Terrible Victory

by Mark Zuehlke

  The Canadians were now in the odd circumstance of backtracking from Holland into Belgium to clear up the remnants of 64th Infantry Division. Blocking 3 CID’S path about midway between Cadzand and the border was a major canal running from the coast inland to the Sluis area. The Glens put ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies across in boats, while engineers spanned the water with a Bailey bridge. On the opposite shore at Fort Hazegras, the Germans were in complete confusion, their communication systems collapsing.

  ‘A’ Company quickly seized the ancient fort by following a German two-man patrol across the lowered drawbridge before it could be raised. Most of the garrison was asleep, and when wakened, meekly surrendered. Soon a motorcycle with a sidecar pulled up, and the officer and driver aboard were captured. When a heavily armed platoon marched towards the fort, the Glens allowed the troops to get within twenty yards of the gates before appearing all along the battlements with guns at the ready. The Germans dropped their equipment and entered the fort as prisoners. “A horse-drawn ration wagon that came bringing a meal for the garrison suffered the same fate.”25

  To the south of 9 CIB, Le Régiment de la Chaudière had been ordered to establish a temporary crossing of the canal by jury-rigging a bridge capable of bearing the weight of a Bren carrier. The pioneer platoon tackled the job under fire, fastening together tree trunks and other material scrounged from near the crossing site until they had something that appeared strong. A Bren carrier rolled onto it and promptly crashed through the centre of the deck to settle on the canal bottom while its crew scrambled to safety. The sunken carrier, however, provided a stout support upon which the pioneers piled more trees and timbers, and soon the battalion was able to send men over on foot. At 1300 hours, three companies moved out from the improvised bridge to create a bridgehead wide enough for engineers to come forward and erect a proper Bailey bridge. By evening, this bridge was operational and Le Chaudière had taken 106 prisoners.26

  The rest of 8 CIB had spent the day clearing the area around Sluis and establishing more bridgeheads across the canal. Sluis itself, with its formidable fortifications, was to be tackled by the North Shores on November 1. ‘B’ Company led the attack at 0645 hours. The only approach was directly up a road on top of a dyke with flooded polders on either side. Lieutenant Blake Oulton’s platoon led, expecting to be hit any moment. The Germans had knocked all the trees lining the road down with explosives, so it was a matter of scrambling over one after the other.27 Little resistance was offered, however, and the town was secured by 0810. The battalion accepted the surrender of five officers and 312 other ranks.28

  That night, the Queen’s Own Rifles moved into Sluis and formed for an early morning attack that would carry them about five miles forward on a line passing through Westkapelle, to gain the Leopold Canal. At the same time, 9 CIB’S Glens and HLI were to envelop Knokke-aan-zee, and then the North Nova Scotia Highlanders would pass through and drive for the last objective to close the Breskens Pocket–Heist, just west of Knokke-aan-zee. Knokke proved a tough nut. It was “honeycombed with strongpoints, pillboxes, and machine gun and anti-tank emplacements.” The Glens fought their way up the streets, knocking out one position after another while trying not to rack up unnecessary casualties. This close to the end of a difficult operation, everyone hoped to survive. Although losses in the street fighting were few, the battalion took a hard blow when its headquarters was hit by a high-velocity shell that caused twenty-five casualties. Also wounded were three adult civilians and a five-year-old boy. Five Glens lost their lives that last day.

  The HLI also met tough fighting, particularly to the east of Knokke-aan-zee at a strongpoint the Germans had dubbed Little Tobruk. When attempts to negotiate this position’s surrender were rebuffed by its commander, an attack was teed up. The main problem was reaching the defenders, well ensconced behind a maze of barbed wire. There was only one solution and Corporal Norman E. Tuttle provided it by spending twenty minutes under fire cutting a gap through the wire, and then leading his platoon through. Tuttle’s heroism garnered a Distinguished Conduct Medal. Once the attackers got inside the fort, the Germans surrendered.

  Such was not the case, however, when the QOR came up against a pillbox with three-foot-thick walls encircled by concertina wire piled ten feet high and at least three feet deep. Mines rigged with tripwires had been woven through the concertina, and the obstacle itself was ringed by a minefield. When ‘A’ Company’s Company Sergeant Major Charlie Martin saw the position, his instinct was to bypass it and let the Typhoons blast the pillbox apart with bombs. But the order was that the company must take it. Major Dick Medland considered the job suicidal. No way could a team cut a path through that wire without being cut to ribbons by the booby traps and certain machine guns ready to fire out of the pillbox’s many apertures. Then someone noticed that the Germans had left a wire gate blocking a paved road leading up to the pillbox unfastened. Studying the road surface, Medland could see that it was free of mines. The major decided that one eight-man section from No. 7 Platoon would lead the attack, and assigned it to Sergeant Jack Meagher. CSM Martin decided to accompany the men.

  On the heels of a heavy artillery concentration, the section charged in two small files up the sides of the road. The men went through the gate just as the artillery lifted, and headed for the nearest gun ports with grenades pulled and ready. They were still dangerously distant and might easily have been gunned down. Then, from every opening, white flags began to flutter. The section banged up against the concrete wall, panting for breath and dripping sweat despite the wintery chill. Martin and the others looked at each other and started to laugh. It was over; the “damned Pocket” was closed.29

  The end had come quickly. About noon of November 1, the North Nova Scotia Highlanders had isolated Eberding’s headquarters on the southern edge of Knokke-aan-zee. After four hours’ negotiation, the general and his staff surrendered. The last remaining fortification at Heist fell the next day. At noon that day, a final signal emanated from the tattered remnants of 203rd Naval Coast Artillery Battalion. “Have terminated resistance,” a voice said. “Scheldt Fortress South had fallen,” OKW soon concluded.30

  Closing the Breskens Pocket had been 3 CID’S hardest and most drawn-out battle, one that led Canadian reporters to nickname its men “the Water Rats” because so much of the fighting had taken place in flooded polders. It had been fought against what the division’s intelligence staff deemed “the best infantry division we have met.” During the long slugging match from October 6 to November 1, 12,707 prisoners had been taken and the German dead were estimated simply as “many.” Only a few hundred German wounded were successfully evacuated from the Pocket. Canadian casualties were calculated at 2,077, with 314 fatalities. Another 231 were listed as missing and presumed dead.31

  Within twenty-four hours, the division was on the move, heading south to Ghent. The new mission was codenamed Operation Relax. Everyone was exhausted, both physically and mentally. With a sense of dazed wonder, the men aboard the convoys entered the city to be greeted by throngs of Belgians cheering and waving flags. Divvied into small groups, each soldier was housed in a private home. For the next five days, everybody was mostly free to carouse in whatever way he pleased in Ghent’s many bars and restaurants. Most of the civilian hosts opened their doors willingly, and made a point of preparing sumptuous meals to try to put some meat on the gaunt frames of these weary young soldiers. After an all too brief five days, the division moved again on November 7 for a new battlefront near Nijmegen, about a hundred miles to the east on the Waal River.

  At 0950 hours on November 2, a notation had been entered in 3 CID’S operational log. “Operation Switchback now complete,” it read. In the margin beside, somebody scribbled, “Thank God!”32

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  Foot-Slogging Jobs

  WHEN 3RD CANADIAN Infantry Division kicked off the final leg of closing the Breskens Pocket on October 22 by clearing the port town itself, 2nd Canadian Infantry Division had be
en still trying to gain control of Woensdrecht. Until the town and height of ground it occupied was taken, cutting the South Beveland isthmus remained impossible. The division was in a bad way after trying to advance across a far too broad front for so long against determined, capable opposition. Had 4th Canadian Armoured Division not come up on its right flank on the morning of October 20, as part of Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery’s agreement to shift I British Corps and British Second Army westward, the advance would have stalled completely. The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry in Woensdrecht had been ground down to a skeletal regiment when the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders took over on October 22. This battalion had in turn been relieved by 4 CAD, now covering the long front that 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade had been guarding in the area of Kamp van Brasschaat.

  As 4 CAD took over this area, 2 CID was able to cease its piece- meal operations and develop a cohesive strategy. Its efforts would now be concentrated against South Beveland, with 6 CIB cutting the isthmus and securing the division’s hold on the Brabant Wall “in order to prevent any enemy move to interfere with the clearing of that neck of land.” Once this was achieved, 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade would drive across the South Beveland peninsula. 5th Canadian Infantry Brigade would stand in readiness to either pass through 4 CIB to continue the advance or, if “resistance met by 4 [cib] was too great… make a landing on the peninsula” to outflank the German defenders.1

  While 2 CID reorganized, 4 CAD starred in the opening act of I British Corps’s Operation Suitcase–intended to drive the Germans out of the coastal area west of the mouth of the Maas River. To the right of 4 CAD, the 49th British (West Riding) Infantry Division parallelled its advance. As the front loosened, the 104th U.S. Infantry Division and 1st Polish Armoured Division would be committed to clear the area east of Roosendaal to the Maas’s mouth.

  Major General Harry Foster’s plan was classically simple. The division had only two brigades–the 10th Canadian Infantry and the 4th Canadian Armoured–so each would go north about nine miles side by side to Essen, in a knife-like thrust across a narrow front. The armoured brigade would follow the Antwerp–Roosendaal railway and a roughly parallelling road, passing west of Kalmthout, and pausing just north of that town at a crossroad identified as Dorp to establish a firm base. Staying east of Kalmthout, the infantry brigade would have its right flank guided by a second north-south–running road and establish its firm base at the crossroads at Achterbroek, east of Dorp. From these positions, the two brigades would then move on Essen.

  Seizing Essen would sever a road the Germans used to move reinforcements and supplies west to the Huijbergen-Woensdrecht area. Once 4 CAD controlled this objective, 49th Infantry Division would take over. This would free the armoured division “to forge ahead to the northwest without delay” in order to capture Bergen op Zoom, on the East Scheldt coast.

  Although Foster’s operational plan indicated the two brigades advancing independently, the division’s composition made the situation less tidy. The armoured brigade consisted of three tank battalions with one infantry battalion attached, while the infantry brigade fielded three battalions of foot-sloggers. Intended to match the pace of tanks during a rapid breakout, The Lake Superior Regiment (Motor) was equipped with an extensive fleet of Bren carriers and other armoured personnel carriers. But Operation Suitcase would be no motorized race across open country. Foster knew the tank brigade needed additional infantry to win the ground, so the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were shifted from 10 CIB to 4 cab. Each infantry battalion would be supported by a Canadian Grenadier Guards squadron. The Superiors would be on the left, the Argylls the right. Meanwhile, 10 CIB Brigadier Jim Jefferson would advance the Lincoln and Welland and Algonquin regiments, with the tanks of the British Columbia Regiment supporting the former and those of the division’s reconnaissance regiment (the South Alberta) the latter. The Lincs would move along the western edge of the woods north of Kamp van Brasschaat, while the Algonquins forged through the woods to the right of the road.

  Having moved earlier from the Breskens Pocket to lend its armoured teeth to 2 cid, the division’s remaining tank battalion–the Governor General’s Foot Guards–was to protect 4 cad’s left flank with an advance north from Putte. A squadron of flame-throwing Crocodiles manned by the British 2nd Fife and Forfashire Yeomanry, and Flail tanks from the 22nd British Dragoons would support the offensive. The attack would be preceded by a heavy artillery barrage and, weather permitting, rocket-firing Typhoons and Spitfires would be on call.2 The 5th Canadian Anti-Tank Regiment would also have three batteries equipped with self-propelled guns advancing behind the infantry and tankers.3

  While it was a relief to have left the polders and dykes behind, the “land ahead was covered with small woods, sand dunes, and grassy fields. The terrain was flat and there were no great water barriers… However, should the rains be heavy, there would be mud, and plenty of it,” the Superiors’ regimental historian wrote.4 “It was country in which one might once more expect to encounter the deadly anti-tank weapons of the enemy, innumerable mines, frequent craters and road blocks, and plenty of opposition should the enemy be disposed to offer it.” The ground through which the attack would first pass was mostly dense deciduous woods choked with brambles and saplings.

  On the division’s left, 4 cab would face a more complex situation. Kamp van Brasschaat had been a Belgian military training ground with a small airfield. The brigade would have to first advance through the camp’s many firing ranges, laced with concrete bunkers that the Germans had transformed into defensive positions. Any open ground could be considered a well-prepared fire zone, while the thick woods–suspected of being riddled with mines–promised to impede movement and separate tanks from infantry.5

  October 20 dawned cloudy, rainy, and with a ground mist reducing visibility to a few hundred yards. Infantry and tankers formed up on their start lines while artillery fired on predetermined targets for thirty minutes.6 At 0730 hours, the guns fell silent and the attack went in. On 4 cad’s western flank, the Lake Superior Regiment advanced with ‘B’ Company leading, followed by ‘A’ Company. The other two companies remained in reserve. Resistance was light, confined to occasional pockets of infantry that had to be rooted out. As well, the companies were continually harassed by mortar and artillery fire, and slowed more than anticipated by mines.

  ‘A’ Company’s scout platoon learned the hard way what happened when sandy soil transformed into mud, as two of its Bren carriers slid into a roadside ditch and became hopelessly mired. Even stripping the transmissions out failed to lighten the carriers enough so the platoon could wrestle them free. Finally Corporal A.G. Johnson reported the situation to his platoon commander. On his way back to the carriers, Johnson was cutting through a wood when a German pointing a rifle stepped from behind a tree. Another rifle prodded his back and he was ordered to get marching, one of the Germans holding him by an arm. Although his rifle was back at the carrier, Johnson had a German pistol in the pocket of his greatcoat. Managing to extricate it, he fired a shot at the man beside him, then whirled and shot at the second German, who had lagged well behind. Both men dropped to the ground, and Johnson fled without knowing whether he hit either of them.7

  For the Superiors, the day was one of frustration. Their advance was slowed to a crawl by the mud that resulted in little distance gained, dampening the spirits of a regiment that prided itself on rapid mechanized operations.

  The Argylls to their east hit trouble from the start–moving into an area strewn with mines, and under mortar fire that grew more intense with every passing hour. On the right, Major Alex Logie’s ‘B’ Company entered a dense wood that blocked all wireless transmissions. Most worrisome for Logie was losing contact with a small part of the company operating independently on the right flank in concert with the scout and carrier platoon.

  Commanded by Captain Peter Blaker, this section found the crossroads marking its start line not only heavily mined, but covered by German posi
tions in buildings at the intersection. The men immediately went to ground in the woods south of the crossroads. Exploding mortar rounds were shattering trees, and branches and wooden splinters whirred through the air. Casualties mounted fast. Blaker was unable to raise battalion headquarters, talk to the supporting tankers, or get advice from Logie. Recently made ‘B’ Company’s second-in-command, Blaker felt terribly inexperienced and uncertain. “How the hell are we going to get out of this?” he wondered.

  Just then, some Flail tanks came up and lashed the road with their great chains. Mines exploded like firecrackers on a string. Blaker knew he could get across the road now, but on the opposite side was a field of scrubby brush probably also sown with mines. His men waited for instructions, but the young officer had frozen, fearing that if he ordered them forward many would die. Then he was listening to the longest whirr of an incoming mortar round he had ever heard. When it struck, Blaker was wounded.8 Sergeant Earl McAllister was killed soon thereafter.9