- 6 hours ago
Every time a German unit faced Canadians for the first time, those soldiers had been briefed. They had intelligence reports, after-action summaries, explicit warnings from officers who survived the experience. And every single time, the briefing was wrong.
In 1916, German soldiers gave Canadians a name they reserved for their own elite — a name no enemy had earned before. By 1942, after one catastrophic morning on a French beach, German intelligence rewrote the file completely. The old reputation was erased. A new assessment took its place: amateurs. Colonial troops. No threat.
Then the Canadians showed up in Italy. Then Normandy. Then the Scheldt. Then the Rhineland. At every stop, a new German unit opened the file, read the warning, prepared accordingly — and discovered that the warning described who the Canadians had been, not who they had become.
Five warnings. Five battles. Five times the briefing failed — not because it was wrong, but because it was always one fight behind. From a bell tower in Normandy to the flooded fields of the Scheldt, from a medieval Italian town to the forests beyond the Siegfried Line — what were German soldiers actually told? And why did it never
In 1916, German soldiers gave Canadians a name they reserved for their own elite — a name no enemy had earned before. By 1942, after one catastrophic morning on a French beach, German intelligence rewrote the file completely. The old reputation was erased. A new assessment took its place: amateurs. Colonial troops. No threat.
Then the Canadians showed up in Italy. Then Normandy. Then the Scheldt. Then the Rhineland. At every stop, a new German unit opened the file, read the warning, prepared accordingly — and discovered that the warning described who the Canadians had been, not who they had become.
Five warnings. Five battles. Five times the briefing failed — not because it was wrong, but because it was always one fight behind. From a bell tower in Normandy to the flooded fields of the Scheldt, from a medieval Italian town to the forests beyond the Siegfried Line — what were German soldiers actually told? And why did it never
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LearningTranscript
00:00June 7, 1944. Northern France.
00:03A 33-year-old SS colonel named Kurt Meyer stands in the bell tower of the Abbe d'Ardenne,
00:09a medieval stone church six miles from the Normandy coast.
00:13Through his binoculars, he watches a column of Canadian tanks and infantry moving south from the beaches.
00:19They are heading straight toward him.
00:22Meyer has been a soldier since he was 18.
00:24He has fought in Poland, in France, in Greece, in the Soviet Union.
00:28He has been wounded. He has been decorated.
00:31He commands the 25th Panzergrenadier Regiment of the 12th SS Panzer Division, Hitlerjugend.
00:3820,000 young men, most of them 17 years old, trained by veterans of the Eastern Front,
00:43and not one of them has ever heard a shot fired in anger.
00:47His boys are ready. They are eager.
00:49And they have been told exactly what to expect from the force now rolling toward them through the Norman hedgerows.
00:55Colonial troops.
00:57Amateurs.
00:59Men from a country with no standing army to speak of, no military tradition worth respecting,
01:04and no combat experience in this war beyond a single catastrophic raid on Dieppe two years earlier,
01:11a raid the Wehrmacht crushed in six hours.
01:14Meyer himself refers to the approaching Canadians with a phrase his staff will later recall.
01:18He calls them Canadian fishes, little fish swimming into a net.
01:24What happens next will last 48 hours, cost Meyer 300 of his teenage soldiers and 15 tanks,
01:32and end with Canadian prisoners being marched into the garden of this very abbey and shot in the back of
01:38the head.
01:38But that is not the story. Not yet.
01:41The story is what Meyer's boys were told, what they believed, and how spectacularly wrong all of it turned out
01:49to be.
01:50If you find this channel's work valuable, a like and a subscription help these stories reach the people who need
01:55to hear them.
01:56Because here is what most people do not realize about the German experience of fighting Canadians in the Second World
02:03War.
02:03It was not one encounter. It was not one lesson. It was a series of warnings.
02:11Each one issued after the previous warning proved fatally insufficient.
02:16Every time a German unit faced Canadians for the first time, those soldiers had been briefed.
02:22They had been given intelligence assessments, after-action reports from the units that came before them,
02:28sometimes explicit verbal warnings from officers who had survived the experience.
02:33And every single time, the briefing was wrong.
02:37Not because the intelligence was fabricated, but because it was always based on the last battle,
02:43and by the time it reached the next unit, the Canadians had already become something the briefing could not describe.
02:49To understand what Meyer's teenagers were told on the morning of June 7th, 1944,
02:54and why it was so dangerously incomplete,
02:57you need to understand where the German file on Canadian soldiers began.
03:01Because there was a file.
03:02It was 26 years old by the time the Hitlerjugend opened it,
03:06and the men who wrote it were not intelligence analysts sitting behind desks.
03:11They were German soldiers who had fought Canadians in the trenches of the First World War.
03:16And what they wrote should have been a warning that no one in Meyer's chain of command took seriously enough.
03:22Remember that phrase, Canadian fishes.
03:25Because before this story is over, you will hear what German officers called Canadians after they actually fought them.
03:32And the distance between those two phrases is the distance between a briefing and a battlefield.
03:38The German army's institutional memory of Canadian soldiers begins in 1916 on the Somme.
03:44And it begins with a word the Germans did not use lightly.
03:49Sturmtruppen.
03:50Stormtroops.
03:51It was a term the German army reserved for its own elite assault units.
03:56Small groups of specially trained soldiers who led attacks into the most heavily defended positions.
04:01To be called Sturmtruppen was not a compliment you handed out to an enemy.
04:06It was an admission.
04:07And after the Battle of the Somme in 1916, German soldiers began using it to describe the Canadians.
04:14Not the British.
04:15Not the Australians.
04:16The Canadians.
04:18Here is what made the Canadian Corps different.
04:20And here is what German soldiers on the Western Front learned the hard way.
04:24The Canadian Expeditionary Force was, from top to bottom, a volunteer army.
04:30Every man in it had chosen to be there.
04:32Canada had no conscription until 1917.
04:35And even then, the volunteers outnumbered the conscripts by a wide margin.
04:40These were not professional soldiers following a career.
04:43They were farmers from Saskatchewan, loggers from British Columbia,
04:47miners from Nova Scotia, bank clerks from Toronto.
04:51Men who had crossed an ocean to fight a war that was not on their doorstep.
04:55And they fought with a ferocity that unsettled both their allies and their enemies.
05:00The Germans noticed something specific.
05:03Canadian units conducted trench raids.
05:05Violent, short-distance attacks across no-man's land.
05:08With a frequency and an aggression that no other force on the Western Front matched.
05:13These raids were not defensive.
05:15They were predatory.
05:17Canadian soldiers would cross into German trenches at night,
05:20kill everyone they found,
05:22destroy what they could,
05:23take prisoners for intelligence,
05:25and vanish before dawn.
05:26The psychological effect was devastating.
05:30German units stationed opposite Canadians stopped sleeping.
05:33And then came Vimy Ridge.
05:37April 9th, 1917.
05:39Four Canadian divisions attacked together for the first time in the war.
05:43100,000 men moving uphill into sleet and machine gun fire
05:47against a German fortress that had already cost the French
05:51150,000 casualties in failed attempts to take it.
05:55The Canadians took it in three days.
05:57The cost was 3,500 dead and 7,000 wounded.
06:02But they took what no one else could.
06:04Pay attention to what happened next,
06:06because it matters for everything that follows in this story.
06:10After Vimy, the Canadian Corps was never again used
06:13as an ordinary line-holding formation.
06:16The British High Command began deploying them
06:18as a concentrated strike force,
06:20sent to the hardest point of the line,
06:22used to break what could not be broken.
06:24By 1918, when the German army saw Canadians arriving in a sector,
06:29they knew an attack was coming.
06:31The Canadians became, in effect, a signal.
06:34Their presence was the warning.
06:36A German colonel, captured late in the war,
06:38spoke to a Canadian prisoner named Fred Hamilton.
06:42The colonel did not mince words.
06:44I do not care for the English, the Scotch, the French,
06:48the Australians, or the Belgians, he said.
06:51But damn you Canadians!
06:52You take no prisoners, and you kill our wounded!
06:56That accusation was not entirely fair.
06:58But it was not entirely wrong, either.
07:01Historians have since documented numerous cases
07:03of Canadian soldiers killing Germans
07:06who were attempting to surrender.
07:07Not as policy,
07:09but as a pattern born of close-quarters violence
07:11and an institutional culture
07:13that rewarded aggression above restraint.
07:16The Canadian Corps earned its reputation honestly,
07:20and the German army remembered.
07:21This is the critical point.
07:24Remember it.
07:24By the end of the First World War,
07:27the German military had a clear, documented,
07:30institutional understanding of Canadian soldiers.
07:33The file read,
07:35Volunteer army.
07:36Exceptionally aggressive.
07:38Expert at close combat.
07:40Dangerous at night.
07:41Willing to take casualties and keep advancing.
07:44Elite troops by any measure.
07:46That file did not disappear when the war ended.
07:49It lived in staff colleges,
07:51in doctrinal manuals,
07:52in the memories of officers
07:54who had survived the Western Front
07:55and were now training the next generation.
07:58When the Second World War began in 1939,
08:01every senior German officer knew
08:03what Canadians had been in the last war.
08:05And then something happened
08:07that rewrote the file entirely.
08:09On August 19, 1942,
08:12the Canadians came back to France
08:14for the first time in 24 years.
08:16They came to a town called Dieppe
08:19on the English Channel coast.
08:20And in the space of a single morning,
08:23the German army watched 6,000 Canadian soldiers
08:26walk into a trap so complete,
08:28so catastrophic,
08:29that by noon,
08:31more than half of them were dead,
08:32wounded,
08:33or in prisoner of war cages.
08:35The raid was a disaster by any measure.
08:38And German propagandists made sure
08:40every soldier in the Wehrmacht knew it.
08:42Newsreels showed burning Canadian tanks on the beach.
08:46Newspapers printed photographs
08:47of endless columns of prisoners
08:49with their hands above their heads.
08:51The message was clear,
08:52and it was deliberate.
08:54These are not the stormtroopin
08:56your fathers warned you about.
08:58These are amateurs,
08:59led by incompetent officers,
09:01and they have just proven it.
09:03The old file was closed.
09:05A new one was opened.
09:06And what it said
09:07would shape every German briefing
09:09about Canadian soldiers
09:11for the next 16 months,
09:13until a small town
09:15on the Adriatic coast of Italy
09:16proved the new file
09:18catastrophically wrong.
09:20The name of that town
09:21was Ortona,
09:22and what the German paratroopers
09:24defending it were told
09:25about the Canadians heading their way
09:27contained a mistake
09:28so fundamental
09:29that it would cost them
09:30the battle,
09:31the town,
09:32and the single most devastating week
09:34of urban combat
09:35the Italian front
09:37had ever seen.
09:39December 1943.
09:40The Adriatic coast of Italy.
09:42A place most people
09:44have never heard of,
09:45unless they are Canadian or German.
09:47Ortona was a medieval port town
09:49built on a cliff above the sea.
09:51Narrow streets,
09:52stone buildings
09:53with walls three feet thick,
09:55a cathedral on the high ground.
09:57It was the kind of place
09:58that looked beautiful in peacetime
10:00and became a fortress
10:01the moment someone decided
10:02to defend it.
10:03And the German 1st Parachute Division
10:05had decided to defend it.
10:07These were not ordinary soldiers.
10:09The men of the 1st Parachute Division
10:10were among the most experienced
10:12combat troops
10:13in the German military.
10:15They had fought in Crete,
10:16in North Africa,
10:17in Sicily.
10:18Their commander,
10:19General Lieutenant Richard Heydrich,
10:21was a tactician
10:22who understood urban warfare
10:24instinctively.
10:25His men had turned Ortona
10:27into a killing ground,
10:28collapsing buildings
10:29across intersections
10:30to create barricades,
10:31mining every doorway,
10:34stringing wire across streets
10:35at throat height,
10:36booby-trapping the bodies
10:38of their own dead.
10:39Every alley was a firing lane,
10:41every window was a gun port,
10:43and Heydrich's paratroopers
10:44had been briefed
10:45on the force approaching them
10:46from the south.
10:47The briefing drew from the file
10:49that Dieppe had rewritten.
10:511st Canadian Infantry Division.
10:53Volunteers, yes,
10:54but with no combat experience
10:56before Sicily
10:57five months earlier.
10:58Colonial troops
10:59from a Dominion army,
11:01not British regulars,
11:02not Americans
11:03with industrial resources,
11:04but Canadians.
11:06Men from a country
11:07that had produced
11:07exactly one notable
11:09military action
11:10in this war,
11:10and that action
11:11had been a catastrophe
11:12on a French beach.
11:14The briefing was not worried.
11:16Heydrich's men were.
11:17What the briefing
11:18failed to mention,
11:20because German intelligence
11:21in Italy
11:22had not yet fully registered it,
11:23was what the 1st Canadian Division
11:25had done
11:26in the five months
11:27between Sicily
11:28and Ortona.
11:29They had fought their way
11:31up the Italian boot
11:32through some of the worst terrain
11:34in the Mediterranean theater.
11:35They had crossed the Moro River
11:37under fire in December,
11:39taken three days
11:40and heavy casualties
11:41to clear a ravine
11:42the Canadians themselves
11:43called the Gully,
11:45and arrived at the outskirts
11:47of Ortona
11:47with a very specific
11:49kind of education.
11:50They were no longer green,
11:52they were no longer amateurs,
11:54and they were angry.
11:56The battle began
11:57on December 20th
11:59and lasted seven days.
12:01What happened inside Ortona
12:02during that week
12:03would become one
12:04of the defining episodes
12:05of the entire Italian campaign,
12:07and it would rewrite
12:09the German file
12:09on Canadian soldiers
12:10for the second time
12:12in two years.
12:14Here is what
12:14Heydrich's paratroopers encountered.
12:16On the first day,
12:18the Canadians advanced
12:19down Ortona's main street
12:20and were cut to pieces
12:22by machine gun fire
12:23from barricaded intersections.
12:25This was expected.
12:26This was what the defences
12:28were designed to do.
12:29What was not expected
12:31was what the Canadians
12:32did next.
12:33They stopped going down
12:34the streets entirely.
12:37Soldiers of the loyal
12:38Edmonton Regiment
12:39and the Seaforth Highlanders
12:40of Canada
12:41began blasting holes
12:43through the interior walls
12:44of buildings,
12:45moving from house to house
12:46without ever stepping outside.
12:49They called it
12:49mouse holing.
12:50A section would place
12:52a charge against
12:53an interior wall,
12:54blow a hole large enough
12:55for a man to crawl through,
12:57and pour into the next room,
12:58firing.
12:59Then they would do it again.
13:01And again.
13:02They advanced through
13:03entire city blocks
13:05without ever appearing
13:06on the street.
13:07The German paratroopers
13:08had prepared for an enemy
13:09who would fight
13:10in the open.
13:11They got an enemy
13:12who came through the walls.
13:14Think about what this means
13:15from the German side.
13:16You are a paratrooper.
13:18You are in a stone building.
13:20Your machine gun
13:21covers the street.
13:23You are watching
13:23the intersection.
13:25And then behind you,
13:26from a wall
13:27that was solid
13:28five seconds ago,
13:29there is an explosion,
13:31and Canadian soldiers
13:32are inside your building,
13:33firing at close range,
13:35before you can turn around.
13:37The fighting went
13:38room to room,
13:39floor to floor,
13:40building to building.
13:42Canadians cleared houses
13:43with grenades and bayonets.
13:44At one point,
13:46the Seaforth Highlanders
13:47fought for a single building
13:49for an entire day.
13:50When it was over,
13:5223 men held
13:53what had cost them
13:54half their platoon.
13:55Christmas dinner
13:56was eaten in a church
13:57while mortar shells
13:58hit the roof.
13:59The Canadians
14:00did not stop.
14:02They did not pause.
14:03They adapted faster
14:05than the defenders
14:05could respond.
14:06By December 27th,
14:08the German paratroopers,
14:10the men who had held Crete,
14:11who had fought
14:12across North Africa,
14:14withdrew from
14:14Ortona.
14:15The town was
14:16in Canadian hands.
14:18The cost was
14:192,300 Canadian casualties
14:20in a single week.
14:22The media called it
14:23Little Stalingrad.
14:24And this is where
14:25the German file
14:26changed again.
14:28After Ortona,
14:29German intelligence assessments
14:30of Canadian troops
14:31in Italy were revised.
14:33The 1st Canadian division
14:34was no longer listed
14:35as an inexperienced
14:36colonial formation.
14:38The new assessment
14:39was quieter,
14:40more clinical,
14:40and far more respectful.
14:42The men who had fought them
14:44knew something
14:44that the men
14:45writing briefings
14:46in France
14:46did not yet understand.
14:48But here is the problem,
14:49and here is why
14:50what happened next
14:51was so costly.
14:52The Italian theater
14:53and the Northwest
14:54European theater
14:55were separate
14:56command structures.
14:57Intelligence flowed
14:58slowly between them,
15:00when it flowed at all.
15:01What Heydrich's
15:02paratroopers learned
15:03about Canadians
15:03in December 1943
15:05did not reach
15:06the officers writing
15:07briefings in Normandy
15:08in time for June 1944.
15:11Which means that,
15:12six months later,
15:13when the 12,000
15:14teenage soldiers
15:15of the 12th SS Panzer Division
15:17Hitlerjugend
15:18were told what to expect
15:20from the Canadian
15:203rd Division
15:21landing on the beaches
15:22of Normandy,
15:23the briefing they received
15:25was still based
15:26on the old file,
15:27the Dieppe file,
15:28the one that said
15:29Canadians were amateurs.
15:31And those 17-year-old boys
15:33believed every word of it.
15:34June 6th, 1944,
15:385.45 in the morning.
15:39The men of the German
15:42716th Infantry Division
15:43are in their bunkers
15:44along the Normandy coast,
15:46staring out at the
15:47English Channel
15:48through the slits
15:49of concrete casemates
15:50that have taken
15:51three years to build.
15:52These are not elite soldiers.
15:54The 716th is a static division.
15:57Older men,
15:58many in their 30s and 40s,
16:00assigned to garrison duty
16:02because they are not
16:03fit enough for mobile combat.
16:04Mixed in among them
16:06are soldiers of the
16:08441st Ost Battalion,
16:10Eastern European conscripts,
16:12former Soviet prisoners of war
16:13who chose German uniform
16:15over starvation.
16:16Their weapons are adequate.
16:18Their fortifications are strong.
16:20Their morale is middling.
16:22They have been told
16:23that if the invasion comes,
16:25the Atlantic Wall
16:26will hold long enough
16:27for the panzer reserves
16:28to counterattack
16:29and drive the Allies
16:30back into the sea.
16:31Nobody has told them
16:33anything specific
16:34about who is coming.
16:35The briefings say British,
16:37probably,
16:37on this stretch of coast.
16:39Maybe Canadians.
16:40The distinction,
16:41in the eyes of the German command,
16:43does not matter much.
16:45What matters
16:46is the concrete
16:47and the machine guns
16:48and the minefields
16:49and the beach obstacles.
16:51Thousands of steel hedgehogs
16:53and wooden stakes
16:53tipped with teller mines
16:55designed to rip
16:56landing craft apart
16:57before they reach the sand.
16:59What matters,
17:00in other words,
17:01is the wall,
17:02not the men behind it.
17:04At 7.55 that morning,
17:07the first wave
17:07of the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division
17:09hits the beach
17:10at what the Allies
17:11have designated Juno.
17:13The Royal Winnipeg Rifles
17:15on the right,
17:16the Regina Rifles
17:17in the center,
17:18the Queen's Own Rifles
17:19of Canada on the left.
17:21They are landing
17:22ten minutes late
17:23because of rough seas
17:24and offshore reefs,
17:25which means the tide
17:26has risen above
17:27the beach obstacles,
17:28which means the landing craft
17:29cannot see the mines
17:31until they hit them.
17:32Dozens of boats
17:33are torn open.
17:34Men drown in the surf
17:36carrying 80 pounds
17:37of equipment.
17:38Those who make it
17:39to the sand
17:39find the preliminary
17:40bombardment has failed.
17:42The casemates are intact,
17:44the machine guns are intact,
17:45the Germans behind the wall
17:47are firing.
17:48And then something happens
17:50that the garrison troops
17:51of the 716th
17:53are not prepared for.
17:54The Canadians
17:55do not stop on the beach.
17:57They do not take cover
17:58and wait for support.
18:00They get off
18:01the killing ground.
18:02Sergeant Majors
18:03and Lieutenants,
18:0422, 23 years old,
18:06are screaming at their men
18:07to move forward,
18:08into the wire,
18:10into the mines,
18:11into the gun emplacements.
18:13Individual soldiers
18:14begin breaching the seawall
18:15with Bangalore torpedoes,
18:17blowing gaps in concrete,
18:19climbing over obstacles
18:20while machine gun fire
18:21stitches the sand around them.
18:23Within 90 minutes,
18:25the forward companies
18:25have broken through
18:26the first line
18:27of German defenses
18:28and are fighting
18:29inside the beach towns
18:30of Corseul,
18:31Bernier,
18:32and Saint-Aubin.
18:33The 716th Division
18:35effectively ceases to exist
18:37as a fighting force
18:38before noon.
18:39And the Canadians
18:40keep going.
18:41By nightfall
18:42on June 6th,
18:44the 3rd Canadian Division
18:45has pushed further inland
18:46than any other allied force
18:48on any of the five
18:49invasion beaches,
18:50further than the Americans
18:52at Omaha or Utah,
18:53further than the British
18:54at Gold or Sword.
18:56They have not reached
18:57their final objective,
18:59Carpekay Airfield,
19:00but they have driven a wedge
19:01seven miles deep
19:02into the German line.
19:04This is the context
19:06Kurt Meier does not have
19:07when he climbs the bell tower
19:08of the Abbey Dardenne
19:10the following morning
19:11and watches Canadian tanks
19:12rolling toward him.
19:14He knows the Canadians
19:15landed.
19:16He knows the 716th is gone.
19:19But his briefing,
19:20the briefing delivered
19:21to the 12th SS
19:22before D-Day,
19:23tells him the Canadians
19:24achieved this
19:25against a 3rd-rate
19:26garrison division
19:27on a fixed defensive line.
19:30Not a real fight.
19:31Not a test.
19:32His Hitlerjugend,
19:34trained for a year
19:35by Eastern Front veterans,
19:37equipped with Panzer IVs
19:38and 88s,
19:39are a different proposition
19:41entirely.
19:41He watches the Canadian
19:43column advance
19:44past his concealed positions
19:45and says to his staff,
19:47I have them.
19:48At 3 o'clock in the afternoon,
19:51Meier launches
19:51his counterattack.
19:53The 25th Panzer Grenadier Regiment,
19:55his teenage soldiers,
19:57hit the North Nova Scotia
19:59Highlanders
19:59and the Sherbrooke Fusiliers
20:01from three sides simultaneously.
20:04Panzers emerging from tree lines,
20:06infantry surging
20:08through wheat fields.
20:09It is a textbook ambush,
20:10executed by troops
20:12who have never been in combat
20:14but have rehearsed this moment
20:15for months.
20:16The Canadians are pushed back.
20:18The North Novas
20:20lose men in clusters,
20:22whole sections cut off,
20:23surrounded,
20:24overrun.
20:25By evening,
20:26the Canadian advance
20:27has been halted.
20:29Meier holds Burin
20:30and Othie.
20:31But hold on.
20:32Look at the numbers
20:33before you decide
20:34who won this day.
20:35Meier's regiment
20:36has lost over 300 dead
20:38and 15 tanks
20:40against a single Canadian brigade
20:42that was caught in the open.
20:44His untouchable Hitlerjugend
20:46in their very first battle
20:47have taken casualties
20:49that an Eastern Front veteran
20:50would call alarming.
20:52The Canadians were pushed back,
20:54yes,
20:55but they were not broken.
20:57They reformed,
20:58dug in,
20:59and by the next morning
21:00they were still there.
21:02Meier does not use the phrase
21:04Canadian fishes again.
21:05Nobody on his staff
21:06recalls him using it
21:07after June 7th.
21:09What he does instead
21:10is something that will follow him
21:11for the rest of his life
21:12and beyond it.
21:14That evening,
21:15Canadian prisoners
21:16taken at Othie and Buran
21:17are brought to the Abbey d'Aldene.
21:19By the next morning,
21:21at least 18 of them
21:22are dead,
21:23shot in the back of the head
21:25in the Abbey Garden.
21:26Over the following days,
21:28the number of murdered
21:29Canadian prisoners
21:30reaches 156.
21:32And the killing tells you
21:34something that no briefing
21:35ever will.
21:36Because armies that feel in control
21:38do not execute prisoners.
21:41Armies that feel certain
21:42of victory
21:42do not need to.
21:44What happened at the Abbey d'Aldene
21:46was not confidence.
21:48It was the first crack.
21:50The moment the briefing
21:51met reality
21:52and reality won.
21:54But the German command
21:55did not see it that way.
21:57Not yet.
21:58Because what they wrote
21:59in their reports
22:00after that first week
22:01in Normandy
22:01would become the next briefing.
22:03The next warning.
22:05Delivered to the next German unit
22:07about to face Canadians.
22:09And that warning
22:10still was not enough.
22:12For the next 30 days,
22:14Kurt Meier's 12th SS Panzer Division
22:16and the Canadian 3rd Division
22:18fought each other
22:19without pause
22:20across a strip
22:21of Norman farmland
22:22barely 10 miles wide.
22:24And during those 30 days,
22:26the German file
22:27on Canadian soldiers
22:28was rewritten
22:29in real time.
22:31Not by intelligence analysts,
22:33but by the men
22:34doing the dying.
22:35Here is what
22:36the Hitlerjugend learned.
22:37And here is what
22:38began appearing
22:39in German after-action reports
22:41from the Kahn sector
22:42during the summer of 1944.
22:44First, the artillery.
22:47German officers
22:49had faced British
22:50and American guns before.
22:51They understood
22:52massed fire.
22:54What they did not understand
22:55was the Canadian system.
22:57A single Canadian
22:59forward observation officer,
23:01often a young lieutenant
23:02crouching in a ditch
23:03with a radio,
23:04could call a mic target
23:06and within minutes
23:07have every gun
23:08in his regiment
23:09firing at a single point.
23:10If he called
23:12an uncle target,
23:13every gun
23:14in the entire division
23:15converged.
23:16And if the situation
23:17was desperate enough
23:18for a victor target,
23:20every gun within range,
23:21sometimes more than
23:22200 barrels,
23:23would fire simultaneously
23:25at one grid reference.
23:27The shells arrived together.
23:28Not a barrage
23:29that walked toward you.
23:31A single,
23:32instantaneous detonation
23:33that erased
23:34whatever was standing
23:35on that spot.
23:36German soldiers
23:37in the Kahn sector
23:38reported that they
23:39could endure the bombing,
23:40endure the naval gunfire,
23:42endure the fighter bombers.
23:44But the Canadian artillery
23:45was different.
23:46It was not louder.
23:48It was faster.
23:49A request went in
23:51and three minutes later,
23:52the world ended.
23:54No other allied force
23:56they faced
23:56could coordinate fire
23:57at that speed.
23:59This detail appeared
24:00in German reports.
24:01Remember it
24:02because it will come back.
24:04Second,
24:05the night fighting.
24:06Canadian infantry
24:08attacked in darkness
24:08with a regularity
24:10that no other
24:11allied formation matched.
24:12German units
24:13opposite the Canadian sector
24:15could not rest.
24:16They could not rotate.
24:17They could not sleep.
24:19The Canadians would
24:20raid at two in the morning,
24:21probe at four,
24:23attack at dawn,
24:24and do it again
24:25the next night.
24:27Meyer's teenage soldiers,
24:28who had been trained
24:29to attack with fury,
24:31were ground down
24:32not by a single blow,
24:33but by relentless,
24:34methodical pressure
24:35that never let them recover.
24:38Third,
24:39and this is the detail
24:40that mattered most,
24:41the Canadians did not break.
24:44At Barron,
24:45at Oti,
24:46at Carpiquet,
24:47at Caen itself,
24:49Meyer threw his best troops
24:50at Canadian positions
24:51and pushed them back.
24:53But they reformed.
24:55They counterattacked.
24:56They retook ground
24:57they had lost
24:58hours earlier.
24:59An enemy who retreats
25:01and does not come back
25:02is defeated.
25:03An enemy who retreats
25:05and comes back
25:06at three in the morning
25:07is something else entirely.
25:09On July 4th,
25:11the Canadians attacked
25:12the fortified airfield
25:13at Carpiquet,
25:14just west of Caen.
25:16The Hitlerjugend
25:17defended it
25:17with everything they had.
25:19The fighting was so close
25:21that at one point,
25:22Canadian and German soldiers
25:24were in adjacent hangars,
25:25firing through walls.
25:27The Canadians took part
25:28of the airfield.
25:30Meyer's men held part of it.
25:32Neither side gave ground.
25:33The casualty reports
25:35from that single day
25:36read like a ledger
25:37of mutual destruction.
25:39Four days later,
25:40on July 8th,
25:41the Canadians entered
25:42Caen itself,
25:44the objective they had been
25:45assigned on D-Day
25:4632 days earlier.
25:48The city was rubble.
25:49The Hitlerjugend
25:50fought for every block,
25:52but the Canadians
25:53kept coming,
25:54street by street,
25:55ruin by ruin,
25:56until Meyer's division
25:57was pushed south
25:58of the Orne River.
25:59By now,
26:00think about what has happened
26:02to the briefing.
26:03Thirty days earlier,
26:04Meyer called them fishes.
26:06Now,
26:07his division,
26:08which began the campaign
26:09with over 20,000 men,
26:11is a fraction
26:12of its original strength.
26:13The teenage soldiers
26:14who believed
26:15they would sweep
26:16the Canadians
26:16back into the sea
26:17are dead,
26:18wounded,
26:19or staring at their hands
26:21in a way that
26:21no 17-year-old
26:22should ever have to.
26:24And the war in Normandy
26:25is not over.
26:27In August,
26:28the Canadians
26:28under General Guy Simmons
26:30launched Operation Totalize,
26:31a night attack
26:33using armored columns
26:34guided by searchlights
26:35and radio beams,
26:36a tactical innovation
26:37that no one
26:39in the German command
26:39had seen before.
26:41Then Operation Tractable.
26:43Then the closing
26:45of the fillet's pocket,
26:46where 24 German divisions
26:48were trapped
26:49and crushed
26:49between Canadian,
26:51British,
26:52Polish,
26:52and American forces.
26:53The 12th SS
26:56was ordered
26:56to hold the northern edge
26:57of the pocket open
26:58so that other German units
27:00could escape.
27:01They did.
27:03Barely.
27:04When the remnants
27:05of the Hitlerjugend
27:06finally staggered
27:07out of Normandy,
27:08the division that had
27:09entered the campaign
27:10with 20,000 soldiers,
27:12dozens of Panzer IVs,
27:13and absolute certainty
27:15in its own superiority,
27:16could barely muster
27:18a few hundred men.
27:19The Normandy campaign
27:21was the crucible
27:22that produced
27:22the next generation
27:23of German warnings
27:24about Canadian soldiers.
27:26And those warnings
27:27were no longer vague.
27:29They were specific.
27:30They named the artillery system.
27:32They described the night attacks.
27:34They noted the refusal
27:35to break under counterattack.
27:37They identified
27:38Canadian formations by name,
27:403rd Division,
27:412nd Division,
27:424th Armored,
27:43and classified them
27:44as dangerous opponents
27:45who required the commitment
27:47of first-line German troops.
27:49But there was a problem.
27:51By the autumn of 1944,
27:53the Wehrmacht
27:54did not have many
27:54first-line troops left.
27:56The units being sent
27:57to face the Canadians next
27:58were not Panzer divisions
28:00with teenage fanatics
28:01and Eastern Front veterans.
28:03They were hastily
28:04assembled formations
28:05built from men on leave,
28:07men recovering from wounds,
28:08men scraped together
28:09from rear-area positions
28:11and thrown into the line.
28:13And these men
28:14were about to receive
28:15a briefing about Canadians
28:16that would,
28:17for the first time,
28:18accurately describe
28:19what they were about to face.
28:21They would hear the warning,
28:22they would understand it,
28:24and it would not save them.
28:26The place was
28:27the Scheldt Estuary.
28:29The month was October,
28:30and the water
28:32was already rising.
28:34October 1944,
28:36the Scheldt Estuary,
28:37where the North Sea
28:38pushes inland
28:39through the low countries
28:40of Belgium
28:41and the Netherlands,
28:42a landscape of water,
28:44mud,
28:45dikes,
28:45and flooded fields
28:46stretching to the horizon
28:48in every direction.
28:49The Allies have captured
28:51the port of Antwerp,
28:52one of the largest in Europe,
28:54but they cannot use it.
28:56German forces still control
28:58both banks
28:58of the 60-mile estuary
29:00leading to the harbor.
29:01Until those banks are cleared,
29:04not a single supply ship
29:05can reach the docks,
29:06and without Antwerp,
29:08the entire Allied advance
29:09will starve.
29:11The job of clearing the Scheldt
29:12falls to the 1st Canadian Army.
29:15On the south bank,
29:16in what the Germans
29:17have designated
29:18Scheldt Fortress South,
29:19sits Major General Kurt Eberding
29:21and his 64th Infantry Division.
29:24Eberding's men
29:25are not teenagers.
29:26They are not garrison troops.
29:28They are soldiers
29:29on leave from the Eastern Front,
29:31men who have survived
29:32Russia, Italy, Norway,
29:35scooped up and assembled
29:36into a division
29:37during the chaos
29:38of the German retreat
29:39from France.
29:40They do not know
29:41each other well,
29:42but every one of them
29:43has seen combat,
29:44and most of them
29:45have seen worse
29:46than what they are expecting here.
29:48And they are expecting
29:49a great deal.
29:50Because for the first time
29:52in this story,
29:53the German briefing
29:54about Canadian soldiers
29:55is based on accurate,
29:56recent intelligence.
29:58The Normandy reports
29:59have arrived.
30:01Eberding's officers
30:02have read the after-action summaries
30:04from the con sector.
30:05They know about the artillery,
30:07the speed of the concentrations,
30:09the coordination of fire.
30:11They know the Canadians
30:12attack at night.
30:13They know they do not
30:14break easily.
30:16The file is no longer
30:1726 years old,
30:18no longer tainted by Dieppe.
30:21It is current.
30:22It describes the 3rd Canadian
30:24Infantry Division,
30:25the same division
30:26now moving toward the Scheldt,
30:28as a formation
30:29that has fought
30:29continuously since D-Day,
30:31taken heavy casualties,
30:33absorbed replacements,
30:34and emerged harder
30:35than before.
30:36Everding does something
30:38that no German commander
30:39in this story
30:40has done until now.
30:41He prepares for Canadians
30:43specifically.
30:44He orders the dikes breached,
30:46flooding the polders
30:47and channeling any advance
30:49onto a handful
30:49of raised dike roads
30:51that his men can cover
30:52with pre-registered fire.
30:54He fortifies the Leopold Canal,
30:56a straight, flat,
30:57100-foot-wide waterway
30:59with no cover
31:00on either bank,
31:01as his main defensive line.
31:02He positions coastal
31:04artillery batteries
31:05with 15-centimeter guns
31:06that can reach anything
31:08within 12 miles.
31:09He turns the terrain itself
31:11into a weapon.
31:12The briefing says
31:13the Canadians are dangerous.
31:15Everding believes it.
31:16He gives them the respect
31:18the briefing demands.
31:19On October 6th,
31:21the 3rd Canadian Division
31:22launches Operation Switchback.
31:25The 7th Brigade
31:26attempts a frontal assault
31:27across the Leopold Canal.
31:29Soldiers in small boats
31:31paddle across open water
31:32under direct machine-gun fire.
31:34Those who reach the far bank
31:36dig in on a strip of mud
31:38barely wider than a football field.
31:40For three days,
31:42that bridgehead
31:42is in constant danger
31:44of being wiped out.
31:45German counterattacks
31:46hit it from three sides.
31:48The Canadians hold,
31:49but only by the width
31:51of a fingernail.
31:52And then,
31:53the Canadians do something
31:54the briefing did not predict.
31:56Three days after
31:57the frontal assault,
31:58while Everding's attention
31:59is fixed on the Leopold Canal,
32:02the 9th Brigade launches
32:03an amphibious assault
32:04from the Brockman Inlet,
32:06behind the German defenses entirely.
32:09Alligator amphibious vehicles
32:10carrying Canadian infantry
32:11cross the Scheldt from the north
32:13and land on the coast
32:15near Hooftplatt,
32:16in the rear of the 64th Division.
32:18The Germans have not expected
32:20an attack from the water.
32:21They have not fortified
32:22that direction.
32:24By the time
32:24Everding understands
32:25what is happening,
32:27Canadian soldiers
32:27are already established
32:29behind his main line
32:30with mortars
32:31and heavy machine guns.
32:32For the next three weeks,
32:34the 3rd Canadian Division
32:35fights through the Breskin's pocket
32:37in conditions that are
32:38almost beyond description.
32:39The ground is flooded.
32:41Trenches fill with water
32:42as soon as they are dug.
32:44Every road is a dike,
32:45and every dike is a shooting gallery.
32:48The Canadians advance through mud
32:50that reaches their wastes,
32:51under fire from coastal guns
32:52they cannot see,
32:54in rain that does not stop.
32:56They clear German positions
32:57one by one,
32:58farmhouse by farmhouse,
33:00dike by dike,
33:01polder by polder.
33:03On November 2nd,
33:04General Everding himself
33:06is captured.
33:07The following day,
33:08the war diary
33:09of the 3rd Canadian Division
33:10records the end
33:11of Operation Switchback.
33:13Someone writes,
33:14Operation Switchback
33:15now complete.
33:16And underneath,
33:17in a different hand,
33:19two words,
33:20Thank God.
33:21The numbers tell the rest.
33:23The Canadians suffered
33:242,077 casualties.
33:27The Germans lost
33:2812,707.
33:31Killed, wounded,
33:32missing, or captured.
33:34The Canadian Intelligence Summary,
33:36written after the battle,
33:37refers to Eberding's
33:3964th Division as
33:40the best infantry division
33:42we have met.
33:43Think about what that means.
33:45The Canadians,
33:46who have fought
33:46the 12th SS,
33:48who have taken Cannes,
33:49who have closed
33:50the fillet's pocket,
33:51call this division
33:52the best they have faced.
33:54And they still beat them
33:556 to 1.
33:56Montgomery gives
33:57the 3rd Canadian Division
33:58a new name.
33:59He calls them
34:00the Water Rats.
34:01And now,
34:02the German file
34:03on Canadian soldiers
34:04undergoes
34:05its final revision.
34:06The reports
34:07flowing back
34:07from the Scheldt
34:08say something
34:09that no previous report
34:10has said quite so plainly.
34:12It is no longer
34:13about respecting
34:14the Canadians.
34:15It is no longer
34:16about taking them seriously.
34:18The tone has shifted.
34:19The language
34:20is the language of men
34:21describing a force
34:22they do not know
34:23how to stop.
34:24The next unit
34:25to receive this warning
34:26will be the strongest
34:26defensive force left
34:28in the German West,
34:291st Parachute Army,
34:31the Siegfried Line,
34:32the Reichswald Forest,
34:34and a man named
34:35Alfred Schlem,
34:36who has read
34:36every report
34:37and believes
34:38he is ready.
34:39He is not.
34:41February 8th, 1945,
34:43the Rhineland,
34:44the last major
34:45defensive line
34:45between the Allied armies
34:47and the heart of Germany.
34:48General der Fallschirmtrooper
34:50Alfred Schlem
34:51commands
34:51the 1st Parachute Army,
34:53the force tasked
34:54with holding the line
34:55between the Moss
34:55and the Rhine Rivers.
34:57Schlem is not
34:58a politician in uniform.
34:59He is a professional soldier
35:00who has commanded
35:01paratroopers in combat,
35:03who reads intelligence reports
35:04the way a surgeon
35:05reads scans,
35:06and who has spent
35:07the past week
35:08studying everything
35:08the German army knows
35:10about the force
35:10coming toward him.
35:12The 1st Canadian Army
35:13Under the temporary command
35:15of Lieutenant General
35:16Guy Simons,
35:17the same officer
35:18who invented
35:18the armored night attack
35:19at Totalize,
35:21the same officer
35:22whose corps
35:22closed the fillet's pocket,
35:24Simons now has
35:25under his command
35:26the largest army
35:27ever led by a Canadian,
35:29over 450,000 men,
35:32including British
35:33and Polish divisions,
35:34but with Canadian formations
35:35at the spear tip.
35:37Schlem has the complete file,
35:39every report from Normandy,
35:41every assessment
35:42from the Scheldt,
35:43every captured document,
35:44every interrogation transcript,
35:46every after-action summary
35:48written by German officers
35:49who survived
35:50fighting Canadians
35:51and wanted to make sure
35:52the next man in line
35:54understood what was coming.
35:55The file is thick,
35:57it is detailed,
35:58it is accurate,
35:59and Schlem has something
36:00none of the previous
36:01German commanders
36:02in this story had.
36:03He has the Siegfried Line,
36:05three belts of fortifications
36:07stretching through
36:08dense forest
36:09with concrete bunkers,
36:11anti-tank ditches,
36:12dragon's teeth obstacles,
36:14and interlocking
36:15fields of fire.
36:16Behind it,
36:17the Reichswald,
36:18a vast pine forest
36:20where tanks
36:21cannot maneuver
36:21and infantry must fight
36:23at close range
36:24among the trees.
36:25Behind that,
36:26the Hochwald,
36:28another forest,
36:29another line of fortifications,
36:31another killing ground.
36:32And behind everything,
36:34the Rhine itself.
36:36Three defensive lines
36:37and a river.
36:38The deepest defensive position
36:40the Canadians have ever
36:41been asked to break.
36:43Schlem does one more thing.
36:45He orders the dykes
36:46along the Rhine destroyed.
36:48The floodwaters spread
36:49across the lowland plain,
36:51turning roads into rivers
36:52and fields into lakes.
36:54The Canadian advance
36:55will be channeled
36:56into narrow corridors
36:58of dry ground.
36:59corridors that Schlem's guns
37:01are already aimed at.
37:03The warning has been heard.
37:05The defenses are prepared.
37:07The terrain is weaponized.
37:09For the first time
37:11in this entire war,
37:12a German commander
37:13facing Canadians
37:14has accurate intelligence,
37:16strong fortifications,
37:18experienced troops,
37:19and a plan built
37:20specifically to counter
37:21everything the Canadian army
37:23does well.
37:24Operation Veritable
37:25begins at 10.30
37:27in the morning
37:27with the heaviest
37:28artillery bombardment
37:29of the entire Western Front,
37:31over 1,400 guns
37:33firing simultaneously.
37:35The ground shakes
37:36for miles.
37:37And then the Canadians
37:39move forward.
37:40The 3rd Canadian Division,
37:42the Water Rats,
37:43goes in aboard
37:44amphibious vehicles,
37:45driving straight through
37:46the flooded Rhine plain
37:47while German shells
37:48burst in the water
37:49around them.
37:50They are clearing positions
37:51that are half-submerged,
37:53fighting through
37:54waist-deep water
37:54in February
37:55in temperatures
37:56that turn wet uniforms
37:57into sheets of ice.
37:59Soldiers of the Régiment
38:00de la Chaudière
38:01wade through floodwater
38:03under mortar fire
38:04to reach German bunkers
38:05that are still shooting.
38:06To their south,
38:08British and Canadian infantry
38:09enter the Reichswald.
38:11The forest is dark,
38:12dense,
38:13and laced with mines.
38:15The Siegfried Line
38:16fortifications
38:17inside the tree line
38:18are intact.
38:19German paratroopers,
38:20Schlem's best,
38:22fight for every bunker,
38:23every trench,
38:24every clearing.
38:26Progress is measured
38:27in hundreds of yards
38:28per day.
38:29The ground is mud so deep
38:31that tanks sink to their hulls
38:32and have to be abandoned.
38:34Infantrymen carry ammunition
38:36forward on their backs
38:37because no vehicle
38:38can reach the front.
38:39The Siegfried Line
38:41breaks on February 21st.
38:43Then comes the Hochwald.
38:45Simons launches
38:46Operation Blockbuster,
38:47the Canadian 2nd and 3rd Divisions,
38:50the 4th Canadian Armored Division,
38:51pushing through the Forest Corridor
38:53toward the last German line
38:55before the Rhine.
38:56The 4th Armored
38:57drives into what soldiers
38:58afterward call
38:59the Valley of Death,
39:01a narrow gap
39:02between the Hochwald
39:03and the Ballberger Heights,
39:04where German anti-tank guns
39:06and artillery
39:07have perfect fields of fire.
39:09Canadian tanks
39:10burn in rows.
39:12Infantry advances
39:13over the bodies of the men
39:14who went before them.
39:15The Hochwald falls.
39:18It takes days.
39:20It costs thousands.
39:21But it falls.
39:23By early March,
39:25Schlem's 1st Parachute Army
39:26is pulling back
39:27across the Rhine.
39:28The last bridge is blown.
39:30The Rhineland
39:31is in Allied hands.
39:33The cost to the 1st Canadian Army?
39:3515,634 casualties.
39:39The cost to Schlem?
39:40Over 22,000 casualties
39:43and tens of thousands captured.
39:46Schlem had the best warning
39:47any German commander
39:48ever received
39:49about Canadian soldiers.
39:51He had the terrain,
39:52the fortifications,
39:54the troops,
39:54and the time to prepare.
39:56And none of it was enough.
39:58Here is what the final
40:00German reports
40:00from the Rhineland
40:01say about the Canadians.
40:03They do not describe amateurs.
40:05They do not describe
40:06colonial troops.
40:07They do not use words like
40:09fish or amateur
40:10or inexperienced.
40:12The language is stripped down
40:14to something almost clinical,
40:15aggressive,
40:17relentless,
40:18highly effective
40:19in combined arms,
40:21exceptional artillery coordination,
40:23will advance
40:24regardless of casualties.
40:26That last phrase
40:27is the one that matters.
40:29Will advance
40:30regardless of casualties.
40:32It is the furthest
40:33possible point
40:34from where the German file
40:35on Canadian soldiers began.
40:36from Dieppe,
40:38from the dismissal,
40:39from the contempt.
40:41It is the end
40:42of the briefing.
40:43There is nothing
40:44left to add.
40:45But there is
40:46one thing left to answer.
40:48Because the question
40:49this story began with,
40:50what were German soldiers
40:51told before facing Canadians
40:53for the first time,
40:54has a final chapter
40:56that no briefing
40:57could contain.
40:58And it does not
40:59take place
41:00on a battlefield.
41:01In September 1945,
41:04four months
41:05after the war
41:05in Europe ended,
41:07Kurt Meyer stood trial
41:08before the Canadian
41:09War Crimes Commission
41:10in Oric, Germany.
41:11He was charged
41:12on five counts
41:13related to the murder
41:14of Canadian prisoners
41:15at the Abbey d'Ardenne
41:17and in the villages
41:18of Bouron and Oty.
41:20The court found him guilty
41:21on three of those counts,
41:23including inciting his troops
41:25to deny quarter
41:26to surrendering soldiers.
41:27Major General Harry Foster,
41:29the presiding officer,
41:31sentenced Meyer to death
41:32by firing squad.
41:34The sentence was later
41:35commuted to life imprisonment.
41:37In 1954,
41:39Meyer was released.
41:40Several Canadian
41:41and British officers
41:42who had fought
41:43against him in Normandy
41:44had written in support
41:45of his release.
41:46He died in 1961
41:48at the age of 51.
41:50He never spoke publicly
41:52about the phrase
41:53Canadian fishes.
41:54He never had to.
41:55The Garden of the Abbey d'Ardenne
41:58spoke for him.
41:59The 12th SS Panzer Division
42:01Hitlerjugend,
42:02the 20,000 teenagers
42:04who were told
42:05that Canadians
42:05were colonial amateurs,
42:07lost over 80%
42:09of its strength
42:09in Normandy.
42:10Most of the boys
42:11who believed the briefing
42:12on June 7th
42:13did not live to hear
42:14the revised version.
42:15Those who survived
42:17the Fillet's pocket
42:18were reformed,
42:19sent to the Ardennes,
42:20and eventually surrendered
42:21to Allied forces
42:22in 1945,
42:24as a shattered remnant
42:25of what had once been
42:26the most fanatically
42:27confident division
42:28in the German West.
42:29General Kurt Eberding,
42:31captured by the Canadians
42:32at the Scheldt,
42:33spent the rest of the war
42:35in a prisoner-of-war camp.
42:36His 64th Division,
42:38the experienced
42:39Eastern Front soldiers
42:40who received
42:41the first accurate warning,
42:42ceased to exist
42:43on November 3rd, 1944.
42:46Eberding had done
42:47everything the briefing
42:48told him to do.
42:49He had flooded the terrain,
42:51fortified the canal,
42:52positioned his guns.
42:53The briefing was correct.
42:55The outcome was the same.
42:57Alfred Schlem survived the war.
42:59His first parachute army,
43:01the force that held
43:02the strongest defensive position
43:03in the West,
43:04with the most comprehensive
43:05intelligence file
43:06on Canadian soldiers
43:07ever compiled
43:08by the German military,
43:10was pushed across the Rhine
43:11in four weeks.
43:13Schlem later said
43:14that the fighting
43:14in the Rhineland
43:15was among the most intense
43:16he had experienced
43:17in the entire war.
43:19So, what were German soldiers
43:21told before facing Canadians
43:23for the first time?
43:24The answer changed
43:25five times in six years.
43:27After the First World War,
43:29the file said
43:30storm troops,
43:31elite, aggressive, dangerous.
43:34After Dieppe,
43:35the file said
43:36amateurs,
43:37colonial troops
43:38who had proven
43:38their incompetence
43:39on a French beach.
43:40After Ortona,
43:42the file said,
43:43quietly,
43:43and only in Italy,
43:45that the first assessment
43:46may have been closer
43:47to the truth.
43:48After Normandy,
43:49the file said
43:50first-rate infantry
43:51with devastating artillery
43:52and a refusal
43:53to stay down
43:54when hit.
43:55After the Schelt,
43:56the file said
43:57something closer
43:58to a plea,
43:58that these soldiers
43:59would advance
44:00regardless of casualties,
44:02that their coordination
44:02was exceptional,
44:04that they were not
44:04to be underestimated
44:05under any circumstances.
44:07Each warning
44:08was based on
44:09the last battle.
44:10Each warning
44:10was issued to men
44:11who had never
44:12faced Canadians before,
44:14and each warning failed,
44:15not because it was wrong,
44:17but because it was
44:18always describing
44:19who the Canadians
44:20had been,
44:21never who they were becoming.
44:22That is the answer
44:24this story
44:24has been building toward.
44:26The German briefing system
44:27worked exactly as designed.
44:29Intelligence was gathered,
44:31analyzed,
44:32distributed.
44:33Officers read reports,
44:34soldiers were told
44:35what to expect,
44:37the machine functioned,
44:38and it did not matter.
44:39Because the briefings
44:41kept trying to
44:41describe what Canadians did,
44:43their tactics,
44:44their weapons,
44:45their methods,
44:46when the real answer
44:47was something
44:47no intelligence report
44:49could capture,
44:49who they were.
44:51A volunteer army
44:53from a country
44:53of 11 million people
44:55fighting a war
44:564,000 miles from home.
44:58Farmers and miners
44:59and clerks
45:00who had no military tradition
45:02to fall back on
45:03and no imperial pride
45:04to defend.
45:05Only a choice
45:06they had made,
45:07individually,
45:08to cross an ocean
45:09and fight.
45:10They adapted faster
45:12than any file could track
45:13because they were not
45:14following a doctrine.
45:15They were building one,
45:17in real time,
45:18from the ground up,
45:19battle by battle,
45:21mistake by mistake,
45:22grave by grave.
45:24The Germans could describe
45:26the artillery.
45:27They could warn
45:28about the night attacks.
45:29They could note
45:29the aggression
45:30and the refusal to break.
45:32But they could not
45:32brief their soldiers
45:33on what it means
45:34to fight men
45:35who chose to be there,
45:36who had nothing to prove
45:38and nothing to protect,
45:39except the man beside them.
45:41That is what
45:42no warning could contain.
45:45In April 1945,
45:47the 1st Canadian Army
45:48swept north
45:49into the Netherlands.
45:49The Dutch people,
45:51starving after a winter
45:52without food or fuel,
45:54lined the roads
45:55as Canadian trucks
45:56rolled through.
45:57Children sat on the hoods
45:58of jeeps.
45:59Old women wept.
46:01Soldiers who had fought
46:02from Juneau Beach
46:03to the Rhine
46:04handed out chocolate
46:05and cigarettes
46:06to people who had not
46:07eaten properly
46:07in months.
46:09The war ended
46:10on May 5th
46:11in the Canadian sector.
46:12The men who had been
46:14called fishes,
46:15who had been dismissed
46:16as amateurs,
46:17who had been underestimated
46:18by every German unit
46:19that faced them
46:20for the first time.
46:21Those men liberated
46:22an entire country.
46:23And that country
46:24has never forgotten.
46:26Thank you for staying
46:27with this story to the end.
46:28If it meant something to you,
46:30a like helps it reach people
46:31who might never
46:32have heard it otherwise.
46:33If you are not yet subscribed,
46:35now is the time.
46:36And the bell ensures
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46:38the next one.
46:39I would love to know
46:40where you are watching from.
46:41And if someone in your family
46:43served in the war,
46:44whether they landed
46:45on the beaches,
46:46flew over Germany,
46:47sailed the Atlantic,
46:48or waited at home.
46:49Tell me about them
46:50in the comments.
46:51Every family has a story.
46:53This channel exists
46:54to make sure
46:55those stories are not lost.
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