War Diary of 1st Battalion Canadian Scottish Regiment, Vol. 69, May 1, 1945 to May 31, 1945
PublicThe war diaries are official records kept by the Battalions during a one month period. They contain the daily orders, correspondence, newsletters, and an intelligence log detailing troop activities, locations, and weather conditions. The war diaries detail the activities and movement of the 1st Battalion from training in Canada and England to active duty on the Western Front and their return to Victoria in January 1946. This diary was kept while at Leer, Holtrop, Middels, Utrecht, and Woerden. It has entries about the Germans using a lot of mines to try and slow the progress of Allied forces advancing on them, hearing momentous news over the BBC that there had been a meeting between Field Marshall Montgomery and high-ranking German officers and that now all resistance on the part of organized enemy forces has ceased on our front - this was confirmed by HQ and the Battalion was told not to send out patrols and not to incur any casualties, the cease fire was made effective as of 0800 hrs on May 5, 1945, the Battalion quietly rejoicing about the "cease fire", the end of fighting on the front means that there is a great deal of policing that must be done and the overall plan for this is called Operation "Eclipse", occupying barracks formerly belonging to the Germans and noting that they had the characteristice German "odour", several men returning to the battalion after being taken prisoner during the fighting at Wagenborgen, sweeping the area for any German soldiers separated from their units to round them up and send them to camps where they will be under control of their own Officers, the "Maple Leaf" containing an outline of the demobilization plan for the Canadian Army, moving back to Holland, it being decided to move the German troops back to Germany by march route, the troops guarding 8000 Germans making a column 15 miles long with 150,000 more Germans expected, having "Liberty Trucks" that troops into town for a break in the evenings, guarding the convoys of Germans on foot as they pass through, planning a large organized sporting event, some men in the Battalion having their names included as being eligible for the Draft to Canada and having the first group leave back to Canada, among other activities and information. Includes appendices covering orders, The Canadian Scottish Regiment News Letter No. 2 dated May 15, 1945 mainly describing the story of the Battalion's part in the break through of the Siegfried Line and including a poem by Eric A. Henderson called "The Oak Leaf".
- In Collection:
- Vol. 69
- 89 pages
- 53.23157, 7.461
- 53.43125, 7.56233
- 53.53475, 7.60424
- 52.09083, 5.12222
- 52.085, 4.88333
- Canadian Scottish Regiment (Princess Mary’s) Collection
- Transferred to UVic Special Collections from BC Archives, March 2006.
- Series 11. 5.35
- March 7, 2019 to March 18, 2019
- Scanned on Plustek Opticbook at 600 dpi TIFF. May 1945 - one appendix (file 38) included an oversize page scanned on TTI/Betterlight (600 dpi, camera height 700, Bent5 tone).
- DOI
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