World War II Day by Day

Antwerp, Belgium • November 1, 1944

After the Allied breakout from Nor­mandy in North­western France begin­ning on August 13, 1944, German forces stub­bornly held the French and Belgian English Chan­nel ports. Thus the Western Allies were forced to bring all supplies for their rapidly east­ward advancing armies from the Mul­berry arti­fi­cial harbor they had opened off the Normandy coast in mid-June 1944 or from Cher­bourg harbor, returned to oper­a­tion late the next month. Owing to the port capa­city of Belgium’s Antwerp—the largest port in Western Europe, it could receive 40,000 tons of material a day—that German-occupied city became the imme­di­ate objec­tive of Field Marshal Ber­nard Law Mont­go­mery’s British 21st Army Group, which it liber­ated on Septem­ber 4, 1944, port intact. Unfor­tu­nately for the Allies, Antwerp’s port could not unload vital supplies until enemy forces were removed from the lower reaches of the Scheldt (Schelde) Estuary, the 55‑mile-long water­way connecting Antwerp with the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean (see map below).

By the end of October 1944, in a series of Allied mili­tary opera­tions in the lower Scheldt Estuary, only a single German division remained to occupy the estuary’s western-most island, Wal­che­ren; resis­tance every­where else had been elimi­nated. The Dutch island, desig­nated by Adolf Hitler as “For­tress Wal­che­ren,” bristled with 30 coastal and field bat­teries fitted with 75mm, 105mm, 155mm, and 220mm artillery pieces in concrete emplacements.

Starting on this date, Novem­ber 1, 1944, and for the next 7 days, Wal­che­ren was wrestled from the German enemy in a three-pronged assault by Cana­dian and British infan­try units (Opera­tion Vital­ity) and British Marine com­mandos from the 4th Special Service Brigade, who formed the amphib­ious ele­ments of the assault (Opera­tions Infat­u­ate I and II). From the South Beve­land Penin­sula, cleared of Germans on Octo­ber 31, ele­ments of the 2nd Cana­dian Corps and the British 52nd (Low­land) Infan­try Divi­sion maneu­vered under stiff and pro­longed fire across a narrow, mile-long land bridge, the Wal­che­ren Cause­way that rose a few feet above sodden mud flats. The cause­way carried a road, a rail line, and a bicycle path from South Beve­land to Wal­che­ren Island, and it was over this cause­way that retreating Germans had escaped to their Wal­che­ren strong­hold. By the following day the Cana­dian/­British fighters had secured the cause­way, but they were unable to expand their bridge­head. Sea­borne landings by com­mandos of the 4th Special Service Brigade even­tu­ally sealed the fate of the German garrison on Walcheren Island.

Marine commandos came ashore in LVTs (Landing Vehicles, Tracked, also known as Buf­fa­loes or Alli­ga­tors) from the main­land south of Wal­che­ren Island. One com­mando unit assaulted the town of West­kapelle at the western end of the island, then moved north through sand hills to Dom­burg, which was reached on Novem­ber 2. Another set of com­mandos to the south took out a radar station and several 155mm shore bat­teries in the Zoute­lande area, while a third set com­pleted the encircle­ment of the western part of the island by moving south toward Vlis­singen (English, Flushing), the island’s second largest town after Mittel­burg, the pro­vin­cial capital in the center of the island. The amphib­ious assaults were supported by British naval bom­bard­ment, fighter-bombers, and field bat­teries on the mainland four miles to the south.

After a week of fighting, a four-man German dele­ga­tion under a white flag approached Allied soldiers to open negotiations for the sur­ren­der of upwards of 10,000 German defenders on Wal­che­ren Island. The shore approaches to Antwerp’s harbor were quickly emptied of the enemy. By month’s end, after a massive mine-clearing opera­tion of the Scheldt, the first Allied supplies were being unloaded at Antwerp.

The Battle of Walcheren Island: Last Step to Opening Antwerp Harbor

Above: The Battle of the Scheldt (October 2 to November 8, 1944) con­sisted of four phases, the last of which (Novem­ber 1–8, 1944) was clearing the German Army’s 70th Infan­try Divi­sion from the Dutch island of Wal­che­ren in dual sea­borne assaults (Oper­a­tion Infat­u­ate I and II) and a single land-based assault (Oper­a­tion Vitality). Light blue arrows indi­cate ele­ments of the 2nd Cana­dian Corps, spear­head of the First Cana­dian Army, which included some British and Polish units. Dark brown arrows indi­cate the British 52nd (Low­land) Divi­sion, which was given com­mand of all the mili­tary oper­a­tions on Wal­che­ren Island, and the dark blue arrows indi­cate the Royal Marines of the 4th Special Service Brigade (later renamed 4th Com­mando Brigade), which con­ducted the two amphib­ious assaults. The surrender of the German garri­son finally opened the West Scheldt Estuary and the stra­te­gic Belgian port of Antwerp (bottom right corner) to Allied shipping.

Left: The bombing of Walcheren Island on October 3, 7, and 11, 1944, by British heavy bombers delib­er­ately breached the sea dykes around the island and turned its center into into a mas­sive lagoon. Besides killing many Dutch civilians, the bombing had the desired effect of making German troop move­ments diffi­cult, pre­venting enemy gun posi­tions from being resupplied, dis­rupting commun­i­ca­tions, and forcing the defenders into towns and onto the high ground that rimmed the island.

Right: DUKWs (six-wheel-drive amphibious trucks colloquially called “Ducks”) and Buf­fa­loes ply their way between a British Landing Craft, Tank (LCT) and the beach at West­kapelle, the western­most point on Wal­che­ren Island, carrying Royal Marine com­man­dos of the 4th Special Service Brigade. Dark smoke drifts high over­head while the possi­ble rem­nants of a smoke screen (middle far back­ground) linger on the beach. The com­man­dos began landing at dawn, Novem­ber 1, 1944, with the objec­tive to silence heavy enemy coastal bat­teries men­acing the western approach to the Scheldt passage to the Belgian port of Antwerp.

Left: Buffalo amphibious vehicles ferrying troops of the 4th Special Service Brigade across the Scheldt River.

Right: Men of the 4th Special Service Brigade wade ashore from landing craft near Vlis­singen (Flushing). The town was captured on Novem­ber 3, 1944, after heavy street-fighting.

Above: Two views of German POWs marching through Walcheren’s sodden terrain and corralled in a Dutch village, probably Middle­burg, the provin­cial capi­tal of Zee­land in South­western Nether­lands. Between Oper­a­tions Vital­ity and Infat­u­ate (Octo­ber 23 to Novem­ber 8, 1944) some 8,000 to 10,000 Germans of the 70th Infan­try Divi­sion, denied their escape routes, entered British capti­vity. Although the Scheldt Estuary was now cleared of the enemy, Antwerp itself remained the main target for German V‑2 rockets—1,610 rock­ets, 200 more than all that fell on England. Launched from Holland and Germany against the city, the ballis­tic missiles were intended to disrupt the move­ment of Allied supplies to the front lines. In Decem­ber 1944 the German Ardennes Offen­sive (aka Battle of the Bulge) was aimed at retaking Antwerp port.

The First Canadian Army’s Hardest Fight: The Battle of Walcheren Island