The Battle at Walcheren Causeway - OT - Printable Version +- Forums (https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards) +-- Forum: The Firing Line (https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: Tiller Operational Campaigns (https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards/forumdisplay.php?fid=11) +--- Thread: The Battle at Walcheren Causeway - OT (/showthread.php?tid=57214)

The Battle at Walcheren Causeway - OT - Glenn Saunders - 10-31-2010 I've posted this before on Halloween - it is a poem - and a lengthy one that if you care to read you have to get into the Rhythm. The battle happened 31 Oct 1944 during the liberation of Holland and I thought I would share it with you. This event is remembered annually each year by the Calgary Highlander Regiment with a full battalion parade and religious service. So with no more let me give you "Walcheren" ++++ I recall I sat on the porch that night, Sipping whisky, straight and neat Watching tiny goblins and lanterns bright Flitting up and down the street, But I don't recall his approach at all; He just suddenly came into view, Walking straight and tall by my garden wall And I greeted him as I would you. "Good evening, soldier. God save the Queen! " I toasted him. "Slake your thirst With some good malt Scotch, for it's Halloween, October the thirty first. The kid's are all out in the neighbourhood And I'm drinking some lonely toasts To the wee folk, there, to my own childhood, To the darkness and the ghosts!" He turned and eyed me - I'd never seen His face in my life before. "Sure," he said. "I'll be happy to toast Halloween - Halloween, nineteen forty four." He crossed the lawn and he shook my hand And I cheerfully poured him a glass. I assumed from his clothing he played in a band; He was kilted and glittering with brass. He proposed "The Calgary Highlanders!" We downed it. I poured us one more. "To the Walcheren Causeway!" he said. "Halloween, Nineteen hundred and forty four! " "To the what?" I enquired, and his eyes went blank And a strange look came over his face And, embarrassed, I flushed and my self-esteem sank, For I felt myself, somehow, disgraced. "The Walcheren Causeway." He said it again. "It's a roadway; a long, narrow belt Of a road built out over the water and fen To a Dutch island, out on the Scheldt. Just a high, built-up roadway; flat; narrow; exposed To the wind and the rain and the sleet. God! The first time we saw it, we never supposed We'd be crossing the thing on our feet. "It was two thousand yards long, and each exposed foot Of it made it a breeze to defend For the Germans who held it; you see, they could shoot From the roadblock they'd built at their end. "I know two thousand yards may not seem much by day when you're taking a stroll with your sons, But at night, in a fight, it's a long, long way When you're facing an enemy's guns. "They had told us at first we'd be crossing in boats To assault Middelburg 'cross the Slooe, But the mud was as thick as the fear in our throats And it stuck our assault craft like glue. "Yet we had to cross over; we had to attack; And by land, there was only one route And that route was the Causeway; straight, long, bare and black. "Well, the Highlanders moved in on foot Under cover of darkness with no place to halt; No surprise; no maneuvering room; Just a mad, midnight dash; a straight frontal assault Into blackness, confusion and doom. "Jerry's mortars and field guns were well zeroed in, And the roadblock machine guns, as well, But we had to approach them, engage them, and win, So we charged them, like bats out of Hell! "All the guns, theirs and ours, turned the night into day And the shell splinters, bullets and stone Fragments turned the air solid and slaughtered men lay Where they fell, lifeless, limp and alone. "Twelve Platoon of B Company took the full force Of a hellish, defensive crossfire; They were out in the front, unprotected, of course, And B Company had to retire. "Daybreak came, and the sight of that shell shattered road Would have riven an archangel's brain, But D Company moved forward and took up the load And the whole place erupted again. "How they did it, God knows, but they went all the way Where no human could hope to survive, And they captured the roadblock; they carried the day And the rest of us crossed there alive. "Like the Light Brigade charging the jaws of death, Riding into the mouth of Hun, They smelled the stink of the Demon's breath As they friends and their messmates fell. "Like their Highlander forbears who fought with pride On the rolling Zulu veldt, They faced extinction and stemmed its tide On that Causeway over the Scheldt. "Like their Sister Regiment's Thin Red Line On the Balaclavan clay, They defied false gods for the narrow spine Of the Walcheren Causeway. As the Calgary men took St. Julien In the War that had gone before, These ones captured the Causeway to Walcheren And distinguished the oakleaf they wore." His voice tailed away and he stared at me And between us, a silence hung; As I reached for the bottle to charge his glass, I was thinking he looked too young To have seen the things he said he'd seen; But then shock unhinged my jaw, For the chair sat empty, where he had been And the night had turned cold and raw. I jumped up and ran to the garden wall And I searched the empty street But I saw no sign of him at all And I heard no sound of feet. Then his voice said, clearly, "To Walcheren: Don't forget!" inside my head, And I shivered and turned, and went slowly in To a sleepless, comfortless bed. +++++ Have a good one guys and watch out for the ghosts! Glenn RE: The Battle at Walcheren Causeway - OT - The SNAFU - 10-31-2010 A chilling Halloween tale and fine tribute. Thanks Glenn RE: The Battle at Walcheren Causeway - OT - Mr Grumpy - 10-31-2010 Indeed, the reference to the Light brigade riding into the valley of death was a good parallel. RE: The Battle at Walcheren Causeway - OT - Jison - 10-31-2010 That was beautiful. Goose bumps all over. Thanks. Jison