OpenTube

"Red Patch Devils" — The Name Germans Gave One Canadian Division

Canadian War Stories

10,895 views

In October 1944 a brand-new American infantry division crossed into Holland and took its orders from a Canadian. It had never happened before. It has never happened since.

The Timberwolves of the 104th Infantry Division came into the polders of North Brabant hard-trained, aggressive, and led by one of the most combative commanders the U.S. Army produced. The ground there does not reward aggression. The fields lie below the rivers, the roads run along the tops of dikes, and every ditch is an anti-tank obstacle the enemy never had to dig. On the last day of October, sixty-five American soldiers were left on the wrong side of a Dutch river with German armour on the road behind them and nothing to eat but the crop in the field.

What their allies did next was not an American solution. For a day and a night, it looked like doing nothing at all.

Thirteen days in Holland under a Canadian general changed how that division fought for the rest of the war — and afterwards the coldest senior officer Canada produced wrote one sentence about them.

Sources:
Timberwolves: The Story of the 104th Infantry Division (1945), full text: http://www.lonesentry.com/gi_stories_...
US Division under Canadian command, Liberation Route Europe: https://www.liberationroute.com/en/po...
Leo A. Hoegh and Howard J. Doyle, Timberwolf Tracks: The History of the 104th Infantry Division 1942–1945 (1946): https://books.google.com/books/about/...
C.P. Stacey, The Victory Campaign, Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War, Vol. III (1960): https://www.canada.ca/en/department-n...
Archival photos and footage are public domain (Library and Archives Canada, U.S. National Archives) or used under Creative Commons licenses.

#canadianwarstories #ww2 #canadianarmy #militaryhistory #canadianhistory #worldwar2

9 Comments

@steveramsey7983 1 day ago (edited)

My father was a radar Technician who served in the RCAF assigned to the RAF in India and Burma from 1942 to 1945. He told me that he didn’t have to worry about the Japanese killing him because his commanding officer was required to kill him if they were about to be captured! My father was always watching his captain, LMAO! My Uncle Eddy was in the Hamilton Light Infantry and he served at Dieppe, D Day and thru Holland. My Aunt Dorthy served as a frontline nurse from D Day to the end of the war. My father’s cousin was a mechanic in the 407 Squadron serving in England against Nazi submarines.

@CPWoodall 8 days ago

My uncle Arthur Rich, by post-war marriage, was a bombardier with Royal Canadian Air Force in the Second World War. He served the last couple of years of that war. He was exceedingly proud of his and his flight crew's participation. Oh yes: he was Jewish. He has since deceased. But I am SO Proud of his being a flying bombardier. My dad was a Royal Canadian Navy surgeon who -- with us family -- was stationed in RCAF 3Wing Zweibrucken (then) West Germany in the mid-late Sixties (1965-1969). Talk about the Cold War! The Soviet Union was sending Eastern European armies to attack Chechoslovakia in 1968. Turned out my Uncle Art navigated his RCAF bomber at bombing Zweibrucken toward the end of War II. So I can also express my solid happiness in this video. So even-steven in its presentation. Ortona? Wow.

@Thelionessroars1950 2 days ago

My dad fought from Sicily to northern Italy, mostly riding dispatch. Then he was shipped to Holland where his best friend was shot by a sniper they had been sent to clear out.

@stevenmckinnon1258 10 hours ago

My father was in Ortona. And private infantryman with the Royal Canadian Regiment. He also wore the red rectangle patch. He was later wounded as a stretcher bearer in Italy. After the war he had a great life and lived until age 95. He would have been 102 this year.

@NicholasPatton-n2r 1 day ago

It was the Hasty P's that went up the cliff to surprise Assoro in Italy.

@NicholasPatton-n2r 1 day ago (edited)

The more accurate way to describe Canadian soldiers , is to call them "FRONTIER TROOPS". For all intents of purposes, Canada was the last frontier on earth; that fact reflected on Canadians in 2 world wars. Tough Resourceful Resilient, across the bloody board. That's who we were.🍁💪👍

@NicholasPatton-n2r 1 day ago

One claim is not correct. Mouse-holing was not a Canadian invention. The concept of mouse-holing was in the officers hand book as a concept.
Canadians were the first to demonstrate it as an effective tactic.