It is Saturday, November 4, 1944, a crisp and grey autumn day. The temperature hovers around nine degrees and there is a weak wind. Soldiers of the 51st Highland Division arrive at various locations in the Loonse and Drunense Dunes at the end of the morning.

Around Giersbergen, the 5th Battalion Seaforth Highlanders has gathered at the end of the morning. Lieutenant Colonel Walford's unit, over 800 men, has left Udenhout and is marching past the Rustende Jager to the hamlet. The soldiers are getting ready for the upcoming operation. They hurriedly eat a so-called ‘tiffin’ meal', a light lunch. Weapons and equipment are checked and cartridges handed out. For a while, the village on the northern edge of the dunes is a hive of activity. At half past three, the men march to the starting point. From the de Klinkert farm (now a pub) they walk along dirt tracks to the woodland just south of the channel dyke. There they arrive an hour later. The thin canvas boats they have to cross in are already in position, well camouflaged. 

Then the waiting begins. One of the Seaforths describes this episode very evocatively: ‘We lay on the ground in the usual tense silence, waiting for the roar of the guns. I remember a soldier in a ditch next to me. He was biting his lips and his hands were shaking. Then the first shells flew over us and somehow the tension was broken. He tightened the strap of his helmet, grinned at me, nodded in the direction of the explosions on the German side of the canal. 'Just the job!, ’ he said. It was 16,35 hours precisely. The attack could begin'.