A Perfectly Engineered Killing Ground: Calgary Highlanders and the Walcheren Causeway Battle

Authors

  • Mark Zuehlke

Abstract

On October 31, 1944, the 5th Canadian Infantry Brigade was ordered to force a crossing over the Walcheren Causeway and establish a foothold on the eastern flank of Walcheren Island. Only 40 yards wide and stretching 1,200 yards with sodden reed-grown mud-flats on either side the causeway was a deadly killing ground. An attempted advance up the gun-barrel straight causeway by the Black Watch was shredded. On the night of October 31, the Calgary Highlanders stepped out into the open in a valiant effort that won a shallow bridgehead on the far end that the Germans fiercely counterattacked throughout the ensuing day. Author Mark Zuehlke’s 2015 Ross Ellis Memorial Lecture, A Perfectly Engineered Killing Ground: The Calgary Highlanders and the Walcheren Causeway Battle, pays tribute to the regiment’s gallantry and also the key role that Major Ross Ellis played in this battle.

Author Biography

Mark Zuehlke

Mark Zuehlke is an award-winning author generally considered to be Canada’s foremost popular military historian. His Canadian Battle Series is the most exhaustive recounting of the battles and campaigns fought by any nation during World War II to have been written by a single author. In recognition of his contribution to popularizing Canadian history, Mark was awarded the 2014 Governor General’s History Award for Popular Media: The Pierre Berton Award. In 2007, his For Honour’s Sake: The War of 1812 and the Brokering of an Uneasy Peace won the Canadian Author’s Association Lela Common Award for Canadian History. The Canadian Battle Series Holding Juno captured the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize in 2006.

 

Mark is also an award winning mystery writer, whose popular Elias McCann series has garnered much critical praise in Canada and abroad. Set in storm-swept west Vancouver Island village of Tofino, the series follows the reluctant community coroner Elias McCann. Hands Like Clouds, the debut in this series, won the Crime Writer’s of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for the 2000 Best First Novel and the third instalment, Sweep Lotus, was nominated for the 2004 Arthur Ellis Best Novel.

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Published

2015-12-31

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 3 (2015)

Section

The Ross Ellis Lecture in Military and Strategic Studies