It was on the night of Oct. 24 and into the early morning hours
of Oct. 25, 1944, when L/Sgt. Patrick Jerome Jessome of the
Corps of Royal Canadian Engineers showed the rest of the world
what he was really made of. The Allied advance across Europe in
the months after the D-Day invasion in France the previous June
was a bitter and hard-fought campaign, and no one saw heavier
fighting than the Canadian Army as it struggled to liberate the
Netherlands from the Nazis. On that October night, Canadian
infantry advancing into South Beveland was stopped by a road
block of mines and wire obstacles covered by heavy artillery
fire from a dike commanding the area. An infantry company
attack, followed by an artillery concentration and then a second
company attack, failed to secure the roadblock. Because of
flooding, there was no other way around the barrier, so in the
early morning hours a party of sappers was chosen to attempt to
clear the roadblock which threatened the advance of an entire
Canadian division. Jessome spe