The Gothic Line

by Mark Zuehlke

  AS THE HIGHLANDERS’ advance ground to a halt, Lieutenant Jimmy Quayle’s RCR scouts wandered the rolling landscape with only the vaguest idea of their whereabouts. Quayle’s situation struck him as bizarre: here he was, a scout leader who lacked any sense of direction, but was walking point for the regiment with a platoon that officially didn’t exist.

  According to Ottawa’s War Establishments regulations, which dictated the nature and size of regimental units, there was no allowance for a regimental scout platoon. Early on, however, many regimental commanders had realized the utility of having a small unit of soldiers that could range across the battleground and serve as their personal eyes and ears. As every regimental headquarters was authorized a Regimental Support Company, which consisted of a mortar, pioneer, carrier, and antitank platoon, it was easy enough to create an unofficial scout platoon by drawing personnel from the other support company platoons.

  As for Quayle’s lack of directional sense, he had learned that the veteran scouts in his platoon could be relied on. “Time and again,” he later wrote, “we would be returning from a night patrol, with shells falling, buildings burning and tracer rounds streaking across the sky, and we would come to a crossroads. I would hesitate, ‘Let’s see, is it the right or left turn we take?’

  “For chrissake, Sir, it’s the left road,” one of his men would hiss.28

  This morning, the three men accompanying Quayle were almost as disoriented by the confused terrain as he was. They considered themselves fortunate to have not yet stumbled on any Germans. There were, however, many Italian civilians about, part of a tragedy that Quayle had often witnessed during his long march northward from Sicily. As Quayle’s platoon walked along a dusty track, they passed farmers in their black clothing loading dead adults and children into open carts for transfer to the nearest cemetery. These were the casualties caused by the night’s artillery barrage. Women and children wept, some of the older women beseeched heaven to explain this suffering, while the men—mostly old—grimly carried out their gruesome task.

  After passing the civilians by, Quayle’s party crested a hill and walked right into a group of six Germans strolling along with their guns slung over their shoulders. Seeing the Canadians had their weapons at the ready, the Germans promptly surrendered. Quayle immediately appropriated a German sniper rifle from one man. The gun was the standard German issue—a World War I vintage 7.92-millimetre Mauser 98—far inferior to the Commonwealth-issue Lee Enfield. The Germans transformed this old weapon into a sniper rifle, however, by fitting it with a four-power scope with optics superior to anything the Allies produced. Quayle slung the gun over his shoulder, determined to take it back to Canada as a souvenir.

  He thought it would have been more dramatic if he could have written to his family with the claim that he had won the gun following a long duel with an opposing sniper. The truth, he knew, however, was that “both groups were lost, but we were less lost.”29

  Quayle’s scouts were not the only RCR troops lost that morning. RCR Lieutenant Colonel Jim Ritchie had no idea of the whereabouts of any of his rifle companies beyond the fact that they were somewhere out to the front of Saltara. After setting his tactical headquarters up amid Saltara’s ruins, Ritchie and his intelligence officer, Lieutenant Gordon Potts, set off with ‘C’ Squadron of the 12th Royal Tank Regiment to link the tanks up with his riflemen. Ritchie, aware that the Highlanders were pinned down on his right flank, planned an infantry-cum-tank attack against the hill topped by Convento Beato Sante, for it was from positions in and around the convent that the heaviest fire against the Highlanders was originating. If the RCR could capture “Convent Hill,” the pressure on the Highlanders would be relieved. Having arranged for an artillery concentration to first soften up the German positions, Ritchie now fretted that his companies might be so far forward that they would get caught in the shellfire. Unable to raise any of his company commanders by radio to ascertain their precise locations or to order them to fall back to escape the impending artillery, Ritchie had hopped a ride with the tanks. He hoped to get past the intervening high terrain blocking his radio signals and then guide the tanks to the rifle companies.

  Although Ritchie didn’t know it, his companies were all pinned down near the base of the convent’s hill by intense German artillery and mortar fire. They had quickly dug in and were now awaiting the tanks, which they had no idea Ritchie was bringing forward.30

  WHILE RITCHIE AND the tankers searched uncertainly for Convent Hill, a small convoy of cars and motorcycles barrelled into Saltara in a boiling cloud of dust at 1630 hours. Out of a large convertible stepped Prime Minister Winston Churchill with General Harold Alexander at his side. As the headquarters was still being established, the situation was confused. Only the regimental padre, Major Rusty Wilkes, was on hand to receive the illustrious pair. Churchill asked after the tactical situation and Wilkes, somewhat flustered at having one of the most powerful men in the world at his side and being no tactician, sent a runner scrambling to find the nearest “combatant officer.”31

  A few minutes later and some two hundred yards away, Captain Ted Shuter saw platoon sergeant Jack Napier jogging towards him. The commander of the antitank platoon had been trying to get all the regiment’s vehicles concealed from German observation inside an old gravel pit, but the sudden kicking up of a plume of dust back at the headquarters had drawn mortar fire down on the pit itself. When Napier told him some visitors had arrived who wanted his immediate presence, Shuter was thrown into a foul temper. He stalked back towards the party standing around Padre Wilkes.

  As he got closer, Shuter forcefully swallowed his temper when he recognized General Alexander. Without looking at anyone else, Shuter crisply saluted the general. Alexander then turned to the portly civilian by his side and said, “You know Mr. Churchill, of course.”

  Churchill was wearing a pith helmet and tropical kit uniform with no rank insignia. He gave the flabbergasted captain’s hand a hearty shake, while Alexander asked if “there was a possibility of seeing troops in action from the top of our sheltering hill?” Shuter warned that using the hill was dangerous, for the area was under German observation. Alexander told Shuter to lead on anyway. As they climbed the slope, Churchill continuously sucked on one of his trademark cigars. From the hilltop, Shuter could “see some troops running diagonally across our front, about eight hundred yards away.” Having no idea of the real identity of the soldiers, he told Churchill “they were RCR in an attack.”*32

  Suddenly, Ritchie’s artillery started shelling the general area of Convent Hill. Churchill beamed with pleasure as plumes of dirt were thrown up and the black smudges of airbursts appeared. “Ah, cannon,” he exclaimed and lowered his binoculars.33 Shuter could tell that Alexander was getting increasingly twitchy about their situation and so too was Shuter. The British Prime Minister should not be so close to the front lines, exposing himself to this kind of danger. Alexander finally coaxed Churchill off the hill. After thanking Shuter for his kind assistance, the party roared off in another dusty trail.

  A few minutes after Churchill’s departure, a breathless Major Strome Galloway arrived asking if it were true that the Prime Minister and Alexander had visited. Shuter was amused by Galloway’s obvious mortification at having missed the august twosome.34

  Churchill was duly excited by his experience. He later wrote: “This was the nearest I got to the enemy and the time I heard the most bullets in the Second World War.”35 Leese noted in a letter that Churchill “was all the better for his visit—He went out with [Alexander] yesterday and went well up to the front line, in fact on to ground shortly captured. Luckily he was not shelled or blown up on a mine!”36

  * Some accounts have said that this was ‘B’ Company, RCR attacking Convent Hill. However, the distance between Saltara and the convent make it unlikely that any RCR companies would have been visible at the time.

  [ 9 ]

  Quite an Affair

  ULIKE THE DISORIENTED RCR, the Seaf
orth Highlanders of Canada were able to direct their advance unerringly towards their final objective—the 1,600-foot Monte della Mattera. Because the engineers here had opened 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade’s river crossing at dawn, ‘A’ and ‘C’ companies also enjoyed the close tank support of the 145th Royal Tank Regiment’s ‘C’ Squadron from the moment they left the bridgehead at 0815 hours.

  Lying between the bridgehead and Monte della Mattera were two lesser summits, bearing the map designations of Point 382 and Point 394, that the regiment was to secure en route. ‘A’ Company headed for the first objective; ‘C’ Company the second. A troop of 40-ton British-made Churchills accompanied each company. At 0930 hours, ‘A’ Company climbed and descended Point 382 with nothing lost but some sweat, and pressed on for Monte della Mattera. Forty-five minutes later, ‘C’ Company, commanded by Major Haworth Glendinning, reached the crest of Point 394 and flushed twenty-four Germans from the 71st Infantry Division’s 211th Panzer Grenadier Regiment. Facing a company of infantry supported by three Churchills, they wisely surrendered. As the prisoners were marched past Lieutenant Colonel Syd Thomson’s tactical headquarters, he thought they looked “a very poor type of soldier… very badly shaken by our artillery concentrations.”1

  By the time they reached the base of Monte della Mattera, the Seaforths were well ahead of schedule and beginning to think the exercise a pleasant walk in the country on a hot summer’s day. Those thoughts were rudely dispelled when two British spitfires dived out of the sun with machine guns blazing. Even as the infantrymen dived for cover, the planes broke off and vanished over the horizon. Fortunately, the pilots were poor shots and no casualties resulted.2

  Shaken by the experience, the two companies paused briefly to regroup. Then, at 1140 hours, Glendinning’s ‘C’ Company started slogging up Monte della Mattera with No. 13 Platoon leading. Barely had the platoon started climbing when several Spandau machine guns and a self-propelled gun opened fire from positions on the summit. With the hillside too narrow to allow more than one platoon to form a line, Glendinning ordered No. 13 to carry on with the tanks advancing alongside it.3 Tracks clawing for traction on the hill’s steep rocky slope, the Churchills inched upward with 75-millimetre guns thundering in an attempt to keep the SPG crew ducking. The infantry dashed and slithered on their stomachs from one scrubby bush to another, following a zigzag path meant to throw off the aim of the machine-gunners. Three men fell with wounds. It took fifty minutes for the attackers to reach the summit, and there the fight abruptly ended with fifteen Germans surrendering. The rest, including the SPG, had apparently scampered just before the Canadians came over the crest. ‘A’ company quickly reinforced ‘C’ Company on the summit. The men spread out, dug in, and waited for further orders.4

  Monte della Mattera was linked to Convent Hill by a curving half-mile-long ridge with a saddle lying between the two summits. About four hundred yards below the convent was Passo, a cluster of shell-blasted homes. From their hilltop vantage, the Seaforths could see German machine-gun positions dug in around Passo and the convent raking 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade’s Royal Canadian Regiment and 48th Highlanders of Canada. They could also see the flashes of mortars and artillery firing from German gun positions running all the way north to Monteciccardo. Glendinning suspected that artillery spotters in the convent were directing this fire on 1 CIB’s two regiments. If the Seaforths tried advancing northward from Monte della Matera, their right flank would be exposed to the convent and the same German fire. The attack was stalled until somebody kicked the Germans out of the convent.

  Thomson reported to 2 CIB commander Brigadier Graeme Gibson, who conferred with his 1 CIB counterpart, Brigadier Allan Calder. Gibson suggested the Seaforths attack across the saddle, but that meant entering the other brigade’s area of operations. Calder told him to wait because he had just ordered the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment to conduct a right hook around the 48th Highlanders’ flank to get behind Convent Hill and hit its northern slope.5

  This plan had been hastily cobbled together by Calder minutes before Gibson’s call when the 1 CIB commander visited Lieutenant Colonel Don Cameron’s headquarters.6 The Hasty P’s cook trucks had also just arrived with a hot meal for the men, so Calder agreed to a short delay of the attack to allow the men to eat. As Calder drove off in his jeep, the troops gathered outside an old church in the welcome shade cast by its bell tower.7

  Five minutes later, the food line was smothered in flame and smoke as dozens of artillery shells exploded in a single, violent salvo. Seventeen were wounded, including the regiment’s staff officer, Lieutenant J.S. Farewell. Three were dead: Lance Sergeant L.J. Richardson and privates A.J. Stoneberg and H.G. Smith. At 1345 hours, ‘B’ Squadron of the 12th Royal Tank Regiment arrived to support the Hasty P’s attack and, despite this battering, the companies formed up and marched towards battle.8

  After some thought, Calder decided Gibson should have the Seaforths mount a patrol in force towards the convent to distract German attention away from his attack. Gibson ordered Thomson to strike at 1400 hours, and the plan was anything but a diversion. Major Frederick D. Colquhoun’s ‘B’ Company was instructed to ride on top of several Churchills to the outskirts of Passo, sweep the buildings clear, and then attack the convent.9

  A combination of demolitions on the narrow road and the steep terrain on either side stalled the tanks a few hundred yards short of the village.10 The Seaforths dismounted and Colquhoun sent No. 11 Platoon, commanded by Lieutenant Dave Fairweather, to secure Passo while his other two platoons and the tanks provided covering fire. Fairweather’s men entered the olive groves and vineyards to the right of the road and worked carefully towards the village. As No. 11 Platoon disappeared into the foliage, a self-propelled gun fired at the covering force. Five men, including Colquhoun, died instantly and another twelve were wounded. Although injured, Lieutenant John Thirwell took command. Heavy machine guns weighed in alongside the SPG. The muzzle flashes of the guns betrayed their position to Thirwell, who ran to the Churchills on the road and pointed them out. The fire from the tankers thinned out the German fire, and when Thirwell showed them where the SPG was hiding it was knocked out or driven off—either way, it ceased firing.

  While this action was underway, Fairweather’s platoon dashed out of the vineyards into Passo and bagged six prisoners among the ruins. From a hasty interrogation, Fairweather learned the convent was held by at least sixty Germans. Receiving this information, Thomson ordered ‘B’ Company to pull back so the slope running from Passo up to the convent and the structure itself could be shelled.11 When Thirwell reported his company still pinned under machine-gun fire, Thomson decided to delay further action until after dusk so that the withdrawal could be covered by darkness.12

  With the Seaforth attack stymied, Gibson decided to broaden 2 CIB’s offensive front. This would increase the pressure on the defending Germans, who had concentrated their forces on Convent Hill. He ordered the Loyal Edmonton Regiment to pass behind the Seaforths and advance about five thousand yards northwestward towards Monte Marino and the lesser feature of Monte San Giovanni. At 1800 hours, Lieutenant Colonel Budge Bell-Irving called his officers to an O Group. The thirty-one-year-old former Seaforth Highlander of Canada was a relatively unknown commodity to his new regiment. His grandfather, Henry Ogle Bell-Irving, had built Anglo-B.C. Packing Company into one of the world’s largest tinned salmon exporters, and his ten children had been born into one of Vancouver’s leading families. Henry Pybus “Budge” Bell-Irving was university educated, fine mannered, sardonically minded, and deliberately “British” in both mannerisms and speech. He was a stark contrast to Major Jim Stone, from whom the Eddies generally believed this rather prissy young officer had usurped the regiment’s command.

  Almost to a man, the Edmontons admired the thirty-six-year-old, six-foot-five bear of a man. English-born, Stone had no discernible accent. Before the war, he had worked at forestry camps in northern Alberta’s great expanses of borea
l forest and had ridden on horseback from a camp near Blueberry Mountain to enlist as a private the moment war was declared. Possessed of a keen intelligence and great determination of will, Stone was soon fast-tracked into officer training.13

  Bell-Irving served gallantly with the Seaforths in Sicily and during the march up the Italian toe until October 1943, but a lieutenant colonel’s promotion had resulted in a transfer to command an officer’s training school in Britain. Consequently, he missed the bitter battles of Ortona and the Hitler Line. Shortly after the Liri Valley Battle concluded, Bell-Irving returned to Italy to assume command of the Edmontons. Stone, who had passed through Bell-Irving’s school in Britain and had poor relations with the commander there, was initially surly and uncooperative as Bell-Irving’s second-in-command. He even demanded a transfer. Bell-Irving had shaken his head and said Stone “was the Edmonton Regiment” and must stay. After a moment’s reflection, Stone promised to do his best as second-in-command and the two were soon fast friends.

  Despite their disparate backgrounds and ways, Bell-Irving and Stone were much alike. Each loved to play and to work hard. Whenever opportunity permitted, Bell-Irving organized lavish parties. But he was also first man up the next day and would march the regiment relentlessly through one training scheme after another.14

  Now Bell-Irving was determined the Eddies would vigorously advance towards Monte Marino by a semi-circular route that followed the line of a ridge from Monte della Mattera to a first objective of Monte San Giovanni and then to the final objective. ‘C’ Company would lead off at 1930 hours and secure Monte San Giovanni. Then ‘B’ and ‘D’ companies would carry on to Monte Marino.15