The Canadian Army Journal

town. Following this, the much-celebrated armoured cars
arrived but proved completely ineffective, the first
succumbed to an enemy rifle grenade, the second bogged
in a ditch. Making matters worse, a German patrol heavily
mined the road west of Spycker during the night, preventing
vehicles from getting forward to evacuate wounded or bring
up supplies. The Black Watch assault companies had now
gone 24 hours without food and were running out of
ammunition, water, and above all, time.
About this time in the schoolhouse, Joe Nixon regained
consciousness. Having lay prostrate at the bottom of the
stairs for close to five hours, a glassy stare and complete
unconsciousness fooled all into thinking he was dead. Upon
awakening, Nixon noticed that of the original 55 who made
it to the church twelve hours earlier, only 21 remained—18
of these, including Carmichael, wounded. During the night,
the level of stress and battle exhaustion rose to a point
where some of the 55 broke and fled. Some chose to flee to Canadian lines, but either
fell into German hands in the process or were killed; others, simply “walked in” and gave
themselves up to the Germans. 53 With only two able-bodied men left to fight with by
09:00, Nixon gathered all remaining weapons into the middle of classroom and collected
bandoliers of ammunition and stray grenades from the wounded. Stens, Bren, Lee-
Enfields, the odd pistol, a commando knife, and a PIAT for destroying tanks completed
the haul. “We wanted to think there was a lot more of us than just the three,” Nixon
recalled years later. 54 To keep the Germans guessing as to the actual numbers in the
school, one man fired single bursts from the Bren gun while Nixon and the other
unloaded their .303s at rapid intervals into the graveyard. Despite their efforts, the
probes grew bolder as the day wore on with German troops slithering around the
gravestones to toss grenades through the schoolhouse windows—only to have Nixon
and company toss them back in record time. 55 This Danse Macabre continued
throughout the day to the point where the bolts on their weapons needed to be kicked
open in an effort to reload. 56 Late in the afternoon on the 13th, Nixon noticed the
Germans gathering behind a neighbouring wall for what appeared to be their fourth and
hopefully final assault on the school. 57 Within earshot of the structure one brazen
paratrooper shouted in broken English “you c’mon Canadians give up…you don’t have
to fight anymore…we’ll look after you…it will be fine.” 58 For Nixon, this was enough to
“get (his) dander up” and he took the PIAT, loaded one bomb, popped around the corner
of the doorframe, and fired. “It went off with an awful bang about fifteen feet from where
I was standing,” he recalled. 59 As Carmichael succinctly put it, the PIAT proved
“outstandingly effective.” 60 Quickly, two additional bombs followed and as Nixon related
years later, “we never heard another word out of them—that stopped everything.” 61
Major F.M. Mitchell
Heroism was not restricted to the schoolhouse, however, and while Nixon was
settling the issue with the help of the PIAT across a field in an isolated farmhouse, a
28-year-old painter from Montreal was earning the Military Medal for his actions. Private
Frederick De Lutis, a sniper attached to Pinkham’s C Company and the notorious “lost
platoon,” took charge of the remaining men and organized an all-round defence of the
farmhouse a few hundred yards from the town when his platoon commander and NCOs
were knocked out of action. At first light, it was discovered that the Germans had
infiltrated the area cutting De Lutis and his men from off from Canadian lines. Soon
mortar and artillery hit the farmhouse area and the counter-attacks that hit Nixon’s group
in the schoolhouse engulfed De Lutis’ position as well. Moving room to room, the Black
Watch sniper encouraged men to fight on, accounting for nine of the enemy along the
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