In the autumn of 1944, with Paris liberated and Allied forces advancing across France and Belgium, a sense of optimism permeated the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). The rapid pursuit of a seemingly defeated German army, however, created a severe logistical crisis. Supply lines, stretching precariously from the beaches of Normandy, could not sustain the momentum. The solution lay in the Belgian port of Antwerp, one of Europe's largest deep-water ports, captured intact by the British 11th Armoured Division on 4 September 1944. Yet, possessing the port was not enough; it was unusable as long as German forces controlled the Scheldt Estuary, the 50-mile waterway connecting Antwerp to the North Sea.

Right: 'Buffalo' amphibious vehicles taking troops of the Canadian First Army across the Scheldt in Holland, September, 1944. Source: Wikimedia.

The failure to immediately secure the approaches to Antwerp is considered one of the significant strategic errors of the Northwest Europe campaign. Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, commanding the 21st Army Group, prioritized Operation Market Garden, an ambitious airborne assault aimed at securing a bridgehead across the Rhine at Arnhem. This decision allowed the German 15th Army, under General Gustav-Adolf von Zangen, to escape entrapment in the Pas-de-Calais and establish formidable defensive positions along both banks of the Scheldt. This set the stage for a brutal, five-week battle of attrition fought in appalling conditions by predominantly Canadian forces—a conflict overshadowed by other operations but utterly essential for the final Allied victory.

The Strategic Situation

The geography of the Scheldt Estuary presented a daunting challenge. To open the waterway, Allied forces had to clear German defenders from the areas north and south of the estuary. The southern bank consisted of the Breskens Pocket, a flat, waterlogged polder land south of the Leopold Canal that the Germans had heavily fortified. The northern bank was dominated by the South Beveland peninsula and, beyond it, the island of Walcheren. Walcheren, heavily armed with coastal artillery batteries, effectively served as a cork in the bottle of the Scheldt. It was described by one German commander as "the strongest concentration of defenses the world had ever seen."

The primary responsibility for this arduous task fell to the First Canadian Army, commanded by Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds. Though designated "Canadian," the army was a multinational formation, incorporating the British I Corps, the Polish 1st Armoured Division, and units from Belgium, the Netherlands, and Czechoslovakia. For the Scheldt campaign, Simonds commanded a force centered on the II Canadian Corps, led by Lieutenant-General Charles Foulkes. This included the 2nd and 3rd Canadian Infantry Divisions and the 4th Canadian Armoured Division.

Facing them was General von Zangen's 15th Army. The core of his defense was the 64th Infantry Division, a unit specifically formed for static defense and populated by soldiers with chronic stomach ailments, earning them the moniker "White Bread" division. Despite their physical condition, they were well-entrenched, experienced, and commanded by the determined Major-General Knut Eberding. Their positions were expertly prepared, leveraging the canals, dikes, and flooded lowlands to create a defense-in-depth that would extract a heavy price for every yard gained. 

Phase One: Clearing the Breskens Pocket (Operation Switchback)

The first phase aimed to clear the area north of Antwerp and secure access to the South Beveland peninsula. This fell to the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division. Simultaneously, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, commanded by Major-General Daniel Spry, was tasked with the formidable challenge of clearing the Breskens Pocket in an operation codenamed "Switchback." The initial assault began on 6 October. The 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade attempted a frontal assault across the formidable Leopold Canal. The landscape was a defender's dream: flat, open, and offering no cover. German machine-gun and mortar fire from prepared positions was withering. The Canadians managed to establish a precarious bridgehead, but it came at a terrible cost. The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada and The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada suffered grievously in fierce fighting around the canal.

Recognizing the futility of purely frontal attacks, Simonds executed an amphibious flanking maneuver. On October 9th, the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade, transported by amphibious Buffalo vehicles, landed on the coast near Hoofdplaat, behind the main German lines. This surprise assault, conducted with support from artillery and naval gunfire, successfully split the German defenses. The fighting in the pocket became a slow, grinding affair. Soldiers battled not only the enemy but also the terrain—a morass of mud, water, and mines. Villages like Biervliet and Breskens had to be cleared house by house. After three weeks of intense combat, Operation Switchback concluded on November 3rd when Canadian and British forces linked up, sealing the pocket and capturing thousands of German prisoners. The southern bank of the Scheldt was finally secure.

Right: Column of Alligator amphibious vehicles passing Terrapin amphibious vehicles on the Scheldt river, October 1944. Source: Wikimedia.

Phase Two: Clearing the South Beveland Peninsula (Operation Vitality)

Concurrent with the fighting in the Breskens Pocket, the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, under Major-General Bruce Matthews, commenced Operation Vitality on October 2nd. Their objective was to clear the South Beveland peninsula, which formed the northern bank of the estuary. The advance began from the east, moving along the narrow isthmus connecting South Beveland to the mainland. The terrain here was equally challenging. The peninsula was little more than a narrow strip of land, with a single main road and railway line built on a high dike, offering a perfect killing ground for German defenders. The 4th and 5th Canadian Infantry Brigades led the advance, facing stubborn resistance from elements of the 64th and the newly arrived 70th Infantry Divisions. Progress was slow and costly.

To break the stalemate, another amphibious assault was planned. On 26 October, the British 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division, initially trained for mountain warfare but now repurposed for amphibious operations, landed on the southern coast of South Beveland near Baarland. This move, codenamed Operation Infatuate I, outflanked the German defenses on the isthmus. Caught between the advancing Canadians from the east and the British from the south, the German position on the peninsula became untenable. By 31 October, South Beveland was in Allied hands, bringing them to the doorstep of the ultimate prize: Walcheren Island.

Phase Three: The Capture of Walcheren Island (Operation Infatuate)

Walcheren was the linchpin of the German defense. Connected to South Beveland by a narrow, 40-yard-wide causeway, the island was a fortress bristling with over 40 heavy coastal batteries integrated into the Atlantic Wall. Its defenders, a mix of naval coastal artillery personnel and infantry from the 70th Division, were commanded by Lieutenant-General Wilhelm Daser. A direct assault was deemed suicidal. The Allied plan was audacious and brutal. To neutralize the island's formidable gun emplacements, the Royal Air Force Bomber Command was called upon to breach the sea dikes that protected the low-lying island from the North Sea. On 3 October, 7th, 11th, and 17th, RAF bombers dropped thousands of tons of explosives, rupturing the dikes at Westkapelle, Flushing (Vlissingen), and Veere. The sea poured in, flooding the majority of the island, isolating German batteries on high ground, and disrupting their communications and mobility. While strategically necessary, the decision was controversial, causing immense destruction to Dutch civilian property and land. Leaflets were dropped to warn the population, but civilian casualties were unavoidable.

The final assault, Operation Infatuate, began on November 1st. It was a three-pronged attack. The 2nd Canadian Infantry Division launched a frontal assault along the Walcheren Causeway. The Black Watch of Canada were again thrown into a bloody and desperate fight, advancing down a narrow, exposed strip of land straight into the muzzles of German machine guns and anti-tank weapons. They secured a small bridgehead but were driven back with heavy losses. The causeway would later be dubbed "The Longest Mile." Eventually, soldiers from the Calgary Highlanders managed to establish a tenuous hold, diverting German attention.

Simultaneously, the main assaults were amphibious. At Flushing, on the southern coast, British Commandos of the 4th Special Service Brigade landed under heavy fire, engaging in vicious street fighting to secure the city. At Westkapelle, on the western tip of the island, Royal Marines Commandos landed from amphibious vehicles, supported by a specialized fleet of landing craft armed with rockets, mortars, and cannons from the Royal Navy. The naval bombardment was critical but came at a high price, with many support craft sunk or damaged by the still-functioning German coastal batteries. The fighting on Walcheren was intense. Commandos and infantry waded through flooded fields, attacking isolated German strongpoints on the dikes and dunes. By November 8th, all German resistance on the island had ceased, and General Daser surrendered.

Right: German prisoners being marched off on Walcheren. Source: Wikimedia.

Phase Four: Clearing the Waterway

With the land campaign concluded, the final phase involved the monumental task of clearing the Scheldt Estuary of German mines. The Royal Navy's minesweepers began their work on November 4th, even before Walcheren was fully secured. For over three weeks, flotillas of ships painstakingly swept the 50-mile channel, neutralizing hundreds of naval mines. It was a slow and dangerous operation, but on 28 November 1944, the first Allied convoy, led by the Canadian-built freighter Fort Cataraqui, steamed into the port of Antwerp. The logistical lifeline was finally open.

Aftermath and Controversies

The Battle of the Scheldt was a resounding, if costly, Allied victory. The First Canadian Army suffered nearly 13,000 casualties—killed, wounded, or missing—with almost half of them being Canadian. The battle was fought under some of the worst conditions of the war, in mud and floodwaters against a determined and skillful enemy.

The primary controversy surrounding the battle remains the initial decision to prioritize Operation Market Garden. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, later called the failure to clear the Scheldt immediately his greatest mistake of the war. Had the 21st Army Group, particularly the armoured divisions that reached Antwerp on September 4th, been directed to push north immediately, they likely could have secured the estuary before the German 15th Army had time to dig in. This delay allowed the Germans to turn the Scheldt into a formidable fortress, necessitating a prolonged and bloody campaign that cost thousands of lives. The battle has often been termed "The Forgotten Battle." It was fought in the shadow of the more dramatic, albeit unsuccessful, Operation Market Garden and was quickly followed by the German Ardennes Offensive (the Battle of the Bulge). The grinding, attritional nature of the fighting did not lend itself to the same heroic narratives as airborne drops or rapid armoured thrusts. 

As Quartermaster-General of the 21st Army Group, Sir Miles Graham, stated, the battle was "a magnificent piece of work." The opening of Antwerp transformed the Allied logistical situation. Supplies could now be unloaded and moved efficiently to the front lines, enabling the final push into Germany. Without the secure supply lines provided by Antwerp, the subsequent operations—clearing the west bank of the Rhine, crossing the river itself, and the ultimate defeat of the Third Reich—would have been significantly delayed, if not impossible. The soldiers of the First Canadian Army, who fought and died in the cold, wet polders of the Netherlands, paid the heavy price for an earlier strategic miscalculation, securing a victory that was indispensable for the end of the war in Europe.

In Modern Culture

On 14 December 2020, moive distributor September Films released The Forgotten Battle which was picked up in June 2021 in the Netherlands and in October 2021 by Netflix. Set against the backdrop of the Battle of the Scheldt in the autumn of 1944, the film presents the brutal conflict through the perspectives of three distinct individuals whose lives become entangled by the events unfolding in the flooded landscapes of Zeeland, Netherlands. These characters include Marinus van Staveren (played by Gijs Blom), a young Dutch man who volunteers for the Waffen-SS and serves on the Eastern Front before being reassigned to his homeland; Teuntje Visser (played by beautiful actress Susan Radder), a local woman whose initial reluctance to engage in the conflict shifts after a personal tragedy draws her into the Dutch resistance; and Will Sinclair (played by Jamie Flatters), a British glider pilot who finds himself stranded behind enemy lines after his aircraft is shot down during Operation Market Garden.

The narrative follows the converging paths of these three protagonists. Sinclair, aided by Dutch civilians including Teuntje, attempts to evade capture and rejoin Allied forces. Meanwhile, Marinus, stationed in the region, begins to question his allegiance as he witnesses the harsh realities of the German occupation and the devastating impact of the war on his own people. Teuntje's involvement with the resistance deepens, placing her in immense danger as she works to undermine the German forces. Through its interlocking storylines, the film underscores the immense human cost of the battle to secure the Scheldt estuary, a strategic necessity for opening the port of Antwerp to Allied shipping. The narrative effectively conveys the historical significance of this engagement, which was crucial for supplying the final push into Germany but resulted in extensive casualties. By focusing on the personal odysseys of its characters, The Forgotten Battle illuminates themes of loyalty, survival, and the profound loss inherent in war. The film offers an emotionally resonant and historically grounded portrayal of a pivotal, yet often unremembered, chapter of the Second World War.

Filmed in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Lithuaina, the movie's cinematography and set-work are very well done and uniforms and weaponry give the film an authentic feel. Note to the men out there: actress Susan Radder is well worth the price of admission through Netflix or Amazon. - Scott

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