Henry John Christie died on 14th April 1945 in fighting in north-west Germany. He was 28 years old and was a sergeant in 2nd Fife and Forfar Yeomanry, a tank unit of the British 2nd Army.
The fighting was very fluid by this point. Germany was collapsing but resistance was unpredictable. One village might have hung out white flags but the next might contain a handful of German troops willing to fight it out. It must have been clear to the everyone the end of the war was a matter of weeks away and survival to go home was so close.
The British and Canadians were advancing from left to right on the map above, with the Americans advancing in the same direction but further south. The Russians were advancing from the eats and had Berlin surrounded.
Henry’s regiment was equipped with Comet tanks – the photo above from the Imperial War Museum shows a tank of the regiment (with accompanying infantry) exactly a week before the incident described below.
The regiment’s war diary describes what happened (with thanks to David Ryan):
“At Hermannsburg orders were received to push on as quickly as possible to try and capture an airfield [at Fasberg] where there was rumoured to be the last jet-propelled planes which were not yet destroyed. B sqn [squadron] went ahead of the regiment without any infantry to try and get there.”
Hermannburg is in the very bottom-left; Fassberg is top-right. Muden is just to the left of the centre of the map.
The diary continues: “On arrival at Muden they had just crossed the bridge over the river when the bridge was blown behind them and they were fired on by Panzerfausts. One tank was knocked out and the crew commander killed. As there was a large number of infantry in the village, they had an awkward time in getting out, but by blazing off every weapon and brewing-up most houses they managed to get out without further loss.”
The Google Street View does not really help imagine it all:
So the regiment was asked to capture an airfield. Good practice would have been for tanks to be accompanied by infantry and artillery because while tanks were armoured and reasonably fast (up to around 30mph on the road) they were vulnerable to determined infantry with an anti-tank gun or with a Panzerfaust, a kind of bazooka fired from the shoulder.
British infantry would have had a good chance of discouraging or killing this man before he fired but tanks relied on the eyes of the commander and as we have seen Muden has a lot of trees and buildings.
One tank was hit and the commander killed – there seems a very high chance this was Sergeant Christie.
He was originally buried in Muden, but was reburied in a CWGC Cemetery at Becklingen, where his headstone bears the words, “Till the day breaks”.
Henry John Christie, was born on 18th October 1916 at 101 Battlefield Avenue, Cathcart. His father was also Henry John Christie and he had married Cecily Findlay Skea the previous year. His father’s job on his birth record was commercial traveller (puzzling because at this point in the First World War I probably would have expected him to be called up).
Henry (junior) was known as Harry (at least in the army).
At the 1921 Census the family was living in Gourock, at Ashton House on Ashton Road:
Henry (father) now gives his occupation as coal salesman for Walker and Cameron (?), a colliery agent based in Glasgow. Henry (son) has one younger sister, Margaret. And the family have Cecily (mother)’s mother staying whose occupation was an army nurse.
Ashton House is now 76 Albert Road and may have seen better days:
Walker & Cameron are listed in the Post Office Directory as follows:
In the 1940 Valuation Roll, Henry John Christie (presumably father?) lived at a house on Morar Drive, Bearsden that was so new it is still referred to as Plot 28. After 1945 Henry (father) became a local councillor and his address was given as 12 Morar Drive. In 1940 his occupation was colliery agent.
I do not have a photo of Harry’s headstone but his family are commemorated in New Kilpatrick Cemetery:
