Terrible Victory

by Mark Zuehlke

  Loading was completed on schedule by 1730 hours. “Everything,” wrote the North Nova war diarist, “went according to plan and it was a very impressing sight to see all the vehicles strung out in a long procession moving up the canal. As it was dark, all the tail lights were put on to act as a guide.”11

  Captain Jock Anderson, the HLI padre, travelled in a Buffalo loaded with a Jeep and a few men from the Regimental Aid Post team. The HLI were strung in a long line of Buffaloes behind an equal number carrying the North Novas. Anderson was surprised how “these things made an awful noise.” At first, it was still daylight and civilians “would follow us on their bicycles and yell and cheer and we would shout things to them. I remember thinking: ‘Good Heavens, this is a surprise attack?’ I felt someone would be bound to get word through to the Germans and they’d be waiting for us.”12

  Anderson was not alone in this fear. As it chugged up the canal and flares burst overhead at 2200 hours, the North Nova headquarters staff “began to wonder if they had discovered our plan.”13 Notonly the noise was a concern, but also the bright exhaust flame the engines emitted in the dark. Yet, even as the flotilla passed within four miles of the Germans dug in at the Isabellapolder, the absence of shelling indicated that it had avoided detection.

  The canal journey, however, was more difficult than anticipated. All along the way, the convoy had to manoeuvre around “a number of wrecks, broken bridges and floating footbridges.” These the engineers had earlier marked with beacons, so there were no collisions. Then, halfway to Terneuzen, the Sas van Gent locks were transited only with much delay. The locks and various lift bridges en route were all manned by armed engineers to guard against saboteurs and ensure that canal authorities did nothing to slow or block the flotilla’s passage.14

  Before the Germans abandoned Terneuzen, they had crippled the lock that enabled boat traffic to pass between the canal and the West Scheldt. The Buffaloes were well behind schedule as they approached this obstacle just before midnight. Because the lock was inoperable, each Buffalo was to claw its way up the “steep bank of the dyke and [move] along the land for a few hundred yards before going into the water again.”15 To help the Buffaloes escape the canal, the engineers had installed two wooden ramps. Tracks clawing the wood, each vehicle in turn fought its way up the ramps. But as each heavily laden Buffalo rolled off the ramp, great gobs of mud were left behind. The ramps also began to splinter and disintegrate under the tremendous weight of the slipping and churning machines. “Very slow progress was made, until bulldozers were employed to winch the LVT up the ramps, but even with the improvement gained thereby, only 30 vehicles were out of the canal at the time scheduled for departure down into the outer harbour.”

  Twice the operation was delayed, but at 0330 hours it was finally postponed until the early morning of October 9. This was not only because Buffaloes were still being dragged out of the canal, but also it was past low tide, a heavy mist that would hinder navigation had set in, and at least eight Buffaloes were either broken down or stuck on mud banks in the canal.16 Among the stranded was a Buffalo carrying the Royal Engineer flotilla commander, the North Nova Scotia battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Don Forbes, and his entire headquarters section. “The crew worked all night to get it off but it was a hopeless job,” complained the North Novas’ war diarist.17

  By dawn, other than for those mired, most of the Buffaloes were out of the canal and concealed within the harbour. The risk of German detection was great. If the element of surprise was lost, the assault would probably fail. In the canal, the men aboard the stranded command Buffalo were bemused when a Dutch civilian approached in a rowboat and offered to pull them off with his motor boat. The flotilla commander eagerly accepted. “In about twenty minutes he arrived back on the scene with a great canal boat about 200 feet long. It was amazing to see… the way he handled the vessel. It certainly did not take him long to get us off the bar, and we proceeded to the point where the rest of the vehicles were in harbour.”18

  Mist having lifted, it was a bright, sunny Sunday morning. Although ordered to remain aboard the Buffaloes to avoid detection, the soldiers were tied up alongside a main thoroughfare used by churchgoers. “Oh boy,” Padre Anderson thought, “what a surprise this is going to be,” as people gawked down and began chatting with the men.19

  THE LIKELIHOOD THAT the operation had been compromised was so high, there was some thought to scrubbing it. Yet to do so would do nothing to relieve the pressure bearing down on the embattled 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade bridgehead on the Leopold Canal. At his tactical headquarters inside a school in Sluiskill, a village three miles south of Terneuzen alongside the Ghent–Terneuzen Canal, 9 cib’s Brigadier John “Rocky” Rockingham and 3rd Canadian Infantry Division’s Major General Dan Spry worried over the situation. Then, at 1430 hours, II Canadian Corps’s acting commander Major General Charles Foulkes appeared, and a formal O Group was convened ninety minutes later. When all the brigade’s senior officers were crowded into one of the classrooms, Rockingham announced the operation was on. h-Hour–the actual landing time–would be 0220 hours, October 9, to take advantage of tidal conditions.20 The passage from Terneuzen to the landing sites near Hoofdplaat would take about thirty minutes.21

  One unforeseen hazard in the original planning was the fact that the Buffaloes had to move at night through a West Scheldt channel laced with shallows and running with strong tidal currents. Although Dutch pilots familiar with the waters had been drafted into service and were to travel ahead of the flotillas in motorboats operated by Royal Engineers, language differences posed a potential complication. Recognizing the need for a qualified naval navigator, First Canadian Army’s naval liaison officer, Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander Robert Franks, volunteered his services.

  Franks quickly determined that the compasses on the motorboats were unsuited for the task at hand. “I spent the day in obtaining a suitable compass (from the R.A.F.), in making a careful ‘recce’ of what I could see of the river from peeping over the dykes, and in studying the chart, assessing the tide and all the usual preparations.”22

  Normally, such an amphibious assault would be supported by naval ships firing from offshore, but the German coastal batteries blocked any naval vessels from entering the West Scheldt. To compensate, the 4th Canadian Armoured Division’s field regiments and several medium artillery regiments would begin firing across the Braakman Inlet fifty minutes prior to touchdown. Fifteen minutes before H-Hour, the two landing beaches would be marked by coloured flare shells to serve as reference points for the approaching flotillas, and more markers would then be “fired at random points in enemy territory to put him off the scent. At H-5, as the craft now were standing off, the beaches [would] once again [be] pin-pointed by flare shells.”23

  The Highland Light Infantry were to land on Amber Beach, a small cove the planners described loosely as “a harbour,” which was protected by a narrow island that became swamped at high tide. This beach lay about four miles west of Terneuzen. Green Beach, where the North Nova Scotia Highlanders would go ashore, was a mile and a half farther on. It was protected by an artificial breakwater that extended into the channel. Intelligence, particularly accurate reports provided by Dutch resistance fighter Peter de Winde, indicated that the area was lightly defended. Aerial reconnaissance showed “few prepared positions” and that the Germans “considered that the mud flats, which line[d] the shore would effectively defeat any effort to make a landing.” But consultations with Dutch engineers had convinced the Canadians “that the mud flats were not impassable, especially since grass covered much of their surface.”24

  Once the assault battalions landed, the Buffaloes would return for the second lift, while First Canadian Army’s Chemical Warfare Section hid the Buffaloes with a smokescreen. To stretch from Terneuzen to Hoofdplaat, the smoke should prevent the enemy gunners from ranging on specific targets and would be kept in operation until an overland link between 9 CIB and other elements of First Canadi
an Army could be established.25

  At 2300 hours, the flotilla began preparing to set sail. Through the ranks of the HLI, the distressing news passed that its well-liked commander, Lieutenant Colonel Kingsmill, had “been evacuated to hospital due to illness.” Second-in-command, Major G.A.M. Edwards, now to lead the amphibious assault, knew he faced a tough inauguration as battalion commander.26

  The two flotillas were to cross Braakman Inlet in separate columns, led by the one bearing the North Novas to Green Beach. Each flotilla had three rifle companies up front. Following behind were the Buffaloes carrying vehicles, with the fourth rifle company positioned roughly in the middle. For the beach approach, the Buffaloes would spread out line abreast and advance in waves–the three rifle companies out front.

  A motorboat was to guide each flotilla. Because Green Beach was the farthest away, Lieutenant Commander Robert Franks was aboard the motorboat leading the North Novas. “By 0030 hours we were lying off the sea ramp… showing two dim red lights astern. Well on time the first LVT waddled down the ramp and splashed into the water. We led slowly out of the canal entrance as more and more took to the water and formed up astern. It was a nearly ideal night, calm and quiet with a half moon behind light cloud, but a bit of haze which restricted visibility to a mile at the most. We were quite invisible from the north shore of the Scheldt, where all was quiet.

  “We soon reached the main part of the river and turned west along the coast, keeping about half a mile off… We went slowly, and as far as could be seen, all our LVTS were formed up and following. I then set course due west across the entrance of [Braakman Inlet]. Just as we cleared the land, our artillery barrage started up, ‘plastering’ the far beach and other targets. The noise effectively blanketed our sounds and was generally most heartening.”

  The landing was to “be on either side of a groyne [the breakwater] which proved to be a good landmark and we were able to identify it and then lie off flicking our lamps to guide the LVTS in. They deployed and thundered in past us, looking, and sounding, most impressive. Landing was successful and I could see, through my binoculars, the infantry disembark on dry land and form up and move off. The artillery barrage had by now, of course, ceased and there was silence except for the roar of the engines and an occasional rifle shot.”27

  TOUCHDOWN FOR BOTH flotillas was at 0210 hours, ten minutes ahead of schedule. The Buffaloes carrying the North Nova rifle companies waded onto the beach, then the men tumbled over the sides “into thick, clinging, slippery mud” and waded through the shallows onto the equally mucky shore. The gentle slope of the seaward side of the dyke was quickly surmounted and the infantry slithered down the steep landward bank. Odd strings of tracer flashed over their heads, and a few hundred yards inland a barn or haystack burned. ‘B’ Company was on the right, ‘C’ Company in the centre, and ‘D’ Company to the left. The latter company overran a dugout, rousting nine half-asleep Germans.

  Corporal Lee Burch with Lieutenant Tingley in trail stole carefully eastwards along the canal bank towards a sentry seen “swinging his arms to get warm, his rifle lying against a post.” Both men were amazed that the soldier appeared oblivious to the invasion. When they got close enough, Tingley dashed forward and wrestled the German to the ground. In English, the man begged for his life. Tingley demanded to know where his officer was, and the prisoner pointed to a small shelter the two Canadians had passed without noticing. They walked the prisoner back and woke the officer and a corporal, still in their bedrolls. The English-speaking prisoner next guided Tingley and Burch to another shelter. When the two men stepped inside, they were face to face with eight Germans sitting on a long plank bench braced against the opposite wall. The Germans lunged for grenades and guns, but Burch cut them all down with his Sten gun in one long burst of fire. The two Novas then marched their three prisoners back to where ‘D’ Company was digging in.28

  Behind the infantry, the “beach was a hive of industry. The great motors roaring and these huge amphibious monsters crawling like great reptiles from the sea,” wrote the North Novas war diarist, “out over the dyke and spitting flame from their exhausts. Throughout all this noise not a shell fell in our area, although the Highland Light Infantry… were being shelled a little. The companies soon got on their objectives with few casualties. Captain J. Graves of ‘B’ Company was wounded and evacuated.”29

  On Amber Beach, the HLI met more resistance and a number of the Buffaloes bogged down in mud. “On touch down all of our companies were held up by small arms fire,” the HLI war diarist reported. “Mortar and artillery fire was also encountered and progress was limited. Our objectives were not reached.”30 The artillery was from 20-millimetre anti-aircraft guns being fired with fully depressed barrels. While the HLI were able to quickly overrun and silence a gun battery to the right of the beach, they were unable to reach one on the left. The guns there remained free to shell the beach.31

  HLI Captain Jock Anderson had spent the passage to Amber Beach lying on one of the stretchers aboard the ambulance jeep he was to drive. Rather than lounging comfortably, the padre lay stiffly, gripped with fear, “still worried about it not being a surprise.” Any moment, he expected German guns to rip the thinly armoured Buffaloes to bits. “All I could think of was the way the enemy would be waiting and very few of us would land… That was the scaredest I ever was–it registered more.”

  To his amazement, the Buffalo ground up onto the muddy beach and dumped its ramp without drawing fire. Behind the wheel, Anderson rolled the jeep into “pitch dark with a corporal and some Stretcher Bearers. The next thing I know is we’re lying there and whang, whang, a piece of spent shrapnel hit the side of my helmet and gave me a headache, but didn’t do any harm.” He didn’t remember jumping clear of the jeep.

  Before them, the dyke rose more steeply than it did at Green Beach. He wondered how “in the dickens do we get off it. I got the fellows on the front of the jeep and I put the four wheel drive in low, and we literally went up almost perpendicularly over it. The Germans were on the next dyke no more than 200 yards away.

  “The dyke is grass and people have the wrong idea about it. It is just like a mound of earth with usually a road underneath or above. As soon as I was over, I saw a farm house. It was dark and I ran in and told the fellows this is where we’ll set up our Aid Post.” He would bury the dead in a temporary cemetery out back alongside the dyke.32

  Dawn brought intensified German resistance, and the HLI and North Novas struggled to adapt to a battlefield unlike any previously encountered. “Fighting took the form of attacking from one dyke to the next,” wrote the hli’s regimental historian. “These dykes carved the ground into squares and the attacking forces, to hold one dyke, had to dislodge the enemy from the entire perimeter of the square. Even on doing so they still came under fire from the next parallel dyke held by the enemy. The ground itself afforded no cover and was too water-logged to permit the digging of even the shallowest slit trenches… not only did the wet condition of the ground result in a complete absence of cover except in the lee of the dykes or in isolated buildings but also made it impossible to use any supporting armour. In fact, the only vehicles with the landing troops were jeeps and carriers, and all routes being along the top of the dykes, it was hazardous to use even these.”33

  Not just the terrain made fighting in the Breskens Pocket an ordeal. The North Novas discovered that the “Germans in the Scheldt were a different type. They were courageous and had not lost heart. They were determined to fight to the last ditch of the dirty, muddy country, asking no quarter and giving none… The roads seemed to run in squares and the Germans were dug in at every strategic corner. They had had months of time to make preparations and were so cunning in their defences that no wholesale operation could be handled. It had to be instead a slow slugging, one corner at a time, without benefit of tanks… It was cold and wet… There was continual shelling and mortaring and conditions were horrible.”34

  ‘C’ Company was introduced
to these realities when it pushed out from the centre of Green Beach alongside a westerly-running dyke. Machine guns opened fire from a distant dyke, as Corporal L.E. Russell’s section with the company commander, Major E. Wright, alongside, dashed through some high grass. From this scant cover, they were able to spot eighteen Germans on a dyke lying crosswise to the one they followed. Russell sneaked his section around the corner where the two dykes joined, and jumped the Germans from behind with a mad charge. First to close with the enemy, Russell ripped into them with his Sten gun and almost single-handedly killed sixteen and wounded the other two.

  Russell’s platoon then firmed up a defensive position along the dyke, only to be bracketed by heavy shelling that killed its officer, Lieutenant Ronnie McNeil, wounded the sergeant, and left only eight men unhurt. Taking command, Russell braced to meet a counterattack visibly forming up behind the opposite dyke. The corporal selected firing positions for each surviving soldier, and then rushed to where Wright had established his company headquarters to tee up artillery fire. He rejoined the platoon just as the Germans charged. The rifle-men poured out a steady stream of fire, artillery shells crashed down right on the Germans, and the attack was quickly shredded.35

  ‘C’ Company’s experience was not unique. It was the same for all the North Nova companies and for the HLI. Each attempted advance, whether successful or not, cost heavy casualties. When the Germans counterattacked, it was their turn in the meat grinder. Every advantage lay with the defence.