Christopher Vokes

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Robert Moncel and Christopher Vokes

Christopher "Chris" Vokes (born April 13, 1904 Armagh / Ireland ; † March 27, 1985 Oakville / Canada ) was a Canadian major general . At the end of World War II , he commanded the 4th Canadian Armored Division , which in April / May 1945 played a key role in the capture of northwest Germany .

Life

origin

His father was the British NCO , later an officer, of Irish descent, Frederick Patrick Vokes, his mother Elizabeth Jane Briens. The family name is of Norman origin and was originally spelled Vaux . Shortly after Voke's birth, his father was transferred to Ceylon , then to Dublin and in 1910 to Canada, with his family accompanying him.

career

Vokes grew up in a suburb of Montreal . He received boxing lessons from his father , which shaped him for the rest of life. After high school , he entered the Royal Military College of Canada in the spring of 1921 , which he graduated in 1925 and was transferred to the pioneer group , the Royal Canadian Engineers . In 1926/27 he completed a bachelor's degree at McGill University to supplement his education . Here he also became a member of the student association Kappa Alpha Society . Since January 30, 1932, he was married to Connie Waugh.

After a routine service, which also included the employment of the unemployed in public construction projects, Vokes completed a course at Staff College Camberley in Great Britain in 1934/35 .

Second World War

In 1940 Vokes stayed briefly in France with Canadian troops until they were forced to retreat across the English Channel by the advancing Wehrmacht . In 1942 he was appointed Brigadier promoted and commander of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade (2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade). With her he took part in Operation Husky , the Allied invasion of Sicily , in 1943. Later that year he became commander of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division and took part with her in the Battle of Ortona in December .

In 1944 he became commander of the 4th Canadian Armored Division (4th Canadian Armored Division). With her he took part in the battle in the Reichswald in the Kleve area . The division advanced via Holland into the Emsland and finally into the Oldenburg area. During the crossing over the coastal canal in Edewechterdamm there was heavy fighting with Wehrmacht units, according to the 7th Paratrooper Division under Lieutenant General Wolfgang Erdmann . In the Edewecht area, the Wehrmacht units were supposed to prevent the Allied troops from penetrating the largest German naval base in Wilhelmshaven .

In the run-up to the operations on the coastal canal , a serious incident occurred during the occupation of the small town of Friesoythe . Allegedly the commander of the Argyll Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Wigle, from Voke's division was killed by members of the werewolf . Only later did it emerge that the officer had fallen in the course of regular combat operations with previously undetected German paratroopers. In retaliation, Vokes had the evacuated Friesoythe almost completely destroyed, and the rubble from the houses was used to fortify the advance road to Edewechterdamm .

From June 1945 to May 1946, Vokes was the commanding officer of the Canadian occupation forces in Europe. His headquarters were in Bad Zwischenahn , and he himself lived near Oldenburg . The Canadian occupation forces comprised a good 17,000 members and, according to Voke, had the character of a police force . Vokes cracked down on former Polish and Russian slave laborers and had some of them deported to the Soviet occupation zone because they endangered public order :

Those Russians were absolute savages. After they were removed, law and order came back to my area and rape, murder and arson disappeared. Perhaps Russia, in it's 1917 Revolution, lost whatever civilizing element of society it had managed to acquire before that time.

However, there were also violations of discipline in the Canadian troops, since most of the teams, especially the teams, wanted to be released to Canada immediately after the end of the war. In one case, Vokes was forced to end an Air Force sit-in under threat of dishonorable dismissal from the armed forces for viewing the strike as mutiny .

In 1946 Vokes overturned the death sentence against the former general of the Waffen SS , Kurt Meyer , who had been convicted in Aurich in October 1945 for the murder of a total of 46 Canadian soldiers in Normandy . Vokes was not convinced of the judicial evidence and did not want to burden his conscience with the death of a possibly innocent person.

Later career and memoir

In 1946 Vokes became the commanding general of the Central Command in Canada, later of the Western Command. In 1959 he said goodbye as he no longer saw any prospect of becoming Chief of the General Staff . Vokes suspected that his bad relationship with politicians was the reason why this last step in his career was blocked.

In his memoir My Story (1985), published shortly before his death and created with the help of the former police reporter MacLean, he criticized the "stupid" demand for unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht . Instead of shortening the war, it only extended it by one year. The aim of a war is not to exterminate the enemy, but to force one's own will on him.

Vokes also warned of Canada's involvement in a future European war because of its NATO membership. He pleaded for leaving the alliance and instead called for armed neutrality analogous to Switzerland and Sweden and considered a restructuring of the Canadian armed forces to be necessary in order to be able to repel an attack on Canadian territory without an alliance partner.

Awards

literature

  • Chris Vokes (with assistance from John P. Maclean): My Story. Gallery books, Ottawa, Ontario 1985, ISBN 0-9692109-0-6 .
  • Robert L. Fraser: Black Yesterdays. The Argyll's War. Argyll Regimental Foundation, Hamilton, Ontario 1996, ISBN 0-9681380-0-4 .
  • Günter Wegmann: The end of the war between Weser and Ems 1945 . Bültmann & Gerriets, Oldenburg 2000, ISBN 3-928076-13-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Vokes, My Story , p. 202