FIFTEENTH ARMY is to ensure that everything is done to put Northern Belgium under water by blowing locks and dykes, as soon as the bulk of our forces have been withdrawn behind the sector to be flooded.
OKW instruction of 7 September.
Mention the desert to a veteran of the Eighth Army and he recalls dust, sand, wide horizons, flies, burning days, chilling nights and, perhaps, beauty in the stark landscape and in the colours of the sunset. Bocage, the jungle, island-hopping, all evoke their particular memories and those moments when beauty, unexpected in war, lifted the spirit or roused an unbearable longing for home and peace. Polder country is such a term, etched forever in the minds of those who fought in the Scheldt campaigns but, for them, it held little beauty.
Flat, dyked country, much of it polderland reclaimed from the sea, borders both banks of the Scheldt. Roads and a sprinkling of houses are built on some of the dykes, villages on islands of higher ground. Small orchards and the trees lining roads and canals offer some vertical relief to the landscape but can, in themselves, be monotonous in the regularity of their planting. But dykes had been opened and water glistened on the polders, not deep enough to float an amphibious vehicle but sufficient to drown a wounded man.
There were days of bright sunshine during the Scheldt battles, usually after morning mist and fog, but these have been forgotten. The abiding memory is of grey skies, rain, fog, bone-chilling dampness, boots, battledress and blankets soaking wet, cold food, matches that wouldn’t light, the soldier’s weariness that is as much fear as lack of sleep, and everywhere, mud and water.
By the end of September all the Channel ports but Dunkirk had been captured and the enemy south of the Scheldt had been confined to the ‘island’ formed by the deep water barrier of the Braakman inlet, the Leopold Canal and the sea. Only at one place was there a land entry to their position — between the eastern end of the Leopold Canal and the Braakman where, in a narrow gap, lies the Dutch-Belgian frontier. Known as ‘Isabella,’ it had been fortified before the War and was strongly held by the Germans.
The ‘island’ itself was flat polder country, most of it saturated. A Belgian military geography describes it even before it was flooded as ‘généralment impropre aux operations militaires.’
Facing the 4th Canadian Armoured Division, who were picqueting the Canal, was the German 64th Infantry Division, commanded by Major-General Kurt Eberding. It had been raised hurriedly during the summer from experienced soldiers on leave from the Russian front and from Norway, too late to intervene in the Normandy battles. Being nearly at full strength, it was especially selected by Hitler to defend ‘Scheldt Fortress South.’ As the remnants of the Fifteenth Army withdrew through it, it collected all the weapons, ammunition, stores and food it could possibly need for a protracted defence. It mustered about 11,000 officers and men, more than 500 machine guns and mortars, 200 anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns (including twenty-three 88s) and 70 field guns. In addition, it could call on the support of guns which could be brought to bear among the five coast artillery batteries in its area, as well as those on Walcheren Island.
The task of clearing the Breskens Pocket, as it came to be called, was now given to Dan Spry’s 3rd Division. Because of its special training for the Normandy landings, many, particularly in the Press, referred to it as an ‘assault division,’ crediting it with qualities which made it specially suitable for an attack across water obstacles. In fact, as with other D-Day Divisions, its concentration on preparing for amphibious operations meant that training for other types of warfare had sometimes suffered. It was no better prepared than any other division of First Canadian Army for fighting in polder country.
After the 4th Armoured Division’s experiences, no one expected anything but a hard battle in crossing the Leopold Canal. The disastrous attack of the Algonquins had been followed by patrols which had been met by accurate machine-gun and mortar fire. Every possible crossing place was held by the enemy. For him to do this so effectively suggested to Simonds that much of the strength of the German garrison was committed to guarding the crossings, either along the Canal itself or poised behind ready to counterattack. He reasoned that Eberding would accept the possibility of a seaborne attack to outflank the Canal on the North Sea coast near Knocke, but this he could counter with his immensely strong coastal defences. A landing on the shore of the Scheldt opposite Walcheren and Beveland was not worth considering — where would the boats come from and how would they be launched? The only practical approach for the Canadians would be across the Leopold Canal and it was on that waterway that his eyes would be fixed.
What Eberding could not know was that Simonds had enough tracked amphibious vehicles to negotiate the difficult approach to his river flank.
Simonds’ plan was for the 3rd Division to attack with one brigade, where Eberding thought they would, across the Leopold Canal. A second would then follow. Two days later, when the enemy’s attention and reserves were committed to defeating that thrust, a third brigade would cross the Braakman in amphibians and land in his rear.
The two battalions of the 7th Brigade which were to make the initial assault had little time for preparation. The 1st Canadian Scottish Regiment and the Regina Rifles finished clearing the enemy from Calais on 1 October. They were to attack across the Leopold Canal, 145 kilometres away, at first light only five days later.
The Canal itself, 90 feet wide and confined between dykes, was a formidable obstacle. The enemy positions on the far side were known to be dug in on the reverse bank of the Canal dyke, hence very difficult to neutralize with artillery or direct-fire weapons. An experiment carried out on a similar stretch of canal with Wasps showed that, if flame was aimed at the near edge of the dyke just below the crown, the blazing fuel would ricochet and splash into trenches on the far side.
Early on 6 October, 17 Wasp carriers were positioned behind the south bank of the Canal near the crossing sites — the Division’s 317 guns would remain silent until the assault began to improve the chances of surprise.
Shivering in the chill of early morning, men of the North Shore Regiment carried the sixteen assault boats for each assaulting battalion forward from their trucks to the southern dyke of the Canal and there waited for H hour. There would be little enough time for troops to cross — a Wasp could empty its tanks of fuel in 20 seconds and the demoralizing effect would last no more than two or three minutes.
Just before 5.30 a.m., a line of flame splashed along the opposite bank. The carrying parties, with a supreme burst of energy, hauled boats up the dyke to the water’s edge. Into each scrambled a section of infantry who dug their paddles deep into the water as they raced for the far bank. On the right two Canadian Scottish companies landed unopposed near Oosthoek, as did the left-hand company of the Reginas, north of Moerhuizen. But their right company had hesitated. Before they could launch their boats, the enemy had returned to their posts and a hail of machine-gun fire made the open stretch of water impassable. Eventually, the whole battalion had to be ferried over on the left.
Immediately, the enemy began to counterattack. Mortars, small arms and machine-gun fire from the front and flanks was incessant. Though the 7th Brigade had two narrow bridgeheads across the Canal, it was impossible to link them. Only on the right of the Scottish was there any possibility of expansion and this they quickly exploited by taking the village of Moershoofd.
On the left, one of the classic bad-luck stories of the War was being played out. The Royal Montreal Regiment, a proud Canadian Militia unit, had been made the Defence Battalion of Headquarters First Canadian Army. In three months on the Continent it had seen no action. To give it some battle experience (and some Regina Riflemen a well-earned rest), a company from the RMR was doing a temporary exchange with one from the Rifles. They were the company which made the successful assault across the Canal and attempted to expand inland. By afternoon, barely a handful survived.
The scene in the bridgeheads was one of unparalleled violence and misery. For much of their length, troops were confined to the Canal bank. Except in the walls of the dykes, slit trenches could be dug little more than a foot deep — in the waterlogged ground, they filled with water and their walls collapsed. Men were soaking wet and coated with mud, matches and cigarettes unusable. So intense was the enemy fire that it was virtually impossible to organize co-ordinated actions even within platoons. So many enemy counterattacks were launched against them that the defenders lost count. The German lines of advance toward the bridgeheads were confined to a few narrow approaches and were accurately registered by the Canadian guns which took a heavy toll in casualties. To the almost incessant artillery fire was added the noise of more than 200 fighter-bomber sorties flown that day.
But artillery and air support could not break the deadlock. For five days the Reginas were pinned to the Canal bank, separated in places by only ten yards from the enemy. It became almost a grenade war, with each rifleman throwing as many as twenty-five No. 36 grenades every night.
The Germans replied in kind.
As night fell after the first day, it was obvious that the two battalions across the Canal could do little but hold on to their precarious positons. To those listening to the fury of the battle and to the reports from the far bank, it was a miracle that they were able to do even that. The bridgehead would not be secure until tanks could cross to reinforce the infantry. Before that could happen, a bridge must be built and the only feasible site lay nearly a kilometre west of the Regina Rifles’ left flank. Brigadier Jock Spragge, commanding the 7th Brigade, decided to send the Royal Winnipeg Rifles into the Canadian Scottish position on the right with orders to link up the two battalion bridgeheads preparatory to attacking to the west.
Well before daylight, about 4:45 a.m., as they were crossing, a strong German counterattack fell upon C Company of the Scottish which was holding the left of the Battalion’s position in the village of Oosthoek. Using covered approaches and leaping from slit trench to slit trench of abandoned German positions, enemy infantry overran the three platoons of C Company and surrounded both the Company Headquarters and that of No. 14 Platoon which were in buildings. Sergeant Armando Gri, commanding the platoon, with four men continued to fight ‘and eventually was the only survivor, having killed or wounded twenty of the enemy. His ammunition expended, the building on fire, Sergeant Gri, with his clothes burning from the intense heat, was overwhelmed and taken prisoner.’1
Now the enemy were able to concentrate on the destruction of Company Headquarters, commanded by a cool, boyish-looking captain named Roger Schjelderup who had won a Military Cross in Normandy. For another two and a half hours he and his men fought on with the enemy throwing grenades in the windows and firing tracer bullets into the building in an attempt to set it on fire. Eventually, with the building burning to the ground around them and with their ammunition exhausted, Schjelderup and the remnants of his headquarters could hold off the attackers no longer and were captured.
Had they not held out, the enemy counterattack could have reached the Canal close to the footbridge over which the Winnipeg Rifles were crossing.2
During the day, attacks by the Winnipegs and the Scottish succeeded in capturing many of the previous night’s attackers and freeing some survivors of C Company but not Gri or Schjelderup. But their war was not over.
When capture was inevitable, both men had concealed knives but there was no opportunity to escape until two weeks later when they were on a train bound for a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany. Together they opened a hole in the side of the goods van in which they were confined as it was standing in a siding. When the train moved off, they broke out. Seventy-five days later, on 6 January, 1945, after many adventures, desperate illness and an exhausting journey over ice and snow, Schjelderup and Gri returned to the Allied lines bringing valuable information about the enemy and the Dutch Resistance movement. They were both decorated, Schjelderup with an immediate Distinguished Service Order, a rare decoration for a captain, and Armando Gri with an immediate Distinguished Conduct Medal. They were in good time for the beginning of the Rhineland battles.3
The progress of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles west along the canal dyke and through the sodden polders beside it was painfully slow. Each success of a few yards was met by a counterattack. Casualties on both sides were heavy and before long ‘the ground was littered with both German and R Wpg Rf dead.’ Casualty evacuation was ‘slow and difficult as wounded had to be carried for over a mile over flooded fields and roads blocked by fallen trees.’4
Early in the morning of the 9th, 48 hours after crossing the canal, the Winnipegs reached the left flank of the Regina Rifles. For three more days the 7th Brigade struggled to clear a bridge site. ‘Shelling and small-arms fire continued to make it impossible to move about in forward areas except by crawling on the semi-flooded ground or in water-filled ditches, both of which were littered with German and Canadian dead.’5
During the night of the 13th Engineers succeeded in bridging the canals at Strooibrug and, next day, tanks of the British Columbia Regiment moved across. The enemy continued to fight hard but his artillery fire slackened. To the north-east the 9th Brigade had landed and were making their presence felt.
