Churchill tanks crossing a Bailey bridge over the Antwerp-Turnhout canal at Rijckevorsel during the attack north of Antwerp, 22 October 1944 © IWM (B 11112)
(Note
the Polar Bear insignia on the sign at the bridge exit).
http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205202583
http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205202583
In his
account, Colonel Douglas describes how ‘D’ Company, having crossed the Canal
came under fire from powerful 20 mm ack-ack guns.
‘24th
September we hit the Antwerp-Turnhout Canal, a pretty hefty canal , about I
suppose 50 yards wide with quite high, steep concrete banks. Our Battalions job
was to do a diversionary attack so that the main attack could go in further
down towards the sea. We attacked in the dark and got over at first light,
knocked out the, erm, lock-keepers house where the Germans were and moved
forward to the line of the road which I suppose was a couple of 100 yards in
from the canal and there we waited because we’d been told that the Germans use
this road, particularly for their transport, to communicate with one side of
the low line and the other. And there we waited to get a suitable ambush. And
unfortunately, the first thing that came along was one of, or a group of these
20mm ack-ack trucks which were very nasty weapons. They had four or six barrels
on the open back of a truck and they fired very nasty 20mm shells which I
suppose were about 10 inches long and a couple of inches across and they were
exploding shells for firing at aircraft and if fired at human beings they
didn’t do an awful lot of good. You know it took great chunks out of you and we
unfortunately took this thing on, knocked a few of them off the back of the trucks with our first volley ,
but they were brave guys and they swung these things round and began to wreck the
top of this bank that we were on. Several chaps got great pieces shot out of
them and it didn’t do them any good at all. We then realised that the way to do
it was to throw hand grenades at them and we started throwing mills grenades
over, which they didn’t like a bit. So they gave us one last volley and set
off, and hared down the road again. We hung on to this position then, waiting
for the main attack to go in further down the canal, until by mid afternoon we
were told we could pull back over the canal. The attack had gone through and
our diversion had done what it was supposed to do. We had of course by this
time dug quite a good position in the middle of a field with the correct
spacings and with some roofs on it, an excellent position which we would have
held very nicely. We got back over the canal onto the far bank when an enormous
bombardment came down on the position tyhat we had just vacated and the entire
field disappeared in clouds of dust and flames and a great German attack came
in supported by tanks on fresh air, we were awfully chuffed, we thought that
was very funny and we pulled back then to a safe distance and let them have
it’.
At
midnight on the 24th the Hallams launched a diversionary attack from
Beerse, which attracted much German fire. In this action, their ‘beachmaster’,
Captain Douglas Bell, was killed and under such fire the Hallams were unable to
launch any boats. The assault was halted. Later in the day, on 25th
September, the 4th
Lincolnshire Regiment were able to establish a small bridgehead, two kilometres
further to the east, at Sluice 1 at the Sint Jozef-Rijkevorsal section of the canal. This action also
resulted in the Lincolns taking ninety German prisoners.
Despite
determined counterattacks over the following three days, it was the Rijkevorsal
bridgehead that became the main crossing of the Antwerp-Turnhout Canal.
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