Clearing the Channel Coast

Clearing the Channel Coast
Part of Siegfried Line Campaign

The Channel coast
DateSeptember–November 1944
Location
France and Belgium
Result Allied victory
Belligerents
 Canada
 United Kingdom
Poland
Czechoslovakia
 Belgium
 Netherlands
 France
 Germany
Commanders and leaders
Canada Harry Crerar Nazi Germany Gustav-Adolf von Zangen
Units involved
Canada First Canadian Army Nazi Germany 15th Army
Strength
2 armoured divisions
4 infantry divisions
3 divisions
(in France)
2 divisions
(in Holland)
Casualties and losses
14,300 casualties 13,100 killed, wounded, missing
70,971 captured
Total:
84,071 casualties

Clearing the Channel Coast was a World War II task undertaken by the First Canadian Army in August 1944, following the Allied Operation Overlord and the victory, break-out and pursuit from Normandy.

The Canadian army advanced from Normandy to the Scheldt river in Belgium. En route, they were to capture the Channel ports needed to supply the Allied armies, clear the Germans from the Channel littoral and launch sites for the V-1 flying bombs. The German 15th Army was able only to oppose the advance with sporadic resistance, wary of being outflanked and isolated by the rapidly advancing British Second Army on the right of the Canadians and executed an orderly retreat north-eastwards towards the Scheldt.

On 4 September Adolf Hitler declared the Channel ports to be fortresses but Dieppe and Ostend were taken without opposition. Le Havre, Boulogne and Calais were subjected to set-piece assaults, after massed bombing and an attack on Dunkirk was cancelled and the garrison contained. Troops investing Dunkirk were freed for the Battle of the Scheldt, where the First Canadian Army reduced the Breskens Pocket, cleared the mouth of the Scheldt and opened Antwerp to Allied shipping.