Just to weigh in with my 61 cents on the issue:
The Black Watch was by far perhaps the hardest hit Canadian Infantry line unit of the Second World War. Elements of the Battalion participated in Dieppe, and following D-Day the BW suffered casualties on an epic scale; the Battle of Verrieres Ridge is an excellent example. In the fall of 1944, the Battle of the Scheldt began. The Schedlt was probably the most important Battle of World War II after D-Day. It was planned to liberate the city of Antwerp and give the Allies a badly needed deep water, inland, port to deliver supplies to. Without Antwerp, the Allies were still convoying supplies from the Normandy coast, a supply line that was in danger of becoming over-extended. The spearhead of the Battle of the Scheldt was the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, however additional Allied units were attached to the Divison to give it a robust nature. In addition to the Polish, American, British, and French units, the Black Watch were attacked to the 9th Brigade of the 3rd Division shortly after the Scheldt Campaign began. On October 13th, 1944, the Black Watch attacked heavily dug-in German positions at Hoogerheide. During the bloody engagement, all four (4) Company Commanders were KIA, and every Company was utterly decimated by well-cited German machine guns. In fact B Company lost over 90 men in the engagement, leaving only
four (4) survivors to crawl back to the Allied lines. As a result, Friday October 13th, 1944, was refered to from that day forth as "Black Friday". To this day, every October 13th, the citizens of Hoogerheide and the surrouding area, visit the Canadian War Cemetary in the the fields surrounding the city and pay tribute to the Highlanders who fell trying to liberate them. The Dutch, are perhaps, the most poignant in their shows of respect for Canadians killed during the War. They light candles, sing songs, scatter poppies on the graves, they cry, and yet at the same time recount stories (those we experienced it) of the kindness the men of the 1st Canadian Army showed them. I speak of this, for I have seen it with my own two eyes. A few years ago I attended the Battle of the Scheldt ceremonies, and I was deeply moved by the utter sturdiness in the respect those people have for Canada. I, like every other Canadian soldier, was in uniform at the time and I was swarmed by civilians who wanted to talk to me. Young and old, they all wanted to thank me, as if I myself had somehow aided in the Liberation of their Nation over 60 years ago. When they found out my Grandfather had landed at Juno Beach, and was wounded four days later by a German sniper, they became even more vocal as to what they owed me. I tried to deflect the respect back towards those burried under the headstones, but apparently, to this day in the Netherlands, being a Canadian is as close to Sainthood as one can come. To bring this all back in to perspective, the Black Watch are an excellent example of what our Nation did when Europe was in its hour of need. Thousands of men sailed across the Atlantic, to Countries some of them hadn't even heard of, let alone been to, and many died, in fields, far from home, for people they didn't know, for a cause they believed in so much. A good friend of mine, who I actually went through my 3's training with, has a Grandfather who served with the Black Watch during World War II. I met the man on my graduation day several years ago, and while old, the man still embodies that sense of National Pride that makes up a soldier. He didn't really talk about the War (even though we tried), but he did give us a piece of advice he said he lived by while fighting in Europe;
Quote:
Your mates are the only ones you can count on when you're forced to do your job. They'll get you through tough times and keep you going when you think you can't. Hopefully none of you will have to know what it feels like to lose a friend in action, but if that day ever comes, know they died serving a higher purpose; their Nation.
He teared up and refused to speak any more, but I felt that the old soldier had given us a piece of valuable advice. Value your friends, you'll need them. I cannot fathom what it must have been like for him, fighting at Dieppe, Normandy, and the Scheldt. The casualties figures of the Black Watch are astounding to say the least, yet somehow he survived the odds.
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Nah we didn't win world war one. We needed the little Americans to finish the Germans off in the end. However, we won probably the biggest battle, Vimy Ridge and a few others.
The Americans really didn't contribute as much to WW I as they think they did. They showed up like it was a giant game, lost mountains of men in a short span of time, and their only real claim to fame was the Battle of Belleau Wood in June 1918. In fact, the Americans were only in the War for around 7 months, yet managed in that brief time frame, to amass more casualties than Canada, a Nation that had been fighting constantly since 1914. The Americans deem they're the saviour of World War I, when in reality they showed up, late, untrained, and blundered through the few minor engagements they fought in. The only reason, and this is just my opinion at this point, that the Americans actually
WON at Belleau, is that the enemy they were fighting was worn down after 4 years of warfare, and was also comprised largely of teenages (13-17). No, the Americans didn't so much help us in World War I, as much as they did soak up bullets. Terrible as that sounds, anyone that knows the history of the American involvment in WW I will agree.
Now as for Canada, we contributed on a monumental scale to World War I. We took a poorly trained militia and turned it in to one of the Worlds best armies. We were seen as the tip of the Allied spear, and during the last 100 Days of the War, including the pursuit to Mons, we were always on the foreground. In fact, following the 2nd Battle of Ypres in 1915 (the PPCLI stood against the first ever poison gas attack here) the Allies came to recognize just how valuable Canadian Divisions were. As a result, they were shuffled all over Europe, patching holes and taking part in Battles. Consider the Canadian Corps of WW I the proverbial "ringer" that the Allies always attempted to throw in to the fight.
