'Trojan' was a Polish artillery-supported raid across the Maas river near Heusden in the Netherlands to establish the German artillery and mortar strength in the area and so allow the creation of a more fully optimised plan for the proposed assault crossing of the river by major forces (5 January 1945).

The operation resulted, at a remove, from the 'Wacht am Rhein' offensive which the Germans launched in the Ardennes on 16 December 1944. The forces of Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model’s Heeresgruppe 'B' had broken through the front held by the US forces of Lieutenant General Courtney H. Hodges’s 1^st Army and advanced toward Namur with Antwerp as their ultimate objective. General H. D. G. Crerar’s Canadian 1^st Army was not directly affected but, in order that that Lieutenant General Sir Miles Dempsey’s British 2^nd Army could concentrate its attention on events in the Ardennes so long as the German offensive was in progress, Major General L. G. Whistler’s British 3^rd Division of Lieutenant General E. H. Barker’s British VIII Corps, together with its sector of the front along the Maas river as far south as Venlo, was put under command of Lieutenant General G. G. Simonds’s Canadian II Corps.

This change lasted till the middle of January 1945, and in this period extended the width of the 1^st Army’s front from 140 to 175 miles (225 to 280 km). As the German pace and depth of the German advance was reported during the first few days, it seemed possible that the Canadian 1^st Army might well soon become involved, especially as the Canadian intelligence branch began to get information pointing to an imminent attack on the Maas river front in the area to the north of Tilburg: the most significant factor in this new appreciation was that the Germans had reinforced their advanced post at Kapelsche Veer. This was a small hamlet on an island between the Bergsche Maas and a secondary stream of the principal river. The island was merely a strip of polder land, 7 miles (11.25 km) long and just 1 mile (1.6 km) across at its widest point, where Kapelsche Veer stands at the head of a tiny harbour, the southern end of a ferry over the river.

On 16 December Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt, the Oberbefelhshaber 'West', had instructed Generaloberst Kurt Student’s Heeresgruppe 'H' to ready itself to advance as soon as it became clear that the Allied forces were retreating, and later on the same day he added that if the progress of Heeresgruppe 'B' continued to be as good as suggested by early indications, the advance of SS-Oberstgruppenführer und Generaloberst der Waffen-SS Josef Dietrich’s 6^th SS Panzerarmee and General Hasso-Eccard Freiherr von Manteuffel’s 5^th Panzerarmee toward Antwerp was to be supported by an advance by major elements of General Friedrich Christiansen’s 25^th Army across the lower reaches of the Maas river.

On December von Rundstedt ordered Heeresgruppe 'H' to be prepared at one day’s notice from 22 December to launch an advance, and on 21 December General Hans-Wolfgang Reinhard’s (from the next day General Felix Schwalbe’s) LXXXVIII Corps was readying three divisions to cross the Maas river and seize the Wilhelmina Canal between Oosterhout and Dongen on the route to Breda.

The Kapelsche Veer outpost, on the left flank of this proposed advance, was immediately increased in strength to a full company, initially of Generalleutnant Josef Reichert’s 711^th Division but later of Generalleutnant Herman Plocher’s 6^th Fallschirmjägerdivision. With Generalleutnant Friedrich-Wilhelm Neumann’s 712^th Division, these were the three divisions named for the planned assault across the Maas river. The 712^th Division was to cross the Maas on each side of Kapelsche Veer.

But 'Wacht am Rhein' did not progress along the optimistic line originally perceived, and indeed was halted on 26 December. The Allies therefore no longer had any reason to suspect a supporting attack on the Maas front, but the Canadians nonetheless decided to eliminate the forward position at Kapelsche Veer.

On 30 December the position was attacked by elements of Generał brygady Stanisław Maczek’s Polish 1^st Armoured Division, which made limited progress and seized a few prisoners, but the paratroopers of the garrison held their position firmly, supported by artillery fire from positions to the north of the Maas river, and after they had lost about 50 men killed and wounded without further gain, the Poles were ordered to pull back. One week later the Poles renewed their attack in 'Trojan', but yet again the German paratroopers resisted strongly and then delivered a small but effective counterattack. The Poles lost 120 men killed or wounded without gaining significant success and were then withdrawn.

On 13 January No. 47 (Royal Marine) Commando suffered 49 casualties in another fruitless attack. On 26 January men of Brigadier J. C. Jefferson’s Canadian 10^th Brigade and a tank regiment of Major General C. Vokes’s Canadian 4^th Armoured Division, supported by almost the whole artillery of Lieutenant General C. Foulkes’s Canadian I Corps, launched a carefully prepared attack. Committed early in the morning, this renewed assault initially failed to gain any success, but the Canadian maintained their pressure for five days. Slowly men of the Lincoln and Welland Regiment, later assisted by a company of The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada, closed on Kapelsche Veer after capturing the outlying buildings that had survived the shelling and resisted till the end. Early on the morning of 31 January the Canadians found that the only living Germans left in the area to the south of the main river were a few wounded men, who were taken prisoner.

The character of small but epic struggle is revealed by the fact that Plocher, under interrogation after the war, estimated that his losses were 300 to 400 serious casualties as well as another 100 men incapacitated by frost bite. In the final fight the Canadians sustained 234 casualties, of whom 65 were killed, and found 145 German dead.