In the fall of 1944, as ‘Monty’ obsessed

about a bridge too far, Canadian units

fought to secure Europe’s largest port
By Bob Gordon

Dug in along the Leopold Canal, German

troops await a Canadian attack during the
fight for the Scheldt estuary—the key to
opening Antwerp, Belgium, to Allied ships.

40 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2018

41
 Fitted with an anti-mine flail, an M4 Sherman
Crab crawls ashore from a tank landing craft
during the Allied invasion of Walcheren Island.

he date was Oct. 13, 1944, and Canada’s 1st Battalion, Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment), was
paying the price for having launched an attack on Friday the 13th. A gray dawn broke as Companies B
and C (the latter 30 minutes behind schedule) advanced in the open across a thousand yards of Dutch
polder—sodden fields of beets maturing on land reclaimed from the sea. At the railway embankment
north of the polder, they planned to wheel left to the station at Woensdrecht, their objective. Pinned
down by German artillery, mortars and machine-gun fire they never got out of the field.
In the late afternoon Companies A and D were ordered to repeat the futile maneuver. Observing
from a barn roof, the regimental intelligence officer reported simply, “The companies are being anni-
hilated.” By the time the sun went down, the Black Watch had left 56 kilted Highlanders dead between the beet

PREVIOUS SPREAD: DPA PICTURE ALLIANCE (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); ABOVE: MILITARY HISTORY COLLECTION (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)
tops, another 62 wounded men had passed through the regimental aid post, and 27 more had been captured.
Though an extreme example, the Highlanders’ “Black Friday” was illustrative of the deadly, semiaquatic campaign
the Canadian First Army slogged through in the fall of 1944.

For seven weeks following D-Day the German front of logistical system that planners had expected would be
in Normandy held firm. By mid-July 1944 British and
Canadian forces had only just captured Caen, their origi-
nal D-Day objective. Meanwhile, the U.S. First Army
remained tangled in the bocage—pastureland bounded
by hedgerows, dense woods and narrow lanes. The Allies
were far behind their projected schedule.
Launched on July 25, Operation Cobra changed all
that. The German left flank collapsed under the weight
of the U.S. First Army. Then, at noon on August 1, the
Allies unleashed the U.S. Third Army under Lt. Gen.
George S. Patton. By early September much of France,
Belgium and Luxembourg had been liberated, as armored
divisions pushed back the Germans dozens of miles a day.
Suddenly, the advance was months ahead of schedule.
In reclaiming territory at such an accelerated pace,
however, the advance Allied units outstripped their supply
lines and became victims of their very success. “The kind
developed over 233 days,” U.S. Army historian Charles B.
MacDonald noted, “obviously could not be created in 48.”
The most glaring consequence, MacDonald added, was
“the enforced halt of the entire Third Army when it ran
out of fuel along the Meuse River from 1 to 6 September.”
Adolf Hitler had already declared the major ports on
the continental side of the English Channel “fortresses,”
ordering they be held to the bitter end. Despite the Allies’
headlong advance the Germans still held Le Havre, Bou-
logne-sur-Mer and Calais. The war had reached the very
borders of the Third Reich, yet Allied forces were still
being supplied from Normandy, hundreds of miles be-
hind the front. With the French railway network heavily
damaged, the burden that fell on vehicular traffic was
overwhelming, despite the heroic efforts of truckers of
the “Red Ball Express,” who for 83 days transported
some 12,500 tons of supplies daily.

42 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2018


Montgomery
On September 4 newly promoted British Field Marshal
Bernard Law Montgomery—who had resumed command
of the 21st Army Group, then pushing northeast along
the channel—was presented with an unexpected gift.
Belgian resistance fighters overwhelmed the defenders
of Antwerp’s port before the enemy was able to destroy
the docks. Suddenly, the largest port in western Europe,
within 100 miles of the German border, was in British
hands and intact. There was, however, one significant
catch: Antwerp is at the head of the Scheldt estuary, 50
miles inland. Until the banks of the estuary were cleared
of German forces, its coastal guns silenced and its waters
swept of mines, Antwerp’s massive piers and quays would
not welcome a single Allied supply ship.
Throughout the August advance from Normandy the
FROM LEFT: PETER HORREE; TRINITY MIRROR/MIRRORPIX; SHAWSHOTS (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO, 3)
Canadian First Army’s left sleeve had brushed the channel
coast, so to it fell the job of clearing the Scheldt. But
securing the estuary was only one of multiple tasks facing
First Army. Its constituent units remained busy all along
the coast through September. German-occupied Bou-
logne didn’t fall until September 22, while Calais held out
a week longer.
Moreover, on its right flank First Army was being
drawn away from the Scheldt. Through mid-September
Montgomery was obsessed with planning toward Opera-
tion Market Garden—the airborne and ground assault
intended to capture a series of nine bridges through
Holland, the last crossing the Rhine at Arnhem. The prep-
arations pulled British divisions east, compelling the
Canadians to concentrate their forces to the northeast,
away from the estuary.
Eisenhower
Patton
The massive amounts of fuel and ammunition required
for Market Garden also made First Army a poorer cousin
in terms of supply. Until mid-October Canadian artillery
units often found themselves rationing shells due to
shortages. In terms of focus, Montgomery neglected the
stark truth that Antwerp’s world-class port facilities were
useless while the estuary remained in German hands.
On October 9 General Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered
Montgomery to act on “the supreme importance of Ant-
werp.” A week later Montgomery finally told First Army
that freeing the estuary to enable full Allied access to
Antwerp was the Canadian unit’s primary priority.
Belgian fighters overwhelmed
Antwerp’s defenders before
they could destroy the docks
The depleted frontline infantry companies were pain-
fully aware of their second-class status in Montgomery’s
estimation. An October 16 entry in the war diary of the
5th Canadian Infantry Brigade (5 CIB) lamented, “Cannot
understand why they do not put more troops in the area
and finish the job once and for all instead of playing about,
shifting first one battalion and then the other.” Dispersed,
short of infantry and artillery, exhausted and undersup-
plied, First Army’s spearheads confronted a task present-
ing few tactical options and to be fought on a waterlogged
battlefield offering untold advantages to the defender.
43
 The Scheldt estuary resembles a crude trident. The
gaps between the spears of the trident are the Western
and Eastern Scheldt estuaries. The lower tine of the
trident is the southernmost strip of the Dutch prov-
ince of Zeeland—dubbed by war planners the “Breskens
Pocket,” after its principal settlement. It runs along the
south shore of the Western Scheldt. Dominating the
middle tine, between the Western and Eastern Scheldt,
is South Beveland. Farther west a narrow causeway
connected South Beveland and Walcheren Island (since
linked by polders and a dam). The principal port on the
north shore of the Eastern Scheldt, the final tine of the
trident, is Bergen op Zoom. The Canadians had to clear
each tine of the Scheldt trident before the Allies could
open Antwerp for business.
On September 13 the Canadian Algonquin Regiment
attempted to cross the canals on the southern boundary
of the Breskens Pocket. The obstacle was significant. The
attackers had to cross the Canal de Dérivation de la Lys,
portage the boats across a intervening dike and then pad-
dle across the Leopold Canal to assault the opposite bank.
By controlling the Scheldt estuary, the Germans
denied the use of Antwerp’s harbor to the Allies.
44 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2018
Aboard assault boats carried and crewed by the Lincoln
and Welland Regiment, the Algonquins managed to cross
just southeast of the hamlet of Molentje, the companies
abreast. By midafternoon on the 14th German counter-
attacks had pushed them back across both waterways, and
through month’s end the front settled along the canals.
As October approached, the Canadians planned a
four-part operation. Their first objective was the Breskens
Pocket. Simultaneously, units driving north from Ant-
werp would cut off South Beveland and then pivot east to
occupy it. Additional forces were detailed to drive north
and then west from Woensdrecht, clearing the north shore
of the Eastern Scheldt and occupying Bergen op Zoom.
When the Canadian units met those three preconditions,
British records state, the campaign would conclude with
a “seaborne combined operation, involving, from this
army, 4 SS [Special Service] Brigade launched against the
SW coast of Walcheren Island…in conjunction with an
FROM TOP: UNITED ARCHIVES (GRANGER); AERIAL-PHOTOS.COM (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO); HISTORYNET ARCHIVES
attack launched from [South] Beveland.”
The Germans were acutely aware of the importance
of denying Antwerp to the Allies. Field Marshal Gerd
von Rundstedt, Hitler’s commander in the West, empha-
SCHELDT
ESTUARY NETHERLANDS
ANTWERP
GERMANY
BRUSSELS
BELGIUM
M I L E S
0 30
L U X.
FRANCE
 Opposite left: An amphibious Buffalo
ferries Allied troops across the Scheldt.
Below and right: Universal Carrier Wasps
fitted with flamethrowers proved crucial
to assaulting the Breskens Pocket canals.
sized that point in orders to General Gustav-Adolf von
Zangen of the Fifteenth Army: “Enemy supplies and,
therefore, his ability to fight [are] limited by the stubborn
defense of the harbor, as intelligence reports prove. The
attempt of the enemy to occupy the Western Scheldt in
order to obtain the free use of the harbor of Antwerp
must be resisted to the utmost.” On October 7 von Zangen
in turn admonished his officers: “After overrunning the
Scheldt fortifications, the [Allies] would finally be in
a position to land great masses of materiel in a large and
completely protected harbor. With this materiel they
might deliver a death blow to the north German plateau
and to Berlin before the onset of winter.”
The terrain dictated operational plans and prescribed
tactics. Flat as a pancake, the land lay mostly below sea
level, though a system of dikes and canals had reclaimed
much of it. According to First Army commander Lt. Gen.
Guy Simonds, “The low-lying fields were a honeycomb
of polders, often flooded, affording scanty cover to attack-
ing troops but enabling the defenders to dig in at the base
of the dikes with comparative immunity from artillery
fire.” Wheeled vehicles were almost useless. Even tracked
vehicles were largely restricted to the handful of roads
atop the dikes, most of which were the width of a single
vehicle and left those crossing visible for miles.
FROM LEFT: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS; TIME LIFE PICTURES (GETTY IMAGES)
To make the best of offensive operations in this morass,
First Army took to the water, employing every available
amphibious vehicle in the Allied arsenal. Among those
the Canadians used was the U.S. M29 Weasel, a tracked
amphibian with a payload approximating that of a jeep.
Exerting less ground pressure than a man’s foot, fully
amphibious and propelled on land and water by its tracks,
it was an ideal vehicle for the conditions. The Canadians
made effective use of the American LVT (Landing Vehicle,
Tracked), the up-gunned version of which was known as
the Buffalo and saw widespread use in the Pacific, as well
as the LCA (Landing Craft, Assault). They also turned to
a massive British eight-wheeled all-terrain
vehicle known as the Terrapin, which
boasted a 4-ton payload. Finally came the
ubiquitous DUKW, an amphibious modi-
fication of the U.S. 2½ ton truck, which
had already proven its value in Normandy. Monty’s Beret
Small-scale amphibious warfare character-
British Field Marshal
ized the campaign. Bernard Law Montgomery
wore this black tanker’s
The Canadians’ first move was to elimi- beret to identify himself to
nate the Breskens Pocket, the only land- his troops. While popular
ward front, behind the twin obstacles of among those he led, other
Allied senior leaders
the Leopold and Dérivation canals. Farther largely regarded him as
inland the parallel waterways diverged arrogant, having little
at Strobrugge, and it was east of there the regard for the opinions of
Canadians again took on the Leopold. others. His single-minded
Supporting the 7th CIB crossing at dawn focus on Operation Market
Garden drew resources
on October 6 were 27 Wasps—British- away from the fight for
made Mk. IIC Universal Carriers mount- the Scheldt estuary.
ing flamethrowers. In pre-battle testing
on similar canals, Brig. Gen. Stanley Todd said, “It was
discovered that by inclining the carrier partway up the
slope of the bank, its flame could be thrown not only
against the opposite bank, but beyond it, where enemy
slit trenches and dugouts might be expected to be sited.”
Additionally, the high trajectory caused the stream of
flaming jelly to separate into globules the troops nick-
named “Golden Rain.” Exploiting the fearsome display
provided by the Wasps, the attacking companies were
able to gain a bridgehead, though they struggled to expand
it in the face of stiff German resistance.
Three days later the 9th CIB launched an amphibious
assault across the Braakman Inlet, northeast of the 7th
CIB bridgehead on the Leopold. Crossing in some 100
vehicles—Terrapins and Buffaloes—the North Nova Sco-
tia Highlanders and the Highland Light Infantry estab-
lished a foothold behind the counterattacking Germans.
45
 “Today the enemy launched a decision-seeking attack
on the Breskens bridgehead,” the October 9 German
Army Group B situation report acknowledged. “He
landed four to five battalions and some tanks on the
northeastern tip, establishing a new bridgehead 3 km
deep and 6 km wide.” Ten days later the two positions
linked up, and the Canadians began pressing the Ger-
mans west, steadily shrinking their defensive pocket.
Superiors ordered the Black
Watch to ‘push a strong fighting
patrol’ across the causeway
Simultaneously, Canadian troops pushed north to
protect Antwerp and sever South Beveland’s connection
to the mainland. Opposing their advance was Kampf-
gruppe Chill, a detachment of the German 85th Infantry
Division. Canadian intelligence rated commanding
Lt. Gen. Kurt Chill an officer “of great skill and un-
common energy.” His group comprised the remnants
of three infantry divisions and five paratroop battalions.
It was Kampfgruppe Chill that slaughtered the Black Watch
on October 13, “Black Friday.” Rebounding from that
fiasco, the Canadians launched a successful attack the
following week, sealing off South Beveland.
Battle of The 2nd Canadian Infantry Division then
prepared to press west along the center tine
the Scheldt of the Scheldt trident. The principle obstacle
was the north-south Beveland Canal. The 6th
CIB managed to breach it on October 28, but
ALLIED TROOPS only after again turning the German flank in
12,873 another amphibious assault, two days earlier,
across the Western Scheldt. In that operation
CASUALTIES two brigades of the British 52nd (Lowland)
INCLUDING 6,367 CANADIANS
Infantry Division, supplied and maintained
90,000 by a fleet of 27 Terrapins and 25 LCAs, came
GERMAN TROOPS ashore in 174 Buffaloes spearheaded by 18
DD Sherman “swimming tanks.” Though the
12,000 landings helped push the Germans from the
Beveland Canal line, flooding constrained
CASUALTIES
operations, and the Germans were able to
41,043 conduct an orderly withdrawal to Walcheren
Island. Still, South Beveland was cleared, and
CAPTURED
the Allies reached the eastern approach of
the causeway to Walcheren on October 31.
Days earlier the 4th Canadian Armored Division (4th
CAD) had captured Bergen op Zoom and secured the
north shore of the Eastern Scheldt, the third and final
tine of the trident. Deployed as two independent bri-
gades, the 4th CAD had launched a long right hook.
Overcoming resistance at Wouwse Plantage, on the
Zoom River 4 miles east of Bergen op Zoom, Moncel
46 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2018
Force—a mixed armor-infantry task force commanded
by recently promoted 27-year-old Canadian Brig. Gen.
Robert Moncel—had approached the town from the
northeast, while a similar force under fellow Brigadier
Jim Jefferson attacked from the south. The stage was set
for the assault on Walcheren.
The causeway from South Beveland to Walcheren was
a mile long and only 40 yards wide. Complicating matters,
German engineers had blown a massive crater in the
causeway, some 500 yards from Walcheren, which the
Canadians would have to fill before their vehicles could
cross. To do so they would have to run a gauntlet of fire
from ranged-in German mortars and anti-tank guns
in camouflaged, hardened positions. With Canadian
understatement Colonel C.P. Stacey, chief army historian,
described it as “singularly uninviting,” while military his-
torian Mark Zuehlke went further, deeming it a “perfectly
engineered killing ground.”
This final stage of the campaign dealt another blow
to the Black Watch. Savaged on “Black Friday,” the unit
had remained in the line another 18 days, though it was
promised time to rest and refit once South Beveland had
been cleared. That promise went unkept when superiors
ordered the Black Watch to “push a strong fighting patrol
on to the other side” of the causeway on October 31.
Black Watch commander Lt. Col. Bruce Ritchie de-
scribed it as a “monstrous” order, while the unit’s war
diarist barely veiled his simmering anger: “This comes
as an unpleasant order, as we were definitely informed
that we were to go no further than the west end of Zuid
[South] Beveland and in fact had been promised a week’s
rest once we had done this job.” The action broke the
Black Watch. Withdrawn, the regiment was not declared
fit for combat again until late February.
It turns out the Black Watch’s sacrifice had been a
FROM TOP: CANADIAN NATIONAL ARCHIVES; MILITARY HISTORY COLLECTION, WAR ARCHIVES (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO, 2)
diversion, its outcome irrelevant. Its fatal rush across
the causeway had been a feint, intended to draw German
attention away from more critical operations. On Novem-
ber 1 various commando units of the 4th Special Service
Brigade, reinforced by the British 155th Infantry Brigade,
launched two amphibious assaults across the Western
Scheldt against Westkapelle and Vlissingen (Flushing).
By then Allied aerial attacks had destroyed the dikes
and flooded much of the island. “For the first time in
history,” one newspaper wryly reported, “an island had
been ‘sunk’ by airpower.” Westkapelle and Vlissingen on
the southwest coast, the eponymously located Middle-
burg and the enemy-held end of the causeway were the
principle German strongpoints still above the waterline.
Given the dearth of potential landing sites, only 550
men of Britain’s 41 Commando, (Royal Marines) went
ashore aboard LCAs at Vlissingen, with artillery on the
south shore of the estuary providing fire support. Re-
inforcing the unopposed landing were infantrymen of
the 155th Brigade. The combined force quickly took the
town but was unable to advance west toward
Westkapelle or north toward Middleburg.
Tactical
Large-scale landings followed at West- Takeaways
kapelle, the assault troops transported by Logistics Count
Weasels and Buffaloes launched from LCTs. The U.S. Third Army’s
On the left flank the balance of 41 Commando, rapid advance across
Western Europe
supported by tanks, assaulted Westkapelle following Operation
from the west, aiming to protect the main land- Cobra bogged down
ings on the other side of the town. Meanwhile, when fuel supplies
10 (Inter-Allied) Commando assaulted the proved inadequate.
town from the east. Once ashore, each force Ego Equals Casualties
Overly self-confident
was to advance north. Detailed to secure the commanders blind
landing areas was 48 Commando, while 47 to the opinions and
Commando, the easternmost unit, was to drive capabilities of others
southeast toward Vlissingen and link up with tend to get soldiers
the 155th. The objectives lay out of range of killed unnecessarily.
Bridges Matter, But...
Allied artillery, but a battleship and two moni- Market Garden was a
tors provided devastating fire support. bold move, but Monty’s
By November 3 the bridgeheads had estab- focus on it meant a
lished contact, and within a week the assault three-month delay in
forces had cleared Walcheren. But while the opening a vital port.
banks of the Scheldt estuary lay in Allied
hands, that only cleared the way for minesweeping and
mapping operations, not shipping. Indeed, the first con-
voy would not enter Antwerp until late November, almost
three months after its capture. By December 1 the port
was handling 10,000 tons daily.

Following the serendipitous capture of Antwerp’s un-

damaged port facilities on September 4, Montgomery
had frittered away time and Allied resources on Market
Garden, while the docks lay idle. Fixated on a British
thrust into Germany across a bridge too far, he’d offered
inadequate attention, ammunition and personnel to the
clearing of the Scheldt estuary. Instead, he’d vainly
grasped at a sensational gamble with potential public
relations benefits for himself and his 21st Army Group,
the unglamorous but essential logistical arguments for
activating Antwerp apparently beneath him. The result
was Montgomery’s most consequential strategic blunder
of World War II. He had forgotten the age-old military
axiom, “An army marches on its stomach.” MH

Bob Gordon is a Canada-based historian whose work has

been published in that nation, Britain and the United States.
For further reading he recommends Maple Leaf Route:
Scheldt, by Terry Copp and Robert Vogel; Tug of War: The
Allied Victory That Opened Antwerp, by Denis and She-
lagh Whitaker; and Terrible Victory: First Canadian Army
and the Scheldt Estuary Campaign, by Mark Zuehlke.

Top: Pipers play at the burial of Canadians killed in the “Black Friday”
assault. Middle: American troops off-load barrels of oil from the first
Allied ship to dock in Antwerp after the opening of the Scheldt estuary.
Left: The Waal Bridge at Nijmegen was a key Market Garden objective.

47