Ortona
Page 15
The moment the artillery bombardment lifted, the leading companies of the 48th Highlanders of Canada and the Royal Canadian Regiment scrambled out of their slit trenches and disappeared into the shell smoke blanketing the battlefield. The 48th Highlanders descended from the ridgeline on a two-company front, advancing on line to the left of the destroyed bridge and the road running up from the valley bottom into San Leonardo. They followed roughly the same route taken two days earlier by Captain W.H. Buchanan’s ‘B’ Company of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada. The Highlanders’ orders were to occupy the same spur of land between San Leonardo and the hamlet of La Torre where, before being forced to retreat, Buchanan’s men had destroyed many German positions. If successful, the Highlanders would control the western flank of San Leonardo. From this position, they would be able to blunt any attempt to use the road from La Torre as a path for reinforcing the San Leonardo garrison or for counterattacking the village once the RCR wrested it from German control.
It was customary for the Highlanders’ company commanders to lead from the front, as officers had done in wars since time immemorial. On December 8, Captain Lloyd Smith of ‘D’ Company and Major F.G. McLaren of ‘B’ Company were consequently in the vanguard. Smith was so confident that he offered a five-pound bet to any taker that his company would cross the Moro without a single casualty.
Smith charged down a depression descending to the valley bottom, his men close on his heels. The company moved so quickly that it outran a sudden, heavy German mortar and 88-millimetre antitank gun bombardment that slammed down on the valley’s southern slope and marched methodically down the slope toward the river. The Panzer Grenadiers obviously knew an infantry attack was underway and hoped to break it up by shredding the advancing troops with shrapnel. Smith’s company burst out of the depression, splashed through the river, scrambled up the other slope, and overwhelmed two lightly defended German positions in mere minutes. Had there been any takers for Smith’s bet he would have lost. There was one casualty. Crossing the river, Corporal N.K. Thompson sprained an ankle, but was able to keep up with the rest of his section despite the injury.
While ‘D’ Company went virtually unscathed, McLaren’s ‘B’ Company was less fortunate. Just before the river, an 88-millimetre salvo caught the trailing sections of his company. Six men were killed outright, another mortally wounded, and Company Sergeant Major Nelson Merry had his leg torn off. Stretcher-bearer Joe Kendel was killed when he rushed forward to tend the wounded. His hand mangled by shrapnel, Private Charles Palmer staggered back to battalion HQ to summon help. A Regimental Aid Post jeep with medical orderlies and the battalion padre on board raced to the scene to recover the wounded and dead.12
Leaving the RAP men the task of sorting out dead from wounded, McLaren led the remainder of his company across the river and up a narrow gully running toward San Leonardo. Again there was virtually no infantry resistance offered by the Panzer Grenadiers. The defence seemed entirely dependent on concentrations of mortar and antitank gunfire. It was as if the Grenadiers, perhaps believing the Canadians would not attack the same point twice, had failed to reoccupy the defensive positions wiped out in Buchanan’s earlier attack. The other possibility was a lack of communication between the two Panzer Grenadier regiments holding this section of the Moro River line. In the earlier attack Buchanan had discovered, and exploited, the fact that he had attacked the exact point where the 200th and 361st Panzer Grenadier regiments’ defensive positions met. Such points always constitute weak links because of the difficulty of two regiments effectively communicating and coordinating defensive action. The Highlanders struck this same naturally weak point, already badly mauled by Buchanan’s raid.
Trying to stay ahead of the enemy shelling, McLaren had no time to radio his situation to battalion HQ. This caused Highlanders commander Lieutenant Colonel Ian Johnston some anxiety as he waited anxiously for news that the initial objective was secure. Until his leading companies were both on their objectives, he could not risk taking the other two rifle companies forward.
At 1800 hours, just ninety minutes after going into the attack, McLaren’s company reported that it was on the objective and had been contacted by a ‘D’ Company patrol.13 Both companies were digging in and would have their areas secure within fifteen minutes. At 1830 hours, Johnston led the other two companies over the Moro, following ‘D’ Company’s route and enjoying a similar lack of casualties. Once on the other side, Johnston located a deep cave that would serve adequately as a forward battalion HQ. He radioed 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade commander Brigadier Howard Graham at 2000 hours that his battalion controlled its objective.14
Believing from confused radio traffic between Graham’s HQ and the RCR that all was well with the right hook attack, Johnston sent a patrol to San Leonardo. He expected the patrol would find the RCR entrenching itself inside the small village. Approaching the small grouping of buildings, which were badly battered by days of intense artillery bombardments, the patrol leader called out, identifying himself as a 48th Highlander. This was met with a hail of machine-gun and rifle fire. Despite the fact that the machine guns gave off the distinctive high-pitched shriek of German automatic weaponry, the patrol leader still assumed San Leonardo must be in RCR hands. Undoubtedly the gunfire was coming from jumpy Canadians availing themselves of the firepower of captured German weapons. He called out again, eliciting the same result. Incensed at the perceived stupidity of the RCR troops, he withdrew and reported his findings to Johnston.15
Unsure who occupied San Leonardo, Johnston could do little but wait for the morning. He conducted a tally of casualties and was relatively pleased to find that he had suffered only eleven dead and thirteen wounded in an always risky frontal assault against what had previously been a heavily defended position.16 None of the casualties were officers, so command control in the morning should be excellent. One troubling factor about the casualties was the surprising number of dead compared to wounded. Usually artillery and mortar fire injured far more men than it killed. In that sense, the Highlanders had been anything but lucky.
The 48th Highlanders’ attack had been intended not only to secure a bridgehead on the western outskirts of San Leonardo but also to clear the river valley of enemy infantry. This would enable the Royal Canadian Engineers to build a bridge across the Moro River free of immediate enemy interference. It was imperative the RCE have a bridge ready by morning. If the engineers failed, the Highlanders’ success would be for naught. Without tank support, the Highlanders and RCR would face the impossible task of holding ground against determined counterattacks by combined forces of armour and infantry.
The task of building the bridge fell on the shoulders of thirty-two-year-old Major Robin Bothwell Fraser. Born in Coaticook, Quebec, Fraser had moved to Toronto before the war and worked as a draughtsman. When war broke out in September 1939, he immediately enlisted as a lieutenant. Promotions had come steadily, and Fraser had earned a reputation as a resourceful and determined engineering officer.17
The engineers planned to confine the river to a culvert over which a corduroy-road causeway would be constructed. The corduroy road would consist of 800 twelve-foot-long round timbers of eight-inch diameter set side by side. Under this would be a culvert built out of several rows of connecting lines of forty-gallon drums, with the bottoms cut away so each allowed the river to flow through the next in line. A bulldozer would fill the streambed with dirt, forcing the river into the culverts, then grade a track from the bridge to the existing roadway. It required thirty-four three-ton trucks to carry the timbers, drums, and other construction supplies.18 So many trucks in a small area would be extremely vulnerable to enemy fire if the opposing riverbank was not cleared of German machine-gunners.
Although the Highlanders had secured their objectives at 2000 hours, nobody thought to tell Fraser. This left Fraser waiting impatiently with his convoy of trucks and 120 men on the road leading down to the Moro. At 2200 hours, Fraser decided the engineers eith
er got to work or failed in their task.19 He took six sappers and a D-7 bulldozer, driven by Sapper Milton C. McNaughton, down to the river. Fraser later wrote in the company’s war diary, “That D-7 seems to make as much noise as an entire tank brigade as it moves down to the job.”20 Deciding that no bulldozer work was required on the southern side of the river, Fraser told McNaughton to find a way to get his machine over to the other side and start grading the diversion needed there. McNaughton clanked eastward across the rough country until he found a possible crossing point. By this time, however, the sound of the bulldozer had attracted the attention of the Panzer Grenadiers. Shelling of the river valley intensified, and some machine-gun positions dug in on the valley in front of San Leonardo started searching for the bulldozer with bursts of fire. McNaughton paused, waiting for things to quiet down. When the Germans kept firing, he finally said, “Aw, the hell with this,” and drove his D-7 into the riverbed.21
The bulldozer boiled up out of the river onto the other bank and rumbled back toward the planned bridge site. But the dense foliage and other obstructions along the shoreline forced him to detour away from the river and toward the enemy positions. A fretting Fraser saw the bulldozer moving across the skyline a good quarter mile inside what was still enemy territory. The Germans saw McNaughton, too, and raked his machine with heavy machine-gun fire. Miraculously, McNaughton and the bulldozer drove through the intense fire virtually unscathed and returned safely to the riverbank.
By now Fraser had four lorries, two loaded with barrels and the others with timbers, down at the river.22 A team of sappers set about installing the culvert and then laying down the timber bridging, while McNaughton cut the diversion up to the roadway. The cut he graded varied from zero elevation to twelve feet over a distance of only eighty feet, requiring extensive shifting and shoring of natural terrain. It took McNaughton seven hours to complete the task.23 Despite heavy enemy fire, the engineers suffered surprisingly few casualties during their night’s work. Only three men required evacuation for wounds. Fraser and a few others received minor wounds, but stuck to their jobs.24
One thing was increasingly obvious. The Royal Canadian Regiment did not possess San Leonardo, nor was it anywhere near the eastern edge of the village. Fire from both positions never faltered. While Fraser had no idea what had happened to the RCR, he knew that their failure boded ill for his ability to keep the bridge open come morning. But he was determined the engineers would do their job regardless of enemy fire.25
In fact, the RCR was still a good mile short of San Leonardo and engaged in a costly punching match with the 200th Regiment and supporting armour. The battalion’s attack plan had been dashed within minutes of ‘A’ Company, under Captain Ronald Gordon “Slim” Liddell, crossing its start line at 1630 hours. The company had passed through the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment’s front-line positions into an orchard immediately south of the road running along the ridge from San Donato to San Leonardo. Major Strome Galloway’s ‘B’ Company was scheduled to follow in five minutes. Once these lead companies secured a position on the road about halfway to San Leonardo, ‘C’ and ‘D’ companies would jump past to a point just outside the village. Leapfrogging through this new strong-point, ‘A’ and ‘B’ companies would secure the community.
The entire movement required an advance laterally across the 200th Regiment’s front line, and would depend on surprise and bold execution. Once the RCR left the lines of the Hasty P’s, it would be dependent on its own resources. The four companies would move as an isolated island through enemy territory. If successful, the regiment would regain contact with other Canadian forces upon its occupation of San Leonardo. If the attack failed, the RCR would have to fight its way back to the Hasty P’s or die trying.
The Panzer Grenadiers were not surprised by the RCR attack. Liddell’s company advanced no more than fifty yards into the orchard before being caught in the open by a deadly accurate shower of mortar bombs. Every man in one platoon section led by Corporal L.F. Meister was killed. Casualties in all the other platoons were heavy.26 ‘A’ Company pushed on despite its losses, moving forward in line at a steady pace. Waiting his turn to advance, Galloway saw Sam Liddell with his company HQ “striding through the smoke and dust as if he was going for a stroll. His coolness was most admirable, as was that of his whole company.”27
Mortaring of the orchard continued unabated, so Galloway decided to lead his company over to the right where an open culvert offered some protection. The deviation worked — the company suffered no initial casualties. Galloway led his men out of the culvert into a vineyard. Darkness was lowering onto the battlefield with its usual December haste just as a German machine gun opened up on their right. Three men fell wounded before the enemy gun was knocked out.
In the darkness and tangled terrain, Galloway became confused. He led ‘B’ Company off into the thick of the German lines, eventually stumbling into a bridge on the coast highway to the north of San Donato.28 Risking a furtive look at his map by flashlight, Galloway realized his position. He would have to stop the advance, turn around, and try sneaking back to the ridgeline road. All around them, ‘B’ Company heard Germans shouting and moving back and forth. Veering away from the concentrations of noise and sometimes slipping between groups yelling across to each other, Galloway’s men returned to the road without incident.
By this time, the mortar barrage had lifted and an unearthly silence had settled upon the eerie landscape of twisted trees and torn vineyards through which the soldiers passed. But the silence was shattered when Galloway entered a farmyard and a dog began to bay. The major was so unnerved he yanked his pistol out and shot the animal. One of the men behind him riddled the dog with a Thompson submachine gun. Quiet returned.29
Minutes later Galloway reached his objective overlooking a bend in the road, and sent a runner to ‘A’ Company’s position beside another bend slightly ahead of his own. Both positions were situated on a low hill. The runner returned with news that Liddell had reported being on his objective, code-named Halifax, some time earlier. Although ‘B’ Company was still engaged in its walkabout, RCR commander Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Charles Spry had decided to send Captain Lavoie’s ‘C’ Company up to Halifax and accompany it with his forward battalion HQ. Galloway radioed back that he now occupied his objective, code-named Toronto. ‘D’ Company, commanded by Captain C.H. “Chuck” Lithgow, departed the Hastings and Prince Edward position and moved toward Toronto.30
When ‘C’ Company finished groping its way slowly through the darkness to Halifax, it immediately headed off for the next objective. Spry remained at Halifax, setting up a battalion HQ in a mud-floored ramshackle farmhouse. Lavoie’s company advanced only a couple of hundred yards before Lieutenant Dave Bindman’s platoon stumbled on eight German infantrymen hunkered down in a ditch beside the road. Bindman, experiencing his first day in combat, rushed forward waving his Tommy gun and the enemy soldiers surrendered without a shot being fired by either side. This promising start ended, however, when 500 yards out, ‘C’ Company walked directly into a strong Panzer Grenadier counterattack coming down the road from San Leonardo. At its head was an armoured car, followed immediately by a Panzer Mark IV tank.
A confused battle broke out between ‘C’ Company and the advancing Germans. In the face of the armoured car and tank support, the outgunned Canadians were soon beating a hasty, confused retreat to Halifax. Casualties were heavy. Although some of the wounded had to be abandoned, most were dragged or carried back by their comrades. When the survivors of ‘C’ Company stumbled into ‘A’ Company’s line, they quickly reorganized and helped strengthen Halifax’s front. Weapons pointed toward the darkness, the soldiers waited for the Germans to reach them. Against the armour they had little but the unreliable PIAT guns and the mortar platoon’s three-inch tubes, which had been brought up by mules.
As ‘C’ Company pulled back to Halifax, ‘D’ Company closed on ‘B’ Company’s objective, Toronto. In the lead was No. 16
Platoon, commanded by twenty-two-year-old Lieutenant Mitch Sterlin. The company’s other two platoons were farther back, still negotiating a deep, narrow gully. Whether because Sterlin’s platoon was observed emerging from the gully or by pure misfortune, a German artillery salvo crashed into the gully, transforming it into a cauldron of blood. Lieutenant Bill Darling was mortally hit, more than a dozen other men were seriously wounded. Unhurt, Captain Lithgow ordered the two platoons to retreat from the killing zone to the gully entrance.
His wireless set was ruined, the operator dead. One of the stretcher-bearers was also dead and the stretcher broken. Lithgow had no communication and little means to evacuate the many wounded. Realizing it would take the rest of the two platoons to carry the wounded back to the safety of the bridgehead, Lithgow sent them back and set off alone to report his actions to Spry. The two platoons managed to drag themselves back along the line of advance to safety. Meanwhile, Sterlin led the remaining platoon of ‘D’ Company up to Toronto and received instructions to occupy a house near ‘A’ Company’s position. The two-storey farmhouse obviously belonged to a more prosperous family than most working the land around Ortona. It had a cream-coloured stucco exterior, with rooms generously lit by wide windows. A narrow front entrance door was set directly in the centre with a window on either side. The excellent firing ports provided by all the windows and its occupation of a slight rise in the ground put the house in an excellent defensive position.
From a gully to its right, Galloway’s ‘B’ Company heard the distinctive whine and clanking of tanks forming north of the RCR defences. When a patrol crept a short distance up the road, it saw by the moonlight a large number of tanks lined up in a row on the muddy track, apparently waiting for the order to attack.31