A somewhat confusing books about a somewhat confusing battle. I confess I knew very little about this battle, even though it was vitally important; I suspect that is due to American chauvinism. The fighting was done by Canadian, British and Polish troops (there was one American division, the 104th infantry, added to the 21st Army Group during the battle, but it saw action in the east, filling in the gap west of the Nijmegen Salient).


The gist of the problem seems to be that Antwerp was captured a little too early. Aided by a Belgian resistance officer, the 11th Armored Division found a way to approach the city concealed from German observers by factories and warehouses. They were able to take the all-important docks on September 4, 1944, without much German resistance or sabotage.


The catch was, the Antwerp docks weren’t much good to the Allies at the time. Antwerp is 50 miles up the Scheldt Estuary, and the mouth of the estuary is blocked by three islands – Walcheren, North Beveland, and South Beveland. (South Beveland technically isn’t an island; it’s connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus). The German 15th Army held these islands, plus the south bank of the Scheldt opposite them. The Scheldt was heavily mined, and the minefields were under observation and fire from batteries on the islands.


This was the operational area of 21st Army Group, consisting of the First Canadian Army and the 2nd British Army plus assorted attached units. And the commander of the 21st Army Group was General Bernard Montgomery. Battle for Antwerp author J. L. Moulton doesn’t come right out and say Montgomery was a jerk, but he certainly nibbles around the edges a lot. The problem was Montgomery – ironically for a general whose reputation was as a logistician – never seemed impressed with the importance of clearing the mouth of the Scheldt. Montgomery’s program seemed to be standing in place while pestering Eisenhower for supplies to allow a grand drive into Germany. Eisenhower’s repeated admonitions that supplies couldn’t be forthcoming until Antwerp was opened were met with a nod of acknowledgement followed by more requests; right in the middle of this Montgomery came up with a querulous demand that issues of command be resolved in his favor. He gave some grudging acknowledgement to the problem, ordering First Canadian Army to, basically, clean up the battlefield: eliminate German pockets holding out in some of the minor Channel ports (notably Dieppe and Calais); reduce the German pocket on the south bank of the Scheldt; and almost as an afterthought see about opening the Scheldt estuary.


The German 15th Army, supposedly trapped on the south bank of the Scheldt, got ahold of a couple of small Dutch freighters and some vehicle ferries. Unmolested by the Allies it managed to get almost all its personnel and vehicles across the Scheldt to the islands, then over the isthmus to the mainland; it was also able to resupply the pocket on the south bank.


Eventually Montgomery gave definitive orders that clearing the Scheldt was the number one priority; even then he seemed rather petulant, with veiled criticism of the Canadians for not accomplishing this before. The Channel garrisons were left to wither and the Canadians concentrated on reducing the pocket on the south bank of the Scheldt around the city of Breskens (the political geography is complicated; parts of the south bank are in Belgium and parts, including Breskens, are in the Netherlands). This turned out to be more difficult than cursory examination of the map makes it appear; the area is very low and the Germans had flooded much of it. Armor could only approach along the causeways, where they were sitting ducks for antitank guns. What’s more the Germans controlled the Leopold Canal, which was paradoxically some of the only high ground in the area.


The nut was eventually cracked by an amphibious assault; the Royal Engineers had acquired a number of LVT-2 and LVT-4 (Buffalo and Buffalo II in British service) and used them to turn the German flank. That left the Canadians in control of the south bank of the Scheldt – but it didn’t too much good, as the Germans still held the islands and their gun batteries, and thus still prevented minesweeping. (A couple of attempts were made to sweep at night, but the Germans had searchlights).


The next step, then, was to eliminate the German guns on the islands so minesweepers could work unmolested. There were several ways this might be done:


(1)Air bombardment by the RAF

(2)Naval bombardment by the RN plus artillery firing across the Scheldt from the south bank.

(3)Land based attack by capturing the isthmus connecting South Beveland to the mainland, by units of the First Canadian Army plus attached British units; then clearing South Beveland and attacking Walcheren across a railroad causeway and canal.

(4)Amphibious assault on South Beveland across the Scheldt from the south bank, using Buffalo II and IV amphibious tractors plus Terrapin and Weasel amphibious trucks and carriers. This would be done by the Scottish 52nd (Lowland) Mountain Division; the only mountain division in the British army would find itself fighting at and below sea level.

(5)Airborne assault by the First Allied Airborne Army.

(6)Amphibious assault on the south side of Walcheren Island from the south bank, by No 4 Commando.

(7)Amphibious assault on Walcheren Island from the ocean. This would be done by the 4th Special Service Brigade; the bulk was British units, but some of the units were interallied, including small numbers of American, Belgian, Canadian, Dutch, French, Norwegian and Polish commandos.


What ended up happening was 1, 2, 3, 4 6, and 7. Airborne assault was rejected as the area could easily be flooded by the Germans and airlanding troops would drown. The air bombardment came first; it was decided, after some expressions of concern over Dutch civilians, to flood Walcheren Island by breaching the seawalls with Lancasters armed with 12000 pound Tallboy bombs. The theory was with breaches in the sea walls amphibious vehicles could drive right into the interior of the island, and German movement options would be constrained. The breaching was quite successful – some of the Lancasters had to be sent back to base with their bomb loads – and the island ended up looking like a Pacific atoll, with a flooded interior surrounded by remaining seawall. The aerial bombardment didn’t succeed in taking out any German coast defense guns, though.


After brutal fighting, the Canadians eventually forced their way across the isthmus and cleared South Beveland, assisted by an amphibious landing from the south bank. However, they were unable to force the causeway and get into Walcheren Island.


The attack across the Scheldt was successful; Allied units using amphibious vehicles moved through the flooded interior toward the town of Middleburg, and along the seawall toward the gun batteries.


The naval bombardment was not effective. In order to keep clear of mines the supporting ships had to stay well offshore. The only ships available with adequate range were the battleship Warspite and the monitors Erebus and Roberts, all with 15” guns. Warspite, however, had her two after turrets out of action after a hit by a German glide bomb during the Salerno landings, and had also pretty much shot her guns out; Erebus and Roberts had a limited ammunition load and couldn’t resupply at sea. There was also some sort of problem with spotting from the air, which Moulton doesn’t detail. Only one German gun was disabled, and that was only temporary.


That left the landing from the sea. Since large ships couldn’t get close to shore due to the mine threat, the RN improvised a number of landing craft for support. These included:


LSH(S): Landing Ship Headquarters, Small – Essentially a corvette (US destroyer escort size) equipped for amphibious command use. Had to stay offshore at Walcheren due to the mine problem.

LCT: Landing Craft Tank; six Churchills or nine Shermans or various stores

LCG(L): Landing Craft Gun, Large; a decked-over LCT with two 4.7” guns in shielded mounts.

LCF: Landing Craft Flak; a decked over LCT with a two or four 40mm Bofors guns and four or eight 20mm cannon.

LCT(R): Landing Craft Tank (Rocket); another converted LCT, with 800-1000 five inch artillery rockets. Impressive to watch firing, unpleasant to be on the receiving end; very slow to reload.

LCG(M): Landing Craft Gun, Medium. It probably seemed like a good idea at the time. There were two concrete bunkers right at the shoreline at Walcheren Island. The LCG(M)s were supposed to run right up in front of the bunkers, flood ballast tanks to settle and the bottom and provide a stable gun platform, and hammer the bunkers with two 17-pdr antitank guns. Didn’t work; if you’re a stable gun platform you’re also a stable target and they were chopped up. The 17-lbr shells did penetrate 6 feet of concrete; unfortunately the bunker walls were 10 feet thick.

LCS(L): Landing Craft Support, Large. Converted LCI(S) with a 6-pdr gun forward in a tank turret, a pair of 0.50 Vickers heavy machine guns, and a 4” smoke mortar.

LCI(S): Landing Craft Infantry, Small; 100 equipped infantry deboarding from gangplanks.

LCH: Landing Craft Headquarters; able to come closer to shore than the LSH(S).

LCA: Landing Craft Assault; 85 armed troops.

LCP(L): Landing Craft Personnel, Large; 22 armed troops.

LCP(Sy): Landing Craft Personnel, Survey; radar and additional navigational equipment, to lead other landing craft in.


Most of these things were more-or-less successful; they got their troops on shore and they worked around the seawall, taking out the German guns one by one and linking up with the troops who had already landed on the south side of Walcheren Island. The German commander had let it be known through a third party that he would surrender the island if confronted with tanks, as he had no antitank capability; after some hedging he allowed that a Buffalo counted as a tank and gave up.


That still left the minesweeping, which proceeded slowly as the same channel had to be swept multiple times to deal with the mines with counters. As it was one minesweeper was lost in a spectacular encounter with a contact mine. Eventually a coaster made it to the Antwerp docks on 26 November, and the first convoy (appropriately lead by the Canadian ship Fort Cataraqui) arrived on 28 November. A table of supplies delivered illustrates the importance of Antwerp; at their height the small Channel ports (Bayeux, Dieppe, La Havre, Boulogne, Calais, Dunkirk, and Ostend) were receiving 37000 tons per day combined; Antwerp quickly worked up to 100000 tons per day and was much closer to the front. The Germans weren’t quite done with Antwerp; it received more V-1 and V-2 attacks than London, including the single most deadly V-2 attack – 492 people attending a movie at the Rex Cinema on 12 December.


Lots of maps and photographs, plus extensive references to unit histories. Still, there’s some things not very satisfying about Battle for Antwerp. For one thing, all the action is described as relatively dry, straightforward reports; there are none of the first person accounts that a Stephen Ambrose or Cornelius Ryan would have included. Only officers are mentioned by name; all the “other ranks” are anonymous. The maps, although abundant, are rather small size, and have the handicap of showing units at the divisional or brigade level while the accompanying text lists everything by regiment; since the Canadian regiments involved all had names rather than numbers it’s difficult to relate (for example) the movements of the South Saskatchewan Regiment and the Fusiliers Mont-Royal to the maps. To further confuse things, a lot of the Canadian regiments adopted Scottish names and traditions; thus in this battle (again, for example) the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders; the Black Watch; the Glasgow Highlanders; the Cameron Highlanders; and the Stormont, Dundas and Glengary Highlanders are all Canadian units.


It’s been suggested that the resources devoted to Market-Garden would have been better served open the Schledt. Perhaps. I think at least part of the problem is nobody – Allies or Germans - expected the city of Antwerp to fall so easily. Some of Montgomery’s behavior can be explained if he didn’t expect to be handed Antwerp on a platter and was so flustered he didn’t know what to do with it, so continued with his previous plan. There was time; Antwerp was captured on September 4 and Market–Garden didn’t start until September 17th. It would have been a hasty airborne attack, though. The airborne commanders were likely correct in thinking troops couldn’t drop directly on Walcheren Island, but they probably could have been used to cut off the escape of the German 15th Army across the South Beveland isthmus. Even then it isn’t clear that this would be a good idea; the islands would have been that much harder to take if a much larger German force was trapped there. Don’t know; alternate history fans are welcome to run with it.
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