| Original caption: “Soldiers of the Eighteenth Field Company, Royal Canadian Engineers, leans out of his jeep to read a sign which states, “Spend your holidays in the Nijmegen Salient.” Along with the rest of 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, the 18th Field Company, Royal Canadian Engineers, wintered in the Nijmegen Salient. During Operation Market Garden, September 17-25, 1944, Allied airborne forces penetrated German-occupied Netherlands to Nijmegen, in a narrow advance. The operation succeeded in capturing the Dutch cities of Eindhoven and Nijmegen along with many towns, and a few V-2 rocket launching sites. They failed to take Arnhem, losing most of the United Kingdom Royal Army 1st Airborne Division. In October, in the Battle of the Nijmegen Salient, the British drove off a determined but underresourced Nazi German counterattack. After a month long fight to close the Breskens Pocket in the Battle of the Scheldt (October 10 – November 3, 1944), the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division wintered in the Nijmegen Salient. Allied and German soldiers maintained an uneasy static front line in the Netherlands, with sporadic combat, until the end of the war. In March 1945, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division was 1 of the formations that led the way in Operation Veritable, the offensive to clear the last Nazi German holdouts west of the Rhine, in preparation for the crossing of the last natural obstacle before Germany. The division fought through difficult and water covered terrain under command of British XXX Corps in the initial stages, passing to command of II Canadian Corps. By the end of the war, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division had become known as the “Water Rats,” in reference to the amount of fighting it had done either in amphibious assaults or through flooded terrain. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0531.jpg |
| Image Size | 100.01 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 800 x 805 |
| Photographer | Michael M. Dean |
| Photographer Title | Royal Canadian Army |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | November 24, 1944 |
| Location | |
| City | Nijmegen |
| State or Province | Gelderland |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Archive | Library and Archives of Canada |
| Record Number | 3200959 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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