by Mark Zuehlke
Blaker realized later that he had been undone by caution and the fear of losing men. What he should have done was to lead his troops in a dash into that field, taking the chance with mines, in an effort to outflank the Germans while having the supporting tanks pound their positions. Men likely would have been killed or wounded, but the whole situation would have been better.
Meanwhile, the carrier and scout platoons farther on the right had stalled when a mine knocked out a Flail tank ahead of them. The carrier platoon commander, Lieutenant Ed Brook, hesitated to have his men cut around it. Taking advantage of this momentary stop, the Germans fired on stationary targets, wounding Brook and Sergeant Douglas A. Boulton. Later, Brook often wondered “if it was lack of initiative on our part or my part that we didn’t proceed more quickly.”10
‘B’ Company was badly bogged down, making very slow progress. To its left, however, Major John Farmer’s ‘D’ Company had bypassed several pockets of resistance, and by 1325 hours was a thousand yards ahead. Facing the small hamlet of Kapellenbosch–about midway between Kamp van Brasschaat and Kalmthout–Farmer realized that one company would be insufficient to clear the place, and informed Lieutenant Colonel Dave Stewart that he was waiting for ‘B’ Company to come abreast. About an hour later, ‘B’ Company managed to reach ‘D’ Company, and together they started clearing Kapellenbosch under intensive mortar and sniper fire.11 The Canadian Grenadier Guards were little help, as the sniper fire forced the tank commanders to keep tightly buttoned up inside their turrets or almost certainly get shot. Captain W.D. MacDonald and Lieutenant J.A.S. Milne were both wounded in this manner, while Guardsman Robert Maskell was killed when he dismounted from his Sherman to check damage from a mine explosion.12
Late in the afternoon, Lieutenant Harold Place of ‘B’ Company was in a trench near one occupied by Logie. The two men were planning, talking back and forth. Logie, who shunned helmets, was wearing an Argyll balmoral. It was something he did often, something other officers had warned him against. The balmoral tempted sniper fire. Today it proved a fatal affectation, for a sniper round struck Logie in the head and he died instantly.13 Alexander Chisholm Logie was the thirty-eight-year-old son of Major General W.A. Logie, who had helped found the Aryglls in 1903 and been its first commander.
By evening, the Argylls consolidated midway between Kappellen-bosch and Kalmthout. It had been a difficult, frustrating day with little ground gained at a cost of thirty casualties. The expectation was that worse would follow in the morning.14
THE ADVANCE BY 10th Canadian Infantry Brigade on October 20 had also been at first touch-and-go. On the eastern flank, Lieutenant Colonel W.T. Cromb of the Lincoln and Welland Regiment and British Columbia Regiment commander Lieutenant Colonel C.E. Parrish decided to steer clear of a triangular wood through which the infantry had originally been to advance, and proceed instead across open country immediately to the west. Once they got past the woods, the force would veer east to anchor its right flank alongside the Algonquins and clear a large hangar on the airstrip before advancing to a position near Groote Heide–a village next to the north-south–trending highway. ‘A’ Company under Captain Herbert Lambert led off with the Shermans from Captain James Tedlie’s ‘B’ Squadron in support. ‘B’ and ‘C’ Companies were in line behind.15
Lambert hailed originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, and was considered flamboyant by some, eccentric or even crazy by others. He had taken over ‘A’ Company on October 9. Normally a gentleman in manner, when provoked he could swear like the roughest dockyard worker. Eschewing a helmet, Lambert went into battle this day wearing a beret and a heavy white woollen scarf around his neck to keep away the chill.
Despite small-arms fire from the woods, ‘A’ Company made good progress through the open country. But when Lambert reached the prescribed turning point, he kept going straight ahead. Realizing that Lambert was lost, Tedlie hailed him with a correct map reference. This prompted an argument that Lambert reported to Cromb by wireless. Believing that tankers were generally better map readers than infantry officers, Cromb replied that Lambert was wherever Tedlie said.16 At that point, battalion headquarters lost all ability to talk to ‘A’ Company, although they could receive its signals and heard Lambert report being on his objective.
Following behind, ‘B’ Company’s Major M.J. McCutcheon and ‘C’ Company’s Major J.L. Dandy recognized Lambert’s error and turned at the northern edge of the woods. Unassisted by the tanks, which had remained with Lambert, ‘B’ Company entered a stiff fight for control of the hangar. No. 11 Platoon engaged in a twenty-minute grenade duel that finally ended with the German defenders driven off. Once the hangar fell, McCutcheon and Dandy both tried unsuccessfully to raise Lambert on their wirelesses to get him moving in the right direction. As they also were unable to contact Cromb, Dandy went back to brief him on the situation. Finally, after repeated efforts, Cromb got through to Lambert and ordered ‘A’ Company to “repair its error by going to its proper objective.”17
Lambert’s men were spread out single file, trudging steadily northwards with a ten-foot gap between each soldier, when he acknowledged Cromb’s order. The officer decided to rectify the situation through an unorthodox manoeuvre by ordering the men to stop where they were and swivel so they faced east towards where ‘B’ and ‘C’ Companies were located. He then spaced the tanks at regular intervals along the line and ordered everyone to advance line abreast across the lightly overgrown fields, in which Germans, were dug into a number of positions. As the men advanced, they fired into any likely thickets that could contain Germans, while their commander moved up and down the line inexplicably yelling, “Peanuts, popcorn, and programs.” The combined effect of gunfire and ballgame vendor-hailing elicited an unexpected response as one German after another emerged with hands raised. Those who opted to flee from the advancing line were brought under deadly fire by ‘B’ Company’s Sergeant Major Campbell, who had set up a Bren gun to cut off the German line of retreat.18
Although ‘B’ Squadron had one tank disabled by a mine, none of its crew was injured. The tankers were suitably impressed by the stream of prisoners taken, mostly identified as members of 346th Infantry Division, supplemented by some artillery troops fighting as infantry.19 ‘A’ Company passed through the other companies and advanced up the road to its Groote Heide area objective. ‘B’ Company, now supported by the tanks, proceeded another two thousand yards along the road before digging in at 1730 hours. It took about forty prisoners along the way.
The tanks withdrew, as night had fallen and they needed to replenish fuel and ammunition. ‘C’ Company moved north along the road alone, only to meet strong resistance. To avoid a firefight in the dark, Dandy fell back on ‘B’ Company’s position. Patrols sent out that night established contact with elements of the Algonquins who had succeeded in advancing north to Kruisstraat.20 During the course of the day, the Lincs had taken about 170 prisoners in exchange for five killed and twenty-three wounded.21
The Algonquins had struck out from the Maria-ter-Heide Château, about a mile and a half northeast of Kamp van Brasschaat, with ‘B’ Company going for a set of bunkers right of the road just before the artillery ceased firing. This enabled the troops to get almost on top of the position before the Germans recovered. A sharp firefight ensued that ended with the company in control of the bunkers, but Private John Redden was killed and several others wounded.22
‘A’ Company had been on the move left of ‘B’ Company and, meeting no resistance, was entering a small wood when a nearby antitank gun fired from a bunker and shells started detonating in the overhead branches. Ahead lay an open field that would provide a perfect killing ground if the company entered it, so the troops were trapped in the deadly wood with casualties mounting by the moment. Realizing that something had to be done, Lieutenant Charles Ratte led a two-man Bren gun team and three riflemen in a direct attack. Charging across the open ground, the men suddenly became mired in deep mud and were struck by fire from a machi
ne gun protecting the antitank gun. Ratte, who had only recently joined the regiment, and Private Joseph Henry were killed instantly. The others were all wounded, Private William John Cosens mortally. Although the team failed to carry out their intention, the boldness of their action so alarmed the Germans that they soon abandoned the gun.23
When ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies tried to renew the advance, sniper fire from “all points of the compass” forced them to take cover in the captured bunkers. An attempt by the carrier platoon to clean out the snipers to their rear was thwarted when the lead carrier blew up on a mine. Sergeant Bob McWhirter and Private Roy Duff were killed by the explosion.
‘D’ Company, heading for a château almost directly behind the positions of the two leading companies, was passing a large tangle of gorse on its right when snipers hidden in its cover opened fire. Sergeant Howard Turner immediately swung a section towards the snipers only to be killed by a bullet. The company went to ground while its commander teed up an artillery concentration on the sniper position. When the shells stopped falling, the company was able to advance another seven hundred yards before running into crossfire from either side of the road. With night falling, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Bradburn ordered the three companies to dig in where they were. ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies scraped out slit trenches in the marshy fields around the bunkers, while ‘D’ Company slipped into the edge of the forest to get out of the open.
As these three companies had advanced along the road, ‘C’ Company had been sent to support ‘C’ Squadron of the British Columbia Regiment in a probe out on the Algonquin left flank that met little resistance. The tankers thought it possible to drive through to Kruisstraat and outflank the Germans blocking the rest of the battalion. It went off as hoped, but not without loss. Nineteen-year-old infantryman Private Edward Dalton Chisholm was killed.24 So, too, were tankers Lieutenant Ken Clarke and Trooper Clarence Sharrard when their tank was knocked out by an antitank gun.25
THE FLANK ATTACK that seized Kruisstraat proved a mixed blessing for 10th Canadian Infantry Brigade because the Algonquins were now divided, with one company up in the village and the other three blocked by strong German forces between. Assessing the situation, Brigadier Jim Jefferson decided to disengage the Algonquins from their current front and pass them through the Lincs to Kruisstraat, and then renew the advance north along the road to Achterbroek. From there, the battalion was to continue towards a rather mysterious watercourse, identified by divisional intelligence as the Roosendaal Canal, that they thought posed a major obstacle. The sooner the canal was secured so that engineers could bridge it, the better.
‘D’ Company, which had been least heavily engaged during the day, would lead. At 0100 hours on October 21, the company began to carefully extricate itself from the position it had established in the woods. Groping through the darkness, two of its men, Sergeant A.G. Smith and Corporal J.P. Kelly, triggered wooden box mines loaded with just sufficient explosive to tear a foot off. The other two companies were able to pull out without incident, and by dawn the Algonquins were ready to begin their advance.26
While the Algonquins were to push through to Achterbroek, the task for the Lincs was now to secure the area behind by patrolling extensively for lingering Germans. Throughout the day, the Lincs gathered more prisoners, mostly men who had deliberately stayed behind to surrender. The biggest impediment was mines–more than the Lincs had ever encountered. By 1430 hours, the mopping-up was deemed complete and the battalion set off for Foxemaat, a village less than a mile south of Achterbroek, which the Algonquins were to have cleared en route to their objective.27
From day’s outset, divisional command had been relentlessly urging both brigades to hasten the pace to Roosendaal Canal. While the Algonquins pushed hard for the objective, 4th Canadian Armoured Brigade’s Lake Superior Regiment had initially balked at orders to get moving at first light with ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies leading. The previous day’s hard fighting had taken the men by surprise, especially as they had gone into it as standard infantry rather than aboard their armoured vehicles. Perhaps, confessed the regimental historian later, “the Lake Superiors, who prided themselves on being a motor battalion, just did not like the footslogging jobs that belonged to the run-of-the-mill infantry battalions… as if by common agreement, both companies moved off half an hour late in the general mood, ‘well, if the higher-ups want us to move earlier, why don’t they come here and move us themselves.’” Not surprisingly, a furious Brigadier Robert Moncel appeared at the regiment’s command vehicle and “expressed his extreme annoyance at the failure of the Lake Superiors to move with the speed expected.”28
Neither the Superiors nor Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders met much resistance, being held up more by roadblocks created by fallen trees and seemingly endless mines. The Algonquins, meanwhile, had first searched Kruisstraat and found it abandoned. With divisional headquarters demanding that the battalion pick up the pace, ‘D’ Company mounted carriers and the squadron of supporting tanks–the idea being to race up the road to the canal in a single-file armoured column. But as they exited Kruisstraat and approached a sharp bend, Germans armed with Panzerfausts opened fire. The lead tank was knocked out, and another round barely missed a Bren carrier. A hasty attack was organized, and with support from the artillery called in by 15th Canadian Field Regiment’s Major Noel Rutherford, who was serving as the forward observation officer, the enemy position was soon cleared.
Fearing that more infantry armed with antitank weapons lurked in the bordering woods, the tankers “were burning everything in sight, proceeding on an overwhelming barrage of shell and co-axial gunfire,” Major George Cassidy, who had recently switched from ‘A’ Company to command ‘D’ Company, later wrote. “As the column raced along at about twenty-five miles an hour, over on the far right, we could see the heavy Churchill tanks of 49 British Div. converging on our axis, tossing off huge smokescreens on their own right flank. Nearing the road junction in front of the canal, another enemy outpost was bumped, and a brisk firefight developed.”
Lieutenant L.G. Dirassar and Private W.J. Walker were both wounded in this sharp engagement. But as the Algonquins and tankers were slugging it out with the Germans, the wireless was crackling with edicts from division to get on to the canal and send back immediate reports on where a crossing could be constructed, as well as an estimate of how much bridging material would be required. Having cleared out the Germans, the officers near the head of the column were puzzling over where precisely “this most important canal was. The only body of water in the area was a large ditch, perhaps ten feet across, which ran under the road through a culvert.” The Germans had not even tried to destroy the culvert with demolitions, so eventually the Algonquins reported that they had in fact secured the assigned canal.29
To the left of 10 CIB’S line of advance, the Argylls failed to even note when they crossed the canal. The Superiors came across it at 0930 hours, and what “a disappointment it proved to be. The Roosendaal was no Leopold or even [Bruges–] Ghent Canal; it was not much more than a good-sized ditch, about ten feet across and with no more than three feet of water in it.” Crossing it easily, the regiment pushed patrols out to the north and found the area largely abandoned.30
While 4th Canadian Armoured Division’s main thrust towards Essen encountered little determined resistance, the Governor General’s Foot Guards advancing on the extreme left flank near Putte had been ambushed when they entered a defile that provided the only means for tanks to pass through a thick wood. No. 2 Squadron commanded by Major G.T. Baylay led the way in, with Lieutenant Collins’s troop on point. Moments later, they came under fire from German paratroops armed with Panzerfausts, but were able to keep them at bay with fire from the 75-millimetre guns and machine guns. An antitank gun was also spotted and destroyed before it could open fire, but a second gun went undetected until it fired a round that knocked Collins’s tank out of action.
The entire squadron moved up in support. Under
their protective fire, Collins and his men were able to crawl back without casualties. No. 2 Squadron poured “devastating fire into the woods,” but failed to silence the antitank gun. Lance Corporal Lloyd Arthur Jennett’s tank was disabled, and he ordered the crew to abandon it. Outside the tank, Jennett realized that Guardsman Evan Cameron MacMillan had not bailed out and went back for him. As he climbed aboard, a second armour-piercing round tore into its hull, and Jennett was killed. The twenty-two-year-old was the eldest son in a family of twenty from Vasey, Ontario. Thirty-seven-year-old MacMillan from New Liskeard, Ontario also died.
Realizing that trying to bull through the narrow defile only invited disaster, Lieutenant Colonel E.M. Smith ordered No. 2 Squadron to disengage. He then sought to bypass the German strongpoint by moving No. 3 Squadron under Major Robert Fernand, with Lieutenant Hanway’s troop on point, through the woods by following a strip of high ground where the vegetation thinned. “Progress was slow and difficult, many tanks being bogged in the marshy ground,” recorded the regimental historian. “Proceeding to the west, in an attempt to pass the obstacle, Lieutenant Hanway suddenly became aware that two of his tanks had been knocked out behind him. One of these blocked both his withdrawal and the forward advance of the Regiment. His tank took cover in a clump of woods further to the west and was immediately attacked by infantry whom the crew succeeded in driving off.”
A self-propelled gun opened up from a concealed position and punched a hole through the turret of Sergeant T.B. Murray’s tank. Guardsmen Reuben Erland Young and Dan Alexander Kozar were killed and Murray was wounded. Although he had successfully bailed out of the tank, the driver, Guardsman J.M. Levasseur, realized that the tank blocked the line of advance for the others. Despite heavy machine-gun and rifle fire, Levasseur climbed back inside the tank, and ignoring the fact that the tank could again be struck by the SPG, managed to back and fill until he had the Sherman turned around. He then drove to safety.