by Mark Zuehlke
18
MORNING GLORY
BEFORE the major offensive to seize Cider Crossroads got underway on December 18, Major General Chris Vokes decided to test the waters one last time at The Gully. Intelligence reported that the Germans were thinning out their lines, slowly withdrawing strength from their formerly uncrackable defensive positions around Cider. If this were true, it might still be possible to break through to Cider with a more limited, less complex, assault than the one being mounted.
The battered West Nova Scotia Regiment was ordered to probe the German defences with a strong attack. Three companies would participate: ‘A,’ ‘B,’ and ‘C.’ Their combined strength was only 160 men. At 1600 hours on December 17, the West Novas lunged at the German lines, supported by three Ontario tanks.1
They stumbled only a short distance through the mud before the Germans opened fire. The war diarist for 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade wrote after the action that the West Novas walked into “very heavy enemy opposition . . . estimated enemy strength 500 with heavy covering fire from North of gulch. Enemy in area attacked appeared to have large number of MGs.” The West Novas gave everything they had, bravely pushing head on into the gunfire despite mounting casualties. The tanks set a couple of houses on fire with shells and destroyed several haystacks that camouflaged German firing positions.2 One tank was damaged when a Teller mine tore a track apart, but none of the tankers was wounded.3 Around the armour, the West Novas were cut to bits. In only twenty minutes, the regiment was forced to retreat. A fifth of its remaining men had been killed or wounded.4 Six officers were wounded, including Lieutenant G.F. Archibald, who had been mortally wounded and had to be abandoned on the field with a few other casualties. Rescued by the Germans, he died in their first aid post. Lieutenant Gordon Romkey narrowly escaped death on the very lip of The Gully. Rushing an enemy gun position, he was hit in the side of the head by a Schmeisser submachine gunburst fired at point-blank range. The unconscious officer was dragged to safety by his men.5
After the West Novas returned to their slit trenches, Major Ron Waterman wearily returned to brigade headquarters and reported to Brigadier Graeme Gibson. To date, he said, the West Novas had suffered 44 killed and 150 wounded in front of The Gully. Eighteen officers were dead or wounded, including former battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Pat Bogert. These casualties, combined with losses due to sickness and battle exhaustion, rendered the regiment unfit for further offensive combat.6 In ordering the attack, Vokes had brought about the near destruction of one of his nine infantry regiments.
Vokes, however, still had eight other battalions. He had the close-to-normal fighting strength of the 48th Highlanders of Canada. And he had a combined arms two-stage offensive. The first stage was code-named Morning Glory, the second Orange Blossom. Morning Glory was the 48th Highlanders’ show. The regiment would cross the Ortona-Orsogna lateral road west of where the Royal 22e Regiment was isolated in Casa Berardi, advance north across open ground, and then swing right to cut into a road running from Cider Crossroads to Villa Grande. Once the 48th Highlanders had blocked this road, Orange Blossom would kick into action. This stage of the offensive called for the Royal Canadian Regiment to follow the Highlanders’ path across the Ortona-Orsogna lateral but to swing right much earlier. The regiment would advance on a path bordered to the south by the Ortona-Orsogna lateral and to the north by a railroad track leading to Ortona. Once the RCR were astride the road from Cider Crossroads to Villa Grande, it would take a sharp right and, approaching from the north, overrun Cider. With Cider secure, the RCR would then advance up the Ortona-Orsogna lateral to Ortona’s outskirts.
Both regiments were given tank support by 12th Canadian Armoured Regiment (Three Rivers Tanks). ‘B’ Squadron would attack with the 48th Highlanders, ‘A’ Squadron with the RCR. Held until now in reserve, this was the first involvement of the Three Rivers in the prolonged December battle.
Success for Morning Glory and Orange Blossom depended on overwhelming artillery support. The Germans were dug into defensive positions rivalling those of the Western Front in World War I. Just as it had required massive artillery barrages to blast the Germans out of their holes in that war, so the same force would be required to break the defences surrounding Cider Crossroads. The planned artillery operation dwarfed the earlier Moro River barrage, especially in terms of the concentration of fire. Fully 250 guns would participate.
Beginning at 0800 hours, the Morning Glory barrage would plaster a 1,000-yard-wide front and advance a distance of 2,200 yards. Every five minutes, the barrage would lift from the 300-yard-deep area it was concentrating on and move another 100 yards forward. The 48th Highlanders would follow behind this curtain of explosive at a distance never greater than 100 yards. The artillery officers promised the infantry that the trajectory of the shells would assure that the shrapnel and blast would be thrown into the faces of the Germans rather than back at the advancing soldiers.
Accurate fire was essential. If the barrage failed to hit where it was supposed to, and at the time it was supposed to, the attack would fail. In the worse case, misdirected or ill-timed artillery might slaughter the 48th Highlanders, who would be completely exposed to the exploding shells. Everybody knew the military maps that had been based on Italian sources were riddled with topographical and distance errors. To correct for this, observed artillery fire was carefully carried out along the planned line of advance throughout December 16 and 17. The firing was so spread out that to German eyes it would have appeared as nothing more than the normal random harassing fire both sides engaged in every day. New map references were then drawn up by artillery command. Forty-Eighth Highlander commander Lieutenant Colonel Ian Johnston was assured that, despite the fact that the new references bore little relation to coordinates on the previous maps, they would be accurate. The thirty-five-year-old officer from Toronto could only hope the gunners were right.
Due to the presence of the Royal 22e Regiment at Casa Berardi and increasingly deteriorating weather, observed artillery fire to correct the maps for Orange Blossom proved impossible. The gunners were forced to develop a firing plan based on the Italian maps. In the past, firing plans had sometimes been out by as much as 500 metres because of map inaccuracies. Everybody knew that basing a 250-gun barrage on the maps was extremely risky, but there was no alternative.7
It was estimated that each gun involved in Morning Glory and Orange Blossom would fire 600 rounds. During Morning Glory, the guns would be firing continually for 130 minutes — the time allotted for the 48th Highlanders to cross the start line and reach the objective.8 The Royal Canadian Horse Artillery alone manhandled 8,880 twenty-five pounder shells and cartridges to its guns for the day’s shoot — a total weight of 111 tons.9 In addition to the artillery, every mortar in 1st Canadian Infantry Division, as well as the Saskatoon Light Infantry’s anti-aircraft guns and Vickers medium machine guns, would rake the German positions in The Gully to force the defenders there to stay under cover while the attack went in behind them.10
The Canadians would not be attacking alone. Eighth Indian Division was to cross the Ortona-Orsogna lateral road and capture the village of Crecchio on the southern shore of the Arielli River. A feint, the attack would serve to prevent the Germans from moving reinforcements from this part of the line to engage the advancing Canadians. If successful, the attack would also give the 8th Indian Division a solid base from which to carry out a later advance on Villa Grande, an objective falling within its area of responsibility.11
On the night of December 17, Lieutenant Colonel Johnston held his final Orders Group conference in a small house near San Leonardo. The officers conducted the meeting by the flicker of candlelight. The degree of cooperation required to mount Morning Glory was evidenced by the number of officers in attendance. Thirty-five men crowded into the room. Only seven were 48th Highlanders. The rest represented the supporting units the infantry depended on. At the conclusion of the briefing, Johnston asked, “Any questions?” Norma
lly there would be at least a few for even the most limited engagement. This night not a single question was asked.12
The day before, the 48th Highlanders had been treated to a visit to a mobile bath station. At 0500 hours on December 18, the infantry were surprised to receive a hot breakfast, rather than the cold chow that had been the month’s norm. The food helped warm them on this bitter morning. It was cold, with a nasty rain falling, and the ground underfoot was sloppy.13
Mud. They could never seem to escape it. As 0800 hours approached, Johnston was told by Three Rivers ‘B’ Squadron commander Major J.P.C. Mills that the night’s heavy rain had rendered the ground too soft. If he took the tanks into the orchards and vineyards, they would only get stuck. The going would be greatly worsened when the artillery had finished churning up the fields.
Searching frantically for some solution, the two officers remembered there was a narrow donkey track to the right of the 48th Highlanders’ line of attack. Mills agreed to take his twelve tanks single file up the track. The risk was great. In all probability, the Germans would have barred the use of the track with Teller antitank mines. If the first tank was blown up, the others, surrounded by a sea of mud, would be trapped.14
At 0700 hours, the 48th Highlanders moved to the assembly area and started a final equipment check. Nerves were taut. They were unfamiliar with the method of attack, and following the artillery barrage so closely was a frightening idea. Johnston would have to keep his men moving with the flow of the barrage. He could not afford to have the leading companies delayed in firefights with German strong points. So he decided to launch an uncommon Y-formation attack. This meant that Captain Lloyd Smith’s ‘D’ Company would form the left upper point of a Y, Major John Clarke’s ‘A’ Company the right point. Creating a base in the centre behind the two companies would be ‘C’ Company. Johnston’s battalion HQ would follow ‘C’ Company, with ‘B’ Company serving as a reserve to the immediate rear. During the advance, ‘A’ and ‘D’ companies were to keep going no matter what. They were not to get locked into skirmishes to destroy pockets of resistance. This mopping up would be ‘C’ Company’s job. The two leading companies were to reach the objective and secure it before the barrage ended. Nothing must be allowed to slow them.
Precisely at 0800 hours, the massed artillery fired as one. “The barrage opened,” read an after-action report, “with a deafening roar, filling the air with the screams and sighing of passing shells and laying down a wall of bursting HE [high explosive] 1,000 yards long by over 300 yards deep.” One observer called it “terrifying and effective.”15 In front of the 48th Highlanders, the ground erupted in geysers of earth quickly obscured by a thick fog of smoke. For twenty minutes, the barrage pounded down and the infantry and tanks waited. Then the officers moved forward and the 48th Highlanders crossed the starting line.
Orders came through hand signals and the commanding presence of the platoon leaders at the very front of the leading line. Everybody was partially deafened by the explosions, so verbal orders were useless. The two lead companies waded through mud, trying to keep up with the advancing artillery as it followed its schedule of a 100-yard lift every five minutes. Although described as open ground, the battlefield was a bewildering mess of shattered orchards and demolished vineyards. Wire for supporting the vines tried to tangle the men’s feet and legs as they stumbled through the mud. Smoke lay so thick that visibility was cut to 200 yards. Platoon leaders used compasses to find their way.16 Responding quickly to the surprise attack, the Germans brought light artillery and mortar fire down behind the advancing Canadian barrage. This failed to slow the 48th Highlanders’ advance and casualties were light.17
Off to the right, the tanks struggled up the donkey track. The two lead tanks made relatively good progress, finding the path fairly firm under their tracks. Behind them, the next three tanks had a more difficult time because the first two had churned up the track. The other seven tanks were unable to make any progress up the muddy path and had to break off their advance. As they proceeded, the five remaining tanks fired on every building passed and blew apart haystacks that might hide German tanks or antitank guns.18
‘A’ and ‘D’ companies charged across the Ortona-Orsogna lateral road and started pushing through networks of enemy slit trenches. Many of the deeper trenches were collapsed. Dead and dying Germans lay everywhere. Few of the machine guns were manned. The Canadians rolled grenades onto the guns and, in compliance with their orders, kept going. Every wine cellar or deep hole in the ground had a grenade tossed into it. Behind ‘A’ and ‘D’ companies, the two following companies engaged in random, bitter exchanges of gunfire. While some of the Germans, now known to be paratroopers, stood and fought to the death, many others scattered to the right and left to escape the 48th Highlanders’ advancing line.
The leading companies went so fast they were in danger of overrunning their own barrage. Johnston watched anxiously from his position at the rear of ‘C’ Company as the soldiers in the forward companies had to lie in the open “for long moments to wait for the shells to lift. In the open stretches, the boys were generally right up with our shells, and waiting for them to lift. Near the end, we had to check them or they’d have gone right into it.”19
Major Clarke thought his men’s discipline was “superb. The shell curtain carried us right to the objective.”20 At 1030, Clarke and Smith’s companies reached the road running from Cider Crossroads to Villa Grande. A jubilant Clarke told his radioman to signal “Aster,” the code for the final objective. The remainder of the battalion quickly arrived and consolidated the position.21 The five tanks slogged into the perimeter shortly thereafter. As the first two approached, they mistook the Canadian infantrymen for Germans and fired a couple of shells before identities were clarified. A tanker, explaining the error to a 48th Highlander sergeant, said, “One of you muddied goofs looks exactly like those other muddied goofs.”22
Considering the strength of the German defences, casualties were remarkably light. Four infantry were killed, twenty wounded. Half the casualties resulted either from short Canadian artillery rounds or the German artillery and mortar fire.23
It was a remarkable feat of arms.
Morning Glory included a protective barrage delivered on the 48th Highlanders’ left flank. Several salvoes of shells from this barrage fell directly on Villa Deo, where young Antonio Di Cesare and many civilians were caught inside the few houses or in small caves located in a nearby grotto. To Antonio, it seemed the shelling lasted for three to four hours. It was probably no more than fifteen to twenty minutes. Antonio and the twenty or so other people in his house cowered under the beds and kitchen table. The house was a side-by-side duplex, with a cement wall between the two units. Every time a shell exploded nearby, the entire building shook. Dust and plaster poured down from the ceiling. The windows shattered. Most of the shells were exploding on the other side of the duplex, spraying that unit with shrapnel.
Antonio heard a noise from the dividing wall. The thumping went on for minute after minute. Then suddenly a part of the wall fell away and hands reached into the room. Working with only a trowel and some kitchen utensils, the people in the adjoining home had breached the wall. They now widened the hole and started frantically squirming into the relative safety of the other unit. Five of them had been injured by shrapnel. Sheets and clothing were torn up to make bandages, but there was little else anyone could do for the wounded. There were no proper bandages or medicines to ease the pain.
The barrage ceased as suddenly as it had begun. A deep quiet descended. Huddled in the house, Antonio and the others found the silence as frightening as the bombardment’s din. They had no idea what danger would come next. Antonio’s uncle and another man crept to the front door and unbarred it. Opening it a crack, they peered into the lane and then, seeing nothing, stepped outside for a better look. Antonio followed. The air was choked with smoke and dust. Several figures were coming from the southeast toward the scattered houses. Th
ey moved carefully and furtively up the lane, darting forward in short dashes before ducking into cover. Antonio realized the helmets they wore were pan-shaped rather than the closer-fitting ones of the Germans. “The liberators are here,” he told his uncle.
In truth, the liberators were just passing through. This was a 48th Highlander fighting patrol trying to make contact with the 8th Indian Division, and investigating the German strength positioned between the 48th Highlanders and Villa Grande. As he walked past, one mud-caked Canadian tossed Antonio a crumpled pack of cigarettes and said curtly, “Keep your head down, boy.” Antonio ducked back into the house and the men barred the door.
At 1145 hours, it was the Royal Canadian Regiment’s turn. Orange Blossom opened with just as stupendous a barrage as Morning Glory. But where everything had proceeded like clockwork with Morning Glory, the inability to register the targets with observed fire the day before plunged Orange Blossom into immediate chaos.
The RCR’s two leading companies, ‘C’ and ‘D,’ went forward on schedule. They were seriously understrength. In ‘D’ Company, Lieutenant Mitch Sterlin’s No. 16 Platoon numbered just nine men. As the other two platoons had only sergeants for leaders, Sterlin’s platoon took the company’s point position. Throughout the Italian campaign, RCR attacks had almost always been led by ‘A’ and ‘B’ companies. The night before, the new battalion commander, Major Bill Mathers, had decided these companies needed a break.24
Mathers had taken over the battalion on December 16 when RCR commander Lieutenant Colonel Dan Spry assumed brigade command from Brigadier Howard Graham. The brigadier had to be evacuated because his ulcer had worsened. Mathers was a small, precise officer. On December 17, he made his command intentions clear during a battalion parade near San Leonardo. “Things are going to change in this regiment,” he snapped. “No more slackness, no more slovenliness. Spit and polish smartness, and clean shaven daily, even if you have to shave in your own urine!”25 He went on to berate the men to be more alert. A failure to be alert, declared the new commander, was the reason so many RCR had been killed and wounded during the battle for the Moro River crossing.