AT LAST the assault had begun against the strongest concentration of defences the Nazis had ever devised — the main bastion of Fortress Scheldt — Walcheren Island.
Nowhere on the Atlantic wall, in Normandy, Dieppe or in the Pas de Calais, were so many heavy casemated guns trained on the sea approaches. Beaches were mined and bristled with obstacles. A full infantry division, the 70th, stood ready to counter any breach of the defences while batteries of antiaircraft guns covered the skies above.
Intelligence reports had spoken disparagingly of Lt-General Wilhelm Daser’s troops as an ‘ulcer’ division — a sort of convalescent unit where soldiers suffering from stomach complaints were fed on milk, eggs and white bread. So it was, but as the 2nd Division, who had met them on Beveland could attest, they were veteran soldiers and their intestinal complaints had remarkably little effect on their willingness or ability to fight.
The island, roughly square in shape, sits at the mouth of the Scheldt, its southern corner with the town of Flushing directly opposite Breskens. Much of it is below sea level. Except for some higher ground in the east and north it is rimmed by dykes which hold back the sea.
On 13 September Montgomery asked Crerar to begin planning for the island’s capture, saying that parachute troops would be available and that bombing to destroy the forts on the island was to begin at once. ‘On the day concerned we can lay on for you the whole weight of the heavy bomber effort from England, both Bomber Command and 8th Air Force.’
General Guy Simonds’ plans for taking Walcheren were conceived when Crerar assigned 2nd Corps the responsibility for clearing the Scheldt estuary on 21 September. Some details were altered later to reflect developments as the Scheldt battles progressed but his original concept remained unchanged.
His proposals were revolutionary:
I consider that the technique for the capture of Walcheren Island should be as follows:
a) Bombing operations should be undertaken to break the dykes and completely flood all parts of the island below high water level.
b) Those parts of the island which remain above water should then be systematically attacked by heavy air bombardment, day and night, to destroy defences and wear out the garrison by attrition. RDF (radar) stations should have an early priority as ‘point’ targets.
c) Whenever possible, heavy bombers proceeding to or from targets in western Germany by day or night should be routed over Walcheren so that the garrison can never tell whether the approach of large numbers of aircraft indicates attack or not. This combined with heavy bombing attacks will drive the enemy to cover on approach of large aircraft formations and will help to cover eventual airborne landing.
He went on to describe the conditions under which airborne and waterborne assaults should take place and the arrangements for the necessary training. The 2nd Canadian Division was to ‘exploit the land approach along South Beveland as far as practicable.’1
Originally he planned to use a brigade of the 3rd Canadian Division to assault the beaches on the north and west of the Island, while the 2nd Division crossed from Beveland. When the 4th Special Service Brigade became available on 23 September, they were given the amphibious role. It was not until late October that he could be sure that the 52nd Division would be able to take over the main responsibility for clearing the Island from the 2nd Division, a fact which caused some uncertainty in that formation immediately before the Causeway battle.
Crerar agreed with his proposals but when he was taken ill a few days later and Simonds replaced him as Army Commander, two key questions had not been answered — would airborne troops be available and was it practicable or desirable to breach the Walcheren dykes by bombing?
Undoubtedly parachute or glider landings on Walcheren would have been hazardous. Taking the advice of General Brereton, the American commander of 1st Allied Airborne Army, Eisenhower decided against it. Later, on 21 October, when Simonds asked for a parachute brigade to be dropped at the western end of South Beveland, he was told that all allied airborne forces had been placed in support of General Bradley who was planning to make full use of them.2 Their next drop did not take place until March, 1945.
Predictably the proposal to flood Walcheren by bombing met with immediate opposition. Experts, including army engineers and officers of Bomber Command, thought it could not be done. The dykes were immense. That near Westkapelle was 25 to 30 feet high and in places, over 300 feet wide. It had withstood the ravages of the sea since the fifteenth century. Even the most accurate bombing was unlikely to create a breach, and if it did so, it would probably silt up. Others thought the proposal immoral or politically undesirable. To visit ruin upon the rich farm lands and orchards of a close friend and ally was a terrible step to take. But flooding Walcheren offered the hope of speeding the opening of Antwerp, of saving the lives of allied soldiers, of shortening the war and of an earlier rescue of the Dutch people held under Nazi yoke.
At first Crerar accepted the judgement of the experts but Simonds persisted. If they did not flood the island, he feared that the Germans would let in water enough to soak the polders and create another ‘Breskens pocket’: ‘So many military advantages to us would result if flooding could be achieved that it should be done if it’s technically possible.’ To him the advantages were obvious. The enemy would be restricted to a limited area where it would be easier to attack them. Their reserves would be immobilized or destroyed. Communications would be cut. It might be possible for amphibious troops to enter the island through breaches in the dykes and attack the fixed German defences from the rear. Bomber Command consented to make the attempt providing the Supreme Commander agreed. His approval was received on 1 October.
In the meantime, Simonds, now Army Commander, had directed Brigadier Geoffrey Walsh, the Chief Engineer, to look again at the proposal and recommend where the dykes should be breached. He, in turn, summoned one of his staff, an untidy-looking captain with a moustache like Bairnsfather’s ‘Old Bill.’ Noted amongst his colleagues for being unimpressed by the near-legendary irascibility of his brigadier, Capt R.C. West was a brilliant engineer intelligence officer. For two days and nights, he studied air photographs, charts and tide tables, then reported his conclusions. Breaches should be attempted at three precise points, near Westkapelle, Weere and Flushing, at specific times when the force of the tides was greatest. ‘Spot’ West’s recommendations were forwarded to Bomber Command and formed the basis of their plan.3
On 3 October 243 heavy bombers dropped 1,263 tons of high explosive on the Westkapelle dyke. That evening aerial photographs showed the sea flowing in through a 75-yard gap which was widening. Later the dykes at Flushing and Veere were struck. By the end of October, the island resembled a saucer filled with water.
When Eisenhower turned down Simonds request for airborne troops, he promised to call on Bomber Command and the 8th U.S. Air Force ‘for the complete saturation of the targets you select. All medium bombers will also be made available to assist.’ That did not happen and many soldiers, sailors and marines died as a result.
There were a number of small attacks by Bomber Command on Walcheren during September, chiefly against coast defence batteries. In all they dropped 616 tons of bombs, nothing like the amount used in support of the Canadian Army in Normandy or against the Channel ports. At the end of that month Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, with Eisenhower’s approval, asked Montgomery to agree to limiting the amount of air preparation at Walcheren in favour of concentrating on oil and industrial targets in Western Germany. He proposed that the attacks on Walcheren should ‘take the form of a limited number of attacks on specially selected objectives to commence forthwith, followed by an intensive preparation by all bomber resources available during the three days prior to the assault, this to be followed by the maximum assistance to the assault itself.’ Montgomery agreed. First Canadian Army had lost both its fight for airborne troops and its high priority for bomber support. The U.S. 8th Air Force was never seen over Walcheren and the RAF Bomber Command’s attacks were inadequate, not only because of Leigh-Mallory’s restrictions, but because of bad weather at the time of the assault.
It later became clear that the Air Force simply did not understand the problem. They ruled ‘that heavy bomber support should be provided only when ground troops are going to assault the bombed positions immediately afterwards’ — a principle sound enough for operations in the open field. But at Walcheren the targets were permanent defences, concrete positions which could only be destroyed by a heavy weight of bombs, and once hit, could not be repaired.
In previous operations, Crerar had dealt directly with Bomber Command. A good relationship had developed between the Canadians and Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris. On 21 September ‘Bomber’ Harris sent a personal message to both Crerar and Simonds thanking them for their messages of appreciation for his crews’ work at Boulogne: ‘Will be interested to hear your casualties and any new suggestions for next chapter. Suggest that where no allied civilians are involved we dig out final objective for you in addition to outer approaches.’4 It reinforced one he had sent three days before: ‘You can count on maximum support from Bomber Command whenever you are convinced that it is necessary.’5 But now Eisenhower’s staff insisted that all requests for support be channelled through them.
As is so often the case in war, the commanders immediately responsible for fighting a battle are eager to help each other uninfluenced by service politics. If Simonds had been able to explain his problems directly to Harris, there is little doubt that he would have risen to the challenge of destroying the deadly German fixed defences.
During October Bomber Command dropped 5,306 tons of bombs on factories and oil refineries and 51,312 tons on cities, but ‘army support and tactical targets received only 9,728 tons.’6
In the same month 2nd Tactical Air Force made several rocket and bombing attacks on radar stations and ammunition stores, and, with Bomber Command, attacked the batteries near Flushing which were firing on the 3rd Division in the Breskens pocket. In the three days beginning on 28 October the Tactical Air Force and Bomber Command concentrated on the enemy’s batteries, but there was no flying on the 31st.
By this time the impression had grown among senior air officers that First Canadian Army was relying on Bomber Command to do their job for them. One air marshal is reputed to have said that after the weight of bombs delivered to Walcheren, he could have taken the place with his batman. The Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, Air Chief Marshal Tedder, thought the Canadians had been ‘drugged with bombs.’ They were all too ready to misinterpret any request. When Simonds’ staff asked that Bomber Command should attack four pinpointed targets in order to ‘destroy defences, disrupt communications and demoralize the enemy’ in Flushing, an air officer at SHAEF translated this as a request for area bombing. Tedder asked why the army was asking that Flushing should be flattened, which was not the case. The request was refused. An appeal was made saying that the Germans were reinforcing Flushing and strengthening the defences on its outskirts. Because the first refusal had been reported to Churchill and the Combined Chiefs of Staff, the Air Force now felt it necessary to obtain their approval for engaging this tactical target. Eventually it was agreed that it might be attacked, but only by Mosquitoes of the 2nd Tactical Air Force — a niggardly response which again was to cost men’s lives.
In the meantime, preparations for the assault on Walcheren were under way. Naval Force T, commanded by Captain A.F. Pugsley, was training with Brigadier Leicester’s 4th Special Service Brigade at Ostend. Assault landing craft and Buffaloes sailed from Terneuzen to Breskens under cover of smoke to join the 52nd Division for the assault on Flushing. More than 300 guns controlled by Brigadier Bruce Matthews, the artillery commander of 2nd Corps, were deployed near Breskens and Fort Frederik Hendrik. They would lend formidable support to the landings at Flushing but only a few heavy and super heavy guns could reach the batteries north of Westkapelle. Operating with them was a new unit, an experimental rocket battery armed with 12 projectors developed as a Canadian project in the United Kingdom and known by the code name of ‘L and Mattresses.’ For ‘Infatuate’ they were manned by the 112th Light Anti-Aircraft Battery, Royal Canadian Artillery.
Two seaborne assaults by 4th Special Service Brigade were to be launched against Walcheren on the same day. The first by No. 4 Commando would be against Flushing. Four hours later the remainder of the Brigade would land on the western side of the Island near Westkapelle. The 155th Brigade would be in reserve at Breskens, ready to follow through at Flushing if the initial assault was successful. If it failed, it was to move overland to Ostend and then land at Westkapelle. The attacks from South Beveland would be scheduled to coincide with them. D Day would be 1 November.
At 4:45 that morning the soft bubbling of the exhausts of 20 assault landing craft rose to a full roar as they set out from Breskens harbour for Flushing, five and one-half kilometres across the Scheldt. Simultaneously the artillery opened fire on the port defences and on the enemy batteries nearby. Overhead the last of No. 2 Group’s Mosquitoes were returning home, leaving behind a fire burning ashore which silhouetted a windmill — a useful guide to the landing beach.
At 5:40 the artillery switched to targets on the flanks of the beach. Five minutes later, in the darkest hour of the night, the leading Commandos landed and swiftly overran anti-tank guns and pillboxes before their occupants could fire a shot. Then the German defences came to life. 20mm cannon and machine-gun fire swept the beach and the main group of landing craft as they came in, but none were stopped. In the grey early light Commandos began to work into the town, closely followed by the 4th Battalion, King’s Own Scottish Borderers while behind them landed the remainder of the 155th Brigade. A fierce battle developed for the port and its ship building yards and for the fortifications which covered them. As visibility improved Typhoons of 84 Group came to the help of the infantry.
In the dock area enemy suicide squads in the cranes and gantries swept the area with machine-gun fire. They gave the Lowlanders a unique opportunity to put their specialized training to use. 452 Mountain Battery was equipped with 3.7-inch guns which could be broken down for carrying on pack animals. Two of these were dismantled and taken to the upper floors of nearby houses where they were reassembled and engaged the Germans at point-blank range, the boxes of the cranes dissolving in smoke. As one fired a final satisfying shot, the weight of the gun and its recoil proved to be too much for an old house. The floor caved in and the gun with its crew crashed through the next floor to the ground. From the debris, Bombardier John Walker was heard to exclaim, ‘Saves us hauling the bloody thing downstairs!’7
Four hours after the first landing at Flushing, Royal Marine Commandos were due to touch down on the west coast of the Island near Westkapelle. The odds against Infatuate II, as the operation was called, were high but so were the stakes. Success would speed the opening of Antwerp and shorten the war. With failure would go any hope of a swift capture of Walcheren and the 52nd Division would be faced with a costly piecemeal reduction of the enemy’s defences.
Around the rim of the Island, the Germans had constructed a series of coast defence batteries armed with weapons ranging from 22cm guns capable of engaging a battleship to captured British 3.7-inch anti-aircraft guns deadly to landing craft. Smaller guns covered the beaches while many of the antiaircraft batteries could also fire against surface targets.
Unless these were neutralized, most of the assaulting landing craft would be sunk before they reached the beach. Much depended on the effectiveness of the RAF’s preliminary bombing, on the naval bombardment during the landings, on close air support and the fire of the Army’s heavy guns from Breskens.
The whole operation depended on the weather, which, on the North Sea Coast at the end of October, was at best uncertain.
Brigadier Leicester’s plan was for No. 41 Commando to land on the north shoulder of the gap in the dyke and capture Westkapelle. No. 48, followed by No. 47, would sail through the gap, land in rear of the German defences, then advance south to Flushing. Twenty-four Flails, AVREs and armoured dozers from 79th Armoured Division would land with them.
Close fire support would be provided by the 25 ships of “ Support Squadron, Eastern Flank’ — so named because it had been formed to operate opposite the eastern landing beaches in Normandy. Its ships were landing craft manned by the Navy, armed with guns and rockets served by Royal Marines.
The heavy guns of the battleship Warspite and the monitors Roberts and Erebus would engage the main German batteries. These were also to have been attacked by Bomber command during the three days preceding the assault but because of bad weather, no bombing took place on 31 October. Fighter bombers would attack the beach defences for twenty minutes immediately before the landings.
Shortly after 6 a.m. on 1 November, Leicester and Pugsley in HMS Kingsmill, the headquarters ship, received a chilling message from First Canadian Army — ‘Extremely unlikely any air support spotting or air smoke possible due to airfield conditions and forecast.’ To proceed now would mean a heavy loss of men and ships.
Alternatively they could postpone the operation — the sea was calm and the sky appeared to be clearing. Conceivably, air support might be possible later in the day. But there was no assurance that the sea would remain so placid. If it turned rough, it might be days before it calmed. Both knew the importance and urgency of the operation.
They signalled their reply by a pre-arranged codeword — ‘Nelson.’ They would attack.
Shortly after 8 a.m. the first German guns opened fire — at a motor launch which marked the position where the headquarters ship was to anchor. Others joined in. Warspite and the monitors replied. Without their spotting aircraft, accurate shooting was difficult but they silenced two of the enemy guns. Army air observation post planes tried to help but their radios could not transmit on the ships’ frequencies.
Without air bombardment or fighter bomber attacks before H hour, the responsibility for supporting the landing fell to Commander K.S. Sellar and his support squadron.
In two columns, one on either side of the approach area, the little ships headed for the shore, guns blazing. Twenty-five ships on a flat sea in broad daylight were a dream target for the German coast artillery and they lost no time in concentrating every weapon upon them.
Zig-zagging in an attempt to get in under the enemy guard, the Squadron found it impossible to avoid the deadly fire of the German guns. Every ship was hit; some sank, others beached and fought it out with the enemy until they blew up; others were so badly damaged they could no longer fight.
As H hour approached the survivors of the Squadron kept up their fire on the beaches near the gap. Determined to help in what they realized was a desperate situation, 84 Group RAF ordered 183 Squadron to take off, despite the fog which closed their airfield. They reported as a ‘cab rank’ to the Air Controller in HMS Kingsmill minutes before the assault was to go in. Their twelve Typhoons swept in firing rockets over the heads of the tank landing craft just as they were about to beach.
At 10:10 a.m. the first Commandos touched down and the Support Squadron continued to engage the enemy until 12:30. By that time all the Commandos were ashore, Westkapelle village had been taken and the nearby battery which had done so much damage was captured. Captain Pugsley ordered Sellar to break off action and return to Ostend. Only seven of his 25 craft remained fit for action.
‘… the battered remnants of his gallant squadron slowly withdrew, carrying with them 126 badly wounded officers and men and those of their 172 dead who had not already found graves in the sea.’8
Sellar later reported that, during the action, casualties to the Commandos were reported as light. ‘I therefore considered that so long as the Germans made the mistake of concentrating their fire on the Support Squadron, close action was justified and losses acceptable.’9
Operational research after the battle revealed that the landings would have failed but for two circumstances. One was the enemy’s mistake in engaging the support craft instead of those carrying troops. The other was that the four 150mm gun batteries south of the gap in the Westkapelle dyke ran out of ammunition just as the first troops were landing. They had fired heavily on the Canadians in the Breskens pocket and flooding prevented them from being re-supplied.
No. 41 Commando’s landing on the north shoulder of the gap and the operations which followed were carried out with textbook precision. Their first troops touched down at 10:10. Twenty minutes later, the remainder negotiated the gap in Buffaloes, dismounted and attacked Westkapelle supported by Flail tanks of the 1st Lothian and Border Horse. In an hour they had cleared the village and found two nearby batteries unoccupied and under water. At 12:00 a troop attacked a six-gun battery north of the town and captured it with 120 prisoners. There Brigadier Leicester halted them.
South of the gap, 48 Commando suffered casualties from artillery fire as they came ashore. Swiftly they captured a radar station, then attacked the 120mm battery which had run out of ammunition. Its garrison was in no mood to surrender and beat off the first assault with machine-gun fire. A second attack which followed air strikes, shelling by Roberts and the artillery at Breskens, convinced the enemy to change their minds. The battery surrendered with about 100 prisoners.
At 3 p.m. No. 48 Commando advanced through the sand hills north-eastwards towards Domburg and its battery of immense 22cm guns. About fifty Spitfires bombed and strafed the enemy positions ahead, eventually attacking the battery itself. On the way the Marines collected an embarrassment of prisoners. That evening the Domburg battery surrendered but, when they reached the outskirts of the village, the Commandos were met by determined rearguards. There they were ordered to halt and part of No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando consisting of British, Norwegian, Belgian and Dutch troops relieved them. (Their 100 French soldiers were with No. 4 Commando in Flushing).
During the morning of the 2nd No. 48 Commando captured Zoutelande where No. 47 passed through them to assault the final major battery on that shore, the four 150mm guns four kilometres west of Flushing. The only approach was over an anti-tank ditch, then across some 2,000 metres of open country. They suffered heavy casualties. Two troops managed to work forward toward the battery but enemy near the anti-tank ditch cut them off from the remainder of their unit. By nightfall the position by the anti-tank ditch had been cleared but every troop leader in the Commando had been wounded.
Next morning the Commando captured the battery, silencing the last guns which had made the landing beaches at Westkapelle a misery for the unsung members of the supporting services who worked there. Among these, units of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps cared for the casualties under appalling conditions. The two landing craft which had been prepared as hospital ships were sunk by mines. Another, pressed into service to evacuate casualties to Ostend also struck a mine and burned, killing many of the wounded. After that the weather turned so bad that evacuation became impossible.
Driving sand and the violence of the gale made the care of casualties a work of ingenuity as well as devotion. At best there was barely enough canvas to shelter them. Tents blew down and generators failed while doctors carried out life-saving surgery in the cramped interior of a tent nine feet long by six feet wide.
And for three days enemy guns probed the area for targets. On the second, a shell struck three Buffaloes loaded with ammunition. For forty-five minutes the crowded beach was raked by exploding mortar bombs and small arms ammunition, killing stretcher bearers and wounded, German prisoners and their guards.
Two surgeons, Major J.B. Hillsman and Captain Lew Ptak, spent the longest half-hour of their lives on their bellies on the sand ‘dressing wounds, stopping haemorrhages and splinting fractures. Constant explosions were blowing sand over us as we worked.’10
When the last German battery was silenced, weather became the enemy for the Canadian units. For twelve days they worked around the clock until the last casualty had been taken from the Island. They themselves had paid a price in killed and wounded in what had been the most hazardous medical action of the North-west European campaign.
Meanwhile, on 3 November, 47 Commando pushed on south, clearing the enemy defences until they reached the gap in the dyke near Flushing.
In the town and elsewhere on the eastern side of the Island, the 52nd Division were fighting a bitter uncompromising battle with the Germans. 156 and 157 Brigades had linked up at the Causeway and were clearing the unflooded area east of Middelburg.
The street fighting in Flushing itself was a severe test for the Lowlanders of 155 Brigade in their first battles. West of the dock area, the magnificent boulevard with its hotels stands high above the water. At the western end, the large Britannia Hotel had been converted into a fortress. Trenches, bunkers, wire and encroaching flood water isolated and protected it.
Wading waist to shoulder deep through the icy flood water with a five knot current, three companies of the 7/9th Battalion, Royal Scots, laden with weapons and equipment, struggled toward the hotel. As dim moonlight gave way to dawn they saw for the first time the extent of its defences. Pillbox after pillbox had to be cleared before the hotel itself was entered. By the time the first troops had charged into the building, two company commanders had been killed, Lt-Colonel Melville, their commander, was severely wounded and the number of casualties had mounted alarmingly.
A flanking German strongpoint swept the approach to the hotel with such heavy fire that it was impossible to reinforce the few who gained an entry. It had to be destroyed. But with its rear protected by the high, nearly vertical sea wall, it was almost impregnable. And so it would have been if its attackers had not been mountain troops. Led by Major Hugh Rose, the only surviving company commander, a party scaled the wall and stormed the position from the rear.
Under fire, one young officer, Lieutenant Beveridge, scaled the outside wall of the hotel to its flat roof and drove the defenders from it. Inside the Scots probed the cellars where they came upon an unexpected prize. In a heavily reinforced concrete shelter, more than 600 apprehensive Germans waited with no alternative but to surrender. Among them was a badly shaken Colonel Reinhardt, the commander of 1019 Grenadier Regiment and of the Flushing garrison.11
Brigadier J.F.S. McLaren now directed his 155th Brigade north toward Middelburg. About a mile south of it, on the canal to Flushing, an anti-tank ditch barred the way. As the leading infantry approached they were met by Spandau fire. When they raced to deploy they found the only possible cover had been mined. There mortars searched them out. This enemy was experienced. When the position was taken, they found it manned by 40 veterans of the 64th Division who had escaped being trapped by the Canadians south of the Scheldt.
By now the main enemy force on the Island was concentrated in Middleburg under Lt-General Daser. Behind the old city walls, with every approach but the canal banks flooded, they were confident they could hold out indefinitely. The presence of a large Dutch population guaranteed them immunity from bombing. That the civilians were suffering from hunger, disease and the effects of flooding did not affect the military equation so confidently calculated by Daser.
Alarmed by the situation, a local surgeon, Dr. E.L. Nauts, escaped from the town and rowed toward Flushing in a small boat. There he was taken to McLaren’s headquarters, where he implored the British to go to the rescue.
About noon on the 6th, a company of the 7/9 Royal Scots, commanded by Major R.H.B. Johnston, set out for Middelburg in eight Buffaloes. Moving around the town, across flooded fields to the west, they entered unseen behind the German defences. Mistaking the huge tracked amphibians for tanks, the startled Germans, unprepared for an armoured attack, gave up.
Major Johnston sent a demand for Daser to surrender — the General declined to submit to an officer so junior. Johnston borrowed four pips and promoted himself to the ‘local and temporary rank’ of colonel which satisfied Daser’s sensibilities. He then ordered the German to parade his 2,000 men in the town square where they laid down their arms.
A few tense hours ensued with the Germans guarded by fewer than 120 British, not only against escape but for their protection from an aroused Dutch population. Late in the day the HLI arrived from the Causeway, followed shortly afterwards by 4 KOSB from Flushing.
Early on 10 November the last Germans on Walcheren Island surrendered and the approaches to Antwerp were clear of the enemy.
The damage wreaked on Walcheren by flooding resulted in serious hardships for the population. Indeed, after the surrender, it appeared to be calamitous. Fortunately it was not irreparable and after the war the farms and orchards were soon restored to prosperity.
The Germans on Walcheren admitted that it was the flooding which had made their situation impossible. Though few batteries were flooded, many were isolated and could not be resupplied. Ammunition was damaged, communications broken, garrisons immobilized.
And it helped the attackers. It was possible to use amphibious vehicles which in both Beveland and the Breskens pocket could not move across the saturated ground. There the infantry had no option but to struggle forward on foot and the battle lasted far longer than on the Island. Simonds’ insistence on flooding Walcheren resulted in Antwerp being opened at least two weeks before it otherwise would have been.
On 26 November the Royal Navy announced that the approaches to Antwerp had been swept free of mines. Two days later a convoy of eighteen ships entered and on 1 December, 10,000 tons of stores were landed.
There was a ceremony to welcome the first ship to arrive, appropriately enough the Canadian-built Fort Catarqui, manned by a British crew. Admiral Ramsay, the Naval Commander-in-Chief, was there to meet her with representatives of SHAEF, 21 Army Group, British and American port authorities, the Belgian Government and Army. Curiously, no one from First Canadian Army was invited to attend.12
