40th anniversary of Victory

Number by catalogue:  Michel: 2240   Yvert: 2190   Scott: 1212  

Perforation type: 11 ½x11 ½

Subject:

24 francs. The Battle of the Scheldt*

Additional:

*The Battle of the Scheldt was a series of military operations of the Canadian 1st Army, led by Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds. The battle took place in northern Belgium and southwestern Netherlands during World War II from 2 October to 8 November 1944.

By September 1944, it had become urgent for the Allies to clear both banks of the Scheldt estuary in order to open the port of Antwerp to Allied shipping, thus easing logistical burdens in their supply lines stretching hundreds of miles from Normandy eastward to the Siegfried Line. Since the Allied forces had landed in Normandy (France) on D-Day, 6 June 1944, the British 2nd Army had pushed forward into the Low Countries and captured Brussels and Antwerp, the latter with its ports still intact. But the advance halted with the British in possession of Antwerp, while the Germans still controlled the Scheldt Estuary.

Nothing was done about the blocked Antwerp ports during September because most of the strained Allied resources were allocated to Operation Market Garden, a bold plan for a single thrust into Germany which began on 17 September. In the meantime, German forces in the Scheldt were able to deploy to meet them.

In early October, after Market Garden had failed with heavy losses, Allied forces led by the Canadian 1st Army set out to bring the Antwerp ports under control. But the well-established German defenders staged an effective delaying action. Complicated by the waterlogged terrain, the Battle of the Scheldt proved to be a challenging campaign in which the losses suffered by the Canadians exacerbated another conscription crisis.

After five weeks of difficult fighting, the Canadian 1st Army—bolstered by attached troops from several other countries—was successful in clearing the Scheldt after numerous amphibious assaults, obstacle crossings, and costly assaults over open ground. Both land and water were mined, and the Germans defended their line of retreat with artillery and snipers.

The Allies finally cleared the port areas on 8 November at a cost of 12,873 Allied casualties (killed, wounded, or missing), half of them Canadians.

Once the German defenders were no longer a threat, it was an additional three weeks before the first ship carrying Allied supplies was able to unload in Antwerp (on 29 November 1944) due to the necessity of de-mining the harbours.

 

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This information has been taken from Wikipedia