The Regina Rifles
Having fought all the way from Juno Beach, the Scheldt presented 1st Battalion, Regina Rifles with its toughest tasking yet – Breskens Pocket and the Leopold Canal. Arthur Gullachsen of the Royal Canadian Rifles details the very bloody assault.
From its breach of the Atlantikwall defences on Juno Beach, 1st Battalion, The Regina Rifle Regiment was engaged in frequent and bitter fighting throughout the 77-day Normandy campaign. However none of these battles compared to the ferocity of the combat encountered by the regiment during the Battle of the Scheldt.
During that bloody engagement, the Reginas played a vital role in 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s assault on the Breskens Pocket, a so-called ‘fortress’ attacked between October 6-13, 1944. Encompassing the south coastline of the Scheldt estuary, this territory was one of two Festung (fortresses) established to deny the vital port of Antwerp to the Allies. Assaulting across a section of the Leopold Canal near the border between the last unliberated section of Belgium and the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, this attack was intended as part of 3rd Canadian Infantry Division’s main thrust to overwhelm German resistance.
While victory in Norm…
