Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra
Of the four Armoured Dozers which embarked, only three disembarked of which two fell victim to mines ashore. Only one Armoured Dozer which reached the town.
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I checked one of my sources again (
Operation Infatuate Landing Table and Beaching Diagram V2), and found more Armoured Dozers were embarked. Indeed four (4) Dozers embarked with the 87 Sqn Aslt Regt RE in LCT nrs. 4, 5, 6, 7. Initially I only counted those, as they embarked with the Sherman tanks I (tried to) focus on.
Additionally, 509th Field Company, RE embarked with one (1) Dozer each on LCT nrs. 8, 22, 25, 26 (from 510 FC Coy?) and 27, totaling nine (9)
D7 Armoured Dozers.
History of the Royal Engineers, Vol IX, 1938–1948 states six (6) disembarked, of which all but one (1) got stuck in the soft mud:
Quote:
As part of the operation to clear the River Scheldt and port of Antwerp, 59th GHQTRE under the command of Lt-Col E.W.L Whitehorn assisted the Commandos of 4th Special Service Brigade in their amphibious assault on Walcheren on 1 November 1944. One platoon or section of sappers was allocated to give general assistance to each of the five Commando units, and a detachment of the field park company landed with six bulldozers, leaving the rest of the field companies for beach maintenance.
(...)
The Commandos had sailed from Ostend and landed successfully before dawn at Flushing, but the bulldozers of 59th GHQTRE ran into soft mud and only one could be extricated, and most of the engineering stores were lost, though casualties among the sappers were light.
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At least four Armoured Dozers could be found as spoils of war on the beaches for many years after the fighting, until they were scrapped or used as back-fill to reconstruct the sea dyke.
I have labelled them "A", "B", "C", and "D" which have no other meaning than to discern them on photos.
Two dozers "A" and "B" and "C" on the north side of the breach, where all the AFVs got hopelessly stuck:
Dozer "D" on the south side of the breach. It seems to have a name on the top edge of the rear armour. As with other vehicles found in the village after the war, the census numbers seem to have been painted out (possibly because they had been struck off charge).