Terrible Victory by Mark Zuehlke

Author:Mark Zuehlke [Zuehlke, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: HIS000000
Publisher: D & M Publishers
Published: 2008-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

IN THE MORNING, the North Shores’ ‘A’ Company had moved right to link up with the North Nova Scotia Highlanders, only to walk straight into a German counterattack. Under a grey, colourless sky, men in mud-splattered grey and khaki engaged each other at point-blank range with rifles, machine guns, and grenades. No manoeuvre, no good cover, no supporting artillery, just a deadly shootout. It lasted scant minutes before the Germans broke and fled, but thirteen North Shores were wounded and one was missing. Still, the Germans had yielded. Nobody bothered counting the number of their dead floating in the polder or sprawled on the muddy dyke.

The Germans retaliated with artillery, scoring a direct hit on the company headquarters building, which began to burn. As Major F.F. “Toot” Moar beat out the fire, a second shell exploded, and flying debris knocked him unconscious. He was evacuated, and Captain Andy Woodcock took the reins.

Because 8 CIB headquarters was not yet ashore, the North Shores were temporarily under command of Brigadier Rockingham, who urged them to get through to the North Novas. “We were told that no enemy opposition was expected,” Woodcock recalled. “All we had to do was move over to a group of Dutch farm houses and relieve the troops stationed there. It sounded simple enough.” But the shootout left Woodcock suspicious. Would the Germans be so reckless if their flank was exposed to Canadians in the houses?

Putting his men into tactical formation, he sent ‘A’ Company off along the dyke leading to the farm. Machine guns and rifles opened up from within the buildings, the sheet-ripping screech of German mg 42s unmistakable. Woodcock called for artillery, but was refused because “we were asking our guns to fire on friendly troops.” Lieutenant Murray Quinn and a veteran platoon sergeant were both killed trying to direct Bren gun fire while Woodcock argued with headquarters.26 Finally, ‘B’ Company of the Camerons brought up its 50-calibre Vickers and No. 15 Platoon the heavy mortars. With their support, ‘A’ Company cleared the buildings.27 The North Novas were soon located in another group of farmhouses farther away. Woodcock was “very bitter over the fact that we had lost a very fine officer and men through such wrong information.”28

All along the Canadian front, small gains were won that day. At Hoofdplaat, the Glens swept up isolated pockets of Germans, and ‘D’ Company pushed out to control the dyke it had been forced off the previous night.29 The Highland Light Infantry gained a facing dyke south of Biervliet at 1520 hours that had given them “a great deal of trouble with small arms fire and reducing our movement to a minimum. We are now to sit tight and hold our ground. Our companies are spread out along the… dyke.”30

Right of the HLI, the North Novas by late afternoon were leapfrogging companies along the dykes towards Driewegen while artillery hammered it. Their path passed regularly spaced farms that would have been prosperous before being reduced to ruins by shelling. Each had to be wrested from defending Germans.

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