Attack on Groin (Rhine Crossing) 1945

Hugh Robertson, my Dad, was involved in an Army training video "A Battalion in Battle", in 1995. It was the Battle of Groin, which should have been a set-piece battle. My Dad maintained, having fought at El Alamein, that Groin was the toughest and hardest battle he ever fought. The graphics and collection of stories were very well done by the army: showing how a set piece can disintegrate once something goes wrong and starts a domino effect. Dad features several times within Alastair Borthwick's account of the 5th Seaforth Highlanders’ “Attack on Groin” during the Rhine crossing late in March 1945 in his role as O.C. "C" Company [officer commanding]. Further information is available on the website of the 51st Highland Division https://51hd.co.uk/accounts/groin and in "Battalion" by Alastair Borthwick. Alastair Borthwick first published this in 1946 under the title, Sans Peur (the Battalion's motto), and re-published by Bâton Wicks - London (ISBN 1-898575-00-X).

Towards the end of his life, Major Hugh Robertson gave several interviews for filmed documentaries including "A Battalion in Battle" (available on YouTube https://youtu.be/Y960nDBzZjE?si=jD0hEX_7YKpa-G7V) and a number of commentaries for "Scotland's War".

My Dad's father fought in the Boer War, so he was not used to the new machinery.

On return to civvy Street he became a Policeman. He was very highly thought of, from what I understand. He lost his first wife in childbirth, and was 12 years before remarriage. My father Hugh Robertson was my grandmother's only child. They moved to the Highlands in the Great Depression, and Dad found a new world up here. One where self respect cost nothing and people helped each other: "It was a funny thing Linda. There was no more money, but all the poverty was gone." My father, people have commented, seemed quite a lonely figure. He was very mild mannered, generally, and we had a special relationship, as Mum almost rejected me, and he stepped in ...thankfully. I was definitely from his side of the family.

My Dad married my Mum in 1951, 11 years her senior. My Mum was just in her teens during the war. I remember asking her what she did for VE day, and her eyes lit up! "Oh, we were allowed to go to the chip van! It was great!" Most of her memories were of carrying a gas mask to school.

My father-in-law was in the Fire Service because he was not fit enough to fight and was on duty the night of the Clydebank Blitz [March 1941]. He was asked to go down into an Anderson Shelter and tell the folk that there was nothing left of their homes. He was heartsore at the devastation, and telling these people that they had no homes to return to was miserable.

He descended... and was completely awestruck. He said it was like Pompeii. Everyone in the shelter was dead… but they had been killed by the blast. They were as they had been… So, there were women sitting knitting, as they had been in life: kids drawing on paper on the floor, frozen in death. Nobody had any sign of injury. It certainly shook him. You may not know about the Clydebank Blitz, certainly, most Scots are unaware. But I have his testimony and his wife said she had never seen him return from duty , looking as if he had seen a ghost.

The uploads I have made are my Dad's story, and I have captured it as accurately as possible. I was interested, in reading "The Forgotten Highlander", that post war memories of how the soldier, now demoted to civilian, felt everything so acutely. Every memory so painful. And I have uploaded his thoughts of life "After The War Was Over ...1946". This is my Dad's story. His nickname was "Coatbridge". It may give a flavour of life after "Major"!