2 RUR Patrol Actions - Harpstedt
On 12 April 1944, 9 Infantry Brigade was ordered by 3 Infantry Division to move on the following day to the area of Wildeshausen - Harpstedt (click on map below) and relieve the Division’s 8 Infantry Brigade as the latter was to lead the Division’s assault on the approaches to Bremen. Arriving in Harpstedt, to the south-west of Bremen at 1330 hours on 13 April, the 2nd Battalion The Royal Ulster Rifles was ordered to push patrols forward to locate the enemy along three main roads running north-east, north and north-west from Harpstedt.
On the right, a patrol from D Company, led by Lt Campbell, on reaching a road junction some 4.6 kms north-east of Harpstedt, captured a small enemy standing patrol tasked with covering the approaches to Kirchseelte. The enemy revealed they were from a two-company strong force occupying Kirchseelte.
On the left, a patrol from A Company led by Lt Songest, reached a point just short of 1 km south of Horstedt, a minor village some 4.6 km north-west of Harpstedt. The patrol obtained information from local civilians indicating that Horstedt was held by a company-strong force and that the road leading to the village was mined. As he was questioning the civilians, six self-propelled (SP) guns opened fire on Harpstedt from only 400 yards away. Lt Songest was able to locate their position with accuracy and later that day the enemy SP guns were engaged by a battery of 3rd Division’s medium guns.
In the centre, the third patrol of 14 men, accompanied by a detachment of carriers and pioneers (battalion field engineers), and led by Lt Leslie Harris, drove north along the main Harpstedt to Delmenhorst road. When the patrol reached a point some 800 metres south of the village of Grosse Ippener, it exchanged fire with a two-man German position on the edge of a wood, killing one and wounding another who then escaped through the wood. Lt Harris decided to advance further forward on foot, leaving the carriers at the edge of the wood. The patrol had advanced almost 200 metres when some form of prepared charge was detonated, and the explosion obscured the patrol from the carriers’ location. The patrol commander and seven of his men were killed, two were wounded and three were missing, one of whom had been taken prisoner. The two wounded managed to recover back to the waiting carriers. Following intense enemy machine-gun and mortar fire from the enemy covering straight down the road, any approach to the site of the explosion was virtually impossible. The carrier group had to wait for some time, and then withdrew with difficulty.
This loss of an almost complete patrol, and its commander, was a difficult loss for 2 RUR, but Lt Harris’s patrol had located a number of positions indicating that a company-strong force was defending Grosse Ippener, and when combined with the information gathered by the other two patrols, contributed much to the intelligence on the locations, strength and firepower of the enemy covering Delmenhorst. Heavy losses were therefore avoided in the careful planning made for the subsequent approach and capture of Delmenhorst by another Brigade as 9 Brigade was shifted east to the general area of Barrien, preparatory to attacking Bremen from the south.
