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Attack on Woensdrecht, ​October 16, 0330 hours 1944.

The attack on Woensdrecht witnessed some of the heaviest fighting since the raid of Dieppe. In October 16, 1944 Major Pigott showed his skills as a commander as he fended off a well trained German division. The RHLI had 161 casulities during the attack, and unfortunately 21 were fatally wounded.

Major Pigott

Well, when Jerry came over the hill we really were surprised. You could tell they were crack troops just by looking at them by the way they moved and used the ground. Then this S.P. gun came down the road and parked 50 yeards from my stone cottage and started to fire armour piercing and high explosive into me. My driver, Private Harry Gram, got hit by shrapnel and stone splinters in the chest and face. He was in pretty bad shape. I told him that hed better try to get back. After gran left there was a lull in the firing from the S.P but there was still a lot of light machine fire and small stuff

Major Pigott, calling in an artillery strike.

I got on the radio and told Denny direct that the situation was desperate, and we short circuited the normal line to get an immediate scale-10 yoke target, 10 rounds a minute, thousands of rounds on a limited target. With the Germans on their feet and attacking and our men dug in, they’d probably lose 90 percent to our 10. Anyway, our map reference was correct and the first salvo was right on. It came over like 70 or 80 express trains all pulling into Union Station at the same time

Pvt. Whitaker, the outcome of Major Pigotts artillery strike.

The fire caught the enemy troops right out in the open whereas our own men were deep down in their slit trenches having been warned beforehand. Our troops cheered; the slaughter was terrific

The RHLI war diary of Major Pigott's bravery.

Despite his wound, and with no regard for his own personal safety, he proceeded across 100 yards of open ground, under heavy machine gun fire and shell fire, and personally directed an anti-tank gun forward into a position from which it was able to destroy the self-propelled gun. The enemy were then forced to withdraw. Throughout the whole encounter Major Pigott moved from one platoon to another under constant fire, encouraging his men and directing their fire… an inspiration and example to all ranks

Gordie Booker, CSM of D Company. ​​discussing his encounter with a Guelph teacher

I was with carriers at the time, and we were going up to Woesdrecht when we saw this pig by the road that had evidently just been killed. Captain Whiteside, the platoon commander, jumped out and cut its throat and, since the mortaring was pretty heavy, left it there for later.
A couple of days after we’d been in Woensdrecht, Pete Bolus came up to CHQ and said: Come on back to the barn and see what we’ve got.’ Well, there was a snow-white pi hanging there in the barn, and there was the Captain giving a lecture on the anatomy and the proper butchering of a pig. He used to teach at Guelph about this sort of thing, and he sure had a captive class this time

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