by Mark Zuehlke
‘C’ Company reached the far bank and started across the open ground leading to the ridgeline. From straight ahead and from the left flank, sudden thick concentrations of machine-gun and rifle fire struck the advancing line. Several men fell screaming. The rest quickly went to ground. What had started out like a Great War infantry assault, where men advanced in orderly lines, deteriorated in seconds to the norm of war in the 1940s. Soldiers crawled forward in small groups, while others covered them with rifle and Bren fire. Some men froze, clawed a hole in the earth, and refused to move. Others dashed about, exposing themselves recklessly to fire. The enemy resistance was fierce. ‘C’ Company’s advance slowed, then stalled almost entirely.
Across the river, Kennedy, seeing the attack losing steam, directed ‘D’ Company into action. Its orders were to destroy the enemy positions on ‘C’ Company’s left. To shield the company’s advance, the mortars ceased firing high explosives and dropped a screening blanket of smoke bombs between the Canadians and the German positions. A troop of British tanks was dispatched to cross the river near the demolished coast highway bridge.12 ‘D’ Company got very close to the enemy gun pits before running into what seemed a wall of fire. Kennedy saw the men scatter, many clawing into whatever cover they could find. A number appeared to fall, either wounded or killed. Radio communication with the company was lost.13
Disaster loomed as Kennedy received word that the tanks going to the infantry’s support were hopelessly mired in the river mud. He knew the Germans had tanks nearby. It could not be long before they were deployed into the battle.14 Reluctantly, at 1540 hours, Kennedy ordered a withdrawal. The Bren carrier platoon was to provide cover fire with its machine guns and the three-inch mortar platoon was to lay down smoke to blanket the infantry’s movement back over the Moro. While ‘C’ Company withdrew easily, ‘D’ Company, either failing to receive the radioed order or being unable to break off contact with the enemy, remained in its position.15 If not soon withdrawn, Kennedy feared the company would be overrun. Unexpectedly the fog engulfing ‘D’ Company cleared, and Kennedy saw that its soldiers had actually penetrated into the German defensive positions, which appeared to have been largely abandoned. What had looked moments before to be a minor defeat now offered the slightest glimmer of hope for a victory.
For five minutes Kennedy hesitated. To switch from withdrawal to hasty attack meant to risk most or all of the battalion, but the fate of many a battle has been decided in favour of the bold gamble. Kennedy ordered the nearest troops, the carrier platoon, to dismount and cross the river as foot infantry to support ‘D’ Company. He sent ‘A’ and ‘B’ companies forward to seize the objectives originally assigned to ‘C’ Company.16 Kennedy led the two companies across himself, with Lieutenant Farley Mowat accompanying ‘A’ Company.
The fire that had slackened after ‘C’ Company’s withdrawal immediately sprang back to life. Both advancing companies were caught in the open by the fire of heavy artillery, armoured fighting vehicles, mortars, and intense machine-gun fire. Casualties were surprisingly few given the concentrated fire, but still the regiment was taking many dead and wounded.17 Retreating in the face of the German fire was impossible; the two companies could only continue forward.
On the left flank, the combined force of ‘D’ Company and the carrier platoon troops pressed upward and managed to cut through the German positions on the slope to reach the ridgeline itself. There the unit was pulled up abruptly by a well-organized counterattack that forced it back over the lip of the ridge. Here ‘D’ Company was joined by the rest of the battalion, now including ‘C’ Company.
Kennedy, realizing infantry could not possibly advance into the open ground beyond the ridge to face down German tanks without armoured support, ordered his men to dig into the slope of the ridgeline.18 This position was known as a reverse slope, and enemy tanks could not depress their gun barrels sufficiently to bring the soldiers hiding below the ridgeline under fire. Nor could German mortar or artillery fire be easily directed against the position, as it was invisible to the gunnery officers and required too steep a trajectory for delivery of accurate fire.
As darkness closed over the battlefield, the battalion’s tenuous toehold on the northern bank of the Moro remained hotly contested. Total casualties for the day’s assault stood at twenty-three wounded and, surprisingly, only five killed.19 In their shallow slit trenches, the soldiers knew they faced a desperate night. As Kennedy had committed the rifle companies of the entire battalion, there was little or no chance of a withdrawal under fire without the battalion being cut to pieces. Their only option was to dig in and hold, no matter what the enemy threw their way.
8
THE IMPOSSIBLE BRIDGE
AS December 6 drew to a close, Major General Chris Vokes faced a crisis of decision. The original plan to breach the Germans’ Moro River defensive line by forcing a crossing fronting San Leonardo lay in tatters. The bridgehead position won by the Seaforths’ ‘C’ Company and a platoon of ‘A’ company was untenable. ‘B’ Company had enjoyed remarkable success in its assault on the German left flank, piercing the boundary line between 200th and 361st Panzer Grenadier regiments, but it was impossible for the Seaforths to capitalize on Captain Buchanan’s gains. Slowly reports trickled back from ‘B’ Company that it had taken about sixty prisoners, overrun sixteen enemy positions, and killed or wounded many other Panzer Grenadiers, while taking casualties of only two killed and six missing.1 Unfortunately, ‘B’ Company’s exploits amounted to little more than an aggressive raid due to the inability to reinforce its success with infantry and armoured support. By about 2200 hours, Vokes was informed by the Royal Canadian Engineer commander, Lieutenant Colonel Geoff Walsh, that building a Bailey bridge over the Moro at the site of the demolished bridge below San Leonardo was impossible because the road turned sharply at right angles on reaching the river.2
Faced with this news, Vokes decided on the spur of the moment to abandon the thrust at San Leonardo and shift 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade’s entire effort west to exploit through Villa Rogatti. “A cardinal rule of tactics is to exploit success and ignore failure,” he noted. If successful, switching the division’s main thrust to the left flank would win a clear run from the lip of the ridge “without any intervening natural obstacles to the Ortona-Orsogna lateral road. Having cut this road the direction of attack could then be swung towards Villa Grande or Ortona.” But the attack routes across the valley that had been used by the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and its supporting tanks were too poor to facilitate a major offensive. Vokes realized that “feasibility would hinge on whether the demolished road bridge could be restored with a Bailey Bridge as the road exit up the far escarpment was necessary for movement.”3
Decision made, Vokes directed Lieutenant Colonel Jim Jefferson to ready the Loyal Edmonton Regiment to move through the PPCLI’s lines in the morning. The Seaforths would withdraw all units from the northern side of the Moro and shift westward into reserve behind the other battalions of 2 CIB.4 Meanwhile, 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade would continue expanding the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment’s bridgehead near the river’s mouth. That action would, however, remain a diversionary effort, unless the 2 CIB breakthrough at Villa Rogatti faltered.
The movement orders reached the Seaforths none too soon. Forin received final orders to initiate the anticipated withdrawal shortly before a runner sent by Buchanan, whose #18 radio had broken down a couple of hours earlier, reported that the captain requested permission to withdraw. The runner told Forin that ‘B’ Company faced a strong counterattack out of La Torre of between 200 and 300 German infantry. Buchanan was giving ground slowly, each platoon supporting the other in a measured withdrawal that was costing the Germans casualties; but the company could not possibly hold against such a superior force. Forin told the runner to tell Buchanan to bring his men home.5
Meanwhile ‘C’ Company and the platoon from ‘A’ Company withdrew easily. ‘C’ Company had c
ome through the entire battle without suffering a single casualty, which impressed Forin not at all. He roundly chastised Captain Blackburn for failing to lead the company effectively or aggressively. It seemed to Forin that, from the moment the company had come under fire the previous night, it had done nothing except stay under cover. Forin further thought the “performance of neither ‘A’ or ‘C’ company was in any way outstanding, nor was it up to the standard of previous performances of companies in the attack.”6
At 1000 hours on December 7, ‘B’ Company slipped across the river and rejoined the rest of the battalion. It was, however, missing one section of about half a dozen men and 2nd Field Regiment forward observation officer Captain T. Lem Carter. The artillery officer and this section had become separated from the rest of the company when Carter was severely wounded in the legs, rendering him unable to walk. Carter and several Seaforth infantry troops had covered the company’s withdrawal, Carter laying down intense fire with his Thompson submachine gun. He then urged the handful of soldiers to leave him behind. “If I’m no good to fight the enemy, I might as well give him the trouble of looking after me,” the officer said.7
While the soldiers hesitated over whether to follow Carter’s order to leave him behind, Lance Corporal John H. Teece observed the small clutch of men from a spot 200 yards away. Realizing the section was in imminent danger of being cut off, surrounded, and either captured or killed, Teece turned back. Crawling skillfully through the thick brush past the closing German line, he linked up with the soldiers. He then took charge, ordering the men to rig a stretcher for Carter and cutting short the man’s demands to be heroically abandoned. In an ordeal that would continue until well past first light on December 7, Teece and the other men wormed their way through the thickest vegetation they could find, dragging Carter on his stretcher. At times German soldiers were moving or standing guard within mere feet of their passage, yet Teece’s careful guidance enabled the men to avoid detection. Teece and his small force were the last Seaforths to abandon the San Leonardo bridgehead.8
While the Seaforths spent the night of December 6–7 withdrawing, the PPCLI set about consolidating its position at Villa Rogatti. Accordingly, Lieutenant Jerry Richards was summoned to the rear battalion HQ and ordered to raise a party of volunteers from his mortar platoon to cross the Moro and bring out wounded. Of fiftytwo men who required evacuation, about half were ambulatory. Richards left HQ feeling slightly bemused that his men were to be asked to volunteer, while he was ordered to lead the evacuation party. As far as Richards was concerned, every man in the PPCLI was a volunteer, so why ask for volunteers now? He told his platoon sergeant major to call for volunteers as instructed, but that everyone had better bloody well be a volunteer.
For Richards, the previous day had been fraught with frustration and a sense of helplessness. Not once had the mortar platoon been called upon to fire across the valley, nor had he received an anticipated order to move the firing tubes across to Villa Rogatti. Consequently, he was pleased to be leading the resupply and evacuation party. It gave him a sense of purpose.
Around midnight, Richards set off with his platoon in tow. Accompanying the men was a herd of ammunition-laden mules and their Moroccan muleteers. As the party descended toward the Moro, Richards saw a column of Germans coming his way and started to raise his Thompson before realizing that these were some of the prisoners taken during the earlier fighting. The two columns passed each other in uneasy silence.
The crossing was uneventful. Richards brought the entire party up to the farmyard where Lieutenant Colonel Ware had established his forward HQ. Richards went in to report and found Ware sound asleep in a corner. Looking down on the sleeping man, the twenty-one-year-old thought Ware had turned grey overnight and perhaps, at thirty, was too old for this kind of job. Hating like hell to wake the man, he bent over and gave his shoulder a little shake. Ware roused instantly and received the report that Richards had ammunition for the companies, as well as men and mules to evacuate the wounded.
One element of ‘A’ Company was on the far flank of the village with two burning buildings between itself and the rest of the battalion. Moving ammunition by mule to this position was going to be dangerous, so Richards went alone with one mule and its muleteer. The only way over to ‘A’ Company was to walk in front of the flames engulfing the buildings. This perfectly silhouetted the two men and the mule. They passed into the firelight and back into the darkness without the enemy firing a shot, which perplexed but relieved Richards. As he passed the building next to those on fire, however, his heart leapt at the sound of a Vickers machine-gun firing bolt being jacked back. Turning to look in the window he was passing, Richards stared down the muzzle of a machine gun manned by a wild-eyed Saskatoon Light Infantry gunner.
Entering ‘A’ Company’s area, Richards saw no sign of life. Searching around for someone to receive the ammunition, Richards passed under a building and heard a soft voice above his head say, “Bubble.” Again Richards’s heart leapt, as he scrambled through his memory for the countersign reply of the day. “Squeak,” he squeaked. Looking up, he saw the guard pointing his rifle out the window directly into Richards’s face. The man gave him directions to the front line where, he said, a sergeant would take the supplies.
Heading off, Richards was grateful the day’s passwords had been relatively sensible. As all passwords came from Eighth Army Headquarters, many involved the names of famous British cricket players or cricket rules and were unintelligible to the Canadians. Richards wondered how many soldiers got shot by friendly guards because of this idiosyncratic practice. Recently one password had been Hobbes, the countersign Surrey. Apparently Hobbes was a famous cricketer who played for Surrey. Perhaps to British upperclassmen that sort of thing should be self-evident and easily remembered.
Richards continued moving through the ‘A’ Company perimeter, noticing a number of dead Germans scattered on the ground wherever they had fallen in the battle. One motorcyclist sprawled in a ditch next to his BMW. A few minutes later, he found a platoon sergeant who had been in Richards’s platoon before his transfer to the mortar company. A Greek from Montreal, the soldier was using a ditch for cover. Richards lay down beside him and the two men stared out at the darkness beyond the edge of the village. Meanwhile, several privates came out of slit trenches and unloaded the ammunition from the mule. The sergeant looked desperately tired and was unimpressed by the ammunition delivery. “What we need is more men,” he told Richards. “Sorry,” Richards replied. “I wasn’t authorized to bring more men up. I’d offer to stay myself but my orders are to take the wounded men back across the river, so I’ll have to leave you.”9
Regretfully, still feeling inadequate about his role, Richards returned to battalion HQ to find the wounded on stretchers and the party ready to set off. Some of the more lightly injured were helped up onto mules, and those who were ambulatory either fended for themselves or gave each other a hand. About a dozen men had to be carried out on stretchers, requiring forty-eight men to carry them all. Trying not to drop or unduly jostle the casualties, Richards and his party slithered off down the muddy slope toward the river. It was terribly hard work, especially as the heaviest man in the entire battalion was among the stretcher cases. Richards took his turn on the stretcher, trying to ensure that each stretcher-bearer had at least a few minutes’ break along the way. It was raining heavily and everyone was soaked through. The wounded tried hard not to moan or cry out, which was particularly difficult for those clinging to the mules. Everyone knew that a party this large, making as much noise as they were, could easily attract German attention.
Just as they crossed the river the Germans must have heard them, for the party was bombarded by mortars. They pushed on to the road, where a small convoy of trucks waited. The mortaring continued. Richards’s men hastily loaded the casualties into the trucks. Finally they had one more man to get into a truck. Bombs were going off at the side of the road and behind them, but the men were unable
to crouch down because of the need to hold the stretcher high enough to get it in. Without ceremony, Richards and another man shoved the wounded soldier in as best they could and yelled for the trucks to get going. One man had to remain behind because the trucks were all full. Richards and a medical corporal remained with him, the two men lying nervously in a ditch next to the stretcher as bombs continued to fall all around.
When the mortaring eased somewhat, Richards thought he heard voices on the other side of the road. “Does that sound like German to you?” he asked the corporal. The man listened. “Can’t tell, could be.” Richards decided he had to find out and slipped the safety catch off his Thompson. “I’ll go with you,” the corporal whispered. The two men crawled on their stomachs across the road. On the other side, the corporal tapped Richards on the shoulder, pulled out his pistol, and handed it to Richards. “Will you carry this for me, sir? If they catch me with it, they’ll kill me.” According to the Geneva Convention, medical personnel were to be unarmed. Like almost every officer, Richards never used a pistol or wore one in a holster, to avoid being easily marked by German snipers as an officer. Mindful even in the darkness of this, he shoved the gun into his jacket so it was well out of sight. Crawling through a hedge, the two men discovered that the voices belonged to a section of Seaforth Highlanders digging in near the road adjacent to the riverbank — sent there to provide protection for the engineers scheduled to build a Bailey bridge in the morning.
Richards chatted with the men for a few minutes until the Germans started mortaring the area again. Richards and a Seaforth both dived into one of the slit trenches, Richards landing on top of the other man. The officer apologized. “It’s all right, sir,” the soldier countered. “I feel even safer with somebody above me.” Finally the truck returned, the wounded man was loaded, and a relieved Richards left the blast-torn river bottom to the small party of Seaforths.10 He had had enough war for one night.