Following 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.

[5][6] However, the Germans had heavily fortified Walcheren peninsula at the mouth of the Western Scheldt, establishing well dug-in artillery impervious to air attack and controlling access to the river.

On 12–13 September, Montgomery ordered the First Canadian Army to clear the Scheldt after taking Boulogne, Calais (Operation Undergo), and Dunkirk (Siege); General Crerar stated that this was impossible because he did not have sufficient manpower.

[12] Had Montgomery secured the Scheldt Estuary, as Ramsay had advised, Antwerp would have been opened to Allied shipping far earlier than it was, and the escape of the German 15th Army from France could have been stopped.

Even in the First World War, Churchill, in person, travelled to ANTWERP in order to organize the defence of the harbour because he appreciated it as of vital importance to the struggle on the continent.

With this material they might deliver a death blow at the NORTH GERMAN plain and at BERLIN before the onset of winter...The enemy knows that he must assault the European fortress as speedily as possible before its inner lines of resistance are fully built up and occupied by new divisions.

In country unsuitable for armour, and against stiffening resistance, the division advanced to the coast by 20 September, occupying Terneuzen and clearing the south bank of the Scheldt east toward Antwerp.

It became apparent to Simonds that any further gains in the Scheldt would come at heavy cost, as the Breskens pocket, extending from Zeebrugge to the Braakman Inlet and inland to the Leopold Canal, was strongly held by the enemy.

[25] Field Marshal Walter Model, who was commanding Army Group B, ordered: "The corridor to Walcheren will be kept open at any price; if necessary, it will be regained by forces ruthlessly detached from other sectors".

[24] On 10 October, the Royal Regiment of Canada launched a surprise attack against the German lines at Woensdrecht, but for the next days was engaged in heavy fighting against counterattacks from Battle Group Chill.

[27] During this time, war diaries of the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry noted "many snipers in the houses and hedges" had been encountered while the weather was "cold and wet with high winds.

[31] To the east, the British Second Army attacked westward to clear the Netherlands south of the Meuse (Maas) during Operation Pheasant, securing the Scheldt region from counter-attacks.

The advance would force Rundstedt to redeploy the elite 6th Parachute Regiment, which until then had been blocking the 2nd Canadian Division on the Beveland isthmus to the defence of Bergen op Zoom.

The Breskens pocket was held by the 64th Division commanded by General Knut Eberding, an infantryman with extensive experience on the Eastern Front who was regarded as an expert in defensive warfare.

He later expressed amazement about the Allied air forces hardly ever bombing the Breskens Pocket in September, allowing his men to build defensive works with barely an effort to stop them.

[43] The Canadian historians Terry Copp and Robert Vogel wrote the fighting "... was at close quarter and of such ferocity that veterans insist that it was worse than the blackest days of Normandy".

[49] The brigade planned to cross the mouth of the Braakman Inlet in these vehicles and to land in the vicinity of Hoofdplaat, a tiny hamlet in the rear or coastal side of the pocket, thus exerting pressure from two directions at once.

Their aeroplane engines created a sound so like the roar of aircraft that over Flushing the anti-aircraft guns fired sporadically...Because of the damage to the locks near the ferry (at Neuzen) it was necessary to cut ramps in the bank and by-pass the obstacle.

[55] The 3rd Division fought additional actions to clear German troops from the towns of Breskens, Oostburg, Zuidzande and Cadzand, as well as the coastal fortress Fort Frederik Hendrik.

Operation Switchback ended on 3 November, when the Canadian 1st Army liberated the Belgian towns of Knokke and Zeebrugge, officially closing the Breskens Pocket and eliminating all German forces south of the Scheldt.

The Canadians hoped to advance rapidly, bypassing opposition and seizing bridgeheads over the Kanaal door Zuid-Beveland (Canal through South Beveland), but they too were slowed by mines, mud and strong enemy defences.

The 156th West Scottish Brigade described the Dutch countryside as "extremely difficult", but also noted that German morale was poor, stating that they had expected the Wehrmacht to fight harder and that most of their casualties were coming from mines and booby-traps.

Instead of launching a frontal attack as ordered by Foulkes, Hakewill-Smith outflanked the Germans by landing the Cameronian regiment at the village of Nieuwdorp, 2 miles (3.2 km) south of the causeway, and linked up with the Glasgow Highlanders the next day.

With the Canadian artillery opening fire, the 4th Commando were carried ashore in twenty Landing Craft Assaults, to be followed by the King's Own Scottish Borderers regiment who attacked Flushing.

10 Inter Allied Commando, consisting mainly of Belgian and Norwegian troops) supported by the specialized armoured vehicles (amphibious transports, mine-clearing tanks, bulldozers, etc.)

The men claimed there was nothing to which to look forward to – no rest, no leave, no enjoyment, no normal life and no escape....The second most prominent cause...seemed to be the insecurity in battle because the condition of the battlefield did not allow for average cover.

[81] A common complaint of soldiers suffering from battle exhaustion was that the Army was trying to "get blood from a stone", with the under-strength units being pushed relentlessly to keep fighting, without replacements for their losses and no chance to rest.

[87] Germany recognized the danger of the Allies having a deep water port, and in an attempt to destroy it – or at least disrupt the flow of supplies – the German military fired more V-2 rockets at Antwerp than at any other city.

[88] Without Antwerp being opened, which allowed 2.5 million tons of supplies to arrive at that port between November 1944 and April 1945, the Allied advance into Germany in 1945 with the American, British, and French armies heading into the Reich would have been impossible.

When the Canadians eventually stopped their assaults on the northern French ports and started on the Scheldt approaches on 2 October, they found that German resistance was far stronger than they had imagined, as the remnants of the Fifteenth Army had had time to escape and reinforce the island of Walcheren and the South Beveland peninsula.