[2] Normandy was a battle of attrition for the British and Canadian troops, drawing in most of the available German reinforcements, especially armoured divisions, around Caen at the eastern end of the lodgement.

These operations left the Germans unable to prevent the American breakout at the western end of the Normandy beachhead in early August 1944.

It was therefore responsible for securing the ports upon which Allied supply depended, and also with overrunning German V-1 and V-2 launching sites along the coasts of western France and Belgium.

The campaign through Northern France and Belgium was largely a pursuit, with the ports – formally designated "Fortress Towns" by the Germans – offering only limited opposition to the First Canadian Army.

German control of some of the channel ports and the approaches to Antwerp, and previous Allied bombing of the French and Belgian railways, resulted in a long supply line from Normandy served mainly by trucks.

The scratch forces remaining after the retreat from France were much stronger than expected, thus giving the armoured units of the XXX Corps a much tougher fight than had been anticipated, slowing the advance.

[8] The advance stopped south of the Lower Rhine, resulting in a narrow salient that ran from the north of Belgium across the south-east of the Netherlands and was vulnerable to attack.

To the West Operation Pheasant was conducted which resulted in the liberation of the cities of Tilburg and 's-Hertogenbosch broadening the front line.

Operations by II Canadian Corps cleared the approaches to Antwerp both north and south of the water during the Battle of the Scheldt.

[16] The First Canadian Army executed Operation Veritable in difficult conditions from Nijmegen eastwards through the Reichswald Forest then southwards.

[17] This was to have been the northern part of a pincer movement with the US Ninth Army moving northwards towards Düsseldorf and Krefeld (Operation Grenade), to clear the west bank of the Rhine north of Cologne.

[13] On 4 May 1945, Field Marshal Montgomery accepted the unconditional surrender of the German forces in the Netherlands, in north west Germany and Denmark.