The year was 1944. The objective was a small, strategically-placed hill in Holland, near the town of Wonensdrecht. The defended hill gave the Germans a clear field of fire over the town, and was a crucial location in sweeping the entire Scheldt area to allow Allied ships to dock.
Sgt. Wilford Kirk, leading a 12-man section, was among those given the task of taking the hill, where the Germans had two pillboxes set up.
"The platoon to the left of us made it 14 or 15 yards and couldn't get any further that day," recalled Kirk sitting in his easy chair in his home on the farm where he was born near Marchwell.
"The platoon on the right lost its officer and runner to a land mine."
"So we were going up the center with no protection on either side of us. The only protection were the shell craters made in the ground before we got there.
"I sent the first section of men, telling them to get to the first shelter you can get to and to then give us covering fire."
Three sections of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada began the leap-frog climb to the fortified positions with Kirk following the group.
"Then it was my turn to go. I ran right through three sections toward the pillboxes about halfway up the ridge," he said.
Kirk had made it 50 or 60 yards when a grenade was tossed his way.
"A German threw one at me, so I pulled the pin on one of mine and threw it back. I ran out of grenades and waved for another man to bring me more. We had quite a thing going for awhile."
"Finally things got quiet so I guess I won the battle."
An Allied tank arrived to offer support but Kirk, now 77 says they initially targeted fire on mortar locations in dikes some distance away. That left the pillboxes peppering his advancing platoon.
"I had to tap on the tank to get it to direct its fire on the pillboxes," said Kirk who would later receive the Militaire Willems Orde, the Dutch equivalent to the Victoria Cross. He is one of only two Canadians to wear the medal.
"I rapped with my Sten gun and pointed toward the pillboxes," He continued.
"Of course my boys were giving me covering fire while I was doing it."
But the tank kept firing over the dikes .
"For the second time I rapped on the window."
This time the operators took note, having to actually back up to lower the muzzle to direct fire at the pillboxes.
"As soon as he lifted the muzzle I said, "Let's go," said Kirk.
Before they got there, 17 German paratroopers emerged with their hands up and a white flag."I had two men take the prisoners. Halfway down the Germans let into them, wounding four or five for surrendering," he said.
Inside one pillbox a German medic was still working on an injured soldier.
"His legs were all banged up. He needed splints. There wasn't anything to use. We ended up giving them German bayonets. That's what they used for Splints."
Looking back, Kirk says stealth made it possible to achieve their objective.
"It was the way we worked our way up the hill. We kept the Germans' heads down with small arm fire.""I was a little surprised. I lost only three men, and we weren't at full strength when we got there," said Kirk.
One of the men was killed from the supposed security of the pillboxes.
"Bonner had put his Bren gun on the sandbags. He brought his head up and got it right between the eyes."
However, with his flank support still pinned down at the bottom of the hill, Kirk received orders to retreat.
"I thought, "Oh God! Now we have to fight our way back again," he said.
"We had to because we were exposed on both sides."
The vulnerability of the position became evident on the retreat.
"I saw the tank coming and remember hoping they remembered it's us," said Kirk.
"Before the tank got out of there it was knocked out. Three made it out."
As morning dawned the next day, new orders arrived again.
"The next day we got orders to retake what we'd taken the day before," said Kirk.
This time the going was easier.
That night the strategic hill laid in Allied Hands.
Looking back, Kirk says he didn't do anything a good soldier wouldn't have done.
"I led my platoon and captured a position other platoons had tried and couldn't take," he said.
I wasn't Kirk's only battle of the war - "I fought all the way from Normandy to the Rhine River. I was hit four times, but only once bad enough to get a wound stripe. I had an 88 go through a house I was in, and I'm still here" - but it did have a lasting effect. This week Kirk is back in the Netherlands as a guest of that country's government for Victory in Europe (VE) celebrations.
It's actually Kirk's sixth visit courtesy of the government, an indication of the lasting gratitude the Netherlands feels for his efforts.
"It (The medal) also comes with knighthood, so we get to places their own people don't get. I've met Queen Beatrice three of four times. It's an honor that I suppose very few have.
"It's one of those things, I happened to be observed for something I did at the right time."
"The whole platoon deserves the decoration as much as I did. I just led it. There wasn't one man who let me down that day."
"I wear the medal for all of them."
Like most operations during the war, it was just a case of following orders.
"Your objective wa there and you did your best to reach it. You never knew what was in front of you until you got into it."
Now, 51 years after the battle history has tagged "Bloody Wonensdrecht", Kirk has found a better memory than the wet of polders, and the blood of comrades.
"When I was there back in 1965 I walked that ground again," he recalled.
It was raining, and a family invited him into their home.
"They told me how they were hiding in the church basement, while the fighting was going on," said Kirk.At the time of the fighting the daughter was only three.
Last fall, when Kirk travelled to the Netherlands for a remembrance of the battles in the Wonensdrecht area, he met the daughter again, now married, with children of her own.
"I just got a letter. She (Mrs. DeJong Kuylen) sent me an aerial photo of Wonensdrecht. So I intend to do my very best to visit her again."
Out of a battle Kirk proclaims may have cost more lives per square foot than any other in the Second World War, a friendship spanning a half century and half a world has emerged.
Perhaps, there is a message to another generation.
