by Mark Zuehlke
As this command shakeup was underway, the Calgary regiment replaced the Black Watch, with orders to cross the canal via a damaged lock gate to the west of Wijnegem on the night of September 21–22. Lieutenant Colonel Donald MacLauchlan decided to first slip a small fighting patrol drawn from ‘C’ Company over, to clear a row of houses standing to the north of a road that parallelled the canal. The rest of the company would then reinforce it and expand the bridgehead to the west, while ‘D’ Company did the same to the east. As these two companies widened the bridgehead, ‘A’ Company would push its perimeter northwards.22
MAJOR FREDERICK “FRANCO” BAKER, ‘C’ Company’s commander, knew precisely who he wanted to lead the fighting patrol—Sergeant Ken Crockett. The twenty-four-year-old Nanton, Alberta native had entered the army in March 1941 and had been an instructor at British Columbia’s Camp Vernon Battle Drill School before finally turning down an offered commission in order to go overseas in May 1944 with some of the men he had trained. Joining the regiment in mid-July, Crockett had a reputation as “one of those ideal wartime NCOS… bright, very strong physically and aggressive.”23
It was about 1930 hours when the Highlanders finished establishing their presence in front of the canal, already too dark for Crockett to look over the canal and opposite shore. But Baker had been well briefed and could tell the sergeant that the southern lock gate had a two-foot-wide catwalk with a handrail running along its top. In the middle of the canal between the two gates was a small, bare island. The northern gate’s catwalk was intact for just half its length. For the last seven feet, only a six-inch water pipe provided footing, but a portion of the handrail remained to help the men keep their balance.
Besides the cluster of houses, the ground north of the canal consisted of fields broken by patches of brush and small stands of trees. Getting onto the gates undetected would be difficult because open fields bordered the south bank of the canal.
Although suffering from dysentery, Crockett never considered ducking the assignment. His entire platoon wanted to go, but he decided to take only nine men. Crockett expected a fight, so he took two Bren gunners and armed the other seven with Sten guns. One man also carried a PIAT anti-tank gun, another a two-inch mortar, and a third the platoon’s 22-pound No. 38 wireless. Everyone had two to three bandoliers of ammunition slung over their shoulders and every pouch on their web belts crammed with magazines. After exchanging their boots—which had steel hobnails and toe and heel plates—for sneakers, Crockett gathered the men around him. “If the flare goes up,” he said, “no matter where we are at, you get as low as you can and don’t move. Nobody fires until I tell you.” Everything depended on silence, and even then Crockett knew it was likely they would “get caught on the lock gates.” At 0130 hours, Crockett led his men into the inky darkness. It was drizzling, the ground underfoot slick with mud.24
Reaching the canal undetected, Crockett crept across the southern gate to the island and peered into the blackness beyond. Whether there were Germans there or not, he couldn’t tell. Returning to his men, the sergeant led them forward, with Corporal R.A. Harold directly behind him. Once on the island, Crockett whispered for the others to stay put while he checked the feasibility of crossing the north gate. The pipe was greasy from the rain and the promised handrail nothing more than a wire strand. Slinging his Sten across his back, Crockett slid one hand along the wire as he carefully placed one foot in front of the other on the slippery pipe. At the other end, a barbed-wire barrier blocked the way off the gate, but the Germans had failed to anchor it.
Again, Crockett returned to his men and led them out onto the pipe. Reaching its end, Crockett and Harold carefully lifted the wire barrier aside. Suddenly, a sentry yelled a challenge and a machine gun ripped off a burst. Most of the patrol was still on the pipe, and one of the men was hit. Dragging the wounded man, the others quickly gained the northern bank, where Crockett and Harold shouted at them to take cover in the tall grass. By now, three machine guns were throwing out searching fire. Yelling, “Give them shit!” Crockett killed the sentry with a well-aimed burst and then charged the nearest machine gun. Firing his Sten from the hip, he eliminated the gun crew.
Private I.P. MacDonald, who was carrying the PIAT, joined Crockett at the overrun gun position, and the two men crawled to where they could fire the anti-tank weapon at a second machine gun set up inside one of the houses facing the canal. MacDonald fired two rounds, destroying the German gun with the second. The third machine gun fell to fire from the two-inch mortar that Crockett and another man put into action.25
While Crockett led the fight, Harold tended the wounded. Crawling to the wounded man who had been left sprawled on the pavement beside the canal, he dragged him to cover despite machine-gun slugs chipping at the concrete all around. By the time Harold patched the man up, three more wounded Highlanders had fallen back on his position. He and Private Myers guided the men back to the lock gate and across the pipe before leaving them to make the rest of the way on their own.
With the remaining six men putting out a furious rate of fire to keep the rapidly gathering number of Germans at bay, ammunition was beginning to run low. Crockett rushed to the man with the wireless and told him to call for reinforcements, only to hear that the aerial had been lost and the set was useless. The sergeant roughly shook the man, shouting that their lives depended on finding the aerial. Together, the two men crawled on hands and knees through the grass under heavy fire until the aerial was retrieved. Minutes later, at 0420 hours, the rest of ‘C’ Company poured over the lock gates in single file and the German resistance slackened.26 Brigadier Megill recommended Crockett for the Victoria Cross for his bravery, but he received a Distinguished Conduct Medal instead, because someone up the command chain deemed the engagement insufficiently important to “warrant such a decoration.”27
By 0600 hours, three rifle companies were across the canal. Low black clouds, creating a twilight effect, hung over the battlefield and the men moved in and out of thick patches of ground fog that made it difficult to see either friend or foe. In this confused landscape, a bitter battle raged through the morning. The Highlanders knew that to win the day they must expand the bridgehead sufficiently to render it safe for the engineers to build a bridge next to the lock, and the Germans knew that a bridge would render their line along the Albert Canal untenable. Shell and mortar fire pounded the small Canadian toehold, frustrating attempts by the engineers to begin work. Slowly ‘C’ Company pushed westward, ‘A’ Company northward, and ‘D’ Company eastward.
On the eastern flank, Major Bruce MacKenzie put two platoons forward into a line of buildings that stood about two hundred yards from the lock gates. Once this position was secured, he ordered the platoons to move out across a field to clear some woods beyond. As the men moved into the open, a German machine gun in the woods ripped into their ranks. Screams cut the air. Some men were killed outright, many more wounded. Rather than continue head on into the escalating and increasingly deadly fire, the platoons began shrinking back towards the locks. MacKenzie frantically tried to rally them to renew the charge while throwing out a steady rate of fire with his Sten gun, but the situation became hopeless and a withdrawal was ordered.
As the men went back, Corporal William Fedun—a twenty-three-year-old from Springside, Saskatchewan—grabbed a Bren gun and covered their withdrawal until he was shot down. MacKenzie hoisted a badly wounded sergeant and carried him back to the locks. He then rallied ‘D’ Company and led them in a renewed drive that quickly evicted some German soldiers who had reoccupied the buildings. By 1215, the situation in the bridgehead seemed desperate, but the Highlanders were determined to prevail. A wireless message to brigade reported ‘D’ Company “practically wiped out on right flank… [heavy] hand to hand fighting. Cal[gary] High[landers] confident of holding.”28 The war diarist at 5 CIB headquarters, closely following the fight from the incoming wireless reports, noted “this was the first time our troops had met the enemy using bayon
ets.”29
All might have been lost had the Highlanders not managed to set up a ferry operation using makeshift rafts, which shuttled badly needed ammunition across the canal to the rifle companies and brought their wounded back. This steady resupply, combined with some close-in mortar and artillery fire accurately directed by Captain Mark Tennant on positions inside a cement factory, prevented the Germans mounting a concerted counterattack.
Then, at 1330 hours, as the sun burned through the clouds for the first time and the fog abruptly lifted, the German mortar and shellfire ceased. Fearful that the respite might be short-lived, the engineers hurriedly unloaded the equipment needed to build the bridge. Work began at 1645 and still the German guns were silent. By 1900, the canal was spanned, and at 2115 hours, le Régiment de Maisonneuve moved its first company across. Three hours later, the entire regiment was over and moving north into the night to expand the bridgehead.
The bridgehead operation cost the Highlanders fewer casualties than initially feared in the confusion of the day, but the final tally was bad enough—fifteen dead and thirty-four wounded.30 They could take heart, though, in the fact that the action proved decisive. When the Germans realized at about noon that the bridgehead would hold, a general withdrawal to the north bank of the Antwerp–Turnhout Canal had been ordered. No estimate of German casualties was compiled, but they had thrown two and a half companies and a platoon of engineers all from 1st Battalion, 743rd Grenadier Regiment into the fight, and among the many dead suffered was the regimental commander, who had taken personal command.31
WHILE THE CALGARY HIGHLANDERS had been winning the bridgehead over the Albert Canal, 4th Canadian Armoured Division’s Algonquin Regiment had again gone into action to force its way into the Breskens Pocket. This time it attempted to break in via the gap at the Isabellapolder along the southern tip of Braakman Inlet. The objective was Maagd-van-Gent, a small village about two miles west of the inlet. ‘D’ Company kicked off the drive with No. 16 Platoon forward, but it was quickly pinned down by heavy fire the moment the men entered the polder. The company’s other platoons made it through to the dyke overlooking the polder area, but were unable to go farther. When a ‘C’ Company platoon tried to reach the stranded platoon, it was cut to pieces, only nine men managing to crawl back after night fell.
September 23 dawned with ‘D’ Company still trying to relieve the lost platoon, which had been out of contact since it was first cut off. Finally, “due to lack of activity and fire on the enemy side” from where the platoon had been forced to ground, it was written off as overrun and taken prisoner. Ten men were reported dead, the lost platoon’s strength of twenty noted as missing, and another thirteen men wounded for nothing gained. It was evident to the regiment that “this place was going to be a grim battleground.” A thought made even grimmer by the news that the Algonquins were to hold their positions, but that no immediate renewal of the attack was planned.32 Instead, knowing 4 CAD was not going to be on this front much longer, Major General Harry Foster instructed his brigadiers to avoid unnecessary casualties. 10 CIB Brigadier Jim Jefferson directed the Algonquins at the end of the day that “in view of the heavy opposition in the gap their task would now be to contain the enemy and harass him with fire and by active patrolling but NO major effort would be made to dislodge him.”33
This was the beginning of “a nightmare period for the Algonquin Regiment,” noted its historian. “There was not even to be the illusion of victory or success—but simply the dismal succession of patrol after patrol.”34
[ 6 ]
Poor Devils
WHETHER WINNING OR losing localized fights with the Canadians, September 23 proved a benchmark day for the Germans operating around the Scheldt estuary, for this was the day Fifteenth Army completed its escape through Breskens to Walcheren Island and then to the mainland. In a coded message promptly decrypted by Ultra, OB West Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt “expressed his thanks to the naval headquarters and units who had played a role in moving 82,000 men, 530 guns, 4,600 vehicles, over 4,000 horses and much valuable material across the West Scheldt.” The actual figures were even better than von Rundstedt believed. Naval Special Staff Knuth, the ad hoc ferry command that had carried out the evacuation, reported between September 4 and 23 moving through the ports of Breskens and Terneuzen 86,100 men, 616 guns, 6,200 horses, 6,200 vehicles, and 6,500 bicycles.1
About 10,000 men, comprising Generalmajor Knut Eberding’s 64th Infantry Division, remained in the Breskens Pocket with orders to hold out as long as possible. This was the only division deemed by Fifteenth Army commander General der Infanterie Gustav von Zangen as “still maintaining its full fighting power, both as to its strength and equipment.” Above all, he noted, Eberding “controlled [it] in a very efficient way… The fighting quality of this division was increased considerably by the fact that formations of the other divisions, which were taken across the river, left behind a considerable quantity of war material of all kind, including artillery guns, antitank artillery guns, ammunition and also food supplies… Equipped in such a way, the division—compared with other formations, which had been engaged south of the Scheldt—represented a unit of special fighting power for its present task of forming an efficient line of barricade.”2
On the other shore of the West Scheldt, the 70th Infantry Division under Generalleutnant Wilhelm Daser was tasked with defending Walcheren Island and the South Beveland peninsula. This area was designated Northern Scheldt Fortress; Eberding’s Breskens Pocket was Southern Scheldt Fortress. Given that it was manned mostly by men with “gastric complaints,” the 70th was rated as only capable of “defensive actions.” During the fighting around Ghent, the division had “suffered heavy losses both by actions and by diseases, up to almost one third of its entire strength.” It had also been stripped of one regiment and an artillery battalion to reinforce the defence of the canal line north of Antwerp and then stripped of two pioneer companies sent to the 64th Infantry Division. “Nevertheless,” von Zangen wrote, “its ‘fighting quality’ had to be rated very high, as now it was again committed in a territory well known to and improved by its men (who had been stationed here prior to being sent to fight at Ghent)… Besides, the control of the division was in the hands of a quiet, reliable commander, who succeeded in welding together all the different branches of armed forces, specially on the island Walcheren, for the purpose of effective defence.”3
Neither division was expected to conduct offensive actions. Their mission was to prevent Antwerp’s use by the Allies for as long as possible. So long as these divisions held out, von Zangen impressed upon their commanders, they would play a vital role in “the defense of the German frontier” by buying time to organize, because the Allies would continue to face crippling supply shortages.4
To the north and east of Antwerp, where the Germans had carried out a hasty withdrawal to behind the Antwerp–Turnhout Canal, General der Infanterie Otto Sponheimer’s LXVII Corps of the Fifteenth Army held the line. Responsibility for this area had passed to Sponheimer from Generaloberst Kurt Student’s hastily cobbled-together First Parachute Army on September 14.5 Sponheimer had three divisions—the 346th Infantry bolstered by the 70th Infantry’s 1018th Grenadier Regiment, the 711th Infantry, and the 719th Infantry. An armoured and antitank gun component was added by the 280th Assault Gun Brigade and elements of the 559th GHQ Heavy Anti-tank Battalion.6
Both the 346th and 711th divisions were “in extremely bad shape, having just been patched up by the addition of supply troops in the area. They numbered 6,000 to 8,000 each.”7 On September 23–24, the 719th Infantry Division was transferred from LXXXVIII Corps to Sponheimer just after its withdrawal to the Antwerp–Turnhout Canal. Sponheimer expected that a major Canadian offensive out of Antwerp would at any moment drive him out of the defensive line centred on Merksem that ringed in the city’s northern docks. With his weak divisions badly overextended, Sponheimer had little confidence in his ability to hold. His 711th was dug into a
line that ran from the main road onto the Beveland isthmus down to the village of Lilla on the Scheldt River, facing the 1st Polish Armoured Division on the opposite shore. The 346th held the ground between Lilla and Merksem. Left of the 346th, the 719th had been strung along the Albert Canal before its withdrawal. When the 719th pulled back, the 346th was forced to also retire on its eastern flank to positions behind the canal extending all the way to Sint-Lenaarts (which the Canadians called St. Leonard), while retaining responsibility for the line from Lilla to Merksem–a total distance of about fifteen miles. It was the need to defend such an extended line that resulted in 70th division’s 1018th Grenadier Regiment being shifted to support the 346th by taking over the Lilla–Merksem section.8
Generalleutnant Erich Diestel, who commanded the 346th, considered his division barely fit for duty, let alone such an important tasking. After escaping to Walcheren Island, it had marched off the Beveland peninsula and assembled about four miles northeast of Antwerp for what was to have been a long overdue rest and rebuilding period. The division was barely five thousand strong, and over the next four to five days was only brought up to a strength of eight thousand by infusions from two divisions that had been shattered in the flight out of France—the 331st and 344th infantry divisions. In the same area, the 711th had also been reforming when orders came on September 18 for both to go back into the fighting lines alongside the 719th.9