by Mark Zuehlke
The water was now closing in on her nephew. They will come soon, Jo assured him. “But it’s taking so long, auntie, will the Lord Jesus not help us?” the boy replied. Those were his last words. Then there was only herself and a neighbour–Joost Janisse with his baby Cornelia. He was pinned inside a tight pocket, thrusting his daughter with his arms up into a narrow little gap above his head, the water rising slowly up his body. His wife had been by his side when the mill collapsed. But he could not reach her now, had no idea where she was, or if she lived.
Groping about, Theune found a small opening through interlocked fragments of timbers and stone, began moving slowly up through the tight spaces, gaining precious inches that lifted her above the relentlessly rising water. Wriggling into a crevice, she stuck fast, and could go neither forward nor backward. The water pooled blackly below her, the landing by the door now submerged. If she slipped out of the crevice, the pool would have her. Jo Theune tried not to move.
Then voices came. She heard men exclaim with joy as they freed Janisse and his baby. “Keep calling out,” the men urged Jo, as they sawed through timbers, pulled aside stones with bare hands– frantically clearing a path through the ruin, guided by her voice. Soon they carefully extracted her from the dangerously unstable rubble. Jo’s body was completely black and blue, she had serious internal bruising, and blood streamed from one arm and leg. Unable to walk, she was carried to safety. She, Janisse, and his baby were the only survivors.8
Between the bombing and the immediate flooding, about one-third of Westkapelle was reduced to ruins. More civilians died from the explosions than drowned. Some burned to death when flares from the Mosquitos set houses alight. Some were crushed when trenches dug behind their homes for shelters collapsed from the concussion waves rolling through the ground. Cellars caved in on others. People nearby witnessed the wreckage of Westkapelle buildings thrown hundreds of feet into the air by the explosions. About 160 residents of Westkapelle died on October 3, but the suffering on Walcheren had only begun. Through the deceptively narrow-looking breach the sea continued to flow, spilling outwards from Westkapelle across the fields to engulf other villages and towns.
“RAF SINKS DUTCH island to silence Nazi guns,” blared the October 4 London Daily Herald front-page banner headline. The guns of Walcheren were all silenced, drowned, their garrisons forced to run for their lives. Both the Herald and its competitor, the Daily Express, shared the delusion that the Tallboy bombs had been dropped and many gun positions destroyed. The guns had been the objective, the papers asserted. The Express also claimed that Vlissingen and Middelburg were flooded.
Radio Oranje offered a more accurate assessment, noting that although Westkapelle was flooded along with about 175 acres of surrounding countryside, the entire island would not be submerged. But as each high tide propelled more waves through the dyke’s breach, greater flooding would result. “We had to make this sacrifice,” the announcer assured the people of Walcheren. “The German batteries had to be washed away, and this is a great step towards the liberation. The men guilty of this are in one place only, in Berlin.”9
Quick to capitalize on the deliberateness of the breaching, the German propaganda machine tried to win public opinion by claiming a catastrophe. Five thousand killed, German-controlled Dutch newspapers claimed.10 “An evil work of destruction, the water… flooding into Zeeland’s most beautiful island. Walcheren, treasure house of a centuries-old culture, became a prey to the waves.”11
The islanders were not misled. While lamenting the loss of life and property damage, few shifted their loyalties to the Nazis or hoped the Allies did not soon liberate them. In the days that followed, Westkapelle gathered its dead out of the ruins, burying 138 in temporary graves. During one of the burial ceremonies, Meester W.F.P. Kurtz, the German-appointed acting mayor, scolded the assembled citizens that they could thank their Allied friends for the deaths. A stony silence greeted this remark, and then the people as one turned and walked from the cemetery without a word. Kurtz was left by the graves, alone, scorned.12
The destruction caused to Westkapelle from the bombs and subsequent flooding rendered it largely uninhabitable. By evening of October 3, most people had left, going to villages inland in hopes that the sea would not reach that far. Local experts, who had spent years gauging water volumes as they managed and built the dykes, estimated that two million cubic metres had flowed in prior to the ebb tide and half had then returned to the North Sea. Predictions were that all of Walcheren lying west of a long canal that bisected it from Veere on the north coast to Vlissingen would be inundated within three weeks’ time.13
Breaching the dyke at Westkapelle had, however, been Bomber Command’s feasibility test and the results had surpassed expectations. When several bombs fitted with delayed timing fuses exploded the following day, the added damage combined with the inflowing water to double the gap’s width. Based on the success of this first raid, bombing other outer dykes was approved to hasten the flooding. This was expected to “completely disorganize the enemy’s communications, immobilize his reinforcements and at the same time put out of action a number of his defence works. Furthermore the assault forces would be able to take advantage of the floods by swimming through the breach in amphibious vehicles and operating behind the enemy’s forward positions.”14
Little damage had been inflicted on military installations, though, and no German casualties resulted. Oberkommando der Wehr-macht reported on October 4 that the defence of Walcheren “was not significantly affected by the flooding. Only a few positions are out of action.” South Holland’s German naval commander, Captain Aschmann, noted that, while two radar stations near Westkapelle had been disabled, they had not taken direct hits and would soon be repaired. Shortly after the raid, Aschmann arrived from Vlissingen by car to examine the damage first-hand. “Great destruction in the village, so that it is no longer possible to pass through it,” he wrote. “Between Zoutelande [a coastal village three miles south] and West-kapelle the water has risen so high that the car can only be driven through at a walking pace… The whole area around the breach is so ploughed up that it is impossible to approach it with vehicles.”15
While the October 3 Westkapelle raid proved that breaching the Walcheren dykes was possible, RAF high command remained opposed to diverting bomber squadrons from missions over Germany for operations in support of First Canadian Army. The Canadians, they believed, had become “bomb happy,” calling for air support whenever German opposition stiffened. In a strange twist of logic, Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Porter declared that “the constant application of heavy bombers to the land battle, when it is not essential and its only purpose is to save casualties, must inevitably lead to the demoralization of the army.” Eisenhower’s Deputy Supreme Commander, Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder, wholeheartedly agreed. “We are now, I am afraid, beginning to see the results in precisely that demoralization of which you speak,” he replied. “The repeated calls by the Canadian Army for heavy bomber effort… is in my opinion only too clear an example. It is going to be extremely difficult to get things back on a proper footing.”16
Even before the bombers flew towards Westkapelle, Tedder and other RAF commanders were obstinately lobbying Eisenhower to reverse his earlier promise that First Canadian Army would receive priority air support in compensation for his decision not to employ airborne troops against South Beveland and Walcheren. Bomber Command and the Eighth Air Force, he had assured Crerar and Simonds, would provide “complete saturation of the targets you select. All medium bombers will also be made available to assist.”17
This assurance in hand, Simonds had based his plans on the belief that not only could he expect the dykes breached as required to flood the island, but also that bombers would be available for “prolonged air preparation” against the heavily fortified gun batteries guarding it. While RAF had come through with three raids in September against selected batteries–including the one at Westkapelle–their scale
had been relatively small, just 616 tons of ordnance dropped, with minimal damage inflicted. RAF thereafter rejected conducting a prolonged campaign to smash the batteries, sheltered in strong concrete bunkers, until immediately prior to Walcheren’s actual invasion.
Air Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory, in the process of winding down the Allied Expeditionary Air Force he had commanded through its support of the Normandy invasion, argued raf’s case to Eisenhower. “If we have to concentrate what would amount to the major proportion of our bomber forces on Walcheren for so long a period, the enemy would be free to concentrate his fighter effort in the forward areas, his communications and military build up would progress to a large extent unimpeded, and he would be given an opportunity to recuperate his oil and industrial resources which we know are now so seriously depleted. It is, therefore, most important that the maximum bombing effort should be directed against Germany.” Leigh-Mallory proposed subjecting Walcheren to limited attacks against selected targets, such as the dykes and a few specific batteries, and then three days prior to the assault and during it implementing a heavy bombing program. Such raids, he argued, would cause as much damage as would a prolonged effort because the Germans would not have time to make repairs. RAF airily dismissed arguments that it took a great bomb tonnage to destroy concrete positions from the air and that, when damaged, such constructions could not be quickly repaired.
Despite his promise, Eisenhower was swayed and offered Leigh-Mallory “general agreement.” When the case was put to Montgomery, the Twenty-First Army Group commander wrote, “I agree with you.” Limited attacks for now against select targets to flood the island and “generally disturb enemy morale,” then three to four days before the assault, “we should fairly let them have everything we have got.”18 Having lost Montgomery’s backing, Simonds could do nothing but watch bleakly as First Canadian Army was stripped of its high priority on bomber support. RAF attacks through October, particularly against Walcheren, would be on a limited scale.
The air support cutbacks were symptomatic of a predilection running from Eisenhower down to Montgomery to assert the urgent need for First Canadian Army to open the approaches to Antwerp while simultaneously denying the means to do so. On October 2, Simonds had learned that the British and American offensives towards the Ruhr would have first call on all supplies. The Canadians could make do with leftovers.19
Only one man in high command seemed to grasp the difficulties the Canadians faced and kept his attention firmly fixed on the need to open Antwerp to Allied shipping before the armies ground to a halt for want of supply. Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, the Naval Commander-in-Chief, persistently reminded Eisenhower and his staff that nothing should have greater priority. He rode Montgomery equally hard. On October 1, Ramsay personally directed that an assortment of Landing Craft, Tank being used as cross-Channel shuttles be taken off this service so their crews could prepare for the forthcoming assault on Walcheren. Montgomery’s headquarters staff at Twenty-First Army Group immediately protested that losing these vessels from the shuttle service would “interfere with operations having a higher priority.”
Ramsay shot back that he “knew of no operation with priority” over Infatuate and that the Supreme Commander’s Chief of Staff had confirmed this. Two days later, Ramsay visited Simonds at First Canadian Army headquarters in Belgium to make a personal assessment. Beforehand, the Twenty-First Army Group Chief of Staff, Major General Freddie de Guingand, had telephoned Simonds’s Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Churchill Mann, and demanded that the Canadians mention nothing that might lead the naval officer to “become concerned as a result of the priorities being given to British Second Army op[erations] within [Twenty-First Army Group.]”20 Loyal troopers, Simonds and Mann kept their lips zipped–giving no inkling that British Second Army was pushing hard for the Ruhr on a trajectory that required I British Corps to direct its operations, not to support ii Canadian Corps in cutting off and then clearing South Beveland, but instead to support the British forces. Ramsay was not fooled. He knew what Montgomery was doing and loudly decried it, even arguing that the drive towards the Ruhr should be abandoned until the port was opened.
Simonds, however, strengthened the impression that First Canadian Army faced no undo difficulties completing its assignment despite the paucity of manpower, external support, and supplies. He complained neither to Montgomery nor anyone else, and merely pointed out to his corps commanders on October 2 that the Ruhr offensives “have a prior call on administrative resources” and that it was “necessary for First Canadian Army to clear the Western flank of British Second Army by a thrust North Eastwards.” The consequence that this left II Canadian Corps to clear the Scheldt alone was accepted without question.21 Privately, however, some of his staff referred to the campaign to open Antwerp as a Cinderella operation, to which Allied command gave more “lip service than practical priority.”22
II Canadian Corps was terribly understrength, particularly where it most mattered on the sharp end of the infantry battalions. During the Normandy campaign, the three divisions had suffered heavier casualty rates among infantrymen than Canadian Military Headquarters (CMHQ) had planned for. By September, although there was a 13,000-man reinforcement surplus, the pool was short 2,000 infantry-qualified soldiers. When Market Garden failed and First Canadian Army descended into the bitter fight for the Scheldt, the only way to rectify the deficiency was to commit conscripted Canadians to combat–precisely what the Canadian government had promised would not happen when the National Resources Mobilization Act (NRMA) was imposed in 1940.23
The NRMA had divided Canada’s military into two tiers, with those Canadians volunteering for regular service designated for General Service (GS) and the conscripts facing other assignments. The GS volunteers could be assigned either for General Service, Overseas (GSO) or retained for home defence duties. Meanwhile, conscripts were liable for service only in the western hemisphere. Generally, that meant assignment within Canada and the certainty of avoiding combat. This was a domestic political strategy to head off a situation like the Great War conscription crisis that had caused unrest, particularly among Quebecois.
By fall of 1944, there were approximately 390,000 GSO-designated army officers and soldiers. Of these, about 254,000 were in northwest Europe, Italy, and the United Kingdom. A majority of 158,000 were already serving in field formations, either with First Canadian Army in northwest Europe or I Canadian Corps in Italy, and the rest were allocated to service units. Total strength of the five fighting divisions was about 85,000, of which only about 39,000 were infantry. As Lieutenant General Tommy Burns, who commanded I Canadian Corps through the Gothic Line battle of August– September 1944, noted with some consternation, from 390,000 men, the army remarkably “could not find the bodies to reinforce the… infantry.” Adapting a metaphor of Winston Churchill’s, Burns said that “the tail kept growing vastly, the teeth little.”24
By October, it was commonplace for infantry battalions to be 25 per cent, or 200 men, understrength. A battalion’s four rifle companies routinely fielded only 75 to 80 men instead of the mandated 127. The situation was most desperate among the French-Canadian regiments. On September 1, Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal was short 333 infantrymen and Le Régiment de Maisonneuve 276.25
The impact such shortages had on morale among the “old sweats,” who had survived the Normandy campaign and still marched northwards with no end in sight, was serious. After the heavy casualties in September’s fights for the canals, it was difficult to believe they would not all be killed or wounded. Fatigue, one Maisonneuve officer reported, was a growing problem, and this prompted “first class soldiers” to risk punishment for being Away Without Leave as this “was the only way they could get any rest.” This regiment, the officer said, routinely sent rifle companies into attacks with only about forty men.26 All too often, these badly depleted battalions were incapable of winning the objective assigned.
To alleviate the shortage, rear areas were scoured f
or excess personnel that could be sent to the infantry units. Cooks, typists, mechanics, electricians, anybody could suddenly be presented with an infantrymen’s kit and assigned to a rifle battalion. Most of these soldiers had long forgotten even rudimentary infantry skills, so feeding them into the front lines little bolstered a battalion’s fighting ability. The Black Watch diarist lamented “the critical situation now existing in the [battalion,] resulting from the great percentage of our reinforcements being personnel” from rear-area units “who with very little training are sent forward as infantry. This is our greatest problem and the solution is not yet in sight as the necessary training time is evidently not available.”27
Veteran troops generally considered these men as much a hazard as the Germans, a fact that Captain George Blackburn had realized when he encountered a two-man Royal Regiment of Canada patrol consisting of a sergeant and a private walking along a street in newly liberated Merksem. A Sten gun the private carried awkwardly, slung over his shoulder with the barrel pointed down, suddenly went off. As Blackburn felt something sting the calf of his left leg, the young soldier said, “That’s the third time it’s done that this morning.” Looking at the weapon in puzzlement, he proceeded to point the muzzle directly at Blackburn’s stomach. Seeing that the safety was not engaged, Blackburn quickly pushed the barrel away and ordered the private to secure his weapon. The soldier, who admitted to being a cook until sent to the Royals, confessed he had no idea what Blackburn meant. After getting well out of the cook’s line of fire, Blackburn determined he had suffered a minor flesh wound that was determined insufficiently serious to warrant a hospital stay.28