Prime Minister Stephen Harper took part in a ceremony Thursday to mark the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands during the Second World War and pay tribute to the Canadians who fought for it.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper lays a wreath during memorial ceremonies in honour of fallen soldiers at the Canadian War Cemetery, in Bergen-op-Zoom, southwest Netherlands, on Thursday. (Vincent Jannink/Associated Press)

Harper travelled to Bergen-op-Zoom, in the south, for the ceremony at the Canadian War Cemetery, where the bodies of 968 combatants, including 64 members of the Royal Canadian Air Force, are buried.

"This army — more than 175,000 Canadians reinforced by Dutch and Allied forces — fought its way from Normandy to Rotterdam, field by field, canal by canal," Harper said at Thursday's solemn ceremony, which included the laying of memorial wreaths.

"They crossed deep, boot-sucking mud, they passed over ground heavily mined. And around them and before them always, the dreadful rattle of the machine-gun."

Most of the soldiers buried at Bergen lost their lives in the fighting north of Antwerp, Belgium, during the Battle of the Scheldt, according to Veterans Affairs Canada.

Port reopened

Beginning on Oct. 2, 1944, members of the First Canadian Army — including Canadian, Dutch, Belgian, British, Polish and American soldiers — fought to clear the north bank of the Scheldt estuary of Nazi German forces and reopen the port of Antwerp to Allied ships carrying reinforcement supplies.

The battle ended on Nov. 8 with the First Canadian Army victorious. More than 12,800 soldiers, including 6,367 Canadians, were killed, wounded or declared missing in action.

Harper was joined by a contingent of about 50 Canadian Forces members, Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Walt Natynczyk and Dutch Prime Minister Jan Pieter Balkenende.

He thanked the Dutch "for their alliance with us in Afghanistan these past years" and for the annual gift of tulips to Canada to thank it for sheltering members of the Dutch royal family during the Second World War.

The visit comes during a five-day visit to Europe for Canada's prime minister, who arrived in Belgium on Tuesday to talk trade with leaders of the European Union. He will also visit Zagreb, Croatia — the first official visit to that country by a Canadian prime minister.

He will end his trip in Berlin, where he'll meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss this year's G8 and G20 conferences in Canada.