Lance Corporal George Dick was just one of many Blantyre man fought who his way through Germany during WW2 in 1944 and 1945.
As the Germans retreated and desperately tried to hold on, the net was closing in. A net that George formed part of! This account shows the hand to hand conflicts this brave man was involved in.
From the Hamilton Advertiser 24th March 1945, reporting, “When the Gordon Highlanders entered the German citadel town of Goch, they found the town had been reinforced with two battalions of German Paratroopers. The first entry into the town by the Black Watch was made against light opposition by night and the town up to the square was cleared. But as the Gordon’s entered the town through the Black Watch, the Germans were infiltrating in from the south and east. It was only after 36 hours of bitter hand-to-hand fighting that the town was cleared.
Lance Corporal George Dick, aged 26, of 14 Welsh Drive, High Blantyre told a military observer: –“We were in one house with the front blown away, German snipers just around the corner, and a German headquarters with a spandou about three hundred yards up the street. Every time we showed ourselves, we were hit! So, we rigged up a couple of mirrors on the stair so that the man on sentry had the protection of a thin strip of wall. It was pretty effective. We used the attic as an observation post. We could see through the slats, and my officer sat in a chair and picked off three Germans.”
These remarkable photos all show the British Army capturing Goch and appropriately illustrate this story very well.
