page_title: Battle of the Scheldt
section_title: Operation Switchback
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of the Scheldt / Battle / Operation Switchback
caption_attribution_description: Canadian combat medics constructing a field hospital. Battle of the Scheldt, 1944. From the Donald Carson fonds, PR2011.0001/14.
context_page_description: The Battle of the Scheldt in World War II was a series of military operations led by the First Canadian Army, with Canadian, Polish and British units attached, to open up the shipping route to Antwerp so that its port could be used to supply the Allies in north-west Europe. Under acting command of the First Canadian's Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds, the battle took place in northern Belgium and southwestern Netherlands from October 2 to November 8, 1944.
  The well-established Wehrmacht defenders staged an effective delaying action, during which the Germans flooded land areas in the Scheldt estuary, slowing the Allied advance. After five weeks of difficult fighting, the Canadian First Army, at a cost of 12,873 Allied casualties, was successful in clearing the Scheldt after numerous amphibious assaults, obstacle crossings, and costly assaults over open ground.
  Once the German defenders were no longer a threat, it was a further three weeks – November 29, 1944 – before the first convoy carrying Allied supplies was able to unload in Antwerp due to the necessity of de-mining the harbours.
context_section_description: The second main operation, Operation Switchback, opened with fierce fighting to reduce the Breskens Pocket. Here, the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division encountered tenacious German resistance as it fought to cross the Leopold Canal. An earlier failed attempt by the Canadian 4th Armoured Division at Moerbrugge had demonstrated the challenge they faced. In addition to the formidable German defences on both the Leopold Canal and the Schipdonk Canal, much of the approach area was flooded.
  The Breskens pocket was held by the 64th Division commanded by General Knut Eberding, an infantryman with extensive experience on the Eastern Front who was regarded as an expert in defensive warfare. When the 15th Army had retreated from the Pas de Calais region of France across the Low Countries in September 1944, an enormous number of guns and ammunition ended up in the Breskens Pocket, including one hundred 20 mm anti-aircraft guns. They were used by the Wehrmacht as a sort of "super-heavy machine gun" and were much dreaded by the Canadian infantry. 20-mm guns could shred a man to pieces within seconds. Besides the 20-mm guns, the 64th Division had 23 of the famous 88 mm flak guns, known for their power to destroy an Allied tank with a single direct hit, together with 455 light machine guns and 97 mortars.
  While Montgomery focused on Operation Market Garden in September 1944, Eberding used three weeks of quiet to have his men dig in. He later expressed amazement about the Allied air forces hardly ever bombing the Breskens Pocket in September, allowing his men to build defensive works with barely an effort to stop them. The flat, swampy polder country made the Breskens Pocket into an "island", as much of the ground was impassable with only a few "land bridges" connecting the area to the mainland. The Wehrmacht had blown up dykes to flood much of the ground so that the Canadians could only advance along the raised country roads. Eberding reported that the polder country was "a maze of ditches, canalized rivers and commercial canals, often above the level of the surrounding countryside...which made military maneuver almost impossible except on the narrow roads built on top of the dykes. Each of these roadways were carefully registered for both artillery and mortar fire".
  It was decided that the best place for an assault would be immediately east of where the two canals divided: a narrow strip of dry ground, only a few hundred metres wide at its base beyond the Leopold Canal (described as a long triangle with its base on the Maldegem-Aardenburg road and its apex near the village of Moershoofd some 5 km (3.1 mi) east). Despite the fact that the Ultra intelligence provided by Bletchley Park had revealed that the 64th Division was digging in for a hard fight and that Eberding had ordered a fight to the death, Canadian military intelligence underestimated the size of the German forces by 100%. They expected Eberding to retreat to Walcheren island once the 3rd Canadian division started to advance. However, Simonds appreciated the problems imposed by the polder country and the Germans concentrating their forces at the few "land bridges". He planned to use amphibious vehicles known as "Buffalos" to travel across the flooded countryside to outflank the German forces. Simonds planned to strike both at the Leopold canal and at the rear of the Breskens Pocket via an amphibious landing at the Braakman inlet.
  A two-pronged assault commenced. The Canadian 3rd Division's 7th Brigade made the initial assault across the Leopold Canal, while the 9th Brigade mounted the amphibious attack from the northern (coastal) side of the pocket. The 7th Brigade was known as the "Western Brigade" in the Canadian Army as its three regiments were all from western Canada with the Canadian Scottish Regiment coming from Victoria area, the Regina Rifles from the Regina area, and the Royal Winnipeg Rifles from the Winnipeg area, while the 9th Brigade was known as the "Highland brigade" as its three regiments were all Highland regiments with two coming from Ontario and another from 
caption: A Canadian field hospital on a Walcheran Dyke
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