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By Root 1190 0

“Pip” Roberts’s 11th Armoured Division first seized the docks. Until that date, almost every ton of Allied supplies had to be trucked or carried across the devastated French rail net from the Normandy beaches or the Channel ports, most of which had now been cleared of their German garrisons. It is scarcely surprising that the Americans showed little patience with Montgomery’s professions of eagerness for a rapid dash into Germany when he and his forces made such heavy weather of performing one of the most vital strategic tasks of the campaign. The operations to open Antwerp were the overwhelming preoccupation of 21st Army Group between the failure of Market Garden and November 1944. By the time the job was done, it was plain that the British would make no important progress towards Germany until the wet, dismal winter was past its worst.

First Canadian Army was left to hold a long line east–west along the estuary of the Maas and up the Waal, then turning south down the Arnhem–Nijmegen salient. Northern Holland remained in German hands. The difficulties had now become apparent of attacking across the Dutch flatlands. The British focused their main forces upon the eastern axis towards Germany, and maintained only a holding front against the German forces occupying northern Holland.

Dempsey’s Second Army began a long series of operations to make ground into Germany. The Siegfried Line ended some miles north of Aachen, so the British faced no major German fortifications. They were now fighting eighty miles from the heart of the Ruhr. But through October and November, in awful weather and on difficult terrain, they encountered disappointment after disappointment as they struggled to find a way through. An attack by VIII Corps into the Peel Marshes took five days to cover three miles, where the few roads were heavily mined and fiercely defended by Student’s paratroopers.

That operation was broken off on 15 October. The Germans launched an impressive counter-attack of their own twelve days later, against the American 7th Armored Division on the British right. The Germans regained some ground, caused considerable mayhem and prompted Bradley to relieve the commander of 7th Armored. The British VIII and XII Corps spent the entire month of November clearing the Peel Marshes, closing up to the River Maas early in December. The neighbouring XXX Corps pushed painfully through Geilenkirchen, twelve miles north of Aachen, to touch the Roer in mid-December. The officer commanding 5th Royal Tanks, Lieutenant-Colonel Tony Leakey, reflected the mood of many British units at this time: “The regiment had seldom been out of the action throughout the war . . . and they had certainly had their bellyful. The 5th fought as hard as any . . . even so, I missed that ‘urge to go.’ ” The CO of 1st Herefords, George Turner-Cain, found it painful to contrast the lack of enthusiasm among his own men with the dogged performance of the Germans:

. . . hard fighting and heavy casualties had a depressing effect on morale all round. Men became jumpy and unwilling to go forward in the face of fire or possible fire, unless led by their leaders. The Germans, who were highly disorganized, fighting in penny packets and not in formations, were showing splendid spirit and defiance, fighting until told to withdraw . . .

Major-General “Pip” Roberts wrote of the difficulties that winter: “Now, mistakes and failures could only delay the end. Of course we wanted to finish the war as quickly as possible, but at what cost? Unless morale was high, we would not achieve our objectives; heavy casualties in a fruitless battle will not help morale. We must try to win our battles without heavy casualties; not very easy.” Montgomery once described his unhappiness when Churchill conveyed to him American reproaches that the British seemed unwilling to take their share of casualties. “It was you, Prime Minister,” responded the field-marshal, “who told me that we must not suffer casualties on the scale of the Somme.”

Familiar tensions resurfaced between British and Americans.