Canada's Role In The Battle (Cam)

Two Canadian armies liberated the Netherlands in the final weeks of the war in Europe, and it didn't come a moment too soon. The Nazis, after five years of brutal occupation, had stripped Holland bare, of everything from heavy industrial equipment to food, and shipped it back to Germany. That last winter, the "Hunger Winter", saw a major famine, and 35,000 Dutch died of starvation. Over the month of April the 2nd Canadian Corps cleared the northeastern Netherlands and the German coast, and the 1st Canadian Corps took on the Germans remaining in the western Netherlands. They got help from elements of the US Army and the British Army.On April 28, the Canadians negotiated a truce which allowed food to enter the western Netherlands. As one history puts it, "No part of western Europe was liberated at a more vital moment than the Netherlands and the Dutch people cheered Canadian troops as one town after another was freed." Canadian, British, and American bombers flew very low and dropped food to the Dutch during the truce.The Liberation should not be confused with Operation Market Garden, an ambitious airborne operation that failed to take southern Holland the previous September.