 |
| St. Gertrude's Parish |
It was a straight run on the train today south to Bergen Op Zoom. It is located in the Brabant area of the Netherlands. It is part of or abuts the Scheldt Estuary where the battle of October and November of 1944 took place for my father and many other Canadian and British troops. The town is the location of a Canadian War Cemetery. My emotions certainly run high when I rub shoulders with this reality. My own father may well have been killed. December 16, 1944, in fact, appears to have been a singularly brutal day for Canadian members of the Signal Corps like my dad.
The regiment with what looked like to me the largest losses during the Battle of the Scheldt were the Black Watch from Montreal. The Light Infantry from Hamilton where my dad grew up also lost a number of men. Over 1,000 Canadian troops are buried in this cemetery.
 |
| The Town Hall |
I had the chance to speak to a woman from the town and she was able to tell me that Canadians arrived there in October, that is the first part of the battle. The Scheldt is a complex series of watercourses, islands and peninsulas. War is always messy, but to look at a schematic of the Battle of the Scheldt, you realize that troops were literally running in all directions. As best as I can determine, my father was in Tilburg by Christmas of 1944. Perhaps Tilburg will be on my itinerary the next time I am able to come to the Netherlands.
It seems that the town, as I suspected, relates strongly even now to
Antwerp, despite the fact that it is over the border in Belgium. It
truly is part of the Scheldt.
 |
| Looking in from the entrance to the Canadian War Cemetery at Bergen Op Zoom |
 |
| One of the Corps of Signals who died on December 16, 1944 |
