by Mark Zuehlke
A stiff engagement followed as the other troops of No. 3 Squadron entered the fray, while at least one antitank gun and two more spgs weighed in on the German side. The antitank gun was knocked out, but one of the SPGS punched a hole in Lieutenant Adams’s tank. Although the crew successfully escaped, Corporal John Allan Weatherson was mortally wounded when the Germans started shelling the area with high-explosive rounds. Eventually, both the Germans and the tankers broke off the action by withdrawing several hundred yards. A standoff ensued, with the Foot Guards ordered to hold and the paratroopers lurking menacingly in the woods a thousand yards distant.31
DESPITE THE AMBUSHES that had caught the Governor General’s Foot Guards, 4th Canadian Armoured Division’s good progress led Major General Harry Foster to call an Orders Group at 1900 hours to outline a bold move that would conform with instructions from Twenty-First Army Group. On October 22, Field Marshal Montgomery planned to unleash British Second Army’s XII Corps westwards from the Nijmegen corridor towards Breda, with its right flank brushing the Maas River and its left extended about ten miles south of Tilburg.32 Montgomery’s intention was to spring a trap on the Fifteenth Army divisions south of the Maas. Accordingly, Foster told his brigadiers and assembled staff officers, 4 cad’s mission was not only to provide right flank protection for 2nd Canadian Infantry Division in its operations to clear South Beveland and Walcheren Island, but also to bring pressure to bear in their area–the southwest corner of the trap.33
Capturing Essen and its strategically important crossroads was of utmost importance, Foster said, so rather than wait for morning they would go forward tonight, with 10th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s Lincoln and Welland Regiment on the left and the Algonquin Regiment on the right.34 Seizing the town would be the responsibility of these two battalions, but the Lake Superior Regiment and Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders operating under 4th Canadian Armoured Brigade’s command would also make a night move to come up on Essen’s western flank.35
Foster hoped that the night advance would both fulfill the Twenty-First Army Group demands and deny the facing Germans an opportunity to regroup during the night and dig in along a new defensive line. Everyone present knew the gamble. Throughout the day, there had been a high percentage of troops from the 6th Parachute Regiment among the prisoners, which appeared to have been leavened in among the less elite units to stiffen their backbone. “Their presence,” the Algonquins’ Major Cassidy believed, “indicated that we could expect more violent opposition from now on, as the Germans tried to prevent the total outflanking of the Beveland Causeway battle area.”36
Back at their respective brigade headquarters, Brigadiers Moncel and Jefferson got their battalions underway before midnight. Nobody knew how many Germans, particularly paratroopers, lurked in the woods through which they were to move. Nor did they have any idea what minefields and other booby traps might exist. Losing direction was another concern, one the Algonquins countered by having Captain R.A. Scott lead the advance with a navigation party equipped with a compass and the most accurate maps available. Every man in the battalion carried extra ammunition and food, for it was uncertain when supporting tanks or supply vehicles might be able to reach Essen. All the battalions moved in single file, maintaining absolute silence in the hope that they could quietly bypass any Germans. To avoid wireless traffic betraying the movement, radio silence was enforced.37
“Every man,” the Lake Superior regimental historian recorded, “was tense, doubly tense because of the darkness, the uncertainty, and their own fears of detection. There was no moon. Only the flash of gun fire from time to time revealed the dusky forms of the Canadians moving through the trees. They were aided, fortunately, by the noises of the night. This was no silent night in the north country of Canada; it was a night of war in Belgium. And the crash of the artillery, the rattle of vehicles, the bursts of small arms fire, and the bawling of wounded cattle could be heard everywhere and pinned down nowhere. So the Canadians got through. It was a daring thing to attempt; and it succeeded because of its very boldness and unexpectedness.”38
The Argylls bumped the occasional German position that fired on them, but ‘C’ Company in the lead ignored the fire and kept moving, while ‘A’ Company in trail overran the opposition. “It was a thoroughly nervewracking experience for everyone concerned, but there was as yet no evidence that the Germans had any real idea of what was going on, and the absence of really organized opposition in itself lent a measure of confidence to the troops.” The Argylls arrived on schedule at the crossroads they were to hold, and captured three Germans equipped with a British antitank gun. Turning the weapon around, the battalion dug in and prepared for a fight in the morning.39
‘C’ Company, on point for the Lincs, silently tiptoed past the German defences until they came upon a dirt track a hundred yards north of the hamlet of Zandstraat at 0130 hours, and detected what seemed to be a strong force dug in on the opposite side. Unable to find a way to bypass the position, the company quietly pulled back to the hamlet and set in for the night among its abandoned houses. Less than two miles from Essen, Lieutenant Colonel Bill Cromb believed his men could reach the objective quickly and go into the attack not far behind schedule once dawn came.40
The Algonquins’ Major Cassidy initially wondered if it would be possible for the battalion to reach Essen before dawn even if it didn’t trip any German ambushes. Essen lay four miles north of the start line, but in order to bypass known positions, the route to be followed was almost six miles long. “The pace was very slow. Every two or three minutes the entire column had to halt while the wire fences were cut. These eventually totalled forty-three. Splendid discipline was evident, both in maintaining silence, and in staying together.”
At about 0130 hours, the column approached a river that intelligence predicted was five to six feet deep, a tough obstacle to cross under the weight of all the equipment. Suddenly, a challenge was shouted, followed by a shot fired. The entire battalion hit the dirt, while the lead company carried out a hasty attack on the spot where the muzzle flash had been spotted, but the sentry had fled. Pushing on, the Algonquins discovered that the river was a mere eight inches deep and easily forded.
At 0300 hours, they quietly entered a barnyard. The farmhouse door opened and two Germans stepped outside. Blinded by the light from inside, they walked right into the Canadians. “In a second, a hail of fire came from all directions, and many thought that we had walked into a set ambush. But the firing was all our own, and the two Germans were left riddled with bullets from five or six Brens. In the mix-up, it was very lucky that we had suffered no casualties from our own fire, which was pretty indiscriminate in the darkness. Again we feared that the firing would alert the enemy, but there apparently was no means of communication from their troops out on the flank, and the main body remained blissfully ignorant of our approach in force.”
Soon after, the Algonquins reached a château near Kleynen Schriek, less than a mile south of Essen, and paused here to regroup for the dawn. Already, prearranged artillery concentrations were pounding the town. The officers gathered in an abandoned German trench and held an O Group, with a blanket overhead to prevent the glow of a flashlight escaping. The Algonquins planned to hit the town by sending some companies around its eastern flank to come in from the north, while also striking from the south, where they believed most of the German defenders would be concentrated. Captain Scott’s ‘B’ Company would enter the town from the north, near a hospital. Major Cassidy’s ‘D’ Company would go for the area north of the main square, while ‘A’ Company under Captain R.B. Stock took the square itself. ‘C’ Company, commanded by Major Stirling, would strike from the south in company with the battalion command group. This latter company would go in once the tank support arrived.
With dawn streaking the sky, the companies headed off. To Cassidy’s amazement, ‘A’ and ‘D’ Companies were able to dash across a two-hundred-yard swath of open ground to gain the town’s outer buildings wi
thout detection. Within minutes, three companies were inside the town, quietly searching one house after another and finding no sign of Germans or civilians. Soon, gunfire erupted to the south and it was clear that ‘C’ Company had met the main German defences as expected. The sound of 75-millimetre guns firing also indicated that ‘A’ Squadron of the British Columbia Regiment was joining the battle.
It proved a short, sharp engagement–the town was in hand by 0900 hours.41 The success of their surprise became clear an hour later when a convoy of twenty-two trucks bearing supplies drove into the town and was captured. In all, the division had taken about 450 prisoners during the advance and fight for Essen. By noon, the Canadians were irreversibly ensconced, and already reorganizing to swing westwards on Bergen op Zoom.42
PART FOUR
FIGHT TO
THE FINISH
[ 22 ]
Troops on the Ground
FOURTH CANADIAN ARMOURED DIVISION’S rapid breakthrough to Essen had fallen on the weakest point in LXVII Corps’s General der Infanterie Otto Sponheimer’s defensive line. His initial response was to seek permission for 711th Infantry Division to conduct a limited withdrawal, but Oberkommando Wehrmacht, West refused. Meanwhile, Sponheimer had also ordered a counterattack against 49th British (West Riding) Division near Wuustwezel, to the east of Kalmthout, which so weakened the corps’s artillery and depleted its supply resources that he was powerless to oppose 4 cad’s advance. Consequently, Essen and its vital crossroads were lost.1 Worse, the Wuustwezel counterattack had been broken by artillery and flame-throwing tanks, so despite several “gallant attacks,” the town had remained in British hands. Sponheimer recognized that with this failure the writing was on the wall, and “an end would have to be made to this process of attrition if any worthwhile forces were to reach the area north of the Maas.”2
On Fifteenth Army’s western flank, Kampfgruppe Chill had shortened its lines to the east to meet the renewed attempts by 2nd Canadian Infantry Division to clear Woensdrecht and the adjacent heights.3 This forced 346th Division to stretch its thin forces across an even wider front, but also enabled the Germans to strengthen defences near the South Beveland isthmus.
These were precisely the defensive positions 2 CID attacked on October 23. Clearing Woensdrecht and then advancing north through Nederheide and Zandfort to Korteven fell to 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade, with the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders given the first task. The South Saskatchewan Regiment formed the brigade’s right flank, advancing east of Zandfort, while Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal headed up the brigade’s centre for Korteven. The Calgary Highlanders of 5th Canadian Infantry Brigade, meanwhile, assaulted across open polders towards Woensdrecht Station to clear the paratroopers off the railway embankment following the northern edge of the isthmus.4
The advance was preceded by heavy artillery fire from the 6th Canadian Field Regiment, which fired fifty rounds per gun.5 Frost lay on the ground as Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal crossed the start line at 0700 hours. The sky was overcast, grounding 2nd Tactical Air Force. Because of its high casualty rate and the desperate shortage of French-speaking reinforcements, the Fusiliers fielded only three rifle companies rather than four. Captain Elmo Thiebeault’s ‘B’ Company was on the left and Captain D.H. Ouimet’s ‘C’ Company on the right, as the battalion advanced on either side of the main road from Woensdrecht to Bergen op Zoom. ‘A’ Company was close behind with the battalion’s support platoons. A Fort Garry Horse squadron was strung out in column on the road because the mud elsewhere prevented spreading out.
Thiebeault’s men moved alongside a hedge that covered their advance for about five hundred yards, but the moment they stepped beyond this screen, machine-gun fire drove them to ground. Although one platoon found shelter in an abandoned casemate, another was caught in the open. When two tanks tried to come to its aid, they were knocked out by mines. Lieutenant Réal Liboiron, at the head of the lead platoon, was wounded. Despite mounting casualties, Thiebeault sought to regroup and renew the advance.
‘C’ Company had been without cover from the outset, moving across a heavily mined field of muddy gumbo, into which the men’s boots sucked deeply, making every step a struggle. On the road, the tanks were stalled by roadblocks of fallen trees. Ouimet’s ‘C’ Company was soon pinned down in a roadside ditch.
Despite being in trail, ‘A’ Company’s casualties were mounting because of accurate artillery and mortar fire. Wondering what was holding things up, Major Georges White crept up to ‘C’ Company and Ouimet in the ditch with the lead platoon. Nobody knew where the machine-gun fire pinning them down was coming from, so White tried to pinpoint the enemy positions. Although Ouimet warned the veteran officer this was an unhealthy location, the twenty-seven-year-old from Rockland, Ontario climbed a wall next to the ditch in order to see better. A burst of fire toppled him dead.
Thiebeault realized that the only possible place where an advance might be possible was on the left flank, where a string of buildings offered slight cover. He ordered Lieutenant Joseph Morrissette’s platoon to weave from house to house to a nearby crossroads, while covered by the other ‘B’ Company platoons and a couple of tanks firing from behind a small rise that sheltered them from antitank guns. When the supporting fire was unleashed, it was directed against each building’s second storey rather than the ground floor, so the moment Morrissette led his men out beyond the hedge, a machine gun in the lower level of the first building ripped into them. Half the men were cut down and Morrissette was killed as the attack collapsed.
By 1100 hours, the Fusiliers’ acting commander, Major Jacques “Jimmy” Dextraze, realized there was no prevailing against the strong positions without additional support from brigade. He requested reinforcements and ordered the two leading companies to dig in, while ‘A’ Company occupied a small wood right of ‘B’ Company to guard that flank. The Fusiliers and Germans began a steady exchange of gunfire, but neither showed any intention of giving way. In the late afternoon, a heavy anti-aircraft battery that had been providing fire support miscalculated its range and shelled ‘B’ Company. Eight men were wounded. A volunteer Belgian medical unit ran through intense German fire to evacuate the injured soldiers. In the course of the successful evacuation, several stretcher-bearers were wounded and a female nurse was killed.6 The Fusiliers could do little after this but hunker down and hope that brigade eventually sent reinforcements.
TO THE FUSILIERS’ right, the South Saskatchewan Regiment had run into “stiff opposition” in the form of machine-gun, rifle, and mortar fire immediately after crossing the start line. ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies “fought their way forward foot by foot, suffering a number of casualties.” The battalion’s war diarist noted that the terrain “was not the kind you dream about to make an attack in as it was partially wooded and partially open and it had many buildings, ditches, and O Pip posts in the trees. The country was ideal for snipers and they inflicted a number of casualties.”7
Lieutenant Cecil Law, commanding the battalion’s mortar platoon, was stalked by a sniper when he tried to link up with ‘A’ Company in order to control the mortars from the front via wireless. The company’s start line had been about a mile from his departure point at battalion headquarters. To look less like an officer, he carried a rifle and because of the distance had left his No. 38 wireless, its operator, and his runner behind. Instead, he planned to use the company’s No. 18 set for communication. A deep ditch to the right of the road provided good cover but was sloppy with water, and his old, deteriorating boots were soon saturated. That was hardly new; they had rarely been dry since they had entered this godforsaken country in September. Law stopped thinking about his feet when he came to a culvert passing under a narrow track leading to a field. It was too narrow to crawl through and full of water anyway. “Nothing for it but to make a quick dash across. So I gathered myself, charged out of the ditch, ran across the road, and jumped into the other side, just before a shot cracked behind my head. Bullets don’t whistle or wh
ine; they’re supersonic, and crack most viciously as they pass close by.” Law was grateful the German seemed a poor shot.
But soon he reached another culvert. “Resolving to really run fast this time, and zig-zag twice as much, I did, and he did! Once again the shot cracked behind me as I jumped into the ditch. But I still had nearly 100 yards to go.
“Naturally, I almost immediately came to another culvert. This was getting tough.” Law again dashed out, only to be presented with two culverted side roads. Redoubling his speed and zigzagging frantically, he hurtled across and dove into the ditch as another bullet cracked past. About twenty yards ahead, he saw the house where ‘A’ Company was headquartered. Soaking wet from a mixture of rain and sweat, Law took a long pause that he hoped would trick the sniper into believing he had been hit, and then madly dashed out. “I grabbed for the gate post to swing myself around into the side, which was slightly angled. Just as I did so, the sniper fired. His bullet sliced through most of my belt, and broke the tapes holding my gas cape on my back. My bully beef lunch was also wrapped in that gas cape. The damned thing tripped me up and I sprawled onto the sidewalk, luckily behind the angle of the wall.
“A familiar voice drawled out, ‘Hey, that was great running. Lucky he missed.’” Another voice commented that Law was fortunate the German sniper was slow. Having been an ‘A’ Company platoon commander before being assigned to the mortar platoon, Law recognized the voices of the company sniper, “Gunny” Powell, and his observer, Corporal George Grandbois. “Why don’t you just go out again for a second, and this time I’ll be ready and get him,” the sniper suggested. “Just give me a few minutes to climb into my blind, and I’ll get him long before he can shoot. He was always at the side of a little wall before, now he’ll have to peek over the top.” Law didn’t want to do this, but he knew that if he was going to spot for the mortars, the German had to be taken out. “I didn’t feel very brave, but I had to do my job too.” Grandbois signalled that the sniper was ready. “With my heart in my mouth I bobbed out on the street and then back. Powell’s rifle cracked and he said, ‘Got him!’”