Talk:Battle of the Scheldt

started a major revision, Feb 2007

Hi all, As of Feb 9, 2007, I've started a draft of a revision for the Battle of the Scheldt. From time to time, if I am able to make progress, I will copy the whole thing over to the page. I'd appreciate any feedback on it as it grows. It will definitely build heavily on contributions already made, but I am looking to shorted and clarify and reference more.

what was here prior to Feb 2007

Hey everyone. Worked on this all day, mostly gleemed from the Canadian Government Veterans website. I'd like to see more information and data on the German side. Anyone who speaks german or who has an interest in the topic, I'd love to have your help polishing this up. Cheers.

--Oldsoul 4 July 2005 09:07 (UTC)

I would like to thank you and everyone else for makig this article I started it, but didn't have time to actually make an article. Also I believe there should be a reference to the Canadians being called the "water rats" for their fighting through the scheldt, but I don't know where to put it. If anyone would like to add that please do so. Thanks. say1988 July 6, 2005 14:08 (UTC)

I'm not usually one to take credit, but you're very welcome! I took a great deal of pleasure in expanding this, and I hope it's up to snuff. My uncle is in the PPCLI and he said that this battle was one of the most important of the war, but yet most udnernoted. I was exploring through all the world war 2 related pages and categories that are now linked, and there were no ref. to the Scheldt. It was an honor and a priviledge, and I invite anyone who has more details about the german side to contribute to what I've done.

For the honor... --Oldsoul July 6, 2005 20:47 (UTC)

Removed quotes section and integrated them into the text. I note that quote sections do not appear in any other battle page I know of, so to say consistant I removed it. Added an after math section. Pehaps it and conclusion should be merged probably under the heading of aftermath to more closely resemble other battle pages, but Aftermath probably needs editing. More edits by me should come soon, but don't have time now. I am also trying to at least add stubs, hopfully more, to some of the red links. I tried to add references but it didn't seem to work out, perhaps someone who knows what to do can do it.say1988 00:57, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

mergerd "conclusions" and my new "aftermath" sections under title aftermath, similar to other battle articles. say1988 17:33, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Expanded the introduction to include a summary of the results of the battle. Based on the results being in the intro for other battle pages and I believe the intro should be a short summary of the entire article.say1988 03:21, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

First of all, I appreciate the recent effort made to build a narrative into this article, however, I must stress that we should not build it too strongly in favour of the allies perspective. That is to say, many of the edits that have been made in the last couple of weeks since my last major addition, while overall productive in nature, have seemed to mainly draw out obvious points or over-emphasize certain aspects of the allied operation(s).

My gut feeling is to revert to previous edits in the history and re-build/edit in baby steps, but I feel that in the interest of the wikipedia we should establish the dialogue here first and then take a few steps back in the sections which might need scaling back. For example, despite the other pages in this campaign, we are setting a bit of a prescedent in this article, so I believe one of the first steps is to re-establish a seperate "quotes" section. The article reads a bit heavy in it's current form and I think needs to be simplified.

Thoughts?

Oldsoul 10:17, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

Just wondering what part is "building too strongly in favour of the Allies?" I probably just cant see it because it was likely my changes. Though at time precendent is required to be set, an important part of an encyclopedia is uniformity of similar articles and on other pages major changes have been made to that. Though I do think a quote section would be very nice, I don't think it should be in unless you get more than a few people and consider doing the same for other similar articles. It might make sense to add it again and then se what other people think.say1988 18:42, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Good article. I just wanted to comment that the convention for the naming of military units is "nationality-number-unit", i.e. Canadian 2nd Division, not "2nd Canadian Division".Grant65 (Talk) 22:58, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

Which convention is that? The Canadian official history uses the latter form exclusively, and if fact, so do the General Orders that created the division.Michael Dorosh 13:50, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Did you make the edits yet? Oldsoul 08:26, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

Try for featured article status by November 8th anniversary?

Hi. I've just read this article for the first time, and I'm very impressed. Good work! Checking the current Wikipedia:Featured articles, there are no major Canadian battles listed -- although the Military history of Canada and the Battle of Normandy have both reached featured status.

The Battle of the Scheldt was one of the most important Canadian contributions in WWII, and I'd like to see it recognized. Should we try to reach featured status by November 8, the anniversary date of the end of all German resistance?

Well I'm moving back to Edmonton to Toronto this weekend but during the next week, I'd love to delve into the Scheldt again. Not sure what else needs to be explored to make a good candidate, but I'm certainly willing to take some direction from those that have worked on featured articling before.Oldsoul 09:05, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Rating

I have given this one A because I think it has the potential for FA status, although I believe more on the German side would be necessary for it to reach that level. Andreas 12:50, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I am interested in the attack on hoogerheide because i lived at the place. I do read german,(so if you put links i may have a look some day) i think the germans don't have many resources about all events. Also the allies were not overly glad with their succes after they lost (est.) 200000 canadians (in one of these stupid allied straightforward attacks, they could just have waited a day eg.). Nevertheless it was a catastrophe for the germans. They lost about 70-120000 man trying to defend the high ground. It was so thoroughly defended(local info), they had expected better perhaps. However , i assume partly because of the terrains texture (sand) and the overall flat characteristics of the netherlands an introductory artillery/air bombardment is estimated (locally) to have killed 70000 germans still in their foxholes/trenches. When people would build new houses in the area, it was not uncommon to dig up whole rows of intact germans 3 mtr deep under the sand. "clutching their guns" like one of the workers told me , 70000 man ready to fight, burried in the sand, nothing much to be proud of. I must say that what i know concerns Hoogerheide/Woensdrecht area not necessarily Korteven, i just don't know that. One excuse for the lack of information may be that the fighting went on immediatly from there in the direction of Bergen op zoom, there may have not been much left to report anything, the allies that occupied the plave probably didn't have a faint idea about the nr of germans burried. Locals also told me of impressive allied airsuperiority on that day(s), for me the whole story only started to make sense a couple of years ago when i read somewhere the germans admitted some 100000 man lost, and how these canadians attacked, i mean , at least there was something going on, i have always thought what did the germans think they would achieve by being there and dying. The high ground being a sandy ridge, 20-30mtrs higher then the land of antwerp, oh well that is hindsight.80.57.243.16 19:15, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Infatuate I & II

Should these get their own article? If so, I should think that the section here could form a good basis of it. Andreas 15:10, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Good Article nomination has failed

While the article is very well written, it unfortunately contains barely any references and as such it cannot become a good article. Although inline citations would be preferable this is not essential, but you do need to cite the sources that you get your information from or, alternatively, that you use to verify the information in the article. It has been added to the appropriate WikiProject for referencing. -- Underneath-it-All 16:14, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

• I think the article would benefit from more clarity--dates and references, more exact lists of troops and places, and in fact, it needs to be shortened because a reader new to the subject is possibly going to get lost. Yet I praise all the work that has gone into this until now; seems like a real labor of love.Harborsparrow 05:00, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

• • P S - I got involved because I discovered that this was my father's first battle in WWII. Although he seldom spoke about the war at all, he did tell us that when he first joined the army, he and his buddies thought it was all great fun, but then, the first battle they got into (which he didn't identify at the time), all his buddies were killed--except him--and then he broke down and cried, the only time I ever saw him cry or speak of the war at all. And I know his division was in some horrific fights after this one. Thanks to all of you who've worked on this. Oh--he was in U S 104th Infantry Division.Harborsparrow 05:08, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Detail missing

If I'm not mistaken, were there not elements of French commandos who also participated in this battle? If so, they have been left out. 15:06 , 8/15/2007

Frequently, recipients of the Military Cross are mentioned. My uncle, Major Robert (Bob) Schwob of the Royal Montreal Regiment, won one for valor on Oct 6 1944 in this battle. See half way down this page: https://royalmontrealregiment.com/history/ . Please consider this. Thank you. chrismorton7@gmail.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.22.96.23 (talk) 17:21, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

German POWs

The article lists the German POWs at 41,000. As no one has disputed that I transfered that number to the summary box since it had German Casualties as unknown but the numbers of POWs stated in the concluding paragraph. -- Wokelly (talk) 20:48, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Furnesflooding.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 20:38, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

V bombs

During the period of the Battle of the Scheldt the town of Antwerp was subjected to intensive bombardment by VIs and VIIs. Fortunately Allied units were able to detect and destroy about 90% of the incoming before it landed. This was largely due to the development of practicable radar devices and Allied control of the air space. Even so there were notable catastrophes, with close to a thousand people being killed when a cinema was hit. The target was of course Antwerp's docks, which had been captured more or less intact. Maybe it would be appropriate to give some account of the V weapon bombardment of Antwerp in this article. Everybody got to be somewhere! (talk) 01:14, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

IIRC, the real - and not stated at the time - reason for the Battle of the Scheldt was to push the nearest V-2 rocket firing areas out of range of London. Once forced out of the Scheldt there was no German-occupied area within V-2 range of London, and hence the V-2 attacks on London ceased. That's possibly why Antwerp received them instead. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.221.50 (talk) 10:53, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Additions to Controversy

The article certainly requires references, and in particular it tries to claim credit for Monty though he delayed it (and the opening of the port to shipping!). The comment under Background that "Operation Market Garden succeeded in forming a buffer between Germany and Antwerp" needs a source. Have added quotes under “Controversy” sourced to Antony Beevor. Hugo999 (talk) 05:28, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I am not the only one who noticed this is a nonsensical claim. Market Garden formed a salient that was drain on Allied resources, not a help. It is good that somebody else noticed that. --A.S. Brown (talk) 21:21, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Actually Market Garden whilst failing in its objective actually liberated a considerable part of Holland from German occupation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.11.221 (talk) 13:25, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Explosion at Ijzendijke

On the 20 October 1944 a massive explosion of refuelling ‘Congas’ (a modified Bren gun carrier with the engine removed and a storage tank to hold Liquid Nitro Glycerine in its place) killing 37 british and canadian soldiers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/67/a1985367.shtml https://twitter.com/DBGMilitaria/status/921427143808176128 http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1389 https://www.arnhem1944themissingones.com/missing-soldiers-in-the-netherlands-1940-1945-allied-german-and-axis/missing-allied-ground-forces/royal-engineers/

CE

Sorted out some red links on the citations.Keith-264 (talk) 12:55, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Request to include Military Cross recipient in Leopold Canal section

Hello - this is the first time I have done this, so I am asking for help and open to how to accomplish my goal. My deceased uncle, Robert Schwob, won an MC for his valor during the Leopold Canal action on Oct 6, 1944. It seems like Wikipedia commonly acknowledges MC winners. Can we add this? I have collected images of the citation and the public record of it, and would be happy to provide these to you Thanks in advance Montreal Mort Montreal Mort (talk) 14:24, 18 March 2023 (UTC)