Terrible Victory

by Mark Zuehlke

  Whitaker considered the twenty-three-year-old Pigott a crack company commander who had proven himself both courageous and skillful. Unlike most everyone else in the regiment, Pigott had retained the body armour issued at the beginning of the Normandy campaign and still wore it whenever he went into battle. Over three thousand of the British-made individual light armour protection units had been issued to 2nd Canadian Infantry Division. Weighing about 2.5 pounds, the armour consisted of three sections of canvas-covered, one-millimetre-thick manganese steel plate–the same composition used in Commonwealth helmets–linked by webbing that offered general protection from the shoulders to just above the groin.35 Although well-padded, because it was designed to be worn under the battle dress tunic rather than over it, the plates tended to chafe and promote heavy perspiration. They also hampered rapid movement. Consequently, most of the troops had quickly abandoned them. Pigott doggedly wore his and on at least one occasion the armour prevented a serious, possibly fatal wound.36

  When Whitaker outlined his attack plan at 1630 hours on October 2, it was clear that ‘C’ Company could use any protective armour available.37 This isn’t going to work, Pigott thought. “If Jerry ever looked to his right and saw us coming down between the rows of boxcars… well, he’d have us like pins in a bowling alley.”38

  Keeping his reservations to himself, Pigott assembled his men on the start line before dawn. Faces blackened and in stocking feet for quiet movement, the men waited tensely. Whitaker and Drewery were nearby in a red-brick steeple. At 0545 hours, the quiet night was split asunder as the guns opened up and Pigott led his men into the attack. They stole along a cinder-coated roadbed that ran the length of the marshalling yard, the shells advancing in lifts as planned to their front.39 Three 17-pounders from ‘C’ Troop of the 2nd Canadian Anti-Tank Regiment were blasting out rounds as fast as the loaders could slam them into the breech. Two of their guns were targeting freight cars that protected machine-gun pits and the other a mortar position.40

  From the steeple, Whitaker and Drewery were horrified to see that the fire from one of 4th Field Regiment’s 25-pounders was lagging, failing to keep up with the assigned lifts, so that the shot fell right into Pigott’s path. Whitaker knew he had seconds to make a decision that might cost the lives of his company–order Pigott to abort to avoid being exposed to the gun’s shells or do nothing and hope for the best. Aborting now, he decided, would likely result in ‘C’ Company suffering just as many casualties trying to break off the action as the shells might inflict. The lieutenant colonel kept quiet, letting events run their course.41

  The gamble paid out as Pigott’s men pressed forward rapidly. As the shells lifted the next hundred yards, ‘C’ Company was already dashing into the area of the previous concentration to overrun most of the Germans before they could recover. Fortunately, the shot from the errant artillery gun fell wide and caused no casualties. At the head of No. 13 Platoon, Lieutenant A.A.H. Parker was badly wounded in the hip at the attack’s outset. “Scarcely able to walk,” he hobbled the thousand yards required to bring his men to their final objective before agreeing to be evacuated. His courage and determination earned him a Military Cross.

  At 0630 hours, just forty-five minutes after crossing the start line, Pigott signalled Whitaker that the marshalling yards were taken.42 Although the attack had gone smoothly, it was no cakewalk. Four men were dead, another twenty-one wounded–more than 25 per cent of Pigott’s troops.43 All the casualties had been inflicted by small-arms fire, most from snipers bypassed during the advance who opened up from the rear. These were rooted out of their positions or chased away by a platoon of ‘B’ Company, which then became entangled in a field of Schützenmines (S-mines) while returning to Oorderen. Several of the spring-loaded canisters were tripped, and unleashed their 350-ball-bearing loads at a height of three feet with deadly effect. The same fate had befallen a patrol from ‘B’ Company the night before. Taken together, the company lost two men killed and twelve wounded to this deadly form of mine.44

  When Whitaker and Drewery went forward to Pigott’s position at 0700, he reported having killed or wounded about thirty Germans and was holding eighty prisoners–all from the 711th Infantry Division.45 Whitaker thought the young officer much relieved that, despite its losses, his fears that ‘C’ Company would be wiped out had not materialized.46

  EAST OF OORDEREN, 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade had passed through the lines of 5th Canadian Infantry Brigade near Brecht on October 2 and pushed westwards towards 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade. The South Saskatchewan Regiment and Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada led, with the former moving along the canal to conclude the unfinished business of seizing Lochtenberg, while the latter struck out northwestwards to secure Kamp van Brasschaat. This was an attack in depth, the front extending almost three miles north from the canal to the former Belgian military base.

  Under heavy morning cloud, the South Saskatchewans followed two parallelling roads from Locht towards the objective three miles away. Little opposition was encountered until 0730 hours, when ‘D’ Company on the inland road and ‘B’ Company next to the canal were within a mile of Lochtenberg. Both companies faced a dense deciduous forest with heavy undergrowth that provided excellent concealment. Suddenly, from its edge “came every type of fire imaginable.” Machine guns, at least one antitank gun, a number of small mortars, and light arms spat out fire at close range. A shell struck a Bren carrier bearing ‘D’ Company’s lunch ration, setting it afire. Caught in the open, the infantry hit the dirt and would have been pinned there had the Fort Garry Horse’s ‘B’ Squadron not been grinding along in its wake. Growling up alongside the most forward platoons, the tankers hammered the woods with 75-millimetre gunfire and raking bursts from the machine guns. Captain G. McLean, the 6th Field Regiment FOO, called down a thick rain of artillery fire that shattered tree trunks and sent shards of wood whizzing through the air with the same deadly force as the steel shrapnel released by the exploding rounds.47

  When the German fire lessened, the infantry dashed into the woods and were soon sending prisoners back. At first, they came by ones and twos, then ten at a time, then almost twenty. By 1200 hours, fifty-four Germans had surrendered–infantry, artillerymen, and anti-aircraft gunners hastily cobbled together to resist the Canadian advance. Thirty minutes later, the lead companies reported in from Lochtenberg, and the “objective that had almost been ours once before, only a few days ago, was finally in our hands,” wrote the regiment’s war diarist. “There would be no withdrawal over the canal this time.”48

  Villagers came out to meet them and turned over four pay books taken off the bodies of South Saskatchewan men killed in the first two attacks. The villagers had managed to bury these four soldiers where they had fallen. But the corpses of other dead Saskatchewans remained unburied, because the Germans had driven the Belgians off with machine-gun fire whenever they attempted to form a burial party. One of the unburied men was identified as Major Harry Williams, who had led ‘B’ Company on its ill-fated September 24 assault.49

  North of Lochtenberg, the advance by the Camerons had ground to a halt in the face of stiff resistance at about 1630 hours, after ‘B’ Company and supporting tanks from the Fort Garry Horse’s ‘C’ Squadron had gone only a thousand yards beyond the start line. The advance was through dense woods, so the tankers “were road-bound” to a single column and unable to manoeuvre. Sergeant Gerald Jorgenson, commanding the leading troop, noted with concern that the infantry appeared unused to working with tanks–likely because about half their number were recent reinforcements with no combat experience. Most seemed poorly trained. When a German defensive line opened up from some facing woods with heavy machine-gun and antitank fire, the advance stalled despite the tankers being able to rapidly knock out two of what they believed were three 88-millimetre guns.50 The remaining gun, however, proved too well placed and its fire forced the infantry to ground.

  It soon became evident that the position could be t
aken only with heavy casualties, so Lieutenant Colonel Ernest Payson Thompson– at twenty-three, the youngest battalion commander in the Canadian army–recalled the force to reorganize for a more robust attack the next day. By 2200 hours, infantry and tankers were back at the start line. Casualties had been light, but among the dead was Captain Edward James Reid, the twenty-eight-year-old acting company commander from Manitoba, who held a Military Cross from an earlier engagement.51

  That night, to everyone’s surprise at the Camerons’ headquarters, a four-man patrol under Sergeant Andy Rylasdaam made it across ground bathed in bright moonlight into the very heart of Kamp van Brasschaat and its surrounding hamlet without encountering German resistance. Establishing contact with some Belgian civilians, they spent the night comfortably in the hamlet’s centre, returning just before dawn with their report. By then the weather had turned dirty, and at 1000 hours the regiment kicked off a renewed attack, advancing through icy drizzle. Against only token resistance, the Camerons made good progress, reporting the camp in their hands at 1230 hours and eighty-two prisoners taken.52

  October 3 also proved a good day for the South Saskatchewan Regiment, which moved directly east away from where the Antwerp–Turnhout Canal bent south just outside Lochtenberg, and marched on Brasschaat. The two-and-a-half-mile advance proceeded quickly, despite the need to eliminate light pockets of resistance all along the way, and the leading ‘A’ Company entered the town at 1800 hours. “Rarely have troops been received so warmly with flowers, kisses, apples, kisses, beer, kisses, and much handclasping and smiles. Many Belgians were crying with emotion.” During the last two days, the regiment had suffered four dead and twenty-four others wounded.53

  By the following day, 6 CIB had secured a solid base west from Kamp van Brasschaat to Kapellen and tied in with 4 CIB advancing north from Antwerp, with its left shoulder anchored on the Scheldt River at Oorderen. This put 2nd Canadian Infantry Division in place to advance from Merksem towards Bergen op Zoom and cut off the South Beveland isthmus.54

  [ 9 ]

  Close to the Danger Line

  LIKE AN UNSEASONABLE snow, leaflets released from the bomb bays of two B-17 Flying Fortresses of the United States Air Force’s 406th Squadron drifted onto Walcheren Island on October 2. Leave the island or find a “safe place,” read the thousands of white notices that farmers gathered in from fields, children chased down in schoolyards, and housewives swept up off brick walks leading to tidy houses and apartments. The same message repeated on Radio Oranje in England, listened to on clandestine radios.

  Thirty-six-year-old Willem Gabrielse had been digging potatoes on his farm near Westkapelle when the leaflet snow began. He and others heatedly discussed the warning notice; everyone agreed that a severe, prolonged aerial bombardment must be about to target enemy troops and installations on the Dutch islands in the Scheldt estuary.1 The leaflet warned that all “roads, canals, transport lines, power stations, railway yards or sheds, warehouses and depots, enemy concentration of all kinds–are the centres of danger. Leave their vicinity immediately.” This left few options. Travel only by foot. Stay off roads. Stick to the fields and carry little. Avoid congregating in groups for risk of being mistaken for German forces. Avoid low-lying ground and military objectives until the Allies liberated the islands.2

  Low places, roads, concentrations–all Walcheren was one or the other. The island was a saucer that would be sea were it not for the great encircling dykes. And how could they get off the island? The Sloedam, that narrow causeway linking it to South Beveland, was guarded by German troops and undoubtedly one of the likeliest “centres of danger.” So where to go? And perhaps, despite the island’s many coastal batteries that guarded the approaches to the West Scheldt estuary, it would not be targeted anyway. One of those batteries was emplaced immediately north of Westkapelle, dug in behind the dyke on that rare instance of Walcheren ground above sea level. More batteries were nearby, either facing the North Sea or covering the West Scheldt’s mouth.

  In September, the Royal Air Force had attacked several of these batteries, inflicting little damage. But the bombing had been pinpointed, and consequently, few civilian injuries resulted. Surely the same would be true for any new raids. Stay away from the battery north of town and they should be safe. Fleeing was impossible; even the open fields were strewn with mines. Having watched the German engineers sowing the mines in the fields close to West-kapelle, everyone knew the areas to avoid. But of the fields beyond they knew nothing. In the open, there would also be no protection from the bombs, while at home most had built or identified possible shelters: the cellar of a nearby windmill, an inner room in a stout building down the street, or a trench dug in the garden behind the house. Advising flight was absurd. Even if they reached the Sloedam, the Germans would turn them back unless they had an official pass.3 Close to 100,000 civilians called Walcheren Island home. About a quarter of these dwelt in Middelburg, but since the bombings of September another 25,000 had sought refuge behind the city’s medieval walls. Situated inland, Middelburg was strategically irrelevant.

  By grim mischance, hardly a single notice had fallen upon West-kapelle itself, so the imminent danger was less comprehended there than elsewhere on the island. The gun batteries, people agreed, would be the target. Nobody thought of the great dyke that held back the North Sea and made life on Walcheren possible. It had stood since the fifteenth century. Even as they blessed its existence, it had been there all their lives and so seemed immutable.4

  Consequently, on the morning of October 3, as 252 Lancaster bombers lumbered off landing strips and struggled into formation, the people of Westkapelle went about as normal with only a slightly anxious eye turned westwards for aircraft. Seven Mosquitos of No. 8 (Pathfinder Force) Group RAF preceded Nos. 1, 3, and 5 Bomber Groups.5 The Mosquitos that would mark the bombing site for the Lancasters arrived over the dyke just south of Westkapelle at 1300 hours.6 Each of the two-engine planes released phosphorous flares, known as Christmas Trees, to delineate the target for the Lancaster bombardiers.

  The anti-aircraft guns that bristled on Walcheren immediately went into action, flinging streams of fire at the bombers slowly droning in waves of thirty Lancasters, flying at about five thousand feet altitude because of the low overcast. For the next two hours, bombs showered down, a total of 1,262 tons of explosives. When the last bombers broke away, their bombardiers reported “the sea pouring through a gap in the wall and spreading about three quarters of a mile inland.” The raid’s finale was to have involved several bombers dropping massive Tallboy bombs loaded with 12,000 pounds of explosive to penetrate deep into the dyke in order to cause an earthquake-like effect. Because the dyke was already successfully breached, these planes returned home without releasing their loads. Not a single bomber was lost to the “large amount of flak.” No. 84 Group soon had reconnaissance aircraft overhead that confirmed “the gap was about 75 yards in width while the sea was rapidly covering the fields south of Westkapelle.”7

  On the ground, chaos reigned. When the Mosquitos dropped their flares, the citizens of Westkapelle realized that a raid was imminent. People ran in every direction to seek shelter, forty-five crowding into the confines of a cellar under the large De Roos Molen (Rose Mill) windmill. Despite the marking flares, there was nothing precise about the bombs’ falling patterns. The Lancasters rained explosives all through the town and neighbouring farms. Much of Westkapelle ceased to exist during two hours of hell.

  In the windmill’s cellar, thirty-eight-year-old Jo Theune huddled in the entranceway. The mill, which stood close to the dyke, was her father’s. In the opening moments of the raid, the obstetrical nurse had helped him carry her bedridden mother to its cellar. Accompanying them had been one of Jo’s brothers, his wife, and their fourteen-year-old and seven-year-old daughters, as well as the son of another sibling. Seeing the bombers approaching from the west, the dark depths of the cellar before them, the two girls had taken fright and refused to go inside. Running out of t
ime, the one brother led his family away to seek shelter elsewhere.

  The concussion of the blasts from the first wave of bombs shook the mill to its foundations. Then an eerie silence descended. It was pitch dark, dust and grain chaff drifting down from the ceiling to coat heads and shoulders. “The bombers are done, gone,” someone whispered. Everyone spilled out into the daylight. Jo Theune circled the mill, noting with dismay the large cracks opened in its walls. She was informing her father when the drone of engines warned of another wave. No sooner had they crowded back inside than the ground shook wildly as bombs exploded around the mill. Theune’s mother moaned that she was feeling badly and Jo rushed to get water from a bucket by the entrance. Just as she reached the bucket, a bomb struck the mill itself.

  “Everything came down, stone, beams, bags of grain and dust, dust everywhere,” Theune said later. She was unable to see, barely able to move, trapped in the rubble. Deep in the cellar, people screamed and sobbed. Some had been crushed under great blocks of stone. Most were trapped, separated from others by fallen timbers and stones. Then the water began trickling in. People called to each other in the darkness that it must be flowing in from a ditch behind the mill. But a man tasted it and anxiously announced that it was salty. Realization dawned. The dyke was broken.

  Slowly, inexorably, the seawater seeped in, rising higher and higher. Theune was at the top of the cellar stairs by the door–farther from the floor than anyone else. She repeatedly called out to her father and mother, but received no reply. None of the others below knew where they were. People kept talking back and forth, reporting what was happening in their little pockets. Theune tried to recognize voices, to call out names and ask how they were doing. Surely rescuers must be coming, Jo Theune assured them, becoming more frightened by the moment. Slowly the number of voices lessened, one no longer replying, then another.