To the Dikes

Antwerp, the greatest freight port on the continent of Europe (annual peacetime capacity: 23,500,000 tons), was capable of supplying all the Allied armies in the Low Countries, and it had been captured intact, six weeks ago. But it was useless so long as the Scheldt estuary, its outlet to the sea, was flanked by pockets of stubborn, German holdout troops. So the operation to clear the banks of the Scheldt had a triple-A priority.

The front was an attackers' nightmare, composed of bridgeheads within bridgeheads, like a magician's nest of boxes (see map). At first the Germans had held on a line from Heyst, along the Leopold Canal, thence eastward to the suburbs of Antwerp. While one force of Canadians cleared the outskirts of the city, another struck across the Canal east of Aardenburg. The enemy was dug in, in trenches cut into the sides of the dikes, and had to be routed by intense artillery, mortar and small-arms fire, and finally flamethrowers.

The dreary, flat battleground, covered with scrub, relieved by occasional stands of trees around farm buildings, was raked by fire from end to end. Shattered trees, shattered buildings and the shattered corpses of Germans lay before the Canadians. At one time, part of the bridgehead across the 100-foot canal was only ten yards deep. Gradually, units from western Canada pushed forward, wet and bedraggled, until they had carved out an area more than five miles by three.

Pocket Amphibians. But progress this way was slowed by bitter resistance. Another Canadian force knifed through the German pocket at its weakest point, and bisected it, reaching the Scheldt at Terneuzen. The design was to jump off from Terneuzen and land among the Germans downstream, creating a bridgehead within a bridgehead. Amphibious equipment could not be brought up the river, under the guns of German batteries at Breskens and Flushing, and had to be improvised on the spot.

The Canadians landed near Hoofdplaat, east of Breskens, and started fighting their way south to link hands with their comrades edging up from the Leopold Canal. Even this was not enough. The Nazi defenders--20,000 desperate and skillful infantrymen, marines, naval artillerymen, SS antitank specialists and paratroops--stood their ground along the countless dikes.

A second amphibious operation was launched from Terneuzen to the west side of the Savojaards Inlet. The force landed there drove south, and joined up with still other units advancing from the south along the west side of the inlet. Slowly and inexorably the Nazi pocket was being cut into tiny patches.

Earthquakes to Order. Across the broad river lay South Beveland, joined to the mainland by an isthmus, and beyond that, Walcheren Island with the fortified town of Flushing. While R.A.F. Lancasters, carrying improved six-ton earthquake bombs, cut the dikes around Walcheren and flooded two-thirds of the island, Ontario troops led the way from Antwerp to the isthmus. They captured part of the town of Woensdrecht; for a time they held the road leading to South Beveland, and they brought the railway under artillery fire. But the Germans, still the masters of the prompt counterattack, struck swiftly with reinforcements from Bergen op Zoom.

The fighting bore many points of resemblance to the hedgerow warfare in Normandy before the breakout. In bitterness and dreariness it was unexcelled. The stake was high: if the Allies could put Antwerp to speedy use, they might yet ship in enough supplies to launch a major drive across the Westphalian Plain toward Berlin before winter. The Nazis well knew this. They took out additional insurance by destroying Rotterdam, the greatest freight port of The Netherlands.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.