On this day 80 years ago: C15TA in action in the Battle of the Scheldt

[Hanno Spoelstra]

This well known (maybe even iconic) photo of a C15TA was made 80 years ago to the day. It shows infantrymen of The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry in General Motors C15TA armoured trucks at the town of Krabbendijke, the Netherlands, 27 October 1944. The Battle of the Scheldt was the first combat deployment of the C15TA.

I would like to pinpoint this location for a then & now photo. It would be great to have a full line up of C15TA's complete with infantry. But for now, you will have to do with a recent photo of my C15TA.

PS: note the consecutive census numbers(!)



Source: http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redire...05115&lang=eng | https://www.facebook.com/BobsFighting40s/

[David Dunlop]

Hello Hanno.

Here in Canada, we have a National Air Photo Library located in Ottawa. It holds all the negatives from every Air Photo Survey ever done in Canada, along with maps plotting the routes the aircraft flew for every survey done. Most surveys were done at an altitude providing a one square foot photo print equivalent to one square mile of surface coverage. Some prewar surveys were done using oblique cameras and are not to this scale and a few later surveys in recent decades are done at a higher altitude giving a larger surface coverage per photo, but less detail.

Each Province typically has a Branch Air Photo Library where one can review photos and survey maps and order local copies of prints. The RCAF mapped all of Canada in 1948 and 1964 using Lancaster Bombers, in conjunction with Spartan Aviation, a private company, that flew Mosquitos and a handful of Hornets. They crashed all their Hornets because the pilots could not handle them.

Anyway. Does Holland maintain an equivalent Air Photo Survey Library anywhere that you might have access to? If so, the first step would be to identify the road in the wartime photo where the C15TAs were formed up and then see if any old air surveys were done over that location between 1945 and around 1960, before any major developments took place in the area. The trees in the photo would most likely have survived before 1960 and could help confirm the exact spot where the photo was taken. The regimental Diaries might also give you a clue if there is enough information regarding the route they took and where they might have halted, to wait for further orders.

An interesting bit of research for you in any event.


David

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Hello David,

In the Netherlands we have a website where one can compare all known maps made during the past 200 years (plus aerial photos where available) with each other. So it enables someone to see a ca. 1944 map and compare it with a current map. Then, with the aid of Google street view one even can get a current view of the surroundings. See this thread for an example: http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/sh...176#post289176

The hardest part is finding the clues on where to look on the map. In the case of the Fort Garry Horse photos the road signs helped tremendously. For the case above I have asked the help of a local historian. Let’s see what he can come up with and then try to make the then & now photo.

Thanks for your interest,

[Jakko Westerbeke]

I was going to suggest trying to find someone with good knowledge of the area, because that photo has so few clues in it that it could be virtually anywhere in the world at first glance. It looks to me like a main road, because it appears to be fairly wide, but that’s about all I can come up with.

[Alex van de Wetering]

Hanno, I have a hunch it's the "Oude Rijksweg" between the "Schapendijk" and "Bolwerk", like Jakko says, the old main road, west of Krabbendijke.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Jakko Westerbeke

I was going to suggest trying to find someone with good knowledge of the area, because that photo has so few clues in it that it could be virtually anywhere in the world at first glance. It looks to me like a main road, because it appears to be fairly wide, but that’s about all I can come up with.

You're quite right. Was the photo taken in or near Krabbendijke, or even Oud-Krabbendijke? We need local knowledge and research into unit histories and the like.

The troops seems to have largely followed the Rijksweg (main state road) which ran through Krabbendijke in the 1940 and is now mostly the N289 road.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Alex van de Wetering

Hanno, I have a hunch it's the "Oude Rijksweg" between the "Schapendijk" and "Bolwerk", like Jakko says, the old main road, west of Krabbendijke.

Thanks Alex, only saw your reply after I replied to Jakko. I looked it up on the map and you could be right. In the background of the original photo I think I see fruit trees? Along the Oude Rijksweg there are a couple of orchards. It seems most of the original trees lining the road have long gone, although new ones have been planted.

Then there is the building in the background on the right... could this be the spot?

[Alex van de Wetering]

Numerical 82 in the Canadian Archives gives you some additional shots taken in the vicinity. (Even the "famous" picture of the F60L in the ditch is taken in or near Krabbendijke)

It shows a couple of more shots of C15TA's as well as pictures of carrier with 6pounders on tow. Location for most shots is given as Krabbendijke.

If you zoom in one the picture of the parked C15TA's (41945 on the Numerical page) you will notice a house. My first hunch was that this might be "Oude Rijksweg 1", which was already there in 1944; today more buildings are built around it, but the house is still there.

[Alex van de Wetering]

Back to the Numerical page again.....moving "forward" to pictures "41948" and "41949", it shows a clocktower....there is a similar building today (Dorpsstraat 85), but if it's the same one, it's been heavily modified....I haven't investigated this yet.

If you move the other way on the numerical to pictures 41947-41942...you see a dike and a crossing....and if you think for a moment that the Oude Rijksweg is indeed the correct location of the picture with the parked C15TA's, than the crossing looks a lot like the Bolwerk/Rijksweg crossing, with the differences in height and the curve of the road.

If this is the case, than I think Lieutenant Bell spent a few minutes taking pictures around the Bolwerk/Rijksweg crossing (41942-41947), Rijksweg and than moved to the Krabbendijke centre (41948-41949)......and the C15TA's stood parked along the Rijksweg West of Krabbendijke, before turning right on the "Bolwerk" towards "Oostdijk"

[Jakko Westerbeke]

I would be very surprised if the building with the tower in 1944 is the same as the one today — it looks to me like it’s a new building in the same place. As I suspected, it’s the town hall. Here’s the same building as in the 1944 photo:



That photo is probably 1920s at the latest. In a later postcard, dated “1960–1979” on the site that sells it, there’s the building that’s there today:



The building next to it is the same in both photos, judging by the three bands of light-coloured stone (?), but it got a slight extension to its roof somewhere between the 1920s and 1944, possibly when it was converted into a shop (it seems to be a house in the 1920s, but has a shop front in 1944). The whole building must have been torn down at some point after the war.

The building was the town hall until 1970, when Krabbendijke ceased to be a separate municipality, but I can’t find when the post-war building was constructed. It looks 1950s to me, though. There is this article from 2018 about when thethen-owner sold it, but that’s behind a paywall. But using an iPad from someone who does have a PZC subscription, I discovered this:

Men playing billiards and women knitting
The town hall, originally built in 1888, has no secrets for [the current owner, Mr. Weststrate]. ”I bought it in ’88, before then it was still being used by men playing billiards, women knitting and teenagers. That ended when community hall De Meiboom was completed.” Weststrate also knows all there is to know about the major reconstruction of 1949, in which the whole building was raised by a storey.

So it is the same building, even though you would’t think it is.

[Ed Storey]

Great stuff! I love those comparison photographs and I wish that I was there to tour around and visit some of those sites.

Right now we are in the depths Halloween before everyone refocuses on Christmas. Wedged in between these two consumer driven events that outwardly benefit the Chinese economy is 11 November and its Remembrance events. It is a time when, for a least a couple of minutes, most Canadians turn from visions of costumes, Halloween candy and the inpending Christmas spending spree to reflect that they have a military and the sacrifices made by the men and women of the armed forces.