receives when visiting the Netherlands. “The Dutch continue to remember the sacrifices of the Glens,” he said emotionally. “And I’m not just talking about the older people. The children over there know that several young Canadians had to give
Canadian Army was ordered to clear the banks of the wide, multi-channelled Scheldt River between the North Sea and the port of Antwerp. It was a treacherous landscape for attacking troops to operate in flat, soggy, sometimes-flooded land, situated below sea
their lives in order to liberate their country.” Approximately 107 soldiers of the 1 st Battalion, about one quarter of it, never made it back home. They are buried in four Canadian War Cemeteries. “There’s a big subdivision in Holland that has
level and enclosed by a series of dykes. Under the l e a d e r s h i p of Canadian Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds, CanadianandBritish soldiers fought a series of fierce battles, including amphibious assaults from small boats against German
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The man retrieves a coloured picture from a folder and shows it to the attentive schoolchildren. The picture is one of sorrow but is also magical.
It imitates respect but also sacrifice.
defences along the estuary. Aside from the use of boats, the movement of men, tanks and other equipment was often restricted to narrow roadways along the top of dykes, under frequent German fire. The First CanadianArmy lost nearly 13,000 men, killed, wounded or missing during the Scheldt fighting, includingmore than 6,300 Canadians. However, by early November, the large islands had been secured.The river was then cleared of mines, and by the end of the month, the first convoy of Allied cargo ships entered the port of Antwerp. In February 1945, the Allied advance in northwest Europe resumed, with a huge offensive to drive the enemy across the Rhine River. It fell to the First Canadian Army to clear the area between theMaas and Rhine Rivers, pushing German forces eastward over the Rhine. In March, the First Canadian Army was reinforced by various Allied units, including the 1 st Canadian Corps, and transferred north from the battlegrounds of Italy. For the first time in history, two Canadian army corps were fighting together. And with an international strength now of more than 450,000 men, the First Canadians became the largest army ever commanded by a Canadian officer. Later that month, as other Allied armies crossed the Rhine into Germany, the First Canadian Army began rooting out German forces in the remainder of the Netherlands. The Canadians faced stiff fighting in places, andwere also hampered by the broken roads, bridges and other infrastructure destroyed by the fleeing Germans, who blew up some of the dykes in the western Netherlands, flooding parts of the countryside. More than 7,600 Canadian soldiers, sailors and airmen died fighting in the Netherlands.They are buried today in official war cemeteries across the country. The largest, Groesbeek CanadianWar Cemetery, near the city of Nijmegen, holds the graves of more than 2,300 Canadians.
named streets after our fallen soldiers,” explained Shearing. “The Dutch celebrate the liberation of their country in May, with tulips. But they don’t stop there. On every Christmas Eve, they put a candle in front of every grave. This is what it looks like.” The man retrieves a coloured picture from a folder and shows it to the attentive schoolchildren.The picture is one of sorrow but is also magical. It imitates respect but also sacrifice. A courageous but gruesome part of Canada’s history British and American troops first entered the southernNetherlands threemonths after the D-Day landings in Normandy. In mid- September, the Allies launched Operation Market Garden, a massive airborne assault on the Dutch town of Arnhem, hoping this would allow them a quick route into Germany, via a crossing of the Rhine River at Arnhem.The Arnhemattack failed, slowing the Allied advance and keepingmost of the Netherlands under German control. As the Allies sought another way into Germany, they needed a large harbour through which to ship supplies to their advancing armies. The Belgian city of Antwerp, one of Europe’s biggest ports, had already been liberated, but the long Scheldt River, which connected Antwerp to the sea, was still held by the Germans. The task of clearing the river of enemy forces was assigned to the First Canadian Army. The First Canadian Army was Canada’s principal fighting arm in northwest Europe during the war. A powerful strike force under the command of Canadian General Harry Crerar, it included the 2 nd Canadian Corps, as well as large contingents of British, Polish, American andDutch infantry and armoured troops. Since the Battle of Normandy in the summer of 1944, the Army had formed the left flank of the Allied advance towards Germany — with the First Canadians liberating ports and cities along the Channel Coast of France and Belgium. Upon reaching the Netherlands, the First
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The Journal Cornwall
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Wednesday, May 18, 2016
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