T H E C O V E N A N T E R
record the scenes around him in which he appreciated, as they were to be again and
found a needed tranquillity and diversion again in Belgium and Holland. In particular
from military matters. It was a practice the Scots were to form a lasting bond with
he was to continue for the rest of the war. the people of Tilburg, who never forgot
Whenever the Battalion was pulled back their liberators. Visits are still exchanged
from the battle line he would draw and and as elsewhere in Holland, the war graves
paint in watercolour. By the time he reached are meticulously maintained.
the Baltic coast he had recorded a personal However, as Autumn and the German
visual history of places and people in a border approached, resistance stiffened to
remarkable series of images, many of which fanatical levels, and casualties mounted,
are now in Leeds. They reveal a sensitive a particular hatred being felt by the
and skilled draughtsman who found solace Cameronians for the anti-personnel mines.
during a gruelling campaign. The weather and the terrain caused further
The 9th Cameronians were to suffer problems: German defensive flooding was
further punishing casualties: only twenty- made worse by three weeks of heavy rain in
November, and the dyke country before the
River Maas turned into a quagmire. Supplies
were delivered by amphibious vehicles, and
digging in became impossible, so that fire
cover had to be built above ground. It was
a miserable location, long remembered as
the most trying of the whole campaign.
The Battalion was to remain here until the
end of January, when it was thrown in to
‘Operation Veritable’ - the approach to the
Rhine and the Siegfried Line. In atrocious
weather (the combat gear of the period
was far from adequate) hand to hand
fighting extracted a heavy price, notably in
the battle for Moyland Woods, which was
considered by some with wide experience,
four hours after their first rest one hundred- the most unpleasant of the European War.
and-fifty-nine officers and other Ranks were Pencil drawing of musician.
killed, wounded or missing in bitter fighting
in the orchards round Eterville, during a Flooding, frost, fog, and vigorous German
determined German counter-attack. When attacks stretched morale and endurance to
the enemy was finally repulsed, over a the limit over four days, when re-supply of
hundred German dead were left behind. ammunition and food was difficult, and
A further rest period was deserved, and at times impossible. The high number of
the Battalion, with many new faces to killed and wounded meant, too, that the
fill out their depleted strength, returned Unit became seriously under strength. The
to the fray. Now they were moved West tenacity of the Scots eventually succeeded
to the American sector of operations to in forcing an enemy withdrawal: an unusual
participate in the breakout from Normandy incident was the negotiated surrender
which culminated in what became known of some Germans to stretcher-bearers of
as the Battle of the Falaise Gap. Christie the Cameronians on the basis that their
remembers the carnage as the Cameronians wounded be extracted across a minefield.
advanced along a single track road of either After the Rhine was crossed, on 24 March
of which German armour, transport, dead 1945, the nature of the fighting changed.
horses and men had been ‘bulldozed’ in Gone were the cheering crowds welcoming
thousands. By 28 July the Seine was crossed the liberators, replaced by the sullen
and for the first time the Battalion was to inhabitants of the villages and towns - many
enjoy their welcome as liberators: in the in ruins - through which the Cameronians
advance to the Mass, in towns and villages leapfrogged in their advance to the Elbe.
many of which were unscarred, flowers were And each farm and wood was fanatically
thrown and bottles of wine handed to the defended not only by the German 7th
troops. In Lille this reached embarrassing Parachute Division - regarded by the Scots
proportions as crowds brought progress to a as perhaps their toughest adversaries of the
standstill. The Pipes and Drums were much campaign - but by newly thrown-together

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