Baker Company - - my company - - took the lead.   Captain Clarke, second in command of the company, was in command.  Major Robinson, I assume, was L.O.B. for the operation.  It was late in the evening as we moved single file at five-yard intervals southward down the road to the eastern approach to the causeway.  I was carrying the 18-set.  I had the earphones on but no messages were being passed.  We never passed messages going into action unless it was absolutely necessary, and then the message would be as brief as possible so as not to let the enemy discover  the frequency we were transmitting on.  I normally had one earphone on my ear to listen for messages and the other off my ear so I could hear what was going on all around me.  As we moved out onto the causeway all was quiet and calm.  The road was paved.  To the right of the roadway was the railroad track.   To the left of the roadway it seems the Germans had dug slit trenches at regular intervals.  They were evidently intended to be used for their own defence if necessary.  It was October 31.  I remarked to my partner: "Tonight is Hallowe'en.  I wonder if there are going to be any fireworks?"  The answer came soon enough.  A very few minutes later, at 11:00 p.m., our field artillery started to put down a barrage on known targets such as gun emplacements on the Walcheren shore to support our attack, but the moment our guns opened up the German artillery opened fire on the causeway.

It was devastating fire with high velocity shells coming straight down the roadway, sometimes ricocheting off the pavement.  We had to go to ground.  Captain Clarke and I scrambled into one of those German slit trenches so he could try to assess the situation and communicate with Battalion.  To assess the situation was easier said than done.  The rifle platoons were spread out along the roadway up ahead.  So Captain Clarke told me to stay put till he got back; took his runner Maxwell with him and went forward as fast as possible to check on his platoon officers to see how far their platoons had got and what problems they had run into.

Meanwhile the commanding officer of the battalion, Acting Lieutenant Colonel Ellis, came on the air asking for a situation report.  Captain Clarke having gone up ahead, I had to find the company sergeant major to answer the C.O.  I found him but he didn't have anything illuminating to say except what was obvious, that we were coming under very heavy artillery fire.  I got back to my slit trench where I remained as ordered.

This must have been close to halfway across the causeway.  The slit trench seemed to be solid.  Jerry had been considerate enough to line the sides with bricks.   This must have been done at their leisure, long before the present hostilities.   Little did the Germans know that it would be a life-saving shelter for Canadians.   Besides the high velocity shells, the enemy was firing with heavy artillery.   These were probably coastal guns in permanent emplacements on the island.

Suddenly Captain Clarke and Maxwell appeared from the direction of Walcheren.   They dove into the slit trench.  Maxwell was completely out of breath and made the observation that Captain Clarke was a hard man to keep up with.  Captain Clarke was obviously very tense and understandably so.  He was agonizing about the situation his company was in and about what to do next.  However, he got himself together, took the microphone and spoke directly to the colonel, giving him a full report on the deployment of his platoons and what we were up against.

At some point the Germans discovered our wireless frequency and proceeded to jam it.  All I could hear then was a loud EEE-YOW-EEE-YOW-EEE-YOW.  When that happened the control set at Battalion (HQ) would start sending out a netting signal on our first alternative frequency, which is what happened.  Then I had to tune in my receiver to Battalion, net my transmitter to my receiver and call up Battalion to see if they could hear me: "Hello Mike Two, report my signals, over."  If they could hear me loud and clear I would get the message: "Mike Two, strength five, out."  Messages had to be brief.    The 'Mike' was part of our battalion call number for the day; 'two' meant Baker Company; 'strength five' meant loud and clear and 'out' meant end of conversation, no reply expected.

We had to change frequencies several times on the Causeway.  It was usually like that.  On a quiet night with nothing going on the 18-set was good for clear communication for about twelve to fifteen miles, but as soon as you went in on an attack there would be a lot of static from vehicles and explosions and probably Jerry would jam your frequency.  It became difficult to maintain communication over one or two miles, let alone twelve miles.  I believe that there on the Causeway, as on other occasions, the problem of maintaining communications helped me to keep my sanity.  I was so busy with this task that to some extent it took my mind off what was going on around me.

The night passed and morning came.   Baker Company headquarters remained where it was.  The shelling continued.   The heavy shells were the worst.  The explosion would send a shock through you that would reach the very depth of your nervous system and put in doubt your ability to take it.  But once in a while one would land in the soft mud flats beside the Causeway, sink in the mud and fail to explode.  You could feel the ground shake as it dug in.  With this continuous bombardment I was about at the limit of what my nerves could take.

There was a bit of relief though.   We did have some air support in this operation.  On several occasions 'Typhoons' flew over and fired rockets at the heavy gun emplacements on Walcheren.   The Jerries must have taken cover because the shelling would cease for several minutes and we would be able to get out of our trenches and cheer and shout defiance at the enemy.  But the guns were not silenced.  As soon as the 'Typhoons' had completed their attack the Germans resumed the bombardment.

A heavy shell hit awfully close.  When I looked up I saw nothing but black.   I thought for a moment that I had had it; but it was only a shower of mud and dirt that came down and there was a wheelbarrow sticking out over the end of the trench.   Where that wheelbarrow came from I will never know.  I hadn't seen it before.   At this point I swore that if I ever got out of this hellish place I wouldn't mind eating dirt for the rest of my life.

Captain Clarke spent a lot of time up ahead with the platoons, but from time-to-time would need to pass messages over the wireless.  We would call down artillery fire on enemy positions on Walcheren.  I would say, for example, "Hello Able Two, message for Shelldrake, Mike Roger 242703, Mike target, fire, over." 'Mike Roger' was a code word for map reference and 'Shelldrake' was the code word for artillery.   Within a few seconds we could hear the gun reports from the eith twenty-five pounders of one battery of field artillery and I would receive the message: "Hello Able Two, shot, send corrections, over."  Then we would hear the shells whistling overhead and the detonations on the enemy target.  It was very reassuring.   If I called for a 'Yoke' target all twenty four guns of the 5th Field Regiment would fire.  It was my understanding  that we could also call for a 'Queen' target, in which case all the artillery in Second Division would open up.  By my calculation at the time that would be eighty guns, that is, three field regiments plus one regiment of medium artillery.  All this was available because for a short time we were the lead company of the lead battalion of the lead brigade of Second Division.

Once, where I was, a young rifleman dropped into my trench; I didn't know where he came from.  We talked a bit.  He looked distraught and bewildered.  All of a sudden he turned pale, peeled off his equipment and said: "I'm getting out of here!"  He climbed out and headed eastward off the causeway.  The poor guy had lost his nerve.  He had cracked.

...At one point a shell hit very close to me and the explosion did something to the wireless set.  It went dead and I couldn't find the problem.  Captain Clarke was not there.  What was there to do?  I couldn't just do nothing.  I headed back off the causeway to Battalion HQ to pick up another 18-set.  In my absence, so I was told, Baker Company moved ahead and since they had no signaler, they borrowed the signaler from Dog Company which was moving up behind them so I went in with Dog Company.   As we advanced along the causeway the main problem was the shelling.  I noticed several Canadian dead lying face down in the dirt, wearing the insignia of the Canadian Black Watch.  They must have been casualties of the Black Watch assault of the previous afternoon.

D Company headquarters advanced as far as a huge crater about two-thirds of the way along the causeway.  It pretty well cut the causeway in two.  The Germans must have blown the hole to prevent vehicles from crossing.  Dog Company headquarters took up a position in the crater.  Baker Company HQ must have been up very close to the island.  Where Able Company and Charlie Company were I had no idea at the time.   Sometimes, as I have said, it was difficult to know the complete picture, especially at night.  It was hard enough to do your job and keep track of the few people around you.  Later that night Baker Company and Dog Company were relieved by other units and moved back off the causeway.  That was the night of the first of November.

...When B Company gathered the next morning we counted about sixty out of about one hundred who went in on the attack.  That meant that B Company alone suffered about forty casualties...

Taken from A BACKWARDS GLANCE: The Personal Story of an Infantry Signaller with the Calgary Highlanders in World War II by Frank P. Holm (Sault Ste Marie, ON, 1989)

The next day, after the rest of the regiment came up, we moved to the entrance of the causeway.  A lot of the young kids were getting upset.  It was pretty awesome.   The Germans were firing shells from the other end, bouncing them off the road, and they were ricocheting back and forth all over the place.  But the attack had begun.   We moved out early in the morning, onto the road, and found a lot of dead bodies from the regiment that had been in ahead of us.  As soon as we started to run, the firing began, and I can still remember the Mad Major yelling, "Come on, you sons-of-bitches!"  We got all seperated.  At one point, an armoured bulldozer came along to try to fill in a ditch that had been blasted across the centre of the causeway, but it drew heavy fire and had to back off.