PREVIOUS CHAPTERS:
CHAPTER I - “Fall Harvest”
CHAPTER II – “Oktoberfest”
October 9, 1944 - November 19, 1944
The Wehrmacht, however, was not entirely unprepared for the Allied advance. Although the bulk of the German Army was, at the time, desperately trying to repulse the Red Army in Eastern Europe, the Western border nonetheless could not be considered an open door. The chief roadblock to the Allied Advance was Army Group B under the command of Walther Model, "Hitler's fireman", known for his skill at defensive operations. He had been rotated out from the Eastern Front to the position in mid-August. Army Group B was a somewhat strange bunch, at the time consisting of the German 7th Army, 5th Panzer Army, and ironically the 1st Parachute Army. Army Group B had also nominally counted 15th Army amongst its ranks, however, 15th Army had been cut off by the British 2nd Army during its advance and had for all practical purposes been annihilated or pocketed. South, near the Saarland, lay Army Group G, essentially composed only of 1st Army, and further south still was Army Group Upper Rhein, composed of 19th Army, both of which were now facing the fresh forces of the American 7th Army and French 1st Army, respectively. The newly formed 6th Panzer Army was also being assembled along the Ardennes at the time, but had not yet reached full operational status. Despite the seeming numerical superiority of the Germans on paper in terms of army-sized units, in truth the Allied units were far more heavily equipped in general, excepting the 5th Panzer Army. The disorganization of Wehrmacht forces in the region did not help matters: Model was still recovering his forces from the confusing situation in the Netherlands (he had fled his headquarters at the start of Market Garden, believing it to be an Allied assassination attempt), and the loss of 15th Army. Defensive preparations in the region were also of poor quality; along the German-Belgian border lay the Geldernstellung section of the Westwall which extended to Kleve on the Rhine, which was constructed between 1939 to 1940. It was of lacking quality compared to the earlier Limes and Aachen-Saar constructions, consisting chiefly of open, if not strongly built concrete dugouts, though due to the weather and neglect they had become increasingly unfit for defensive purposes. Bormann had in fact ordered the line reactivated on August 24th, when it was clear the Allied situation in Normandy had become critical. Legions of Reichssarbeitsdienst, chiefly adolescent boys, were sent to reequip and bolster the line. It came to little due to Allied bombing and air superiority. In the end, it hardly mattered at any rate: the Allies were, as a result of the Market Garden situation, in a perfect position to bypass them; all the effort was for nothing. When asked his opinion of the Westwall, Patton quipped “Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of mankind.”
The circumstances were perfect for Allied blitzkrieg and the stage was set for a breakthrough. Indeed, the Allied situation was vaguely similar to that which they had encountered but a month earlier in the war in France. If they could just break through the German lines, the potential existed not only to race out across the whole of Germany but also to trap its semi-static forces in pockets and crush the entirety of German resistance in the west. Faced with such prospects, they set forth to achieve them as quickly as possible. And so at dawn on October 9th, the Armies rolled out of Arnhem. The first of these to run into scuffles were the Canadians. The Allied salient and staging area was still but a peninsula in a sea of Nazi opposition, and so scattered conflict on the road to Utrecht was common. Nonetheless their armored columns reached the city before noon. Resistance proved difficult, however it was much less difficult than it could have been owing to two factors: one, the bulk of the remnants of German 15th Army had mostly entrenched themselves in the flooded costal areas of the Scheldt, and the rest were mostly in the countryside functioning in more of a guerilla capacity, not having the numbers to stand and fight the Allies head-on. Two, the Dutch Resistance had been rather emboldened by news of their efforts in Arnhem and Eindhoven, and so were actively assisting the Canadians against their oppressors. By nightfall the city was in Allied hands, and there was much rejoicing by the populous. The Canadians had little time for drink however, as they still had a mission to accomplish. Auxiliaries and logistics teams worked round the clock and as the rest of the 1st Army rumbled into town. The soldiers got what sleep they could – tomorrow was the big day. The next day on October 10th, they again set out, splitting their forces in two. The Germans had become aware of the situation by this time and had scrambled a modest number of units to Rotterdam and concentrated fewer still in Amsterdam, but there simply was not enough time to redeploy the nigh 50,000 soldiers in the Scheldt to these positions. Contact with the Army Group B was spotty at best and so the resistance could ultimately be called poorly organized. The Canadians again hit both cities while it was still morning, and though the fighting was fiercer as it was obvious what was now at stake, so too was the native Resistance and the Canadians. Battles raged throughout Amsterdam for three days, often devolving into house-to-house canal fighting as the Canadian 1st clawed its way toward the center of the city, often assisted by on-hand air support to take out troublesome spots. It was for their ingenious tactics in the canals, and later the Scheldt that Montgomery was later to call them by the title “Water Rats.”
But in the end, it was too much, and as the sun sank on October 13th the remainder of the German defenders surrendered, and throughout the night the city reverberated with the collective cheer of its Dutch citizenry and the Canadian soldiery as well. A large percentage of Amsterdam was reduced to rubble, but it was free. Rotterdam fell two days later; though its canals were less numerous and its combat thereby more conventional, this made things scarcely easier and it was also subject to continued reinforcement from the Scheldt. Units were pulled from Amsterdam to counter and although Rotterdam came out as scarred as that city, by the 15th it too was liberated. The Germans were gradually pushed back toward and beyond the Waal River, while the Canadians distributed their resources toward generally destroying German forces in the Netherlands and liberating the country. Owing to the lack of preparation, both Rotterdam and Amsterdam were only very lightly mined, and so on October 20th, the first Allied convoy entered Rotterdam, led by the Canadian-built freighter
Fort Cataraqui in honor of the 1st Army’s achievements. Eisenhower said of the operation that “The end of Nazism was in clear view when the first ship moved unmolested into Rotterdam.”
For the Dutch, however, the liberation of their major cities did not mean the end of death and carnage: Rotterdam and Amsterdam both joined Antwerp on the list of targets for V-2 rocket attacks, though damage to the ports amounted to little. These were eventually halted as the German lines were pushed further and further back by other Allied forces, and 1st Army slowly constricted what remained of the German 15th into its pocket in the Scheldt, the remainder of the Netherlands having been cut off by the advances of the other Armies and taken in swift order. Here they confined and pummeled with artillery and massive aircraft strikes in conjunction with amphibious assaults. The situation looked – and was – increasingly hopeless, as by this time 15th Army was out of communication with Army Group B. Eventually they had enough. In a somewhat grim twist, at 2315 hours on October 31st, the German 15th Army surrendered to the Allies. The next day, on November 1, 1944, the Netherlands and (though not quite entirely free, sufficiently so to merit it) Belgium were officially declared liberated. Luxembourg had already been liberated on September 10th, and so now the whole (or close enough) of the Low Countries lay in Allied hands. Though the Scheldt estuary was by this time rather heavily mined, by November 19th, it was cleared and convoys were entering it as well. The Allies had more harbors now than they would ever need, and not a moment too soon.
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I actually intended this to be longer, and what was postponed into Chapter III will be following fairly close along since I have regained a measure of interest. That said, I wanted people to read up some before “dropping the hammer” and I thought leaving it on something of a cliffhanger would be a nice gesture.
