Ortona
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At brigade HQ in San Leonardo, Brigadier Graeme Gibson tried unsuccessfully to learn what was happening to the West Nova Scotias. With the battalion-to-brigade radio knocked out, only infrequent and jumbled reports were picked up by brigade’s attempts to monitor the battalion radio net. At 0230 hours, a message reported the “enemy’s unsparing use of shell and mortar.” Gibson’s anxiety increased. Lack of communication rendered him powerless, unable to provide artillery support. Confusing the picture further was the disquieting discovery that the military maps were riddled with topographical errors, especially in the area of The Gully. This meant it was difficult for FOOs and infantry commanders to determine their precise location and accurately direct artillery fire on nearby targets. The potential for artillery to hit its own side was increased exponentially.17
The map inaccuracies caused other problems. Shortly before midnight, Captain C.R. “Chuck” DePencier from the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery’s ‘A’ Troop set off in a Bren carrier to find the West Novas and replace Matheson as their FOO. With him were technical assistant Gunner Bert Good, driver Gunner Bob Caughey, and radio signaller Gunner Rod Anderson. They followed two Sherman tanks along the north edge of the Moro River, and Anderson was surprised to suddenly lose sight of the big machines ahead of them. Turning a corner, Anderson looked down into the bordering ravine and saw that both tanks had run off the road. One had fallen on top of the other. Caughey kept going, leaving the tankers to sort themselves out from the accident. The West Novas needed the FOO team now, so stopping to help was out of the question.
Passing through San Leonardo, the artillerymen looked about for the West Nova guide who was to take them up to the battalion’s headquarters. Nobody showed. They pressed on, winding past debris and shell holes that threatened to block the road. The carrier soon bumped into a road-blocking power pole. DePencier feared they were lost. The map and the surrounding lay of the land seemed at odds with each other. DePencier told the rest to stay with the carrier and set off alone on foot toward the front, hoping to find the West Novas.
Tensely, the artillerymen waited in the carrier for their officer’s return. From about 200 yards ahead they started hearing sounds of armour and trucks heading toward Ortona. Then a firefight broke out behind them. The three men held a “war council” and decided Good and Caughey would walk back to contact the infantry engaged in the shooting. Anderson would remain with the carrier and radio sets. Breaking out a Bren gun he had retrieved from a dead 48th Highlander in Sicily and never used until now, Anderson prepared to defend the carrier. While he waited for his friends to return, a salvo of Canadian artillery crashed down around him, but caused no damage. Who directed this fire remained a mystery. Things were getting very hot and Anderson hoped the others would come back soon so they could clear this area.
Finally Good and Caughey returned. They had found a Canadian outpost and the infantry there confirmed the tanks heard earlier were Panzer Mark IVs. Anderson felt certain DePencier was either a prisoner or dead. Caughey turned the carrier around and the men fled back to San Leonardo, arriving just as day broke.18
Not long after DePencier wandered off into the night, he determined that the map reference for his scheduled rendezvous with the West Nova guide had been about half a mile too far north. DePencier realized he was well behind enemy lines. It was eerily quiet and he felt a gripping sense of danger. Suddenly he was surrounded by “some people in odd soldier suits and funny hats.” The Panzer Grenadiers roughly led him away. Soon he was stripped of the Canadian division’s secret codes for coordinating artillery fire, which he had had no time to destroy.
When Anderson reported from San Leonardo that DePencier was missing and presumed captured, divisional headquarters had to immediately issue new codes. The divisional staff angered Anderson by being far more concerned over the loss of the codes than DePencier’s disappearance. A popular officer, DePencier was the second RCHA FOO to be lost that night.19
In the predawn hours of December 12, the West Novas managed to re-establish radio contact with brigade headquarters. Lieutenant Colonel Bogert had made his headquarters in a half-demolished farmhouse near The Gully’s edge. ‘A’ and ‘C’ companies were dug in to the building’s front, ‘D’ Company behind. The next attack was set for 0800 hours. Bogert was worried about the problem of ensuring accurate artillery fire. The surrounding terrain was a confusing landscape that jibed poorly with the military map.
Shortly before 0730, he called for a “reference coordination” by the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery. This required firing several salvoes along a known line in front of the German position. From the explosions, his company commanders could orient themselves on the military map. They would then coordinate future fire requests to relevant map grids beyond their known position. In this way, Bogert hoped to ensure that the gunners back at RCHA headquarters could locate the correct targets on their maps and accurately execute the called-for barrages. Without dead-on artillery, there was little hope his attack could prevail against the Panzer Grenadiers’ deep fortifications. Heightening Bogert’s apprehension was the sound of one or more Panzer tanks prowling up and down inside The Gully, as if waiting for the Canadians to enter its depths. With no chance of Canadian tanks getting through the mud to support the West Novas, Bogert’s regiment must attack an enemy that had it completely outgunned.20
The “reference coordination” barrage was at 0730 hours. Bizarre ill luck dropped the salvoes squarely on the West Novas’ positions, especially in the battalion HQ area. There were many casualties. Among these was Lieutenant E.N. Doane of ‘A’ Company, who was killed instantly.21 Sorting out the casualties inflicted by friendly fire was rendered impossible by the arrival seconds later of a German mortar and artillery bombardment. The West Novas’ planned attack was cancelled. The men clawed deeper into their slit trenches, scrabbling for protection. When the fire eased up, Bogert scheduled a new attack for 1100 hours.
This attack, too, was scrapped before it started when the Panzer Grenadiers pre-empted it with a fierce counterattack at 1030 hours. Despite heavy covering fire from the lip of The Gully overlooking the Canadian positions, the West Novas easily repulsed the attack. As the German assault crumbled and the Panzer Grenadiers fell back toward The Gully, many West Nova infantrymen spontaneously decided to clean house. All along the front line, men from ‘A’ and ‘C’ companies jumped from their slit trenches and pursued the retreating Germans to The Gully’s edge. The Panzer Grenadiers leapt down into the cover of The Gully and immediately the advancing line of West Novas was swept by fire from what seemed to be dozens of medium machine guns. The previously heard enemy Panzer Mark IVs also opened up with their main guns. Seventy-five-millimetre shells flew in at such a flat trajectory to The Gully rim that some actually ploughed forty- to fifty-foot-long furrows in the ground before exploding among the Canadians.
Washed back by the devastating German fire, the surviving West Novas retreated to their slit trenches. Bogert, dashing forward to call his men back before they were all slaughtered, took a bullet to the leg. He was carried back to the Regimental Aid Post located on the lower floor of the battalion HQ farmhouse. The RAP was clogged with wounded. Bogert refused to relinquish command, continuing to direct the fight from his position on the floor of the RAP until Major Ron Waterman could be brought up from the rear to relieve him at 1700 hours.22
After the chaos following the 1030 German attack, the West Novas could not possibly succeed in crossing The Gully. The battalion was so reduced in strength that the war diarist wrote, “all we can do is hope to hold until other plans are made.”23
The West Novas were not alone in achieving nothing but casualties in front of The Gully on December 12. The battalions of 2 CIB repeatedly tried to force their way forward against uncrackable resistance. For its part, the Loyal Edmonton Regiment could do little but hold its position in front of Vino Ridge. At first light, the PPCLI hit the ridge. Part of ‘C’ Company, Lieutenant George Garbutt’s No. 13 Platoon,
was on the far left, slightly behind the platoon to his right, which was slightly behind the platoon to its right. For the first 200 yards, the advance went undetected. But suddenly a shot rang out and a lance sergeant in Garbutt’s platoon fell. Garbutt yelled to a corporal to swing his section left and provide covering fire, so the rest of the platoon could continue the advance. Before the section could respond, however, its Bren gunner, Private Jack Kennard, was killed instantly by a sniper bullet.
Garbutt and Lance Corporal Bill Talbot scrambled over to the cover of a small shed and peered around its corner, trying to spot the sniper. All they could see was a line of bushes running along a slight rise about seventy to eighty yards away. As they started to move away from the shed to rejoin the platoon, there was a terrific explosion. Talbot was blown off his feet but not hit. Garbutt’s leg was broken by shrapnel and he suffered a number of serious cuts to other parts of his body, including one on his right wrist that immobilized the fingers of that hand. The lieutenant thought they had been struck by grenades thrown from inside the shed, but there was no sign of enemy movement there. The ground showed no indication of having been struck by a shell or mortar bomb, nor had there been any warning sound of one falling. Garbutt and Talbot crawled back to the platoon, with no idea what had caused the explosion. The PPCLI war diarist speculated at day’s end that Garbutt had pulled a tripwire, setting off a booby trap.
Garbutt’s men bandaged his wounds and splinted his leg. Then they tore a door off the shed which they used as a stretcher to carry him toward Vino Ridge’s summit, where ‘B’ Company had managed to establish a position the night before around another old shed. They left him inside the building and returned to their company. Alone there for most of the day, Garbutt continued to lose blood. He was extremely weak by the time the PPCLI medical orderly arrived to do a better job of bandaging and splinting his injury. When night fell, Garbutt was evacuated by jeep, bouncing so badly in his stretcher on the rough road that several times he was thrown right off it. Garbutt would be hospitalized until May 1945 due to severe internal injuries.24
Captain June Thomas’s ‘A’ Company of the Seaforth Highlanders had gone up the west flank of Vino Ridge twice and been thrown back both times. Thomas had led the second attack himself on December 12 and personally determined that the Panzer Grenadiers had the entire hillside covered by well-set lines of overlapping fire. With only thirty-four men remaining in a company that had mustered nearly one hundred two days previously, Thomas knew he could never break through.
Nor did he think it necessary. Earlier in the day, a reconnaissance by Thomas to the left of his position had unearthed a route across The Gully over an earth-covered culvert. Thomas radioed in a report of the latest attack’s failure to Major Syd Thomson. Thomson told him to try again. Looking at his men, Thomas thought it likely they might refuse to even try. He couldn’t blame them. “No,” he said, “I’ve been on a recce to the left and I can see a much better way of getting around and outflanking them on the left.” “Go up and take the hill,” Thomas was told. “No, I’m not going to go,” he responded. Thomas then thought he heard Thomson say, “Okay, tomorrow at noon report back to battalion Headquarters. I’m sending Don Harley out to take over your command.”25
It was a misunderstanding due to poor, static-plagued radio connections. Thomson heard Thomas say he could not and would not rouse his men for another attack. In response, the major said he would see what could be done to strengthen ‘A’ Company and was sending Harley up to be available if he needed support. Thomson was worried that, were Thomas to be wounded or killed, the company lacked sufficient internal leadership and cohesion to continue effective operation. Harley was to be Thomas’s backup. Thomson was also worried that Thomas’s refusal to execute another attack might indicate that the young officer was cracking under the mental and physical overextension that almost every man in the regiment was experiencing.26
Thomas, who had been in the Seaforth militia for four years prior to the war and was devoted to the regiment, settled down with his men at the foot of Vino Ridge. Expecting to be relieved of a command he was proud to have, he spent a mostly sleepless and depressed night.27
Although the West Novas’ main attack had failed dismally, the regiment did provide 1st Canadian Infantry Division’s only ray of light since it had confronted The Gully. ‘B’ Company, under Captain F.H. Burns, had remained behind in San Leonardo as the other three companies and battalion HQ moved into The Gully debacle. Supported by a squadron of the 11th Canadian Armoured Regiment (Ontario Tanks), this company was to conduct reconnaissance missions aimed at finding a tank route across The Gully.
In the dark hours of the early morning of December 12, two patrols set out on this task. One was commanded by Lieutenant Gordon E. Romkey, the other by Lieutenant James Harvey Jones of Dartmouth. Romkey’s patrol explored a route that it determined was impassable to tanks. In the course of its movement, the patrol was caught in a firefight with some Panzer Grenadiers and killed two of the Germans before breaking off and escaping with no casualties of its own.28
About the same time that Romkey’s patrol was returning to San Leonardo, twenty-four-year-old Jones and his patrol were creeping deep into the enemy lines. They almost reached the Ortona-Orsogna lateral road by a route that seemed suitable for tanks. Jones heard German activity nearby, but was able to avoid alerting them to the patrol’s presence. The section of gully Jones explored was near the westernmost end, where it faded away before a secondary road linking San Leonardo with the lateral road. It was also screened by natural bush and tree growth. Jones was puzzled as to why the Germans appeared to have posted no sentries to guard this natural crossing point. In the mud under the trees, Jones noted the distinctive track markings of Panzer Mark IVs, so it appeared the Panzer Grenadiers were also aware that it provided a good tank route for flanking The Gully. Sounds and voices coming from a small clearing nearby seemed to be made by a group of German tankers harbouring their machines there.
Jones led his patrol back to San Leonardo and reported to Captain Burns. After consulting with the tank squadron commander, Lieutenant F.P. Clarke of ‘B’ Squadron, it was decided that Jones’s No. 10 Platoon and the tankers would attack along the discovered route at first light on December 13. Once across The Gully, the combined force would advance to Casa Berardi.29
15
THE GERMANS AND THE MUD
MAJOR General Chris Vokes was under terrific pressure from Eighth Army headquarters to break through The Gully and continue the advance to Pescara. General Montgomery had not yet abandoned his “colossal crack” strategy to open a road from the Adriatic to Rome. On December 12, he sent Canadian liaison officer Major Richard S. Malone to Vokes’s HQ. “Old Monty wants to know what the problem is, why you are getting along so slowly,” Malone told Vokes.1
Vokes could hardly believe what he was hearing. Didn’t anyone at Eighth Army HQ read the situation reports that 1st Canadian Infantry Division filed every day? Livid, Vokes roared at Malone, “You tell Monty if he would get to hell up here and see the bloody mud he has stuck us in, he’d damn well know why we can’t move faster.”2
Monty’s response was to have Malone take the Eighth Army Tactical HQ road sign and set it up a mile forward of Vokes’s divisional HQ. When Vokes called Malone to find out what the sign was doing up ahead of him, Malone informed him that Monty was moving his headquarters forward to that position in the morning, so Vokes had best get his troops moving ahead.3
While this unsubtle harassment from the rear was going on, Vokes was also being pressured by the Canadian correspondents hanging about the HQ between their brief sorties closer to the front. Among these was CBC radio reporter Matthew Halton. Vokes considered Halton one of the more polite members of the press, but still a man capable of asking downright silly questions. “Sir,” Halton said, “could you please tell me why you aren’t getting on faster?” Gritting his teeth at hearing virtually the same question Monty had asked, Vokes replied in a st
eely voice, “For two very good reasons.”
“Do you mind telling me what they are, General?”
“Not at all. The Germans and the mud.”
An apparently bemused Halton said, “I never thought of that.”4
Exchanges such as this reflected a growing problem, for which the Canadian regiments were paying the price in casualties. Vokes was being pressured to produce instant success against the German defences. Eighth Army wanted results. The press, realizing the battle was the hardest Canadians had so far fought in the Mediterranean theatre, were beginning to cast the struggle in terms of almost mythic proportions. “I don’t know how to tell you about Canada’s battle of the Moro River,” Halton said in a broadcast. “The German is fighting us to the death and he opposes us for once in superior numbers of men.”5 In another broadcast, Halton said, “The time has come when the Germans have to stop the Eighth in its tracks or leave the road open to Rome. They are trying to stop us and are fighting hard.”6
Halton was not alone. On December 8, Montreal’s Gazette had rated the German defences at the Moro River as “makeshift.” The New York Telegram on the same day afforded Ortona only scant attention, describing it as an Adriatic backwater port town of little importance. On December 11, however, the reports changed dramatically. The New York Times now declared Ortona the “chief obstacle facing the Canadians.” Three days later, Associated Press in Algiers reported that the Canadians were “closing in on strategic road junction of Ortona.” The Ottawa Citizen added: “The whole current Eighth Army thrust hinges on success of the Canadians in capturing Ortona.”7 The press, observed Major D.H. Cunningham in an analysis of the role of reporters in the December battle, “is a power for evil as well as good. . . . It played a large part in turning a tactical fight into a prestige battle with the consequent unnecessary loss of many lives.”8