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The plan for opening the Scheldt Estuary involved four main operations, conducted over daunting geography: Clearing the area north of Antwerp and securing access to the South Beveland peninsula. Operation Switchback, clearing the Breskens Pocket north of the Leopold canal and south of the Western Scheldt.
Walcheren Island, at the western end of the Beveland Peninsula, overlooked the Scheldt Estuary, and was strongly garrisoned by the German 15th Army who had emplaced strong concrete fortifications and large calibre guns which made it impossible to transit the waterway into Antwerp. Because of this delay, the remnants of the 15th Army "had been ...
By 31 October 1944, all land surrounding the Scheldt estuary had been cleared of German control except for Walcheren Island, from where coastal batteries commanded the approaches to the waterway. These guns prevented the Allies from making use of the port facilities of Antwerp to alleviate their logistical concerns.
As a result of the actions of the 104th and their Allied counterparts, the Scheldt Estuary was cleared. The Royal Navy took three weeks to sweep the estuary waters clear of mines, and in early December 1944, the port of Antwerp was open to Allied shipping.
It suffered defeat against the First Canadian Army in the Battle of the Scheldt during which the Army Headquarters at Dordrecht was subject to a mass attack by Hawker Typhoons of the Second Tactical Air Force on 24 October 1944. Two generals and 70 other staff officers were killed in the attack. [1]. According to a Dutch documentary there were ...
In an effort to open the Scheldt estuary, Eisenhower approved Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's Operation Market Garden, which was launched on 17 September. [19] However, by 21 September the operation had failed to dislodge German defenders from the southern Netherlands and open the seaway to Antwerp; the supply problem was at its worst. [20]
Clearing the Channel Coast was a World War II task undertaken by the First Canadian Army in August 1944, following the Allied Operation Overlord and the victory, break-out and pursuit from Normandy. The Canadian army advanced from Normandy to the Scheldt river in Belgium.
Aerial picture of the breach in the sea dike at Westkapelle after the 3 October 1944 bombardment.. The Inundation of Walcheren was the intentional, but uncontrolled [i] military inundation, effected by bombing the sea dikes of the former island of Walcheren in Zeeland by the Allies on and after 3 October 1944 in the context of Operation Infatuate during the Battle of the Scheldt after the ...