The Gothic Line

by Mark Zuehlke

  The German shelling and mortaring of Misano was constant and proving uncannily accurate. At 1700 hours, Lieutenant Ralph Fountain’s support platoon set up its Vickers machine guns on high ground east of the village and fired on several draws being used by the paratroopers to form up for planned counterattacks against the Strathconas and Westminsters. Before the guns let off more than a single burst, German artillery rounds rained down, killing Fountain and wounding five others.16

  The paratroopers counterattacked twice, but fire from the Shermans and artillery concentrations called in by Westminster Major Ian Douglas broke the attacks almost before they started. Just before nightfall, the Princess Louise Dragoon Guards relieved the Westminsters, who pulled back to regroup for the forthcoming morning advance. Darkness also enabled McAvity to hoof it across country to where some Canadians from 1st Canadian Infantry Division’s Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment were digging in about a mile from the farm. Major Alan Ross detached a platoon from ‘D’ Company to bolster McAvity’s defensive position protecting the disabled tank.17

  WHILE THE STRATHCONAS and Westminsters had gained a lodgement in the heart of the German’s second Green Line, the Governor General’s Horse Guards had punched right through. Based on an intelligence report that the Germans were withdrawing behind the Marano River, Lieutenant Colonel A.K. Jordan had ordered ‘A’ Squadron to find a crossing over this river with all haste. The squadron crossed the Conca River at 1220 hours and charged towards a hilltop objective three and a half miles west of San Giovanni. A thousand yards out from the Conca, No. 1 Troop scattered a force of German infantry at a large farm.

  A few minutes later, Sergeant Humphries, aboard a Honey, spotted an 88-millimetre antitank gun covering a crossroads just ahead of the approaching squadron. He radioed its location to No. 1 Troop commander Lieutenant Gordon Base, who shelled the gun position with high-explosive rounds, causing the gun to burst into flames and explode. No sooner was this gun destroyed than three German Mark IVS flushed from cover and fled with Base’s tankers futilely trying to score hits on the speeding tanks before they disappeared. When No. 1 Troop reached the crossroads, they found the four-man crew of the antitank gun still alive and eager to surrender.

  The troop carried on, shooting up every house and haystack it approached. Noticing some “very wide tank tracks” in a spot of mud next to a roadside hedge, Humphries slowed his Honey in the protection of a farmhouse. As the sergeant’s vehicle crept around the corner of the building, he saw two Mark VI Tigers twenty-five yards ahead. The behemoth tanks, which mounted a powerful 88-millimetre gun, weighed forty-five tons, and had armour one hundred millimetres thick, were virtually immune to anything a Sherman could throw at them. Fortunately, the Tigers were withdrawing with their guns pointed away from the Canadians, giving Base time to bring his three Shermans up to join Humphries.

  Not really caring if he scored a hit or not, Base fired the 75-millimetre high-explosive round in his gun so his gunner could reload with armour-piercing shot. The rattled gunner accidentally stomped on the floor pedal that fired the co-axial machine gun and ripped off a long burst. Base, figuring the main gun was jammed and fearing the Tigers would at any moment rotate their deadly guns, yelled at his driver to reverse into the cover afforded by the farmhouse. He then brought the other two Shermans in the troop up alongside his tank and the three crept out in line to engage in a bloody close-range shootout. But the Tigers had used the moment of confusion to scamper.

  By 1500 hours, ‘A’ Squadron had scattered the few German infantry defending the hilltop objective. Lieutenant Colonel Jordan instructed the squadron to set up a defensive perimeter on the hilltop and wait there until ‘C’ Squadron and his regimental headquarters arrived. Predictably, as ‘A’ Squadron began digging in, it was subjected to intense and prolonged mortaring. Three men were wounded.

  At 1900 hours, Jordan radioed ‘A’ Squadron and ordered it to renew the advance towards the Marano, as ‘C’ Squadron and a troop of M10 Tank Destroyers from the 82nd Anti-Tank Battery would soon reach the hilltop position. Lieutenant Base’s No. 1 Troop led ‘A’ Squadron along a road running northwest of Monte Gallera, with Sergeant Humphries out front in his Honey. Progress was good until one of the Honey’s tracks suddenly blew off and the machine slewed to one side of the road. Base thought the Honey must have struck a mine, but a second later an armour-piercing round slammed into the left side of his Sherman, tore the driver’s cupola off, and pitched it up over the turret. When a second round ripped through the drive train and stopped just forward of the ammunition bin, the Sherman veered out of control and crashed into a haystack.

  The crews of both the stricken Sherman and Honey bailed out and crawled to cover while No. 1 Troop’s remaining Shermans engaged the now clearly visible 75-millimetre antitank gun and its covering two machine-gun positions. The lead tank under Corporal Ruff fired on the gun with a mixture of high-explosive and armour-piercing rounds, while also raking the German position with the co-axial machine gun. When one AP round punched a hole through the anti-tank gun’s protective shield, return fire ceased and several Germans fled. The tankers took three prisoners, one of whom was mortally wounded. The body of another German lay next to the wrecked gun.

  As it was now growing dark, the squadron commander considered any further advance too risky. At 1945 hours, he moved ‘A’ Squadron into a draw on the west slope of Monte Gallera. About six hundred yards southwest of the tankers’ position was a platoon of the 46th British Infantry Division’s 2nd Hampshire Regiment that had come up just before dusk. Soon the Germans discovered ‘A’ Squadron’s position and started mortaring and shelling it. ‘C’ Squadron was meanwhile getting the same rough treatment back on the original hilltop objective. This contributed to an already confusing situation, as the Hampshires appeared to not have expected to find Canadians on the hill. When some of GGHG’s assault troops started digging in on the forward slope, a Hampshire platoon cut off earlier from its company crept up on the digging soldiers and opened fire. A bullet struck Trooper Eaton in the head and killed him. The startled assault troop returned fire with Bren guns until Lieutenant Sockett recognized the typical silhouette of a Commonwealth soldier’s helmet atop one of the “enemy” and brokered a ceasefire.18

  Lieutenant Colonel Jordan and his tactical headquarters failed to catch up to his two squadrons, for the officer misread his map and strayed badly off course until finally becoming intermixed with the advancing companies of the 1st Canadian Light Anti-Aircraft Battalion. This unit was mopping up behind the Westminster and Strathcona Regiments. The infantrymen were jumpy and at the slightest sound of shell or shot dived into the ditches alongside the road, a practice Jordan and his tankers found “a little disconcertingly earnest.”19

  For the “No-Name Battalion,” the day had started terrifyingly when just twenty yards north of the Conca River the lead company confronted a Tiger tank, which “squealing and roaring, surged out of the stand of trees, its 88 belching fire. . . . The Tiger slewed left and clanked ponderously along the roadway, its 88 swung forty-five degrees and pumping armour-piercing and high-explosive shells as it moved. The vehicle commander was half out of the hatch, directing fire.”20

  Fortunately, several 8th Princess Louise New Brunswick Hussars’ Shermans parked in covered positions nearby took on the Tiger. When two scored hits that bounced harmlessly off the tank’s thick armour, the Tiger retaliated by blowing a wall out of the small farmhouse behind which one Sherman was hiding. The vaporized wall not only exposed the Canadian tank to the Tiger but also Sergeant Fred Cederberg and his carrier section who had been sheltering behind the building. “He gonna shoot at us?” one of the men squeaked.

  “Would an elephant kill a fly when he’s fighting lions?” another man replied.

  The tank seemed more intent on fleeing, lumbering ponderously along the road towards a small bridge with shattered decking that couldn’t possibly support its weight. Realizing this at the last moment, the tank halted an
d then started slowly backing up, “belching shells,” as it went. “Gears clashed. The engine revved harder, a last shot was fired and the tank veered to its left and, sticking its lightly armoured rear high in the air, began snorting and chewing a path off the road down a dirt track that forded the creek.

  “It was the moment the Sherman gunners had been waiting for. In rapid succession, three shells ripped into the Tiger. It coughed like a stricken rhino, and smoke and flame wreathed the turret, followed by a series of muffled explosions.”21 A couple of Canadian tanks approached the smoking wreck and two tankers dismounted to check it out. One of Cederberg’s men asked if they saw any survivors and a tanker yelled back: “The Jerry tank commander. But I hope he dies. He cooked up one of our crews!” Looking back over the Conca, Cederberg saw that “the burning Sherman seemed to glow in the sunlight.”22

  The Tiger’s appearance from a group of trees supposedly swept earlier by platoons of 1 CLAA’s ‘B’ Company left everyone disconcerted. But units and individual vehicles were wandering lost all over the battlefront. So it was possible that the Tiger had blundered into the wood after ‘B’ Company had passed through. Still, the infantry warily watched their flanks and took cover at the slightest provocation.

  Shortly before dusk, the leading company ran into a bypassed German position amid a cluster of farm buildings. The paratroopers poured out such heavy machine-gun and rifle fire that the company was unable to muster an attack. Seeing the difficulty the infantry faced, Lieutenant Hood, whose tank led the GGHG’s headquarters section, offered to help. Hood hammered each house for an hour with high-explosive shells until the buildings were collapsed and burning. “The whole area was ringed with burning buildings and darkness had fallen” when the infantry declared the area secure at 2120 hours. Jordan had his HQ hunker down with the infantry for the night.23

  [ 21 ]

  A Sure-thing Gallop

  ON SEPTEMBER 3, 1st Canadian Infantry Division’s first priority was to push northward from the Conca River crossing it had won on the coastal highway. The Royal Canadian Regiment crossed the river at 0430 hours intent on simply brushing aside any opposition it might meet as it marched up the road to Rimini.1 The infantry was followed by a composite 48th Royal Tank Regiment squadron consisting of three troops of Shermans and one of Churchills. Waiting to pass through whenever necessary were two companies of Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment infantrymen, supporting tanks, and two troops of tank destroyers. Brigadier D. Dawnay, the 21st Tank Brigade commander, remained in overall command of the attacking force. His orders were to “pursue the enemy, who were reported to be pulling back to Rimini, delaying only long enough to blow the bridges en route.”2

  Major Rick Forgrave’s RCR ‘C’ Company advanced with Major Sandy Mitchell’s ‘B’ Company right behind. Ranging well ahead of ‘C’ company was Lieutenant Jimmy Quayle’s scout platoon. The rising sun dusted the beaches east of the road in a golden light.3 As Quayle approached a built-up area of resorts south of Riccione, he “saw khaki figures in the road just ahead. They were strolling very casually and acted completely heedless of our presence. We halted and, when the lead rifle company came up, we pointed out the Germans. To my amazement, our men went marching on up the road. They paid for this a few minutes later when there came a great spray from MG42s. Some of the men were hit and the rest belatedly took cover and began to return fire.”4 The scouts and ‘C’ Company were pinned down in front of the heavily defended German position. Men crawled to take cover behind buildings, rocks, low walls, and inside the bordering vineyards as a gunfight ensued.

  Quayle’s scouts crawled into a deep German-made recess cut into an embankment alongside the road, capable of simultaneously sheltering several vehicles from air attack. The scouts had already passed several such hides. Although well protected from the German machine-gun fire, whenever Quayle stuck his head out, “a great rip of machine gun fire… tore up the edges of our temporary home.”5

  As the entire regiment had been marching in column behind ‘C’ Company, Lieutenant Colonel Jim Ritchie managed to organize a hasty attack. But, worrying that the seaside resorts might house German pillboxes or tanks, he had Captain D.R. Martyn first deploy his antitank platoon’s six-pounder guns to cover the buildings. He then ordered Captain J. Birnie Smith to swing ‘A’ Company west of the road towards a point of high ground and roll up the Germans’ right flank. Smith moved with No. 9 Platoon, commanded by Lieutenant H.L. Watson, and Lieutenant L.M. Miles’s No. 7 Platoon out front and No. 8 Platoon, under Lieutenant P.B. Dickson, following.

  Following a fold in the ground that was well concealed by the foliage of adjacent vineyards, ‘A’ Company attained the high ground undetected. As Miles’s platoon closed on a large building, it was fired on by several German machine guns positioned inside. Watson’s No. 9 Platoon moved to assist Miles, but the lieutenant and several of his men were wounded in the attempt. Wanting to prevent the Germans reinforcing the strongpoint, Miles led his platoon in an immediate direct assault. Although the Germans were quickly cleared out, a few of his men were killed or wounded in the short action.

  Gathering the two platoons’ wounded and a number of wounded prisoners inside the house, Miles assumed overall command and prepared to meet a counterattack. The fighting, the RCR war diarist noted afterward, “became extremely bitter as well as confused.”6 Two captured German stretcher-bearers, however, pitched in to help the Canadian stretcher-bearers tend the wounded. One of these Germans pleaded with Miles to let him fetch urgently needed medical supplies from his aid station. Miles finally relented, despite the probability the man was merely planning to escape. Surprisingly, however, the German returned, calling out to Miles from behind the cover of some nearby brush. Bemused, the lieutenant dashed to the position only to be confronted by a paratrooper armed with a Schmeisser. Helpless, Miles was hustled off as a prisoner.7

  By the time Captain Smith reached the house with his No. 8 Platoon, the entire company had only fifty-four men capable of fighting. Ritchie ordered the survivors to “dig in and consolidate.”8 Captain George Hungerford’s ‘D’ Company was sent with six Churchills in support to renew the advance by passing to the left of ‘A’ Company. Hungerford sent his platoons forward by bounds to a position six hundred yards beyond ‘A’ Company. During this advance, however, Lieutenant W. Powers suffered a severe wound and Lieutenant F.X. Boucher and Company Sergeant Major J.L. Goodridge were also wounded. Having lost most of its leadership and with four of the tanks also out of action, ‘D’ Company’s attack stalled. Hungerford radioed Ritchie that further advance would render the company’s position “untenable” and was told to “consolidate on the spot.”9 Only ‘B’ Company remained unengaged. It was 0900 hours and Rimini suddenly seemed far away.

  Realizing the RCR was effectively blocked, Dawnay dispatched ‘C’ Squadron of the Royal Canadian Dragoons to follow a parallel secondary road left of the coastal highway in an attempt to outflank the German blocking force. The squadron’s Staghounds and Dingoes initially enjoyed smooth running through a series of cuttings overlooked by small hills to the west. As the road curved back to intersect the highway a mile short of Riccione, however, the leading reconnaissance troop “ran into murderous machine-gun fire.”10

  It was an armoured car soldier’s nightmare. Armoured cars, noted the regimental historian, “are bound to roads, and a resolute enemy who knows how to hold his fire can let them pass his position and then envelop a whole patrol. No skill can avoid this trap, for well-hidden positions two hundred yards to a flank are completely invisible. There is absolutely nothing to do but run down the roads and hope for the best.”11

  A Faustpatrone disabled the lead car commanded by Lieutenant Wilfred Percy Lawler and both he and the driver were killed attempting to bail out of the wrecked Dingo. Lieutenant Edward Samuel Stokes was meanwhile trying to reach the knocked-out vehicle, unaware that rescuing the two men was no longer possible, when a Spandau dug in beside the road tore into the passing Ding
o. Stokes and his driver died instantly. The advance ceased as Captain P.J.H. LaVigne ordered ‘C’ Squadron to break off.12

  IN A SMALL COTTAGE just north of the Conca, Brigadier Dawnay and 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade’s Brigadier Alan Calder considered their options. At 1600 hours, they sent ‘B’ and ‘D’ companies of the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment and their supporting tanks by a secondary track towards Santa Maria di Scacciano, which stood about two miles inland on a ridge spur extending eastward from Coriano Ridge. The infantry was to advance on foot while the tanks followed “as able.”13 As an after-action report recognized, it also failed to appreciate that the Hasty P’s must move over ground that was “relatively flat, with numerous houses, and the enemy [holding] a commanding height… which afforded him good observation to all approaches.”14

  ‘D’ Company led off at 1800 hours, supported by the tanks, and followed by ‘B’ Company. Only a half-mile out, a blown bridge blocked the tanks and their commander reported that “there was insufficient light for him to continue on in support of the infantry.”15 The Hasty P’s went on alone and managed to reach the outskirts of the village unopposed, but were then forced to ground by fierce machine-gun fire emanating from positions inside the buildings.

  Several Staghounds from the Royal Canadian Dragoons ‘C’ Squadron were still nearby and attempted to provide covering fire for the embattled infantry. No sooner had they rushed forward and opened up with their guns, however, than a Faustpatrone blasted the Staghound commanded by Lieutenant Andrew J. Peterson. He was killed and one of his crewmen wounded. Captain LaVigne ordered the squadron to withdraw. Trundling back towards the coastal highway, the squadron passed in front of the sights of the 48th Royal Tank Regiment Churchills that had been stalled by the blown bridge. One tank fired an armour-piercing round into a Staghound’s thin hull, mortally wounding two of its crew and injuring two others. RCD casualties in a day’s action that the regimental war diarist termed “short, costly, and confused” totalled seven dead and three wounded.16