Operation Rebound

'Rebound' was a Canadian-led Allied offensive in the area of Roosendaal within the German-occupied Netherlands (28/30 October 1944).

The undertaking involved Major General H. W. Foster’s 4th Armoured Division, Generał brygady Stanisław Maczek’s Polish 1st Armoured Division, Major General E. H. Barker’s British 49th Division and Major General Terry de la M. Allen’s US 104th Division, under the command of Lieutenant General C. Foulkes’s I Corps of General H. D. G. Crerar’s 1st Army, against the German forces of Generaloberst Kurt Student’s 1st Fallschirmarmee and General Gustav-Adolf von Zangen’s 15th Army of Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model’s Heeresgruppe 'B'.

'Rebound' was part of the larger 'Humid' and 'Pheasant' undertakings. In orders issued on 27 October, the I Corps instructed the 1st Armoured Division (with Brigadier J. F. Bingham’s 2nd Armoured Brigade under command) to advance toward Moerdijk and its vital bridges over the Maas river, the 104th Division to press forward in a north-westerly direction for the Mark river near Standdaarbuiten, the 49th Division to make good the route to the north from Roosendaal, and the 4th Armoured Division to plunge straight forward via Steenbergen to Willemstad on the Maas river estuary.

After taking Breda, the 1st Armoured Division soon reached the line of the Mark river and the Mark Canal, with the 104th Division on the river some 8 miles (13 km) farther to the west. But after severe and notably hard-fought actions neither division had succeeded in establishing bridgeheads beyond the Mark river by the end of October, every attempt to do so being quickly and effectively countered. The 15th Army was fighting well, but it had lost more than 8,000 men taken prisoner since 19 October, and its others losses in killed and wounded were also high but not quantified.