nonononononono
@Rob :cummon lets sharpen knives for a proper fight! Oh ok, lets just grow beards and chill then.
And if I want to get really picky
@ Buddha:
It has been reported that of all the nations under German occupation that Holland had the highest collaboration rate (around 51% if memory serves)
Afsluitdijk was indeed a great success for the Dutch. It isn't quite as you paint it, however. the Dutch marines did a superb job, but in this instance they were armed, forewarned and in the modern defences of the Afsluitdijk. To make the comparison to other Dutch defensive positions is a little naive. That said they fought incredibly well under intense german air and artillery bombardment and didn't break. I think it is fanciful to say that the Germans were massacred, they took heavy casualties indeed, but to my mind a massacre is something altogether different (Germans at St.Vith in Belgium for example), there being no survivors.
Sadder still, it was pretty much only the 82nd that took a beating at Nijmegen, by the time XXX corps arrived the American paratroops and their Dutch resistance helpers had done the bulk of the work, they were needed only to mop up pockets of resistance and offer tank support for the final bridge crossing. (no laughing matter but nothing compared to the struggle the 82nd went through).
As for the liberation of Holland being in the larger part a Canadian affair, you are at least partly correct.
Canadian infantry and armoured divisions were used to spearhead many of the operations in and around Holland in order to allow other divisions time to rest but also to improve the fighting ability of what command saw as 'weaker' divisions. The Canucks definately weren't and proved this throughout their campaigns, but as lead elements were credited with liberating many a Dutch town. I prefer the term 'liberated by the Allies'.
Likewise,
See, see what you've gone a made me write now! How sad I really am.
Chimp
edited for appalling spelling
