Terrible Victory

by Mark Zuehlke

  October 29 was a rare, clear, sunny day that enabled Lieutenant Colonel John Pangman and his Essex headquarters staff to spend the morning studying the countryside and town of Goes–South Beveland’s largest–from the steeple of Kapelle’s church. Pangman decided “the enemy was pulling back as rapidly as possible.”44 His assessment was correct, for a general withdrawal to the Walcheren causeway was underway and what resistance there was “seemed to be of a most disjointed nature.”45

  Nipping at 70th Infantry Division’s heels, the Canadians and British made good progress, with the latter advancing on 2 CID’S left flank. Upon entering the wide western part of the peninsula, Keefler put two Canadian brigades up front to avoid leaving pockets of Germans behind to threaten the divisional rear. 4 CIB advanced to the south of Goes with its left flank against that of 157th British Infantry Brigade, while the newly arrived 5th Canadian Infantry Brigade joined the chase at 0530 hours, with the Black Watch making a beeline for Goes. The 14th Canadian Hussars reconnaissance regiment covered the division’s right flank by advancing along the northern coastline.

  At this moment, Brigadier Holly Keefler, in an attempt to ensure that each brigade advanced as quickly as possible, declared a horserace with a grim penalty to the loser. Whichever brigade failed to gain the Walcheren Island causeway first would draw the expected bloody task of forcing a crossing.46 In reality, this was a joke and a rather cruel one, because should 5 CIB–having crossed the start line later than 4 CIB–win, Keefler had no intention of awarding it the prize. He was sure that 4 CIB would win, though. Spurred on by their respective brigadiers, however, the battalions gamely entered the race.47

  After fighting through several pockets of resistance that cost the battalion thirty casualties, of which only one was serious, the Black Watch entered Goes in the early afternoon. “The reception we received,” recorded the war diarist, “was tumultuous. Orange flags were being flown everywhere. The people clambered all over our vehicles, and the riflemen had to fight their way through the civilians to get to their areas of the town. When they heard that the men had had nothing to eat since early morning they brought out tea, coffee, hot chocolate, bread, biscuits, cake, and all sorts of fruit. One old lady brought out a bottle of ‘old mull’ and handed it to the boys telling them that she had been saving it for four and a half years for this day. The people knew we were coming but had not expected us until the following day, so perhaps the element of surprise had a bearing upon the spontaneity of their welcome. The men had to kiss babies and sign autographs all the way through town. No sooner were we established than the White Brigade started rounding up their collaborators.” The town’s German commandant was found to have fled so quickly he had left a half-written letter on his desk.48

  Such was the pace that by the afternoon of October 30, Keefler urged Brigadier Fred Cabeldu to push 4 CIB all the way through to the causeway, get across it, and establish a bridgehead on Walcheren Island. Cabeldu called a meeting of his battalion commanders at Nieuwdorp, which the Essex Scottish had liberated followed a gruelling twelve-mile march from Kapelle that the brigadier believed had been executed so rapidly it left “the enemy stupefied.”49 Such advances, Cabeldu learned, had left 4 CIB’S infantrymen too worn out “to force a passage over the causeway.” He took the argument to Keefler, who agreed that 4 CIB needed only to clean “up as much of the enemy as possible at this end of the causeway.” It would then fall, as he had earlier planned, to 5 CIB to bull across and form a bridgehead through which 157th Brigade would pass.50

  BY LATE AFTERNOON, the Royal Regiment was within a half-mile of the causeway. When Lieutenant Colonel R.M. Lendrum ordered Major Ralph Young and Captain Tom Wilcox to get an estimate of enemy strength, they reported about two hundred Germans “squeezed into a quarter circle that had the end of the causeway as its apex. The two radii forming the sides of the quadrant were the sea-dykes of that corner of the peninsula, while the arc of the quadrant was a line of mined and wired posts, well-manned and mounting machine-guns and anti-aircraft guns employed in a ground role. Along the sea wall opposite Walcheren a line of concrete shelters had been sunk into the dyke and protected in front by a line of concrete fire-positions. All in all, it was a formidable defensive locality.”51

  Lendrum scrubbed plans for a hasty attack, and teed up an operation for October 31. He decided to hit the Germans with a pincer by having a company move along each sea dyke and converge at the end of the causeway, while the other two companies struck directly at the quadrant’s arc with a feint intended to keep the enemy in their forward positions. Moving swiftly in from the flanks, the two companies coming along the dykes might be able to cut the causeway before the Germans realized that the Royals were behind them. Len-drum hoped to prevent any of the defenders escaping. The attack would be supported by the 4th and 5th Canadian Field Regiments, a Toronto Scottish Regiment mortar platoon, and two of its machine-gun platoons laying down fire on identified German positions, on the causeway to prevent movement of reinforcements along it, and against suspected artillery and mortar positions on Walcheren that were within range.

  At 0200 hours, ‘A’ Company under Captain John Ellis Stothers moved north along the dyke opposite Walcheren, while ‘B’ Company came down the other dyke and ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies began pressing towards the German front. ‘A’ Company’s attempt at stealth failed almost immediately, as the Germans opened with heavy fire that pinned down Lieutenant Maurice Berry’s No. 7 Platoon. While Stothers got on the wireless and called in mortar fire, Berry crawled forward alone to a pillbox protecting a heavy machine gun, and silenced it by throwing grenades through the apertures.

  Realizing that ‘A’ Company was in a dogfight, Lendrum pulled a couple of platoons away from ‘C’ Company’s feint to reinforce it. The attack was renewed, with the men cutting paths through heavy barbed-wire barriers and working past mines and other booby traps. Finding one pillbox too well sited to overrun and knowing it was critical to cut the causeway quickly, Stothers dropped a platoon to keep it under fire while he pressed on with the rest of the company. Fifty minutes after going into the attack, ‘A’ Company reported that it controlled the causeway entrance. The defiant pillbox was eliminated about the same time by burning the defenders out with a flamethrower.

  With the other companies pressing in on the Germans from every flank, the garrison surrendered. Two officers and 153 other ranks were taken prisoner.52 Stothers’s subsequent Military Cross citation noted that he “employed his own and supporting weapons with such skill and aggressiveness that his company [was] successful in consolidating the end of the causeway, cutting the enemy communications and capturing almost the entire garrison, including three 75-millimetre guns, several flak guns, and their small arms. This brilliant attack ensured the success of the battalion operation which gave the division the firm base from which the attacks on Walcheren were launched.”53 Berry also earned a Military Cross for bravery. Having cleared the objective, the Royals dug in and sat tight through a rainstorm of mortar fire in order to secure the start line for 5 CIB’S causeway assault.

  While the Royals had been eliminating the last opposition on South Beveland, a squadron of the 14th Canadian Hussars embarked on an impromptu amphibious invasion of North Beveland, undertaken when their commander, Major Dick Porteous, learned from residents that the island was ripe for picking. North Beveland, which measured about seven miles long and three miles wide, was separated from South Beveland by a narrow channel called the Zandkreek. Loading the Daimlers of ‘A’ Squadron aboard a barge and an array of fishing boats and other small craft, Porteous ferried it over in the afternoon. Lieutenant E.G. McLeod led his troop in a rapid dash to Kamperland, the island’s largest village, with such verve that it garnered him a Military Cross and netted about two hundred prisoners. Over the next two days, the squadron ranged across North Beveland until declaring it secure on November 2, with a final prisoner tally of 450.54

  The clearing of South Beveland buttoned 70th Infantry
Division inside its defences on the mostly flooded Walcheren Island. But because its coastal batteries remained intact and no Allied shipping could safely pass them to gain Antwerp, the West Scheldt was still effectively closed. Only a major offensive would wrest this last piece of Zeeland real estate from German hands. In concert with 5 CIB’S assault on the causeway, the amphibious landings that comprised Operation Infatuate must proceed despite the great inherent risks.

  On October 31 at 0930 hours, Lieutenant General Guy Simonds put Infatuate into motion and notified II Canadian Corps’s Major General Charles Foulkes. Foulkes messaged Brigadier Keefler tersely to “get on with it.” Simonds wanted 2nd Canadian Infantry Division to hit the causeway hard in the hopes of convincing 70th Infantry Division’s Generalleutnant Wilhelm Daser to concentrate his forces on blocking this attack, which would improve the odds for successful landings at Vlissingen and Westkapelle. Initially, Foulkes considered having the 157th Brigade’s fresher and full-strength Glasgow Highlanders put in this assault rather than the worn-down troops of 5 CIB. But the British advance on South Beveland had been slow, the untested brigade tentatively feeling its way, so that it was too far from the causeway to arrive before morning on November 1. Foulkes needed an attack now, so Keefler told Brigadier Bill Megill to send his men forward.55

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  Let’s Take the Damned Place

  WHILE 2ND CANADIAN INFANTRY DIVISION had been securing South Beveland, 4th Canadian Armoured Division had advanced from Wouwse Plantage towards Bergen op Zoom. The deadly ambush 6th Parachute Regiment had sprung on the South Albertas’ ‘C’ Squadron late October 25 had proven that Kampfgruppe Chill was well entrenched in the forest plantation through which the division must pass, so these piney woods would have to be cleared. On the morning of October 26, ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies of 10th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s Lincoln and Welland Regiment and the South Albertas’ ‘C’ Squadron headed back towards the ambush site.1

  Simultaneously, the Algonquin Regiment advanced out of the settlement of Centrum, which lay literally in the middle of the densely wooded Wouwse Plantage, supported by the South Albertas’ ‘B’ Squadron. Two Algonquin companies were to clear the brickworks the Lake Superior Regiment had bypassed the day before during its charge into the Wouwse Plantage village, while the other two companies pushed west along a dirt road to Zoomvliet.2 Between the Lincs and Algonquins, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders sent ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies into the dense forest from a point two miles south of Centrum, with ‘A’ Squadron helping.3 North of Wouwse Plantage village, 4 CAB was to guard 10 CIB’S flank.

  The Argylls had awakened to learn they had taken a hit on the jaw during the night. Private Robert van Luven of the carrier platoon had been in battalion headquarters when Brigadier Jim Jefferson phoned Lieutenant Colonel Dave Stewart with the attack order. “Look, my people are tired,” he heard Stewart say. “They’ve been in there for three weeks now. And I’m getting tired. I’m getting tired being nursemaid to the rest of the Division. We’re not going in.”4 Stewart was promptly summoned to brigade, his deputy Major B. Stock-loser assuming command. Officially, his recall was so that he could receive minor surgery, but the rumour mill held that Stewart had been pulled–everyone hoped temporarily–for defying orders.5

  Major Gord Armstrong agreed the regiment was exhausted. Having suffered a football injury before the deployment to the continent in July, he had just returned to active duty. Arm still in a cast, he first had to get the medical officer to okay his commanding a rifle company. At the Regimental Aid Post, Armstrong walked with Padre Charlie Maclean to where twelve bodies awaited burial. Among them were Major Alex Logie and Captain Raymond McGivney, who had both died leading ‘B’ Company. Seeing his predecessors soon to be interred beneath muddy Dutch soil gave him an appreciation of what battle meant. Cleared by the MO, Armstrong took command of ‘B’ Company. He didn’t care for the look of the men; they were all unshaven, their skin a yellowish hue. “They looked like a bunch of ragamuffins.” He and the also-just-arrived company sergeant major ordered a shave and parade inspection. Hoping this re-instilled some discipline, Armstrong then led them towards the woods.6

  A terrific mortar and artillery bombardment preceded the Argylls’ advance. Both the woods and road were riddled with mines. Four ‘A’ Squadron tanks were knocked out, and one brewed up. Trapped inside, its driver, Trooper James Foster, burned to death. When a mine crippled Corporal Charles Smith’s Sherman, he and the co-driver began clearing mines by hand. Seeing the road laced with tripwires running to mines, several other tankers joined in. The men carefully tied long strings to the networks of wires, then detonated the mines with a hard yank from behind the shelter of their knocked-out tanks. Although Flails were called, the mine-clearing tanks bogged in mud short of the road.7 When a couple of Crocodiles tried going forward anyway, they struck mines, and their hulks blocked the road entirely. By mid-afternoon, having got nowhere, ‘A’ Squadron withdrew to the start point. Lacking tank support, the Argylls advanced only one thousand yards before an antitank ditch guarded by highly accurate mortar fire blocked their path and night closed in.8

  To the north, the Algonquins met trouble on the road to Zoom-vliet. The previous day, ‘B’ Company had advanced with ‘B’ Squad-ron’s No. 4 Troop to just past a crossroads a mile and a half north of Centrum before dark, and dug in for the night. Using the cover of darkness, German paratroopers infiltrated behind their position to heavily mine the road and prepare several ambush sites. Company Sergeant Major E. Burns, with two privates, was outbound from battalion headquarters to ‘B’ Company when his party was ambushed and everyone taken prisoner. When a patrol from ‘D’ Company tried to contact ‘B’ Company, it was driven back, with two casualties.9

  ‘B’ Company was effectively cut off, a fact realized when the morning advance led by ‘D’ Company and ‘B’ Squadron’s No. 3 Troop moved along the road bordered by “Minen” signs. Just before a small clearing, one tank struck a mine and another was knocked out by a Panzerfaust. That halted the advance, freeing the Germans to concentrate on tightening the noose around ‘B’ Company and No. 4 Troop.

  While pounding ‘B’ Company’s perimeter with artillery and mortar fire, the paratroops manhandled an antitank gun to a building a few hundred yards to the west. Although Corporal Chuck Fearn spotted the enemy gun, it knocked his tank out before the gunner could unsafe his 75-millimetre to fire. In rapid order, the remaining three tanks in Lieutenant Leaman Casey’s troop were damaged or knocked out. The infantry were also hard-pressed. An exploding shell badly wounded ‘B’ Company Commander Captain Robert Scott. When Private Orville Reeves attempted to run the gauntlet in the company Bren carrier to carry the captain to the rap, it struck a mine and blew “end-over-end for thirty yards.”10 Reeves perished and Scott, having suffered a second serious injury, died soon after, despite efforts by German medical personnel to save him.

  As the only surviving officers besides himself were Casey and an Algonquin lieutenant, 15th Canadian Field Regiment’s foo Captain Jack Forbes took command. Using the radio in a tank, Forbes calmly directed artillery fire against any paratroops he saw massing for an assault even as the Sherman took three antitank-gun hits.11 The artillery, Forbes knew, was the only thing keeping the Germans at bay. If the wireless in the tank was knocked out, the little force would be doomed.

  At 15th Field’s headquarters, “small groups gathered around the earphones to hear how the battle progressed.” With Forbes and his three-man crew out there, “the battle… became a matter of personal interest. Artillery support was supplied on a generous scale, and, spurred on by reports telephoned from the command posts, the gunners sweated with a will as target after target was engaged.”12

  Efforts were being made to rescue ‘B’ Company. When the attack on the brickworks was successfully concluded, ‘A’ and ‘C’ Companies had started working into the woods north of ‘B’ Company’s position. But with few remaining hours of daylight left,
Lieutenant Colonel Robert Bradburn realized they were unlikely to reach the embattled force before nightfall. He and ‘B’ Squadron’s Major T.B. “Darby” Nash decided to evacuate the position with the Algonquin Bren carrier platoon.13 Nash ordered the three remaining tanks of Lieutenant Jean Marc “Johnny” Guyot’s troop to provide covering fire. When Guyot told his men to saddle up, he learned that one of the tanks had electrical problems. He led the other two Shermans forward.

  Crawling around one of the tanks disabled in the earlier advance, Guyot drove into an ambush. A Panzerfaust bomb struck his tank, which exploded into flames. Guyot and Trooper Melvin Danielson were badly wounded and taken prisoner. Although the paratroopers administered first aid, the twenty-eight-year-old Guyot bled to death. Under a flag of truce, they then allowed an ambulance to fetch Danielson, but the nineteen-year-old Stockholm, Saskatchewan farmer died during surgery to amputate a leg.14

  The Algonquins’ ‘C’ Company, meanwhile, had managed to secure an antitank ditch across which a bulldozer constructed a crude crossing for the carrier platoon. At 1600 hours, the platoon barrelled cross-country through a hail of small-arms and mortar fire to gain ‘B’ Company’s position. Quickly gathering infantrymen, tankers, and artillerymen aboard, the platoon dashed back without casualties.15

  Returning to 15th Field Regiment’s headquarters, Captain Forbes dryly declared that his continuous wireless performance had convinced him to become a radio announcer when the war was over. He was awarded a Military Cross, for undoubtedly saving many Canadian lives.16

  While ‘A’ and ‘B’ Squadrons of the South Albertas had taken serious losses on October 26, ‘C’ Squadron had fared better on the Huijbergsche Baan, where the Germans had caused it such grief the day before. Working along the verges beside the tanks, the Lincs’ Major Jim Swayze of ‘D’ Company had stared at the trees pressing in on either flank and wondered, “When the hell are we going to get out of here?”