Terrible Victory

by Mark Zuehlke

  The 7th Reconnaissance Regiment completed relieving the HLI just before dawn on October 12. First light “broke and, as the degree of visibility increased, the men, peering out of the trenches which lined the dyke they had taken over, looked with interest on their new battle-ground. The polders seemed to stretch for miles in front of them broken only by the separating dykes and the smashed structure of what had been a farmhouse. Water lay everywhere and, half submerged in it, cattle–some dead and bloated; others alive and miserable. Everything looked dead and, if not so, doomed… The light had hardly increased enough to see 200 yards when the air was filled with the chatter of the enemy machine guns and the slower throb of the 20mm, whose explosive shells burst on the front of the dugouts. The Germans, quite obviously, were close at hand. This sort of thing kept up all day with both sides firing point-blank at each other but no advances being made either way.”18

  At Hoofdplaat, the Glens spent the day clearing the last buildings. In a bizarre twist, an enemy gunboat opened fire from just offshore. Before artillery could be summoned to counter this threat, two Spitfires dropped out of the low clouds and left it “blazing bow to stern.”19

  The North Novas tried again for Driewegen, and ‘C’ Company initially gained ground. But acutely accurate artillery fire forced the men to relinquish their gains or be killed. ‘A’ and ‘D’ Companies formed up next, looking up a perfectly straight dyke road that led to the village eight hundred yards away. Just on the village outskirts, a cross-wise-running dyke offered good cover to regroup for a final push. The infantry were to advance with one company hugging either side of the dyke, while two Wasps commanded by Corporal C.V. Thomas chugged straight up the road. The carriers roared into the “face of intense fire, including the shelling from an anti-tank gun.” One carrier took a direct hit–killing its crew–but Thomas’s Wasp gained the other dyke and helped eliminate the Germans there. Lieutenant Colonel Don Forbes, a “get it done but not in a reckless manner” kind of officer, decided the North Novas had done sufficient. He pulled ‘A’ Company back to reorganize, and arranged to borrow a second Wasp from the Glens for another attempt the next day.20

  Also on the offensive, the HLI had gone for Biervliet with ‘A’ Company advancing up a dyke on the left and ‘D’ following a parallelling one to the right. Sandwiched between was an open polder. To the battalion’s surprise, it met little resistance, and by late afternoon the village was taken. Then, belatedly realizing what had happened, the Germans saturated it with artillery. Caught in the open southwest of the town, ‘D’ Company was reduced to only forty men. At 2300 hours, German infantry infiltrated its perimeter. Several positions were overrun and regained in hand-to-hand fighting before the company fell back to the edge of town and dug in. With ‘A’ company to its left and ‘C’ Company to the right, the three companies were tight in a rough triangle.21

  While the HLI had been securing Biervliet, their acting commander, Major G.A.M. Edwards–slightly wounded in the action– was called back to brigade and evacuated. The brigade major, Phil Strickland, took over the battalion’s command and was promoted to lieutenant colonel. Brigadier John Rockingham considered Strickland–a long-time HLI officer before brigade assignment–intelligent, courageous, and capable.22 “This is good news to all,” the HLI war diarist agreed. “We are happy to have Major Strickland back as c.o. of the unit.”23

  Ill pleased with 9 cib’s overall progress so far, Rockingham hoped to shake things up. Major General Don Spry was also unhappy and ordered Rockingham to consolidate the brigade’s hold on ground won, establish a land link around the Braakman Inlet to the beachhead, and then crack westwards to capture Breskens and Schoondijke.24 This breakthrough was progressing too slowly. But, with 8th Canadian Infantry Brigade unloading from Buffaloes, Spry expected to have doubled his strength on the ground by the morning of October 13. Already, the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment was behind the HLI, establishing a protected supply line back to the beach.25

  IN THE MORNING, the North Shores’ ‘A’ Company had moved right to link up with the North Nova Scotia Highlanders, only to walk straight into a German counterattack. Under a grey, colourless sky, men in mud-splattered grey and khaki engaged each other at point-blank range with rifles, machine guns, and grenades. No manoeuvre, no good cover, no supporting artillery, just a deadly shootout. It lasted scant minutes before the Germans broke and fled, but thirteen North Shores were wounded and one was missing. Still, the Germans had yielded. Nobody bothered counting the number of their dead floating in the polder or sprawled on the muddy dyke.

  The Germans retaliated with artillery, scoring a direct hit on the company headquarters building, which began to burn. As Major F.F. “Toot” Moar beat out the fire, a second shell exploded, and flying debris knocked him unconscious. He was evacuated, and Captain Andy Woodcock took the reins.

  Because 8 CIB headquarters was not yet ashore, the North Shores were temporarily under command of Brigadier Rockingham, who urged them to get through to the North Novas. “We were told that no enemy opposition was expected,” Woodcock recalled. “All we had to do was move over to a group of Dutch farm houses and relieve the troops stationed there. It sounded simple enough.” But the shootout left Woodcock suspicious. Would the Germans be so reckless if their flank was exposed to Canadians in the houses?

  Putting his men into tactical formation, he sent ‘A’ Company off along the dyke leading to the farm. Machine guns and rifles opened up from within the buildings, the sheet-ripping screech of German mg 42s unmistakable. Woodcock called for artillery, but was refused because “we were asking our guns to fire on friendly troops.” Lieutenant Murray Quinn and a veteran platoon sergeant were both killed trying to direct Bren gun fire while Woodcock argued with headquarters.26 Finally, ‘B’ Company of the Camerons brought up its 50-calibre Vickers and No. 15 Platoon the heavy mortars. With their support, ‘A’ Company cleared the buildings.27 The North Novas were soon located in another group of farmhouses farther away. Woodcock was “very bitter over the fact that we had lost a very fine officer and men through such wrong information.”28

  All along the Canadian front, small gains were won that day. At Hoofdplaat, the Glens swept up isolated pockets of Germans, and ‘D’ Company pushed out to control the dyke it had been forced off the previous night.29 The Highland Light Infantry gained a facing dyke south of Biervliet at 1520 hours that had given them “a great deal of trouble with small arms fire and reducing our movement to a minimum. We are now to sit tight and hold our ground. Our companies are spread out along the… dyke.”30

  Right of the HLI, the North Novas by late afternoon were leapfrogging companies along the dykes towards Driewegen while artillery hammered it. Their path passed regularly spaced farms that would have been prosperous before being reduced to ruins by shelling. Each had to be wrested from defending Germans. Once the lead company achieved this, the one behind jumped past to attack the next farm. ‘A’ Company had initially led, taken one farm, and then ‘B’ Company took over. Captain Jock Grieve having been wounded, Captain Doug Eastwood was in charge. The company advanced through shellfire to the next farm, where the owners had taken refuge in slit trenches roofed over with bales of hay. Most everyone had been killed or wounded by shells.

  As the North Novas cleared the buildings, a German sergeant major stepped out of one and demanded in English that the company surrender. Lieutenant Fitch shot him dead. Eastwood encountered four Germans at the corner of a dyke, who promptly surrendered when he shouted without thinking, “You’re under arrest.” One man reported that there were some Germans farther along wanting to surrender, so Eastwood sent a prisoner to bring them in. As soon as the man started off along the dyke, a ‘B’ Company soldier, thinking he was trying to escape, killed him with a rifle shot. After this, the Germans on the dyke refused to answer calls to surrender, but also abstained from fighting. ‘B’ Company had reached its objective, but was still short of Driewegen, with night falling. The company mustered just fort
y-two men.31 How confused the situation was became clear when Captain J.W. Campbell “pulled the hat trick by capturing 25 Germans [while] recceing a position for his anti-tank guns” well behind the attacking companies.32

  Throughout the day, 8 CIB had continued landing and started “pushing south to attempt to link up with the 10th Canadian Infantry Brigade” holding the east side of the Isabellapolder, the North Nova war diarist wrote. “Once the road is opened we will be able to get more supplies and possibly armour, which will make a great improvement.”33

  OCTOBER 13 WAS a Friday, yet in the beachhead the hard battle was taking a turn that perhaps dispelled superstitions on the Canadian side. German artillery, particularly from the coastal guns, remained fierce. But the German infantry were noticeably less determined. Driewegen was taken in an attack supported by rocket-firing Typhoons that added more to the village’s destruction and thoroughly demoralized the exhausted German defenders. The North Novas war diarist regretted that there were “still numerous fires burning in the area and the barns and houses are mostly total wrecks. The little town of Driewegen is totally wrecked. It seems a shame that this little country has to be shelled to such an extent.”34

  While 9 CIB focused on securing the beachhead, 8 CIB hastened towards the Isabellapolder, where 4th Canadian Armoured Division’s 10th Canadian Infantry Brigade waited. The North Shores moved from Biervliet, with ‘B’ Company leading, followed by ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies. Progress was good, with many Germans opting to surrender. By day’s end they bagged 236 prisoners, including four officers. The cost to the Canadians was one man killed, Lieutenant T. Galatizine, and thirteen other ranks wounded, as well as one man missing.35

  The Queen’s Own Rifles, meanwhile, had relieved the HLI at Biervliet and then pushed south. To their left, closely following the Braakman Inlet’s shore, was Le Régiment de la Chaudière. Its ‘D’ Company was forced to dive for cover when suddenly shelled. Already nervous about this grim, wet landscape, some of the men were more shaken by the event than normally would be the case. One poked his head out of a ditch and asked if the shells were German or Canadian. Unsmiling, his officer replied: “Don’t worry, lad, they’re ours.” By then, the company commander had managed to get the friendly fire lifted and the advance resumed.36

  Two large polders separated 8 CIB from 10 cib. For weeks, the latter had faced the heavily fortified Isabellapolder. Behind it stood the Angelina Polder. There was every reason to expect a hard fight through fortifications guarding this badly flooded ground. Despite weeks of failures, 10 CIB was ordered to make an all-out effort the morning of October 14. Given past experience, the Algonquins risked only a tentative patrol from ‘A’ Company the night before that soon reported tantalizingly that the defensive works were abandoned. More patrols returned the same news from other sectors.37

  Farther south, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Lieutenant Colonel J.D. Stewart had ordered the scouts and pioneers to cross the Leopold Canal by improvising a bridge, and then to proceed north to Watervliet–the town denied them for weeks. “Jaws of the people involved dropped at this bland pronouncement,” the regimental historian recorded. But the soldiers duly set off and at noon were indeed in Watervliet. They had thrown a rope bridge across the canal next to a blown-out concrete one and gone over unopposed. Slowly they progressed one thousand yards up the road, lifting mines en route and encountering only a few seemingly bewildered Germans who meekly surrendered. Stewart pushed ‘A’ Company across, and by the end of that lucky Friday, the entire battalion was anchored around Watervliet.38 None of the Canadians understood why the Germans had fled such strong positions.

  To try and contain 9 CIB in its beachhead, Generalmajor Knut Eberding had steadily siphoned men out of the 64th Infantry Division’s frontage with 10 CIB. He had gambled that the weary Canadian battalions would fail to realize how weak his units there were. When 8 CIB pushed southeastward out of the beachhead, he had little to meet it with, so ordered the area abandoned.39 Due to the heavy fighting, Eberding reported to Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), his division “had been reduced in some cases to one third of earlier strength.”40

  On the Isabellapolder, meanwhile, the Algonquins were awed by the dauntingly intricate fortifications they searched. Deep “concrete dugouts connected by underground tunnels… skillfully sited weapons positions,” and sophisticated “intercommunication methods. The area was full of booby traps and mines… The engineers lifted 150 Teller and box mines in a stretch of dyke about 200 yards long. A frontal assault on a position of this nature was foredoomed to failure.” In the late afternoon, an Algonquin patrol encountered one from 8 cib’s Queen’s Own Rifles carefully picking its way southwards.41 The battle for the beachhead was won.

  Establishment of a land link meant the amphibious operation by the British 5th Assault Regiment, Royal Engineers closed that evening. This first tactical use of amphibians in the European theatre had been an all-round success. The Buffaloes and Terrapins had moved 880 loads consisting of two full infantry brigades and about 600 guns and vehicles. Protected by smokescreens from the coastal guns on Walcheren Island, it suffered only four men killed and twenty-two wounded or injured. Three Buffaloes had been destroyed: one sunk after a nighttime collision, one riddled by shrapnel after bogging in mud and being targeted by the coastal guns, and another blown apart by a direct shell hit.42

  THE LEOPOLD CANAL, so long unassailable, no longer posed an obstacle to 3rd Canadian Infantry Division. On the afternoon of October 13, engineers from 4th Canadian Armoured Division’s 8th and 9th Field Squadrons completed construction of a Bailey bridge at the Maldegem–Aardenburg crossing behind 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s narrow bridgehead. “At last the great day has arrived,” the 9th Field Squadron war diarist wrote. The bridge was 120 feet long with 10-foot ramps on either side. With the Germans offering no resistance other than light shelling, the engineers had started the bridge at 1210 hours and opened it to traffic at 1605.43 The 8th Field Squadron suffered two men slightly wounded in the operation, while the 9th had no casualties.44

  On the morning of October 14, the British Columbia Regiment sent four Shermans to support a Canadian Scottish Regiment raid on Eede.45 The tanks encountered stiff opposition, but knocked out several pillboxes and dugouts. Working with the tankers, ‘A’ Company rounded up forty-five prisoners. Although the Germans still held Eede, Lieutenant Colonel Desmond Crofton was sufficiently encouraged to tee up a major attack.

  To gain information on the German defences, Crofton ordered ‘A’ Company and the scout platoon to probe various parts of Eede. A three-man patrol under Corporal A.E. MacDonald crept north through the village to a crossroad running east to the Maldegem– Aardenburg highway. After gathering a good appreciation of German defences in this area, MacDonald sent the other two men back to report. He then cut across country to explore a pillbox facing ‘D’ Company’s position that was so camouflaged it had previously gone undetected. Prowling through the bushes concealing the pillbox, MacDonald was spotted by a sentry. Instantly, a machine gun raked the ground near him and several grenades came flying in. Frantically, MacDonald crawled into the darkness. His route of escape brought him to the canal well beyond 7 CIB’S bridgehead. Knowing he was unlikely to slip through the German lines undetected, MacDonald instead swam the canal and then returned to battalion headquarters with precise map coordinates for the pillbox. At dawn, a heavy artillery concentration was brought down and the position destroyed. MacDonald’s solo patrol earned a Military Medal.46

  Although the British Columbia Regiment squadron had remained in the bridgehead overnight, Crofton wanted more tanks to cross the bridge in the morning. Unluckily, a chance hit by one of the large coastal guns blasted a hole in the decking before the tanks came forward, and Crofton decided to delay the attack to October 16. It was well he did, as the fight that developed in Eede became a hard slugging match, with only the presence of tanks and three Wasp carriers enabling the Can Scots to carry the day. At the s
ame time as Eede was taken, the Regina Rifles had unsuccessfully attempted to advance west to Middelburg. On the far right flank, however, the Royal Winnipeg Rifles patrolled about four miles northeastwards from the bridgehead to discover Saint Kruis undefended.47

  On October 18, 7 CIB learned it was to be relieved by 157th Infantry Brigade of the 52nd British (Lowland) Division. The Canadians wearily crossed the bridge that afternoon, turning the bridgehead and its muddy polders over to a division specially trained for mountain warfare.

  During the worst period of fighting between October 6 and 12, 7 CIB had suffered 553 casualties–111 fatal. The Regina Rifles, with ‘B’ Company of the Royal Montreal Regiment under command, had been the worst mauled, with 51 dead and 229 wounded.48 Except for twenty-four-year-old Private Harold Rodrigue Patrick Watts, who had been on patrol with a section of the Reginas’ ‘D’ Company, the RMR had withdrawn on October 10. Watts was to be sent out when the patrol returned, but the private never showed. On October 11, Lieutenant C.W. Smith returned to the canal and learned that Watts had been killed. The Reginas told Smith that Watts “had located an enemy sniper. He took aim and fired but the rifle jammed and the sniper returned the fire killing [Private] Watts instantly.”49 Including Watts, the Montreal regiment’s casualty roll tallied six dead, 35 wounded, and 21 missing.50 Its combat christening on the Leopold Canal had proved painful. For all three 7 CIB battalions, the canal had devastated their ranks. Not a man was sorry to turn his back on the place.

  To the northeast, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and the Algonquins felt the same on October 15, when they withdrew from their grim vigil. The Argylls had been elated just before pulling out to encounter a North Shore carrier patrol ahead of their position, and then a unit from the 7th Reconnaissance Regiment had arrived. Having picked up their armoured cars after engineers pushed a road through the Isabella and Angelina polders earlier that day, the Recon unit spent the rest of October 15 and the next day clearing German stragglers from the flooded ground between the beachhead and Watervliet.51 October 17, it pushed west along the northern flank of the Leopold Canal, headed for a linkup with 7 CIB’S bridgehead. To the immediate north, 8 CIB parallelled its advance, with Le Régiment de la Chaudière on the south flank, Queen’s Own Rifles in the centre, and North Shores the north. Sticking close to the West Scheldt coastline, 9 CIB parallelled this advance. Because of the width of the front, the battleground remained quite porous.