Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of The Royal Canadian Legion www.ns.legion.ca 33 The “Hunger Winter” With the realization that the conflict would stretch into 1945, Canadian soldiers took up positions on the Nijmegen salient in the eastern Netherlands near the German border. The Allies would make careful plans for the campaign to end the war in Europe in the new year but the delay would have serious ramifications for the Dutch people who had already endured more than four years of brutal enemy occupation. The so-called “Hunger Winter” of 1944-1945 would be a terrible time for many in the country. Food supplies were exhausted and some people were reduced to eating tulip bulbs just to try to survive. Fuel had run out and transportation was almost non-existent. Tragically, thousands of Dutch civilians in the occupied portions of the nation would perish. After three months of helping hold the front line in the Netherlands, in February 1945 the First Canadian Army took part in a fierce Allied offensive through muddy and flooded ground to drive the Germans from the Nijmegen front and back across the Rhine River. The major push to finally liberate all of Northwest Europe had begun. The liberation campaign In early April 1945, the First Canadian Army began to clear the Germans from the northeast portions of the Netherlands. Often aided by information provided by Dutch resistance fighters, Canadian troops advanced rapidly, recapturing communities, canals and farmland as they relentlessly pushed forward. By the middle of the month, British and Canadian forces had cleared the city of Arnhem after two days of house-by-house fighting. Only days later, they also freed Apeldoorn. They continued their advance up through places like Zwolle and Groningen towards the North Sea. The Canadians kept up the pressure, putting their lives on the line even though it was evident that the rapidly weakening enemy forces would soon have to surrender anyway. It was felt, however, that the long-suffering Dutch simply could wait for relief no longer. Canadians tried to be judicious with their use of destructive artillery fire and aerial bombing as they didn’t want to badly damage the country’s infrastructure and make it even harder for the local people to rebuild their lives after the war. Ecstatic Dutch men, women and children cheered Canadian troops as one town after another was liberated. Recalled one person who was a teenager at the time, “As the (Canadian) tank came nearer...there was a big hush over all the people, and it was suddenly broken by a big scream, as if it was out of the earth. And the people climbed on the tank...and they were crying. And we were running with the tanks and the jeeps all the way into the city.” It was still a challenging and stressful campaign for our troops, however, as it was difficult to predict how the Germans would respond when the Canadians went on the attack in an occupied town or village. Sometimes enemy forces resisted fiercely and other times they would retreat with hardly a shot being fired. continued ... continued ...
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