May 5, 2013

Finest Hour 151, Summer 2011

Page 43

Moments in Time – Recrossing the Rhine, 26 March 1945

This spectacular photograph, sent to us by Christopher V. Taylor, shows Churchill plunging into the Rhine aboard a Buffalo amphibian, on his way back to the French side after his second crossing into Germany on 26 March 1945. In command, wearing earphones (see also the photo at above right, of the same occasion by Life magazine) is Mr. Taylor’s late uncle, Lt. Col. Richard F. Slator, 11th Royal Tank Regiment.

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In what must have been a gratifying moment, Churchill first crossed the Rhine on 25 March 1945, only days after Eisenhower’s armies, as he wrote in The Second World War (VI: 365):

The Rhine—here about four hundred yards broad—flowed at our feet. There was a smooth, flat expanse of meadows on the enemy’s side. The officers told us that the far bank was unoccupied so far as they knew, and we gazed and gaped at it for a while….Then the Supreme Commander had to depart on other business, and Montgomery and I were about to follow his example when I saw a small launch come close by to moor. So I said to Montgomery, ‘Why don’t we go across and have a look at the other side?’ Somewhat to my surprise he answered, ‘Why not?’ After he had made some inquiries we started across the river with three or four American commanders and half a dozen armed men. We landed in brilliant sunshine and perfect peace on the German shore, and walked about for half an hour or so unmolested.

Always eager to be in on the action, Churchill omitted to note that he was being naughty. Eisenhower had had no intention of putting him in harm’s way—which of course he immediately suggested after Eisenhower had left! To Churchill’s disappointment, no German barrage greeted the party, which wandered about in what might have been rural England.

The March 25th crossing is shown in a famous photo (below right) but Slator’s photograph, is obviously a different occasion, with British soldiers. Churchill says he crossed the Rhine again on the 26th—but on a Jeep over a pontoon bridge.

Gerald Pawle’s The War and Colonel Warden, based on the diaries of Churchill’s naval aide Commander “Tommy” Thompson, answered our question. Slator’s photo is of the March 26th return trip. Pawle, pages 367-68:

Before we returned to England [wrote Thompson] we made a second crossing of the Rhine, General Dempsey taking us in his Jeep over a pontoon bridge which had just been completed at Xanten. On the far side we saw a large number of very woebegone and dishevelled German prisoners who had been herded into a barbed-wire enclosure. Some of them recognized the P.M., and they gaped at him in absolute astonishment….Eventually we went back across the Rhine in one of General Hobart’s tracked amphibious craft, and then began one of the most hair-raising drives I can remember. Keen to get rid of us by this time, Monty was determined we should reach the airfield at Venlo before dark. In the leading car he set a furious pace, and as the sun went down we went faster and faster, the convoy often reaching 80 mph. Even so it was almost dark when the Dakota took off.

This was Churchill’s last visit to the battlefield. Eisenhower, after he heard of the PM’s crossings, quickly made sure Churchill got back to where he was supposed to be.

The Buffalo

Designed by Donald Roebling, grandson of the Brooklyn Bridge builder, the Landing Vehicle Tracked was introduced in the U.S. in 1941. The British Buffalo (“Water Buffalo” to Americans), evolved in 1942, with an improved powertrain from the M3A1 light tank.

Though mainly used in the Pacific theatre, LVTs did feature in European river operations toward the end of the war, including the Rhine crossing (“Operation Plunder”). Their descendants are still part of the armed forces, the latest version being the AAV, formerly LVT-7.