This had been recognized as early as December 1941, when the Anglo-American armies made their first plans for a European offensive.

Following the destruction of Rotterdam in 1940, Antwerp was the largest surviving port in Western Europe, and the obvious choice to support an invasion of Germany. It is connected to the North Sea via the river Scheldt, which allows the passage of ocean-going ships. By the fall of 1944, captured ports like Cherbourg were far away from the front line, stretching Allied supply lines and causing great logistical problems.Īntwerp is a deep-water inland port close to Germany. Once the German defenders were no longer a threat, it took another three weeks to de-mine the harbours the first convoy carrying Allied supplies was not able to unload in Antwerp until 29 November, 1944.įollowing the Allied breakout after success in the battle of Normandy, they began a series of rapid advances into the Low Countries, far from their initial avenues of supply along the northern coast of France. After five weeks of difficult fighting, the Canadian First Army, at a cost of 12,873 Allied casualties (half of them Canadian), was successful in clearing the Scheldt after numerous amphibious assaults, obstacle crossings, and costly assaults over open ground. 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. Under acting command of the First Canadian's Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds, the battle took place in northern Belgium and southwestern Netherlands from 2 October to 8 November, 1944.

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.

Battle in the forgotten city