Operation Infatuate II: Sherman tanks at Westkapelle

[Jakko Westerbeke]

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

At least four Armoured Dozers could be found as spoils of war on the beaches for many years after the fighting

I found most of the remaining ones

Let’s begin on the southern side, near Erika. You identified one bulldozer there, labelled “D”; a second one stood nearby, but I’ve never seen a photo of one. However, I do have a photocopy of a map of this area made (most likely) by Rijkswaterstaat as a plan for the construction of the new dyke, which was given to me about 15 years ago when I was involved in the construction of a large 1:150 scale diorama of the construction of the new dyke, for which I supplied scratchbuilt models of two armoured bulldozers and two LVT (4)s. I recently managed to find it again, and it is what seems to be an accurate map of the situation at the time, with four “tanks” marked on it. An annotation by the man who gave me the map indicates two were Buffalos and two were bulldozers:

Erika map.jpeg (north is to the right)

The bulldozer Hanno labelled “D” is the one on the left (south) on the map, and the Buffalo nearby is then obviously the one also shown in the photo of bulldozer “D”. Though I’m not sure where he got the data what the other two vehicles were exactly, and because he passed away last year I can’t go and ask, given that he had extensive knowledge relating to the war and the works on the dyke, and had spent his whole working life at Rijkswaterstaat, I’m confident this is correct.

(By the way, Landingsvaartuig means “landing craft”. These were three LCT (3)s left behind, two of which are in the background on the same photo.)

Then there’s the one I think was on the beach — see a previous post by me above. Though it’s really just a silhouette, it looks like an armoured bulldozer to me,

That gives us, what, six present and accounted for? Oh yeah, and one bulldozer was on board LCT 513 that turned back, so that’s seven. Let’s find the remaining two …

Bulldozer on dyke.jpeg Bulldozer behind dyke.jpg
(both photos by Neeltje Flipse-Roelse, courtesy of Polderhuis Westkapelle)

I don’t think I’d ever seen these two photos until yesterday night, or if I had, then I hadn’t really looked at them. After double-checking the location of the first one, it’s clearly on top of the old dyke and not one of the three left on the beach, because those are a long way behind the big wall in front of/below it — which is the antitank wall the Germans built on the landward side of the dyke (it wasn’t freestanding, the foot of the dyke was dug away and the wall built into it so there was a sheer drop off the dyke). In the second photo, which is older because there’s no new dyke yet, you can see the same dozer in the background, plus one drowned in the sea just south of the village proper.

From the knowledge I picked up in this thread, I take it the second photo is of a D6? The other one looks to me like it could be a D7. I’m wondering if it’s the same one shown in the better-known photo of a bulldozer actually at work in Westkapelle:

D7A (Sgt. C. Crocker, Beeldbank Zeeland 40022).jpg