Ortona

by Mark Zuehlke

  Major Stone ran up and ordered the three Edmonton companies to immediately shift to the right and attack up the ridge toward the German antitank guns, now being protected by many hammering machine guns and rapidly firing mortars. The Edmontons headed directly into the face of this wall of fire.

  No sooner had Dougan’s platoon got underway than one of the worst personal battlefield calamities befell the young lieutenant. Wracked for weeks by dysentery, Dougan had to defecate — immediately. Seeing a small grove of olive trees he thought might provide a safe and somewhat private shelter, he rushed over, yanked his pants down, and crouched. From almost directly above him, Dougan heard a German officer start issuing commands that sounded like he was directing mortar fire toward a target. Seconds later, he heard the dreaded swish of a mortar shell falling and was horrified to see the bomb land tail first no more than four feet in front of him. Digging deep into the mud, the bomb sat there with its detonating fuse pointing harmlessly into the air. As he took flight from the grove, Dougan was unsure whether he had finished his business or not.15 Rejoining his company just as the Edmontons’ attack against the ridge fizzled, Dougan scrambled with his platoon down the ridge to regroup. They could see Cider Crossroads about 1,000 yards away, well beyond reach.

  PPCLI Lieutenant Colonel Ware remained certain the Edmontons were well short of the crossroads. His men faced a gauntlet of fire as they moved against the forward slopes of Vino Ridge. Deep mud rendered it almost impossible for the Shermans to keep abreast of the advancing infantry and the dense olive groves and vineyards reduced visibility to near zero. ‘D’ Company of the PPCLI, under Major P.L. Crofton, got up almost face to face with the hidden Panzer Grenadiers before the Germans opened up with devastating machine-gun fire. Crofton was struck in the leg, the third company commander lost that day.16 The battle became virtually hand to hand. Germans and Canadians lay in the mud throwing grenades across the ridge at each other. Ware could see the effort was “abortive.” When Ware heard on the radio that the Germans had opened a counterattack against the Edmontons’ left flank, he ordered his men to break off, so they could move about a quarter mile west to directly support the Edmontons if necessary.17

  While the Edmontons managed to beat off a series of successive counterattacks, the ferocity of these attacks showed that the Panzer Grenadiers were determined to continue the same tactics they had practised since the beginning of the Moro River battle. The Germans’ growing desperation was also revealed by a repeat of an act of treachery that the Panzer Grenadiers had implemented earlier in San Leonardo. Following one failed counterattack, a group of Germans emerged from the brush with hands up to indicate surrender. As soldiers from one platoon walked out to meet the surrendering troops, the Germans dropped to the ground, as if on command, and a machine gun emplaced behind them ripped into the Canadians. Nobody was killed, but a good number of the Edmontons’ wounded resulted from this incident. Edmonton casualties in the day’s fighting totalled one soldier killed, twenty soldiers wounded, and one officer and nine of what Commonwealth armies called “other ranks” missing.18 Vokes was so outraged when he learned of this ambush that he issued an advisory to the entire division informing the men of the event. His message ended erroneously with: “The Edmonton platoon was murdered in cold blood.”19

  As the battle wound down and darkness cloaked the ground, Edmonton patrols crept up to the very lip of The Gully. They stared down into its darkness, none daring to enter its depths to test the strength of the enemy forces hidden there.

  To the rear, Private A.K. Harris lay in the San Leonardo RAP watching ever more fresh casualties arrive. The runner named King had died earlier from his stomach wound. “The MO is desperately tired,” Harris noted later, “but he never stops working or loses patience with the shock cases. He is talking to another of those, not as bad as the boy. This one is a friend of mine. He has had this trouble before and been evacuated before. But he is always sent back up. He is a bundle of nerves but never asks for a favour and gives everything until he snaps. The MO is asking him, ‘Are you hit anywhere?’ ‘No.’ ‘Is there anything physically wrong with you?’ ‘No.’ He probes his man but quickly comes to the conclusion that this one is genuine and has to be taken out. There is deep humiliation in my friend’s face and he goes back to join the dead and the screaming case in the back room. He thinks he has let his friends down. He will be back again and again, shaking like a leaf every time we see action, going on to the breaking point.”20

  Later Harris, Lieutenant McLaughlin, and the boy with shell shock were put in a jeep with two RAP men and driven toward the south bank of the Moro River. The boy sprawled across Harris’s sound leg. “With every shell burst or rattle of machine gun, he screams and twists convulsively. I have to hang on to him tightly to keep him in the jeep. We cross the repaired bridge and start up the other side. There is a hair-pin bend ahead that comes under fire regularly. The RAP men go this way often. There is tension in their voices. I hold my breath and wonder how I’ll control the boy if we get a close one. We pass the turn safely. The RAP men and I suddenly feel talkative as the strain eases. We are over the bank on the south side. Ahead is rear RAP. It is night, and for me the battle is over.”21

  14

  ALL WE CAN DO

  FIRST Canadian Infantry Division’s orders for December 11 showed that Major General Chris Vokes and his staff still failed to appreciate how formidable a defensive obstacle The Gully presented. Vokes had two alternatives. He could try bulling his infantry and armoured regiments across The Gully in the area of Highway 16, or he could outflank The Gully by shifting westward to where this feature dwindled near the secondary road running from San Leonardo to the Ortona-Orsogna lateral. In this situation, once his forces were astride the lateral highway, they could attack Cider and then Ortona from the southwest and entirely avoid The Gully’s defences.

  Despite accurate reports by 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade patrols that the enemy was so deeply entrenched in The Gully and along Vino Ridge that their positions were virtually impregnable, Vokes told Brigadier Bert Hoffmeister to renew the frontal attacks. He also directed the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment to push out from its coastal bridgehead to find any German weakness that might exist directly in front of Ortona.1 Vokes then ordered the divisional reserve of 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade forward from its holding area north of the Sangro River to San Apollinare, a village on the southern ridge of the Moro River across from San Leonardo.2

  During the night of December 10–11 the weather, relatively moderate by winter standards, deteriorated drastically. A heavy, cold rain poured down and the temperature plunged toward freezing. The already miserable conditions in which the troops fought worsened. By morning, tanks could barely move through the mud.

  At first light, the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, and the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry prepared to attack the same positions that had stopped them cold the previous day. The Edmontons jumped off first, repeatedly battering directly at The Gully along the western edge of Vino Ridge. Each time, they were hurled back by devastatingly effective machine-gun and mortar fire. Radio reports on gains realized by this regiment continued to be confused and inaccurate. At 0950 hours, Hoffmeister’s headquarters signalled Vokes that “two sub-units” of the Edmontons were apparently on Cider and that the PPCLI with a squadron of tanks would soon attack through the junction toward Ortona, “as soon as crossroads . . . firmly in our hands.” At 1245 hours, this message was corrected with a terse signal referring to The Gully: “Loyal Edmonton Regiment have NOT crossed stream.”3

  The PPCLI, supported by a squadron of Calgary tanks, then moved off to create its own breach in the German line. This force attempted to cross Vino Ridge and establish a link between 2 CIB and the Hasty P’s. Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Ware’s men stumbled through tangled vineyards and olive groves heavily laced with booby traps, S-mines, and antitank Teller mines. By midafternoon, the battalion had bogged down
near the edge of The Gully. As had been the case the previous day, PPCLI troopers engaged in a grenade-throwing exchange with soldiers of the Panzer Grenadiers 200th Regiment. The results were deadly for both sides. At one point, the PPCLI threw back one of the Germans’ reckless counterattacks, taking forty prisoners. Despite breaking the enemy attack, the battalion was unable to renew its own advance.4

  West of the Edmontons, the Seaforths’ objective was a ridge overlooking The Gully and a three-storey, white stucco farm–manor house located on the opposite side, called Casa Berardi. ‘A’ Company, under the command of Captain Ernest Webb Thomas, was to seize the ridge and support the Edmontons’ left flank. The twenty-nine-year-old, slightly built captain was a popular officer known to almost everyone as June, short for Junior. Supporting Thomas’s company was ‘C’ Squadron of tanks from the 11th Canadian Armoured Regiment (Ontario Tanks), commanded by twenty-three-year-old tank commander Major Herschell Smith. Originally from Dauphin, Manitoba, Smith had been a university student before the war and a member of the Manitoba Horse militia. Nicknamed “Snuffy,” he was regarded as one of the most competent tank commanders in the regiment. However, not even Smith could overcome the mud on the slopes, which made it impossible for the tanks to advance to the ridgeline.5 Slipping and sliding a foot or more back for every three feet gained, and bracketed by enemy mortar fire, Thomas’s men pushed on without the Shermans toward The Gully’s lip. Despite heavy casualties, ‘A’ Company gained its objective at 1300 hours. As the company’s remaining forty-five men started digging in, Thomas saw a large Panzer Grenadier group forming up for a counterattack against his position. Hopelessly outnumbered, Thomas withdrew his company’s remnants down the ridge’s reverse slope and called artillery fire onto the enemy formation.6

  By noon, as the 2 CIB attacks faltered before stiff opposition from The Gully, Vokes belatedly comprehended what he was up against. It was now clear even at divisional headquarters that the area fronting The Gully was “infested with anti-tank mines, the olive groves were booby trapped, [and] every house had been made a machine-gun post.”7 Vokes wrote: “Although a strong weight of artillery was used to support throughout, it was apparent that the defilade afforded by the steep reverse side of the gully, in which the enemy was well dug in, could not be adequately searched by the low trajectory field and medium guns. The only answer to the problem was provided by the 4.2- and 3-inch mortars.”8 Vokes failed to mention that even the mortars lacked sufficient punch or density of fire to rip a hole in the fabric of the German defences.

  Remarkably, appreciating the toughness of The Gully as an obstacle did nothing to alter Vokes’s tactics. Having mired 2 CIB in a hopeless face-to-face punch-up with the Panzer Grenadiers, and with 1 CIB strung out all along the Moro River’s northern ridgeline, Vokes decided to commit his reserve brigade in further frontal assaults on The Gully. Vokes ordered 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade commander Brigadier Graeme Gibson to pass his West Nova Scotia Regiment through the tattered Seaforth lines and capture Casa Berardi.

  The West Novas, under commander Lieutenant Colonel M. Pat Bogert, accordingly moved directly behind the Seaforths. Zero hour for the attack was 1800 hours. Because tanks had been of no value during the day, none were assigned to support the assault. Instead, close artillery support was promised by the 1st Field Regiment Artillery (Royal Canadian Horse Artillery), which assigned Captain John Ross Matheson the task of forward observation officer. The twenty-six-year-old son of a United Church minister from Arundel, Quebec, Matheson commanded ‘B’ Troop of ‘A’ Battery. Strapping his heavy #18 radio set on a mule, Matheson and his technical assistant Sergeant Gordon Denison linked up with the West Novas shortly before the attack.

  What the Seaforths had failed to achieve in daylight, Vokes expected the West Novas to manage in darkness. The plan called for three West Nova companies to carry out the assault, while ‘B’ Company formed a mobile battle group and firm supporting base at San Leonardo with a squadron of Ontario Tanks. This group’s task was to patrol to the west in hopes of finding a tank route that could be used to get armour onto the Ortona-Orsogna lateral.9 As had been the case with breaching the Moro River line, any gains on the north side of The Gully would be hard to hold in the absence of tank backup. Finding a route that would enable the tanks to join up with the infantry was imperative if the Canadians were to repel the powerful combined armour and infantry counterattacks favoured by the Panzer Grenadiers.

  Bogert met with his Seaforth counterpart Syd Thomson, who had only the previous day taken over battalion command. Thomson warned Bogert that the objective set by Vokes was unattainable. Bogert said he could and would seize Casa Berardi as ordered, opening the road to Ortona. Thomson was not impressed by this bit of braggadocio.10

  The West Novas attack went in on a two-company front with ‘A’ Company to the left, ‘C’ Company on the right. In the centre, battalion HQ and ‘D’ Company followed close behind. Matheson, Denison, and their radio-carrying mule trailed Bogert’s HQ group. The Panzer Grenadiers expected the attack. As the West Novas crossed their starting line 500 yards northwest of San Leonardo, intensive artillery and mortar harassing fire tore into the soldiers. Three HQ soldiers were wounded, including the signals officer. The mule carrying the battalion’s #22 wireless set fell, breaking the equipment, which provided the critical link to the artillery and brigade headquarters.11 Matheson’s #18 radio now provided the battalion’s sole link to the rear.

  Over the Adriatic a cold moon rose, and a wind off the sea swept aside the day’s storm clouds. The night was frigid, frost glistening on the vegetation. With the moonlight providing only the faintest glimmer, the advancing infantry groped through the poles and overhead wires of the vineyards. The mud was often ankle deep, globbing onto boots to form a thick, heavy weight that made walking difficult.

  To avoid these obstacles, battalion HQ kept to the road. This provided better footing for the mules, but it also channelled the unit over ground pre-targeted for artillery and mortar attention. The FOO unit approached one of the many curves in the road. Matheson led, Denison followed immediately behind, and a West Nova private trailed with the mule bearing the radio set. Behind this mule was another loaded with a Vickers medium machine gun. Matheson had just been issued a new improved helmet which, although still featuring the classic Commonwealth “piss-pot” design, was purportedly heavier and able to withstand shrapnel and bullet strikes.12 As the group entered the curve, a solitary German shell landed directly on top of them. Six tiny steel fragments from the bursting round sliced through the new helmet and pierced Matheson’s skull. He slumped to the ground unconscious. Both mules were killed. The infantryman leading the mule with Matheson’s radio suffered a broken leg from shrapnel. Denison, caught between Matheson and the mule party, was amazingly untouched. As had been the fate of the West Novas’ #22 set, the FOO radio was crushed by the dead mule.13

  Denison could do little for his badly wounded comrade. He sat in the mud and held Matheson’s head in his lap. Matheson was bleeding profusely, and appeared more dead than alive.

  A short distance ahead of Matheson’s party, an ambulance jeep driven by Chaplain Waldo E. Smith was coming back down the road. The chaplain and an orderly were returning from picking up a wounded Seaforth. They saw the shell strike on the opposite side of the approaching curve. “Good, that means we get by before the next one comes,” Smith said and gunned the jeep through the gooey mud. Smith later wrote that as they turned the corner, the ambulance crew “found a shambles. . . . On the ground were men who twisted and cried out, and one who was still.” Smith and his orderly jumped from the jeep and started tending the wounded. The private was in terrible pain from his broken leg, screaming in agony. Smith jabbed him with a morphine shot and bandaged the leg wound. He then turned to the soldier lying with his head on another man’s lap. “There was a terrible gash in the top of it and two shell dressings were needed.” As Smith worked, another ambulance jeep arrived. The wounded were loaded into the
two vehicles and evacuated.14

  Matheson’s head wound left him in a coma for several weeks and rendered him permanently hemiplegic. Through the rest of December, he was moved ever further back down the Eighth Army’s chain of hospitals, remaining on the “dangerously ill list.” Initially, he was completely paralyzed due to damage to the brain’s motor centres. He also suffered from traumatic epilepsy and amnesia. For months, the pain was excruciating. However, possessed of extraordinary determination and a belief in “God’s grace,” Matheson regained much of his mobility. Eventually he recovered the use of his arms and hands, and could walk with crutches.15

  The loss of its artillery FOO, and all the radio sets enabling communication with the supporting guns, left the West Novas to attack with what they carried: Bren guns, submachine guns, Lee Enfield rifles, and grenades. A plea was sent back for a new FOO to come up, but long before this unit arrived the West Novas were embroiled in an intense close-range firefight. At 2220 hours, the battalion approached The Gully’s lip and the two forward companies walked into a storm of small-arms fire. With the rising moon at the Germans’ back, the Canadians could barely see the flash of the enemy guns, let alone the firing soldiers. For the Germans’ part, the moonlight starkly illuminated the West Novas, rendering them perfect targets. Men fell all along the front and the attack broke before it started. To the West Novas, it seemed as if the “Germans had popped up as if by magic out of the earth.”16 Pinned down, hopelessly outgunned, and suffering a devastating rate of casualties, Bogert ordered his men to dig in and keep their heads down until morning. By then he hoped to have a new FOO up and consequently break The Gully defences with well-directed artillery fire.