The Battle of the Scheldt in World War II was a series of military operations led by the First The Witte Brigade (White Brigade) of the Belgian resistance seized the port of The Black Watch attacked German positions, already known to be well at the headquarters of the 4th Canadian Division to press Forster for speed.
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Their aeroplane engines created a sound so like the roar of aircraft that over Flushing the anti-aircraft guns fired sporadically Because of the damage to the locks near the ferry at Neuzen it was necessary to cut ramps in the bank and by-pass the obstacle.
Not only was this a slow progress, but many craft were damaged. The decision was therefore taken to postpone the operation for 24 hours". Franks of the Royal Navy to serve as a pilot, guiding the Buffaloes expertly down the river Scheldt without the Germans noticing. We were quite invisible from the north shore of the Scheldt, where all was quiet Our touchdown was planned to be on either side of a groyne They deployed and thundered past us I could see through my binoculars the infantry disembark on dry land and move off".
In spite of difficulties in maneuvering vehicles through the canals and the resulting hour delay, the Germans were taken by surprise and a bridgehead was established. The North Nova Scotia Highland regiment landed with no resistance and woke nine sleeping German soldiers at their dug-out, taking them prisoner. Upon hearing of the landing at the Braakman Inlet, Field Marshal Model reacted promptly, telling Hitler: "Today, the enemy launched a decision-seeking attack on the Breskens bridgehead".
Starting on daybreak on October 10, the Highland Brigade came under counter-attack, with the Stormont, Dundas and Glengary Highland regiment, known as the "Glens" in the Canadian Army, spending two days fighting for the village of Hoofdplaat with a loss of 17 dead and 44 wounded. It appears the enemy are a much better type than we have been running into lately". Then the 3rd Division's 8th Brigade was called to move south from the coastal side of the pocket. This opened up a land-based supply route into the pocket. Eberding used his reserves in his counter-attacks and reported to the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht that some units of the 64th Division had "been reduced to one third".
Battle of Sedan (1940)
The German officers explained away their retreat by claiming they were being overwhelmed by tanks, but in fact there were only four, belonging to the British Columbia Regiment , operating north of the Leopold canal. From the summer of the Canadian Army experienced a major shortage of infantrymen, owing to policies of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie-King.
In order to defeat Maurice Duplessis , the Union Nationale premier of Quebec who called a snap election in to seek a mandate to oppose the war, Mackenzie-King had promised that only volunteers would be sent to fight overseas and that there would be no overseas conscription. With only so many Canadians willing to volunteer, especially as infantry, the Canadian Army ran seriously short of infantrymen, as their losses were not compensated by replacements.
The 3rd Division fought additional actions to clear German troops from the towns of Breskens , Oostburg , Zuidzande , and Cadzand , as well as the coastal fortress Fort Frederik Hendrik. When advancing, the Canadians proceeded very slowly and used massive firepower via air strikes and artillery bombardments when faced with opposition. Despite the fact that Montgomery had chosen to fight the Battle of Arnhem instead of clearing the Scheldt in September , thus having allowed the Germans to dig in, he criticized the 3rd Canadian Division for its slow advance, saying the Breskens Pocket should have been cleared weeks ago and calling the Canadian officers cowards for their unwillingness to take heavy losses.
Despite the fact that the Canadians could not afford heavy losses, the 3rd Division began a period of "intense combat" to clear out the Breskens Pocket. Spry responded that having lost about men killed in two "aggressive" operations within five days, he preferred a methodical advance that preserved the lives of his men. Operation Switchback ended on November 3, when the Canadian 1st Army liberated the Belgian towns of Knokke and Zeebrugge , officially closing the Breskens Pocket and eliminating all German forces south of the Scheldt.
On the afternoon of October 22, Major-General Foulkes, as acting commander of the 2nd Canadian Corps told the 2nd Canadian Division that the start of Operation Vitality, the operation to take the South Beveland peninsula, had been pushed forward by two days by the "express orders from Field Marshal Montgomery who had placed this operation at first priority for the British and Canadian forces in this area".
The Canadians hoped to advance rapidly, bypassing opposition and seizing bridgeheads over the Kanaal door Zuid-Beveland Canal through South Beveland , but they too were slowed by mines, mud and strong enemy defenses. The war diary of the Fusiliers Mont-Royal reports simply that the regiment had taken "heavy casualties", the Cameron Highlanders reported "stiff opposition" from the 6th Parachute Regiment of the Luftwaffe , while the South Saskatchewan Regiment reported: "The county over which we had come was not the kind you dream about to make an attack in as it was partly wooded, partly open, and it had many buildings, ditches, etc".
An amphibious attack was made across the Western Scheldt by the British 52nd Lowland Division to get in behind the German's Canal through South Beveland defensive positions. The th West Scottish Brigade described the Dutch countryside as "extremely difficult", but also noted that German morale was poor, stating that they had expected the Wehrmacht to fight harder and that most of their casualties were coming from mines and booby-traps.
The engineers were able to bridge the canal on the main road. With the canal line gone, the German defense crumbled and South Beveland was cleared. The third phase of the Battle of the Scheldt was now complete. Daser ordered his men to retreat and make a stand on "Fortress Walcheren". As the fourth phase of the battle opened, only the island of Walcheren at the mouth of the Scheldt remained in German hands. The island's defenses were extremely strong: heavy coastal batteries on the western and southern coasts defended both the island and the western Scheldt estuary, and the coastline had been strongly fortified against amphibious assaults.
Furthermore, a landward-facing defensive perimeter had been built around the town of Flushing Dutch: Vlissingen to defend its port facilities, should an Allied landing on Walcheren succeed. The only land approach was the Sloedam , a long, narrow causeway from South Beveland, little more than a raised two-lane road. To complicate matters, the flats that surrounded this causeway were too saturated with sea water for movement on foot, but had too little water for an assault in storm boats.
Due to the high risks for the local population, the bombings were sanctioned at the highest level and preceded by leafleting to warn the island's inhabitants. The first bombing was on October 3 at Westkapelle , on the western shore of the island. The Westkapelle dyke was attacked by heavy bombers, resulting in a large gap that allowed the seawater to enter. This flooded the central part of the island, allowing the use of amphibious vehicles and forcing the German defenders onto the high ground surrounding the island and in the towns.
The bombing at Westkapelle came with severe loss of life, with civilian deaths resulting from the bombardment and the resulting flooding. Attacks on other dykes had to ensure that the flooding could not be contained. On October 7, dykes in the south were bombed, west and east of Flushing. Finally, on October 11, northern dykes at Veere became a target. Bombing against the island defenses was hampered by bad weather and requirements for attacks on Germany. The island was then attacked from three directions: across the Sloedam causeway from the east, across the Scheldt from the south, and by sea from the west.
Battle of Sedan () - Wikipedia
Post-war controversy exists around the claim that there was a "race" within the 2nd Division for the first regiment to take the causeway to Walcheren island, implying that the failure to take the causeway on October 31 was due to reckless determination to win the "race". Stacey wrote about the "race" in the official history of the Canadian Army, a charge that was vehemently disputed by Copp and Vogel in the Maple Leaf Route.
The 4th Brigade of the 2nd Division had advanced rapidly up to the causeway, which led to Brigadier Keefler giving orders to take the causeway while the task of taking the Beveland end of the causeway had been given to the 52nd Division. Instead of launching a frontal attack as ordered by Foulkes, Hakewill-Smith outflanked the Germans by landing the Cameronian regiment at the village of Nieuwdorp , two miles south of the causeway, and linked up with the Glasgow Highlanders the next day.
Because of port shortage, Captain Pugsley of the Royal Navy had to improvise heavily to provide the necessary shipping for the landings on Walcheren island. With the Canadian artillery opening fire, the 4th Commando were carried ashore in twenty Landing Craft Assaults , to be followed by the King's Own Scottish Borderers regiment who attacked Flushing. Operation Infatuate II was the amphibious landing at Westkapelle, also conducted on the morning of November 1.
With no air support, no spotter aircraft to guide the guns of his ships, and the Germans fully alerted with their coastal artillery already firing at the British ships, Captain Pugsley was faced with the difficult decision to cancel or proceed, and after some deliberation, sent out the message reading "Nelson", which was the code name to land. The Royal Marines took Westkapelle and Domburg the next day. Heavy fighting ensued in Domburg as well before the ruins of the town were captured. Fierce resistance was again offered by some of the German troops defending this area, so that fighting continued until November 7.
On November 6, the island capital Middelburg fell after a calculated gamble on the Allies' part when the Royal Scots attacked Middelburg with a force of Buffaloes from the rear. General Daser portrayed the Buffaloes as tanks, giving him an excuse to surrender as he was faced with an overwhelming force.
With the approach to Antwerp clear, the fourth phase of the Battle of the Scheldt was complete. Between 20 and 28 November, Royal Navy minesweepers were brought in to clear the Scheldt estuary of naval mines and other underwater obstacles left by the Germans. On November 28, after much-needed repairs of the port facilities, the first convoy entered Antwerp, led by the Canadian-built freighter Fort Cataraqui.
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At the end of the five-week offensive, the Canadian First Army had taken 41, German prisoners. Complicated by the waterlogged terrain, the Battle of the Scheldt proved to be a challenging campaign in which significant losses were suffered by the Canadians.
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Throughout the Battle of the Scheldt, battle exhaustion was a major problem for the Canadians. During the Normandy campaign, the 3rd Canadian Division had taken the heaviest losses of all the divisions in the 21st Army Group, with the 2nd Canadian Division taking the second-heaviest losses. The men claimed there was nothing to which to look forward to — no rest, no leave, no enjoyment, no normal life and no escape The second most prominent cause The third was the fact that they were seeing too much continual death and destruction, loss of friends, etc".
Canadian units were too under-strength to allow leave, where U. This stretched the soldiers tremendously. After the first ship reached Antwerp on November 28, convoys started bringing a steady stream of supplies to the continent, but this actually changed very little. Operation Queen continued to flounder while the Americans then suffered a major reverse in the Hurtgen forest offensive by December.
The dismal fall weather hindered not only the Canadians in the Battle of Scheldt, but also the operations of 1st U. S Army in the Hurtgen forest, the 3rd U. Shop Online. Online Shop Configurator. Bikes Diavel. Discover all the details of your favourite Ducati bikes and download the brochure! A record power to weight ratio completed by the GP16 extreme aerodynamic design. Discover the new Superleggera V4. Equipment Configurators. Ducati Online Shop. The online shop has a whole new look.
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