Anger | Bertie Charles
Faces to Graves
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in Overloon, popularly known as the English cemetery, contains 281 graves. Each with its own story. In this report series, the Overloon War Chronicles Foundation highlights such a special story every time. This time grave number 2, section III, row B. from
Bertie Anger (1925 – 1944)
Avenue of Remembrance
“The peloton took cover and I quickly checked our losses. Our company commander needed to know what the current situation was, so I went back a line myself. Through the cover of hedges, stumps and a burning tank, I reported our current situation.”
(Source: Testimony of John Lincoln, soldier of the Royal Norfolk Regiment)
It’s hard to say goodbye, but there’s no going back. The mother watches her son as he walks down the Avenue of Remembrance. On his way to his regiment which is stationed further on the base. Towards that terrible war.
Biography
Bertie Charles Anger is born in 1925 in Stoke-by-Nayland, a small village in south Suffolk, on the border with Essex.He is the son of Percy Charles Anger and his wife Maud Mary Anger.
Bertie’s father Percy owns a construction company in the village, P. C. Anger & Son Ltd. Bertie’s mother is the landlady of the local pub, the Black Horse Public House, where the whole family lives.
Bertie has 2 sisters, Eva Cicely (Ciss) and Mary, as well as 3 brothers: Arthur, Roy and Peter.
After his school years, Bertie chooses the butcher trade and starts working for Villlage Butchers, a butcher’s company with 3 stores in the region. The company is run by brothers Cyril and Frank Webb, who took over the company after the death of their father and founder Walter Webb in 1930. Bertie starts there with delivering orders to customers.
Bertie joins the army, he becomes Private (soldier) in the Royal Norfolk Regiment, 1st Bn. (the 1st battalion). Royal Norfolk Regiment is the official name, but the name Norfolks is widely used.
And then the day comes for Bertie when he has to leave for the front.
Via Normandy, Northern France and Belgium the Norfolks arrive in The Netherlands, where the regiment will be deployed in the battle for Overloon and Venray, the first phase of the capture of the German bridgehead Venlo.
After Overloon is liberated with great difficulty on 13 October, the British immediately face a new assignment that same evening: to conquer the forecourt from Overloon towards the Loobeek (Molenbeek) so that the British could then advance to Venray. It is a difficult assignment, as the British have to advance towards the Loobeek over open terrain and they know that it is precisely there that the Germans can use their defense and firepower to the maximum.
Major General Lashmer Gordon Whistler (nicknamed Bolo Whistler, commander of the 3rd infantry division and responsible for the attack on Overloon and Venray) has meanwhile decided to deploy 2 battalions for the attack towards the Loobeek which he had held in reserve until now: The Lincolnshires Battalion of the 9th Brigade and the Norfolks Battalion of the 185th Brigade, the battalion in which Bertie serves.
The Lincolnshires will attack towards the Loobeek from the west side of the Overloon – Venray road, the Norfolks will attack simultaneously from the east side of the road towards the Loobeek.
In the night before the attack, the night of Friday 13 to Saturday 14 October, Bertie and his regiment spend the night in the woods around Overloon. That Saturday morning, before sunrise, the breakfast for the men is brought by the company cooks and the rations for the day are distributed.
The morning starts with fog around Overloon, but will be followed by rain with some clearing. The bad weather of the past few days has ensured that the surface has largely become soggy.
It is now just before 7:00 am. British Churchill tanks of the 2nd Squadron Coldstream Guards arrive at the Norfolks to support the Norfolks’ attack. The sound of the tanks is heard from a distance by the Germans and the Germans fire directly with an 88mm cannon with several German grenades hitting the Norfolks and exploding!
It is now 7:00 am. The signal for the British attack is given, for both the Lincolnshires and the Norfolks. But the Lincolnshires quickly run aground on the west side because of the enormous numbers of German artillery shells that they receive from the German positions. The Lincolnshires suffer heavy casualties and later comparisons are even made with the First World War, in which soldiers were sent en masse from their trenches into the deadly no man’s land and died there en masse.
It’s hell! It won’t be until the afternoon of this Saturday that the Lincolnshires on the west side will be able to advance again towards the Loobeek. But only after the British artillery has applied a creeping barrage by firing huge numbers of shells at the German positions, each time shifting the impacts a bit forward and thus pushing back the German resistance.
At 07:00 am the Norfolks attack on the east side also starts. The men of Company B and Company D emerge from the woods and advance towards the Loobeek, supported by the Churchill tanks. But at the same time as the Lincolnshires on the west side, the Norfolks on the east side also quickly come under fire from the German lines, the Germans who also here fire with huge numbers of mortars and shells. The group of Churchill tanks spreads to the left and right and the Norfolks platoon also spreads behind them. The British take cover in ditches on either side of a road and carefully crawl forward in the ditches.
Enemy fire increases instantly. Within minutes, 4 Churchill tanks are knocked out by 3 superior German Panther tanks! Pull back! The rest of the Churchill tanks have to go back! First, the tank crews quickly lay a smoke screen and manage to retreat to the relative cover of the forest. But that withdrawal leaves the Norfolks platoon alone, unsupported! Still, the men keep crawling and stooping forward, using whatever cover they can find along the way.
But the Norfolks remain too visible for the Germans, who are constantly bombarding them with mortars, machine guns and their 88mm cannons. To further enhance the massive German firepower, their Nebelwerfers are deadly rocket launchers that fire 6 rockets within 10 seconds and make a huge shrieking and terrifying noise on launch. The British are afraid of those Nebelwerfers and call them Moaning Minnies or Screaming Meemies.
The situation for the Norfolks on the east side seems to be getting more and more desperate, especially when they are also bombarded by their own artillery trying to hit the German targets in front of them! Without the support of the tanks, progress becomes increasingly difficult for the British! Still, the Norfolks carry on.
The British pass burning haystacks and slowly move towards the Loobeek. But the German fire is getting fiercer! Halfway through the route to the Loobeek, the British reach the first position codenamed Cartwright and dig in there. They are constantly being fired on by mortars and grenades and the rain makes their newly dug positions flood.
Finally they manage to get to some thin undergrowth, about 200 meters before their second target, a side road ahead.And then the crossing of the Loobeek still has to come! John Lincoln, a soldier in the Royal Norfolk Regiment since February 1944, will write about this situation later in his book Thank God and The Infantry: “The platoon took cover and I quickly checked our losses. Our company commander needed to know what the current situation was, so I went back a line myself. Through the cover of hedges, stumps and a burning tank, I reported our current situation and a plan was made to continue the advance with the support of our artillery and mortar fire.”
But that hard battle towards the Loobeek, the fierce German resistance and their constant shelling, cost many Norfolks their lives that day. One of the dead that day is Bertie Anger.
Bertie is buried in the temporary cemetery on the Venrayseweg. On 14 May 1947, his remains, together with the other British soldiers buried there, are transferred to the CWGC cemetery in Overloon.
Bertie is only 19 years old when he is killed. It is a huge blow to the family when they hear of his passing.
The last time Bertie’s mother sees her son alive is in Colchester, a town about 8 miles (13 kilometers) from Stoke-by-Nayland. It is the period just before Bertie will leave for Normandy to go to war with the Norfolks. Colchester has historically been an important garrison town and has an important military base, dating back to Roman times. In Colchester, Bertie and his mother say farewell to each other on the Avenue of Remembrance that day, and Bertie walks down the avenue towards his regiment. His mother watches him as far as she can, until he disappears from view.
That very last moment of that day on that Avenue of Remembrance will forever hold a very special and emotional meaning for Bertie’s mother.
After the war she visits Bertie’s grave at the CWGC cemetery in Overloon several times. Bertie’s sisters Ciss and Mary also visit the grave. As well as Bertie’s nephew Richard, the son of Bertie’s brother Peter, who comes to Overloon a number of times.
Bertie’s youngest brother Peter was born in 1938 and is too young to remember his brother Bertie. Nevertheless, he thinks a lot about Bertie throughout his life, especially during official commemorations such as Remembrance Sunday, on which the United Kingdom commemorates the end of the First World War. Every year Peter ensures that on that day a small wooden cross and a poppy with Bertie’s name on it are placed in the Garden of Remembrance at St Mary’s Church on Church Street in Stoke-by Nayland.
A tradition that his son Richard continues to this day.
You can read full version of “Faces from the Past” below.
