Wednesday, April 15, 2020

The Madcap Project to bring Geerman Technology to Canada

By Harold Skaarup 

Harold Skaarup is a retired Canadian Forces intelligence officer.

German V-2 Rocket, one that came to Canada
While researching the locations of surviving war trophies brought to Canada in 1945, I spoke with retired Captain Farley M. Mowat about his post war task of collecting German weapons and equipment that was of interest to Canada. He was very detailed in his response.
When the war ended in Europe in May 1945, Captain Mowat was serving with the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment in the Netherlands. He was assigned to Intelligence duties, and eventually succeeded in locating, identifying and collecting over 700 tons of German equipment, documents and material which he then shipped from Antwerp back to Montreal.[1]

Captain Mowat ‘s five-man team gathered up major examples of German armour, artillery, support weapons and equipment from a variety of locations in Western Europe and he arranged for their transport back to Canada on an American Liberty ship, the SS Blommersdyke. The majority of this shipment was sent to the Canadian Armament Research and Development Establishment (CARDE) based at Valcartier, Québec. After examination, some of the kit was moved Camp Borden, Ontario, where a few of the larger armour and artillery pieces remain on display, while a number of other pieces were dispersed around the country.

The team collected a significant number of large scale weapons that made it back to Canada which have since disappeared, including Panzer III and Panzer IV tanks. A Sturmgeschütz III they recovered was used (briefly) as a target on the ranges at CFB Petawawa, but was later salvaged and is now on display in the Canadian War Museum (CWM) in its heavily damaged state. The Wirbelwind self-propelled four-barrelled Anti-Aircraft (SP AAA) gun system mounted on a Panzer IV chassis currently displayed at the Base Borden Military Museum was included in his list, but the Panther that was on display at CFB Borden (now restored in the CWM) was not. The Panzer V came up from the USA in time to be placed on display on Parliament hill on Victory in Europe (VE) Day.

Other German equipment brought back by Captain Mowat’s Intelligence Collection Team included one 8.8-cm FlaK 37 AA Gun, now on display in the Canadian War Museum (CWM) in Ottawa, and one 8.8-cm PaK 43 AT Gun, which is now on display on the grounds of the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario. Other Canadian units managed to bring back significant items as well, likely including an 8.8-cm PaK 43/41 AT Gun on display at Lisle, Ontario, and a second 8.8-cm FlaK 37 now on display on the grounds of the Royal Military College and a third on display at CFB Petawawa.

A good number of German artillery pieces captured or collected by Canadian military units overseas can be found on display at CFB Borden, Ontario, CFB Shilo, Manitoba and the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. A few pieces may also be found at CFB Petawawa, Ontario, CFB Gagetown, New Brunswick, and CFB Valcartier, Québec.

One of two Sturmgeschütz III tracked self-propelled tank hunters that were on display at Shilo has recently been relocated to England, while another went back to Germany. One of the most interesting items from Captain Mowat’s SS Blommersdyke shipment that is presently being restored in the CWM is a very rare Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg IV piloted version of the V-1 cruise missile. In 1945 Captain Mowat visited a firing range near Meppen, Germany, which had been used by the Krupp arms manufacturer as an experimental gun establishment to test new guns, shells and projectiles. “At least a hundred huge steel tubes were on the firing line, many mounted on railroad carriages. One...was a 60-cm siege howitzer...estimated to have weighed a hundred tons.” The Intelligence Collection Team “took samples of everything”, including a 12-cm tank gun meant to arm the gigantic 90-ton German tank nick-named the “Maus” (Mouse). The gun was brought back towed on a flatbed trailer by a 60-cwt truck.[2]

The 1944 Molch (Newt) one-man submarine as well as two Enigma encryption machines has also survived intact from the SS Blommersdyke shipment. Not all of the Serial Numbers of the equipment found on Captain Mowat’s list match items with a similar description found in the CWM, so there are likely a number of other sources of origin for some of the items listed here.

Captain Mowat knew he was not responsible for all of the German equipment brought to Canada. He had apparently arranged for a “14 tanks and self-propelled guns” including a “Royal” Tiger II a Panzer V Panther and a range of Panzer tanks from the Mk II upwards most in running condition. In his list of items intended for transport, he had “23 special purpose vehicles ranging from an amphibious Volkswagen to a 15-ton armoured half-track personnel carrier.” Artillery in the collection included 40 types of artillery pieces ranging in size from 2-cm to 21-cm, and embracing an airborne recoilless gun, a “squeeze barrel” anti-tank gun, infantry guns, anti-tank guns from 8.8-cm up to 12.8-cm, field guns, medium guns and heavy guns, all of which were in firing condition. In his Progress Report to LCol Harrison, OC 1 Canadian Historical Section, HQ First Canadian Army on 10 July 1945, he noted that “Railroad guns up to 32-cm” were available but would “demand some time to move”.[3]

By 22 July 1945, the team had added a 63-ton Jagdtiger tank in operating condition to the collection as well as four 2-ton acoustic sea mines, four 24-inch acoustic torpedoes, a 45-foot long 12-ton V-2 rocket and 18 truckloads of various Wehrmacht equipment. [4]

The King (Royal) Tiger and Panther tanks were to be loaded on tank transporters and brought to the dock for loading on the SS Blommersdyke, but the American flatbed crews brought them to another site and they were subsequently transported to the USA. One of the significant items he did manage to bring back was a V-2 rocket with a particularly interesting story attached to it.

Captain Mowat had spoken with the leader of the Dutch resistance in his area, Colonel Tyc Michaels, who informed him of the location of the Rheintochter Anti-Aircraft missile factory, which had been bombed out. During the investigation of the contents of the factory, his team collected some documentation and a few missile parts that made it back to Canada. He also learned of a trainload of ten V-2 rockets which were sitting on railway cars in a railway siding hidden in Germany. “The missile was located off the right of way on the north south line running along the Weser River west of Nienburg, Germany. It was the only one of about ten that had not been shot up or burnt by air attack. As the V-2 at the time of ‘procurement’ was forbidden by 21 Army Group to Canadians this piece had an interesting several months hiding in woods and being disguised as everything from a privy to a submarine, to keep it from the prying eyes of the British High Command.”[5]

Just before the order forbidding the acquisition of any rocket material was sent down, Capt Mowat had dispatched Lieutenant R. Mike Donovan, a Canadian Intelligence Corps Officer, to see if he could acquire one of these V-2s from the British who occupied the sector.[6] Lieutenant Donovan set out from the team’s home base at Meppen in the Netherlands and over a three day period drove to a railway siding “somewhere near Hamburg” where ran into a British detachment guarding a number of railway flatcars each carrying a V-2 rocket. The British were not keen on parting with such important war material to “colonials” and wouldn’t let him get near the site. After an initial recce of the scene, he noted through his binoculars that “an access roadway ran alongside the rail spur and that the last V-2 in the train was partly concealed in a pine woods through which the trail meandered to join a secondary road not far beyond.” Lieutenant Donovan drove back to Ouderkerk and joined by Lieutenant Jim Hood set off again with a 12-ton 16-wheel Mack breakdown lorry with a tow-hook, made a brief detour to Bremerhaven where they liberated a German one-man mini-submarine trailer and then drove to a forest within two miles of the V-2 rail-car site, where Lieutenant Hood hid with the rig and himself. They were also bearing a “30-litre demijohn of DeKuyper’s gin.”

Lieutenant Donovan drove on in a jeep and presented himself again at the guard post. He offered to share his gin, and while pretending to get loaded himself, proceeded to get the British Infantry guard group drunk. Just before dusk, he told his drinking partners he had to relieve himself, and went back to his jeep where he used a small Number 38 radio set to tell Lieutenant Hood the coast was clear. Lieutenant Hood and his work crew quietly as possible eased the Mack and its trailer up close to the railcar with the chosen rocket. There in the dark, the Canadian soldiers stealthily managed to break the chains and “rolled it off the flatcar and down a bunch of timber skids on the trailer”.[7] (This could not have been an easy task in the dark, as the rocket is the size of a modern day SCUD missile similar to those the author examined near Policharki, in Afghanistan).

While Lieutenant Hood was crawling cautiously away with the black-painted V-2 rocket prize, Lieutenant Donovan was leading the British guards in a singing session. When he felt the coast was clear, Mike disengaged himself, but left the still well-filled demijohn with his British choir. He caught up with his crew on the highway and sped ahead of them, stopping at each checkpoint along the way to warn the barrier guards that a bomb disposal crew was coming through with unexploded ordnance, and as a result and he and his crew barrelled back the way they came and delivered the rocket to Ouderkerk in Holland.”

On discovering the V-2 outside his window the next morning Captain Mowat had the rocket moved into a large storage hangar. In order to keep the collected war prize concealed, Captain Mowat had carpenters build a small wooden conning tower, which they installed on top of the rocket, boarded over the fins and installed a wooden propeller. Once the mock tower and propeller were in place, the team proceeded to paint the complete V-2 rocket in navy blue. Curious inquirers were told that the device was an experimental submarine. In this form, the V-2 was kept hidden until it could be loaded on the Liberty Transport Ship SS Blommersdyke which eventually left port carrying over 700 tons of collected German war prizes and steamed across the Atlantic to Montreal.[8]

On arrival, Captain Mowat spoke with the Chief of General Staff (GGS), Major-General Howard Graham, an officer he had served with in the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment, to explain in detail what they had imported. Shortly afterwards, a Lieutenant-Colonel arrived from the Canadian Armament Research and Development Establishment (CARDE) based at Valcartier, Québec, along with a work crew which hauled the V-2, trailer and all, back to Valcartier. There, the V-2 was dismantled. As the science team was examining the rocket they made the interesting, if somewhat disconcerting discovery that the warhead was still filled with its high explosive material. The liquid explosive compound inside the rocket’s warhead had hardened and had to be removed by the scientists by carefully drilling a hole in the nose cone and inserting a hose to wash it out.

The V-2 was blueprinted and then disappeared from the story for a few years. In 1950 it was placed on display on the grounds of the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto. After this, it disappeared again. There is a very strong possibility that this V-2 is buried on the grounds of the former RCAF Station Picton, Ontario. Locals in Picton who grew up during the 1960s recall the V-2 and other old equipment being bulldozed into the base landfill site. The hunt is on...


Submitted by Will Chabun

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Book review: Possums and Bird Dogs –Australian Army Aviation in Vietnam by Peter Nolan.






Review by Will Chabun

First, a few words about the two nouns in the first half of this book’s title. Bird dogs, of course, are the light aircraft that western armies have used since the Second World War to “spot“ for artillery and fighter aircraft.

“Possum’ was the radio call sign allocated to the Australian Army’s 161 Reconnaissance Flight in 1965 after the Australian government decided to send an infantry battalion, plus supporting elements, to Vietnam to support the Americans there. 161 RF consisted of two Bell Sioux helicopters (known as the OH-13 to our American friends or the Bell 47 in civilian service) and a pair of Cessna 180 light aircraft that would not look out of place at any civilian airport in North America.

The job of them and their pilots was to take a look at what was over the horizon and to carry personnel, small bits of freight and to evacuate casualties, sometimes under fire.

This book, written by an RAAF sergeant who served with the flight form 1967-68, goes into the 1,001 decisions that must be taken to put in place a unit’s maintenance and supply system, to provide accommodations and meals for its personnel, and then to keep them content and motivated.

The author also does a good job of sketching out how Australia --- Canada’s closest Commonwealth sibling in population -- found itself fighting in Vietnam.

Australia head a real scare in 1942, when the war was brought to its front porch by extremely rapid Japanese advances through the south Pacific.  Britain, already heavily committed elsewhere, had to shrug helplessly at Australia -- which them tied its security to that of the United States. At that, there were Japanese air and naval raids on Australia and a vicious six-month land campaign along the Kokoda Trail in the island of New Guinea.

A decade later, Australia found itself heavily involved in war against communist guerillas in Malaya. And after that was won, there was a new threat from Indonesia, which looked to squeeze Malaysia out of existence and potentially threaten Australia. The domino theory so beloved of American strategists thus must have looked very, very real to Australian politicians and senior civil servants around 1965. As a result, Australia agreed to send an infantry battalion to Vietnam, where it initially operated as an arm of the US Army’s 173rd  Airborne Brigade.

It was at this point that the 161 Reconnaissance Flight headed to Vietnam. As the Australian task force grew to two and then three infantry battalions, more and more army aviation resources were brought in.

Based on their experience in Malaya, the Australians saw a guerilla war somewhat differently from American military leadership. The US approach under General William Westmoreland was to seek a war of attrition, grinding down the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese army by inflicting huge casualties. The Australian approach was built around separating the insurgents from the local population, which then would be given medical care, schools and economic development. The American approach would not change until Westmoreland went home around 1968 and General Creighton Abrams took over as American commander.

That is not to say that that lower-level Australian and American servicemen did not get along. The Americans valued the Australians’ professionalism and the Australians could not get enough of the amazing American supply system, which was shared freely with allies like the Australians. Over and over in this book, there are stories of Americans giving the Australians equipment on the strength of nothing more than a scribbled signature.

The Australian task force begin reducing its numbers and heading home in 1971. Through the narrative there is a feeling this were could go on for decades and decades without a resolution. 161 Recce Flight lost three members, all pilots. About 60,000 Australians served in the war; 521 were killed and more than 3,000 wounded.
 
As a postscript, one is moved to say that Australia takes defence great deal more seriously than does Canada. On a smaller population base, Australia today has considerably larger armed services with equipment like helicopter gunships and fifth-generation jet fighters.

For further reading:

The Australia’s Vietnam War website was created by the Military Operations Analysis Team (MOAT) at the University of New South Wales (Canberra).