. We swung out into the river and drove straight into a very comforting smoke screen. There we lay awaiting our turn into the beach. Thirty years later, T was astounded to find that a patient in my office complaining of leg pain had been blown ont of a boat laying a smoke screen for the “attack on Flushing.” Jack Templeman of 5 Field Company Engineers had floated about in the icy water of the estuary for hours before he was pulled out. He refused to contemplate a pension application and died shortly afterwards. Jack’s father had been killed at Mons in 1914 and Jack opined “T figured I owed them bastards something.” Jack had paid back “them bastards.”
“Here we go, sir.” I felt the boat surge forward. A quick look over the bow and there was our objective — a small beach with a few boats already drawing away as 1o one delayed leaving that contested area. There was a jar as if we had hit bottom, the coxswain shouted “ramp down,” and I kicked the door and dashed off into three or four feet of cold, muddy North Sea water. The 40-Ib. pack on my back seemed lighter than usual. The sten gun under my arm seemed as useless as usual and I felt Grawn irresistibly toward a low sea wall a hundred yards up the beach. I was not surprised to note that my comrades were similarly attracted to the same wall. We all waited to see if a mortar bomb would hit LCA 821. It would have been spectacular to see a hit on all that ammo and gasoline. After a suitable passage of time utilized in getting “nonchalant” it was incumbent upon us to get off our backsides, look around our protective wall and even dash into the town in search of a site for an ADS (advance dressing station).
The scene of devastation beyond our wall was disconcerting but not as disconcerting as staying on that still-contested beach. We ventured out, dashed from ruined building to ruined building, caught a glimpse of a Commando officer herding some Germans along the way and then came upon an empty store or small shop. Schmeisser rapid fire down the street had not been silenced by a 2-inch gun being manoeuvered toward the offending sniper. We had decided to set up in the attained location though there was no decent cellar, when a civilian, the first we had seen, came in, shook my hand and in “Detroit” English (it tuned out that he had worked in the USA for thirteen years) said he had a much better place for us. Feighen and I followed him down some narrow alleyways and were ushered into a dark cellar under a substantial building, which might have been a school.
Twenty five or thirty people immediately crowded about us shaking hands, kissing us and making us welcome in their personal air-raid shelter. There was even a toilet, blocked but easily rehabilitated when we managed to induce a nun to vacate the bowl. My small army arrived and we set up immediately with a bunk for an operating table and a triage location in what had been the gym. “Mobile” Pete, our Ukrainian cook from Saskatchewan, soon had a meal teady in a nearby deserted house.
I sent out two men with Red Cross flags to indicate our location, but in spite of this, no casualties showed up. A Brit officer appeared to say, “No need for you to go all the way to Berlin, doc; wait for the Commando to catch up. In the meantime, keep your heads down, and well done. There wouldn’t be a brew-up available, would there? Yes, sugar, please.”
The Commando might have lost touch with us, but they were adequately replaced by masses of German casualties. We worked all day and by late afternoon Brit casualties ‘began to come in, evidence that our forces had caught up with us! As the casualties arrived, either by stretcher or as walking wounded, they were laid out on stretchers on the gym floor or they waited their turn, sitting or standing. I saw the stretcher cases myself with Sergeant Batt, and each case was given a syrette of morphine, his wounds dressed, plasma started and bleeding arrested, as necessary. Those fit to move were transported directly to the beach but not until hot sweet tea had been tendered. The more minor injuries such as cuts, fractures and lacerations were treated by our highly trained staff, given the traditional British cure-all, hot sweet tea, and sent off to the beach for evacuation to Number 88 British General Hospital across the estuary of the Scheldt. The serious cases were checked, morphine was administered if indicated, haemorrhage was controlled, dressings applied, and these too were sent off to the beach (after hot sweet tea). Those in shock, a condition responsible for many deaths, were given plasma and removed to our “surgical ward” via a narrow passage way past the toilet (at last free of nuns) and more strenuous measures were instituted to get them in shape for the carry to the beach.
One case stands out vividly. He lay in 2 pool of blood on his stretcher, pale, not moving, not complaining, cold and clammy. His pulse was barely felt. A shell fragment had crashed through his right thigh carrying bone with it, and emerged from his left thigh.
Over the course of several hours neither morphine, splinting nor plasma improved the situation, and the lad was obviously dying. There was a theory that in cases of massive tissue destruction and blood loss that didn’t respond to treatment for shock, amputation of the damaged limb should be tried. At five o’clock in the moming I was driven to the conclusion that it was amputation or else. While Corporal Butler held a three-cell flashlight and a Dutch medical student who had arrived out of the wood work fainted, Sergeant Batt ran in a little morphine and pentothal by vein, and I took off the leg high up on the thigh, located the large vessels, tied them off with silk, covered the smump with what skin I could mobilize, applied plaster over a Thomas splint and carried the plaster from toes to umbilicus. A noisy dawn was well established by the time we finished. And by God (for assuredly it required more than dead-tired Canadian medical men), within an hour the lad was asking for “hot sweet tea.” Three hours and many bottles of plasma later, he made it in good condition to the beach by stretcher. I still shudder to recall these events, but they were made possible by the top standards of our medically-trained personnel who had been with us for all those long years of training boredom, both in Canada and Britain,
Day four and a message from Commando Headquarters required me to attend an O group. It was a fine day, and I loaded myself down with an abandoned tommy gun and sauntered down through the town to the erstwhile German gun position which now served as headquarters. All was quiet and the battered town seemed deserted. As I planted my foot on the first step leading down into the headquarters dugout, I was seized by the ankle and quickly dragged into the shelter of three feet of German concrete. Apparently snipers had the area completely immobilized for hours. These ardent fellows had holed up in well-cemented perches atop the many ship-building cranes and were very difficult to winkle out, but they must have been out for a beer when I went by.
The Colonel was outlining a plan ordered by Divisional Headquarters, devised to aid the Royal Marines who had landed at West Kappelle and were stuck and unable to move. 4 Commando was to embark in amphibious tanks, motor up the coast, enter a breach in the sea wall and take the German defenders in the rear. Various strenuous objections were voiced by the assembled officers and I was struck by the obvious democratic procedure being followed. The 2 I/C told the CO (Commanding officer) that he’d go in there and clean up the Germans and the Royal Marines as well if he were given 24 hours to reequip his men. It was now late afternoon, and the colonel argued all these points with Division to no avail; the attack was ordered for 0300 hours. I, of course, had said nothing when the Colonel turned to me saying he had strict orders to return us to our unit immediately the Flushing affair was over but, “of course, Doctah, if you would like to come with us, we’d like to have you.” Despite the fact that this was obviously a suicide affair — in fact even the Colonel didn’t deny this — I assured him we’d go with them. I'd have gone anywhere with those men.
The Commando gathered on a narrow street at 0100 hours and waited in the rain for the “alligators” to arrive from Breskens. Jean Le Mun observed sadly that “les Commandos sont les troupes sacrifiées de I’armée anglaise.” The IO (intelligence officer) came along and over a cigarette explained that this time “they” would really “get” 4 Commando as the alligators were slow unseaworthy vessels good for only four knots while the current pouring out of the breach in the sea wall would be doing at least eight knots at 0300 a hours when we expected to be there. Furthermore, the enemy was quite conscious of the danger of an amphibious attack and had reinforced the forces covering the site. Mike Kennedy, the Commando medical officer sat down and we had a bit of a talk. Do you know, neither of us even mentioned the coming events. But just before 0300 hours, the attack was cancelled by Division and we dragged our sodden way back to quarters for food and hot tea.
Two days later we embarked for Breskens and arrived “home” at 6 FDS, after several stiff whiskeys at a friendly 5th Field Company bar. The “instant commando™ cherishes the following farewell from 4 Commando which was circulated to all participating officers: “I wish to congratulate all ranks of 4 Commando Group in their magnificent performance in the assault on Flushing. No operation undertaken by this Commando has ever been so completely satisfying both in the spirit in which it was carried out and the result at such small cost. I consider that we are quite unbeatable. Mine sweepers have been clearing the channel to Antwerp this moming. Well done! R.W. P. Dawson, Lt. Colonel.”
The instant commando with a cup of hot sweet tea at hand likes to remember the dejected appearance of Colonel Haas and his staff at my ADS during a particularly busy time with many German casualties. A junior German officer detached himself from this group and asked for a cup of tea for the Nazi colonel. A mere gesture from me to several cager looking commandos and the group was hustled out and down to the beach as prisoners. The next day the entire lot could be seen standing in the rain in their long johns and bare feet, awaiting transport 1 prison camp. Commandos had leamned that a German officer stripped of his uniform could be trusted to obey orders. Is it possible that the instant commando had been instrumental in capturing the German headquarters staff? He was 100 busy to ponder this possibility at the time. At least that’s the way it looks from fifty years on.