Clearing the Channel Coast was a World War II task undertaken by the First Canadian Army in August 1944, following the Allied Operation Overlord and the break-out and pursuit from Normandy. The Canadian advance took them from Normandy to the Scheldt in Belgium. En route, they were to capture the Channel ports needed to supply the Allied armies and clear the Germans from the Channel litoral and launch sites for the V-1 missiles. Most of the advance met with little more than sporadic resistance as the German 15th Army, wary of being outflanked and isolated by the rapidly advancing British Second Army, executed an orderly retreat north-eastwards towards the Scheldt.