Battle of the Scheldt 1944
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 2 October 1944 – 8 November 1944 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1944 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
| Era | World War II era (1939–1945) | derived from year |
| Location | Netherlands | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | World War II | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | United Kingdom | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 51.5523, 4.6527 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of the Scheldt in World War II was a series of military operations to open up the Scheldt river between Antwerp and the North Sea for shipping, so that Antwerp's port could be used to supply the Allies in north-west Europe. The operations were carried out by the First Canadian Army, with assistance from Polish and British units which had been attached. The action was under the acting command of the First Canadian's Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds. The battle took place in the vicinity of the Scheldt river in northern Belgium and southwestern Netherlands from 2 October to 8 November 1944.
The Canadians had been delayed for more than a month, and the need to clear the Scheldt had not yet been addressed, due to Allied decisions to spend September focusing on Arnhem (Operation Market Garden), Boulogne (Operation Wellhit), Calais (Operation Undergo) and the opening weeks of the Siege of Dunkirk. By the time the Canadians were sent into the Battle of the Scheldt, the Wehrmacht defenders had been reinforced. The Germans staged an effective delaying action during which they flooded land areas in the Scheldt estuary and slowed the Allied advance.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of the Scheldt (revision 1381246387), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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All 178 battles of the World War II →
Browse more: battles in Netherlands · Europe · World War II era battles