Leonard Sydney Jackson 5340500 15 Recce

Discussion in 'Recce' started by jacko 954, Aug 18, 2010.

  1. jacko 954

    jacko 954 Junior Member

    Hi
    Hope I am in the right place! I am trying to find out as much as i can about my uncle, he died aged 27 on 15th April 1945 serving with 15th (Scottish) Reconnaissance Corp.

    Google pointed me to this forum and posts by Recce Mitch and others.

    My father, Leonards younger brother has given me some information but not much. I know from the brief searches so far that he is buried in Beclingen.

    If anyone can assit with more info about him of the 15th I could pass it on to my father who would be very interedsted to know. Leonards wife passed away several years ago and as far as I am aware there are no other living relatives apart from my father a brother and a sister.

    Regards

    Jacko954
     
  2. MyOldDad

    MyOldDad Senior Member

    Hello Leaonard/Jacko954
    Welcome to the forum. This would appear to be your uncle's memorial:

    CWGC :: Certificate

    Tom.
     
  3. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    Welcome to the forum.

    Moved this post so it is more visible

    The Airborne Division was stopped when it crossed the Leine and 15th (Scottish) Division took over with 15 Recce spearheading the advance toCelle. That town was taken by the Scottish infantry, 15 Recce suffering several casualties in skirmishes en route, including two dead when a German soldier leapt out of a ditch with a Panzerfaust and fired at a scout car.

    On 15 April C Squadron had a fierce encounter with remnants of the Clausewitz Division at Nettelkamp; this was a Panzer division created to thrust into the Allied lines of communications. Its efforts were thwarted by Glasgow Highlanders at Stadensen,

    and by the resistance at Nettelkamp of the clerks, cooks, mechanics and "odd bodies" of C Squadron headquarters, who fought on under the leadership of Capt. Liddell and Sgt-Major Ward for hours after the troop positions had been over-run.14

    Five men were killed in the battle, fourteen wounded and thirty-nine missing, most of whom were captured by the enemy, some of whom were French SS. Captivity only lasted a few days of course before liberation came. Eight carriers, four armoured cars and a half-track were also lost; several decorations were won.On 17 April the regiment met 2nd Special Air Service Regiment, under Lieutenant Colonel B.M.Franks, DSO, MC, and, as Frankforce, the two co-operated with SAS patrols in open jeeps "sharing the hazards of the regiment's armoured car and carrier troops and winning their unstinted admiration."15 As it advanced towards the Elbe 15 Recce also had support from a 4.2-inch mortar platoon of the Middlesex, which added considerably to the force's punch.

    12: The Scottish Lion on Patrol, p193
    13: ibid, pl95
    14: ibid, p204
    15: ibid, p209


    From Only the Enemy in Front by Richard Doherty

    Cheers
    Paul
     
  4. PASSOUT

    PASSOUT Junior Member

    My uncle was killed near lastrup 15th. April 1944. Leonard Sydney. Jackson. If any one knows any more about him
    Please post. Thanks. Joseph orourke
     
  5. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    This post is a reply to PASSOUT

    Trooper LEONARD SIDNEY JACKSON
    5340500
    Who died age 27 on 15 April 1945 KIA
    C Sqn over-run - Engaged in close combat with enemy – 14/15 Apr 45
    BECKLINGEN WAR CEMETERY 10. H. 7.

    At dawn on 15 April the wireless calls to C Squadron were unanswered. On the telephone from 46 Brigade came a report that the squadron had been heavily counter-attacked in the night and apparently over-run. A patrol was hurriedly despatched from Suderburg under the command of Capt Boynton. It found a squadron, tired, scattered and depleted, which had withdrawn from Nettelkamp after fighting all night against greater numbers and heavier weapons. Lieut David Richford, who had been with C Squadron ever since the old days at Orford, had been killed. So had Sgt E. Fielding, Tpr R. R. Johnson, Tpr L. S. Jackson and Tpr E. T. Cudmore. Tpr F. Strand and Tpr R. G. Gurney were fatally wounded. Fourteen had been wounded. Thirty-nine were missing. Eight carriers, four armoured cars and a half-track had been lost. Gradually the story of the night in Nettelkamp was pieced together. The attack had been delivered suddenly about midnight by the Panzer Division Clausewitz, a force formed specially to thrust deep into the advancing armies’ lines of communication. It was thwarted in this purpose by the resistance of the Glasgow Highlanders at Stadensen, and by the resistance at Nettelkamp of the clerks, cooks, mechanics and ‘odd bodies’ of C Squadron headquarters, who fought on under the leadership of Capt Liddell and Sgt Major Ward for hours after the troop positions had been over-run. The surprise which the attackers achieved was made possible by the co-operation of the Nettelkamp people. They had used their white flags of surrender for signalling, and had sent messengers to the Clausewitz force. When the men in the troop positions rushed from their billets to their defence posts in response to the sentries’ urgent alarms, Spandaus opened fire on all the exits and guns began shelling and setting fire to those buildings which the squadron occupied. The German infantry had led the attack, softly, in rubber boots. Half-tracks with 20 mm cannon followed them down the main street while self-propelled guns circled the village. The attackers seemed to be drunk or drugged. They howled. They screamed. They took crazy risks. This is what happened to Lieut McFall’s troop:

    Things must have moved a bit too fast for the sentries, and we were roused to find our front door—the planned way to our defensive positions—barred by a troop carrier full of Germans. The first of us to the door met a stream of fire, and a sergeant was killed. Thinking that the only thing we had in our favour was that we were an unknown quantity, I decided to get out and have a look round.

    We got the dead sergeant in, and I set off. I was stuck after going ten yards, and could not rejoin the troop. Some of the troop got away. Some went to ground, as I did. Sgt Jacques was taken prisoner, but freed himself from two armed guards with a block of wood. Only one dead man was left in the house when it burnt down. This is a sentry’s account of what happened to Lieut Richford’s troop: We saw vehicles approaching, and reached the front of the house just as the first one passed—it was a tank, and not one of ours. There were shouts, and a Bren started singing. We dashed in to report. We woke the men. ‘Right,’ said Lieut Richford, ‘cover the road. Don’t show yourselves. Keep clear of the windows. Couple of you stand by your guns in the cars. Good luck.’ My gunner and I ran out to my car and got ready to fire. We heard the crack of 20 millimetre and the heavy explosion of the 88s. The roof of our house was shattered. A German was shouting guttural commands. Somebody yelled ‘Throw out the Tommies.’ My gunner said, ‘I can’t see a thing.’ A grenade exploded under our door, and shrapnel shot round the inside of the car like angry hornets. My gunner moaned and slid out, mortally wounded, but I was not even scratched. We lay under the car, and I pressed myself into the ground with my heart beating like a sledgehammer while grenades fell all round. The houses across the road were on fire, making the sky a dull red which new explosions splashed with yellow. There was a silence broken only by distant rifle fire and by German voices across the road. The remnants of the troop, led by Lieut Richford, crawled up to me. ‘Two of the boys have volunteered to stay in the cellar with the wounded. We’ll try to make H.Q. and make a stand there.’ We crawled across the back gardens towards the open fields. ‘Quick, run to hedge and take cover.’ Ten yards, another ten to go. A shot whistled over us. We were flat again. English, spoken with a French accent, floated from the hedge: ‘That you Tommee. Hush. We help you get away. We French workers. Come quick …’ Bill and I went. They were French right enough, but French SS and grinning like devils. We were disarmed. Lieut Richford and somebody else loomed up, and a warning was hissed—’Jerries’. ‘Break for it,’ he yelled, and fired his pistol. I landed in a bramble. A Schmeisser rattled, and the burst killed our troop leader.

    The hedge in which Bill and I were lying ringed a cemetery. We crawled between the graves like men possessed. We tried the church door, but it would not budge. A section of Germans filed by, arguing noisily. We crawled to the far hedge, and were spotted by Germans in half-tracks as we made for the open fields. We lay near one another while they dismounted and searched. They found Bill. One of them stood with his boots inches from my face while they questioned Bill in broken English. After they had taken him away, I walked off, and more shots missed me. I ran into the woods and walked all night, so hopelessly lost that I spun a coin to decide which way to go. In the morning I found that I was in the German lines, where I was captured by a bazooka team. Later I joined Bill and other members of the squadron who had been captured. We were released by the 11th Armoured Division after being prisoners for eight days. In accordance with the squadron’s plan of defence, the assault troop, now commanded by Lieut Peter Vroome, tried to join squadron headquarters, but was surrounded. That left squadron headquarters, and those who had managed to rally there. The howling Germans attacked with guns and machine guns. They tried to rush the defences with half-tracks. They tried to infiltrate on foot. Capt Liddell, slightly wounded, organised his small force to drive them back every time. Sgt Major Albert Ward was wherever the fighting was fiercest, using Bren and rifle and PIAT and the grenade with which he destroyed a Spandau position. Sgt Harry Gartland, the mechanist sergeant, commanding the left of the defence, leapt from his slit trench and advanced on the attackers, firing his Bren from the hip. Cpl James McDonald, the ammunition corporal, ran forward with a PIAT and knocked out the first of three half-tracks which were bearing down on the headquarters with their quadruple 20 mm cannon firing and infantry ready to leap from them on to the defenders. After the first had been hit, the other two withdrew. Cpl McDonald was wounded in the arm, but he fought on. At dawn Capt Liddell knew that the other troops must have been over-run and that there was therefore no point in staying longer, so he withdrew his weary force in the remaining vehicles under fire from Spandaus which lined both sides of the road out of the village. The squadron leader and the sergeant major were the last to leave. After keeping watch on Nettelkamp, B Squadron’s patrol went into the village with infantry and carriers later in the day. Six German half-tracks had been abandoned, and sixty German infantry surrendered without firing a shot. The Military Medal was awarded to Sgt Major Ward, Sgt Gartland and Cpl McDonald for their valour at Nettelkamp, and Capt Liddell’s conduct of the defence was one of the reasons why he was later awarded the Military Cross. While the infantry gradually reduced the stubborn garrison of Uelzen—a task which took until 18 April—A and B Squadrons patrolled the country north and south, and C Squadron licked its wounds at Suderburg. The losses of Nettelkamp made the regiment even more dependent on its commandeered vehicles; with these and the patched survivors of that night it had, indeed, enough of the motley in its looks to justify the ‘Fred Karno’s Own’ chalked on the turret of Sgt Dullaway’s scorched car. A Echelon sent one of its prizes, a large German lorry, to collect petrol by a route which passed through the 11th Armoured Division, and a patrol of the 1st Royal Dragoons, seeing a German lorry approaching, fired and joyfully reported that what must have been a valuable load had gone up in black smoke. It was a valuable load—the regiment’s sports kit. The lorry driver, who was unhurt, was a man from one of the reconnaissance squadrons who had been sent to A Echelon for a rest and told ‘It’s quite safe there’.

    Chamberlin, Tim; Kemsley, W (2012-07-12). Scottish Lion on Patrol: 15th Scottish Reconnaissance Regiment (Kindle Locations 4258-4266). Casemate Publishers. Kindle Edition.

    Cheers
    Paul
     

    Attached Files:

    PASSOUT, Tricky Dicky, Owen and 2 others like this.
  6. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    Trooper EDWIN THOMAS CUDMORE
    14506460
    Who died age 21 on 15 April 1945 KIA
    C Sqn over-run - Engaged in close combat with enemy – 14/15 Apr 45
    Son of Sidney Edwin and Mary Victoria Cudmore, of Tadworth, Surrey.
    BECKLINGEN WAR CEMETERY 10. H. 6.
     

    Attached Files:

  7. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    Trooper ROBERT GEORGE GURNEY
    14505287
    Who died age 32 on 15 April 1945 DOW
    C Sqn over-run - Engaged in close combat with enemy – 14/15 Apr 45
    BECKLINGEN WAR CEMETERY 10. H. 8.
     

    Attached Files:

  8. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    Trooper RANDOLPH RIDLEY JOHNSON
    14658685
    Who died age 20 on 14 April 1945 KIA
    C Sqn over-run - Engaged in close combat with enemy – 14/15 Apr 45
    Son of Ralph and Caroline Johnson, of Annfield Plain, Co. Durham.
    GROESBEEK MEMORIAL Panel 1.
     

    Attached Files:

  9. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    Lieutenant DAVID LINCOLN RICHFORD
    251917
    Who died age 29 on 15 April 1945 KIA
    C Sqn over-run - Engaged in close combat with enemy – 14/15 Apr 45
    Son of Edward L. and Minnie Richford, of Croydon, Surrey; husband of Kathleen Grace Richford, of Addiscombe, Croydon.
    BECKLINGEN WAR CEMETERY 10. H. 5.
     

    Attached Files:

  10. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    Trooper FREDERICK STRAND
    14658743
    Who died age 23 on 15 April 1945 DOW
    C Sqn over-run - Engaged in close combat with enemy – 14/15 Apr 45
    Son of Frederick and Ethel May Strand, of Middlesbrough, Yorkshire.
    HAMBURG CEMETERY 1A. J. 3.
     

    Attached Files:

  11. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    Medals earned at Nettlekamp

    MC - Capt Liddell
    MM - Sgt Major Ward, Sgt Gartland and Cpl McDonald
     

    Attached Files:

  12. PASSOUT

    PASSOUT Junior Member

    To any one. Is there a war diary Kept for the 15th /April. 1945. With the name Leonard Sydney Jackson. Killed near Halen
    He was with 15th Scottish. Recce. He was 27years old. Just. Wanted. To know how he died. I'm 80 now he was my uncle.
    Can't find any one who knows. Please help. John Orourke.
     
  13. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Passout, I've split your post from a 56 Recce thread but then found a thread answering your query.
     
  14. PASSOUT

    PASSOUT Junior Member

    Fantastic. Work Owen Jon Orourke. Can't thank you enough God bless you.
     
  15. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    I didn't do anything apart from move a few posts & point you in the right direction.
    Paul aka Recce Mitch did all the hard work.

    merged with thread from 2010 on same person.
     
  16. PASSOUT

    PASSOUT Junior Member

    I am ls jacksons nephew. Contact me if you are a relative please. I'd Orourke thank you
     
  17. MikeSou

    MikeSou Member

    Hi there. I'm currently searching for more information on Corporal Harry Rogal - 6898415, my great uncle. He was my paternal Grandmother's brother.

    I have some information from this post as well as some information and photos from my Dad.

    Corporal HARRY ROGAL
    6898415- Kings Royal Rifle Corps
    Who died age 29 on 11 April 1945
    Son of Harry and Martha Rogal; husband of Edith Rogal, of Balham, London.
    HANOVER WAR CEMETERY 15. C. 16.

    I'm trying to find out more information on what happened on 11th April 1945. I noticed this passage in the post above from Recce_Mitch:

    Did that happen on April 15th with the rest of the quoted passage, or could Harry Rogal have been one of those two casualties?
     
  18. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    Hi Mike welcome to the forum, great to have another Recce on Board.

    "Next day, 11 April, the regiment again went into the forests around Celle, but this time with the infantry of the Scottish Division hurrying behind to join in the advance. On the road from Fuhrberg A Squadron met demolitions and enemy at the same place as on the previous evening. This was work for the infantry and sappers, and at one o’clock 227 Brigade took over. On the right B Squadron advanced swiftly through the woods to Ramlingen, but the enemy held the important road junction and railway crossing on the main Celle-Hanover road at Ehlershausen. Lieut Jellinek had a car patrol here. Only a civilian was to be seen—until a man jumped out of a ditch with a bazooka which hit Lieut Jellinek’s car at two yards’ range, wounding him and the driver. The German was killed, either by his own panzerfaust or by a grenade thrown from the turret of the car. The scout car was hit almost simultaneously, and Cpl H. Rogal and Tpr L. A. Ward, MM, were killed. Lieut Jock Browne was behind with the carriers of 4 Troop, which fired forward and themselves came under fire. During these exchanges Tpr J. Moffat, Lieut Jellinek’s gunner and wireless operator, scrambled into the driver’s seat, turned the damaged Daimler round in the narrow road and drove it back through the carriers. The Germans were SS troops with guns. After going north and south without finding a way round them, B Squadron kept them under observation until relieved by 46 Brigade late in the afternoon."

    Chamberlin, Tim; Kemsley, W (2012-07-12). Scottish Lion on Patrol: 15th Scottish Reconnaissance Regiment (Kindle Locations 4117-4124). Casemate Publishers. Kindle Edition.

    Cheers
    Paul
     
    MikeSou, 4jonboy and Tricky Dicky like this.
  19. MikeSou

    MikeSou Member

    Hi Paul. Wow, thanks for that information. I'll pass it on to my Dad, he'll be very pleased. I'll try and get hold of a copy of that book too.

    Next step is to find out more about my paternal grandfather (was married to Harry Rogal's sister), and what he did as part of GHQ Liaison Regiment/Phantom. Will do some poking around on these forums.

    Thanks again!
     
  20. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    Hi Mike, glad I could help. If you have any photos you might like to share please post

    Cheers
    Paul
     

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