Ortona

by Mark Zuehlke

  Precisely at noon, the Loyal Edmonton Regiment and the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada kicked off a joint attack toward Ortona. Their objective was to occupy a straggle of buildings bordering an escarpment a short distance from the town’s southwestern flank. The Edmontons had farther to go — 3,000 yards, or almost two miles. However, their line of approach would be relatively flat, with the Ortona-Orsogna lateral road to the south and the raised bed of a railroad to the north. Sherman tanks from ‘C’ Squadron of the Three Rivers Tanks followed the two lead companies forward.

  ‘D’ and ‘C’ companies advanced, walking no more than seventy-five yards behind the forward creep of the artillery fire. ‘D’ Company’s Lieutenant John Dougan and his platoon led that company’s attack. Like all of the Edmonton platoons, No. 16 Platoon had only about twenty men instead of the thirty-five that constituted normal strength. The battalion’s losses on Vino Ridge had not been completely replenished. Today, however, the low strength hardly mattered. The Germans put up little resistance. Dougan’s troops advanced through a system of zigzag slit trenches. They crossed one line of trenches after another. He caught only brief glimpses of the defending paratroopers through the smoke and explosions of the Canadians’ creeping barrage.

  “They’d pop up like bloody jackrabbits,” he said later, “and you would have had to have a shotgun to get them before they scampered off down the trench. We pressed right on.”16

  As was typical of the man, ‘D’ Company commander Major Jim Stone had his HQ right up behind Dougan’s platoon and the advancing tanks. The lead infantry need only look over their shoulders to see his towering six-foot-five form walking briskly along. For many it was a reassuring sight. Stone, meanwhile, was starting to doubt what he would later describe as the “efficacy of the barrage.” Out in the middle of a field, over which the barrage crept with methodical devastation, five large white oxen grazed away in complete disregard of the deadly explosion of shells in their very midst. As the barrage moved on toward Ortona and Stone walked past the still grazing animals, it was apparent that not one had been touched.17

  While the advance was proceeding well for the Edmontons, the Three Rivers tanks were having a tougher time of it, thanks to mud and Teller antitank mines. Shortly after crossing the start line at Cider Crossroads, Lieutenant T.E. Melvin radioed that his tank was finding it impossible to keep going along his assigned advance line to one side of the railroad. He requested permission to climb up on the road itself, where the traction would be assured. ‘C’ Squadron commander Captain F.W. Johnson, moving forward in his own tank, agreed.

  A few minutes after Melvin’s tank gained the road, there was a tremendous explosion. Fellow tankers and Edmonton infantrymen watched in horror as the tank blew apart. Tank parts, including the gear box and tracks, sailed in all directions as far as sixty and seventy yards away. The thirty-two-ton tank was lifted about twenty feet into the air by the blast. The crew — Lieutenant Melvin, and Troopers E. Kemp, J.B. Hughes, A.J. Rau, and G.B. Steenhoff — were all killed instantly.

  Engineers, wrote the Three Rivers’ war diarist at the end of the day, estimated that the explosion was caused by a remotely triggered charge of 200 pounds of TNT dug into the roadbed. A small group of Germans, he added, had been left behind in a nearby house, “with instructions to set off the charge and retire if possible or give themselves up. The charge was set off at the opportune moment ‘killing two birds with one stone,’ and then [they] surrendered to the infantry who were some distance in front of the tank. The infantry took the Germans prisoner before the realization of what had happened dawned on them.”18

  The surviving tanks then became snarled in a heavily sown Teller antitank minefield. Despite a team of pioneers working with mine detection equipment and advancing ahead of the tankers, three tanks ran over mines and had tracks blown off. Another tank got mired in a mud hole just before entering the minefield. The remaining tanks lumbered on and, along with the infantry, arrived at the final objective just outside Ortona at 1426 hours. Stone radioed the signal “Crocus” back to Brigadier Bert Hoffmeister at 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade HQ. There had been a short, sharp tussle with some paratroopers just in front of the objective. But the combination of the artillery fire, the direct gun support of the tanks, and excellent fire and manoeuvre tactics by the two lead companies had overwhelmed the paratroopers trying to hold the final trench line. Fourteen prisoners were taken.19 The Edmontons started digging in and waited for the Seaforths to come up on their right-hand flank.

  The Seaforths’ start line was on The Gully’s southern crest. At noon, ‘D’ and ‘C’ companies would scramble over the lip of The Gully, down the muddy slope, and head for their objectives. ‘D’ Company commander Captain Alan W. Mercer’s immediate objective was the peak of a long spur overlooking the mouth of The Gully. From this position, Mercer’s men would provide covering fire for ‘C’ Company, which was to cross The Gully, scale a steep embankment, and establish a foothold on Ortona’s outskirts around the Byzantine-era church, Santa Maria di Costantinopoli. Captain Don Harley, the mortar company commander who had accompanied Captain June Thomas’s ‘A’ Company during its bold flanking attack a week before, had only assumed command of ‘C’ Company two hours before the attack started. He replaced Major David Blackburn, who had fallen sick and been evacuated.20

  Harley had attended the morning’s Orders Group thinking he would be in reserve. He was feeling quite content, not disappointed at missing the forthcoming fight. Then Lieutenant Colonel Syd Thomson turned to Harley and said, “Oh, by the way, Don, you’re in command of ‘C’ Company. Davie is not well and he’s going back.” Harley would later recall that he “immediately got the jitters.”21 When the Orders Group broke up, however, he rushed to ‘C’ Company and got the men organized. Soon they were looking out over The Gully. Below them lay a brick factory, and on top of the facing escarpment Harley could see the church with Ortona behind. The day was clear and cold, visibility good.

  ‘D’ Company jumped off first, moving behind a light screen of artillery fire. Company Sergeant Major Jock Gibson stuck close to Mercer’s side. Recently promoted to CSM, Gibson still had no real idea what his role was supposed to be. He figured it was safe to assume a CSM should be near the commander. As they approached the spur, some shells landed short, falling around the company HQ unit. Mercer was hit. Gibson took the runner’s rifle, the runner grabbed Mercer, and the two men dragged the injured officer to cover.22 ‘D’ Company started taking heavy small-arms fire from the area around ‘C’ Company’s objective. At the peak of the spur, the men found what shelter they could and returned fire. As intended, this focused the German attention on themselves and away from ‘C’ Company.

  Harley’s eighty-six-man force got into the bowl of The Gully without incident. Sergeant J. Elaschuk’s No. 13 Platoon was on point, the other two platoons following in an arrowhead formation with Harley’s company HQ section in the centre. The men jogged forward, feeling very exposed. Because the Loyal Edmonton Regiment was closing on the outskirts, the supporting artillery had started to break off for fear of hitting the Edmontons. ‘C’ Company passed the brick factory. They had yet to be fired upon. The paratroopers were completely engaged in trading fire with ‘D’ Company.

  Elaschuk suddenly yelled back to Harley that his platoon was inside a minefield. Mines were sown thickly all across the line of advance. ‘C’ Company started bunching up, slowing its pace to pick a path through the mines. They were out in the open, beginning to act like men fearful of trampling a field of daisies. Harley told everyone to pick up the pace, double time. There was no time for caution. If the Germans spotted them, they were going to get shot up. The men plunged into the minefield. Harley saw mangled bodies of Germans lying in the field among the mines. He also saw the mines. They had been poorly dug in. Each mine was clearly visible as a little hummock of soil. The Canadians leapt over and around them, like a group of prairie children running through a field riddled with gopher burro
ws. By the time they reached the other side, ‘C’ Company was going at a flat-out sprint.23

  The men reached the embankment. It was fronted by a road and a waist-high stone retaining wall. The men crossed the road, vaulted to the top of the wall, and started climbing up the high bank. Harley, like every man around him, slung his rifle by its shoulder strap across his back, and went up on all fours.24 Gasping from the exertion, fearing that any moment the Germans would see them, ‘C’ Company climbed desperately upward. So far they had suffered no casualties.

  Just as they neared the crest of the cliff, the Germans awoke to their presence. A shower of grenades poured down. Several men were killed or wounded. The others paused, lying prone, feet dug into the steep slope. They fixed bayonets on their Lee Enfield rifles. Then Harley led them over the top. The men plunged into four machine-gun posts dug in on the cliff crest, killing some of the enemy soldiers and taking the rest prisoner. They gathered up about a dozen prisoners. Other paratroopers withdrew quickly, efficiently covering their departure with well-directed fire.

  Harley realized that remaining at the cliff edge was dangerous. If the enemy counterattacked, his company was vulnerable to being thrown back down the slope. Across about 400 yards of vineyards, Harley could see the church belfry and roof. He decided to make for the church immediately. Sergeant Elaschuk’s platoon was sent to the left to clear paratroopers out of several small huts. Lieutenant D.C. Hanbury took No. 14 Platoon to the right and made for the church.

  Elaschuk’s men cleared the huts, but as Hanbury closed on the church his platoon was subjected to heavy mortar and small-arms fire. Snipers in the church belfry joined in. Hanbury and five other men fell wounded, Sergeant J. Mottl and two privates were killed.

  With the leaderless Seaforth platoon wavering, the Germans struck back with a counterattack. No. 14 Platoon’s survivors fled in disarray. But Elaschuk’s No. 13 Platoon dug in its heels and repelled the attack with well-placed rifle and light-machine-gun fire. Harley ordered Lieutenant L. Robinson to take No. 15 Platoon out to the right and continue the advance on the church. Robinson led two sections of the platoon forward in a bayonet charge. They knocked out two machine-gun posts and forced the soldiers to withdraw. Robinson and two enlisted men, however, were killed. Two other men were wounded.

  ‘C’ Company threw back repeated counterattacks by the 1st Parachute Division. As evening fell at about 1730 hours, Harley’s men were still 300 yards short of the church and taking heavy fire from enemy positions around the building. Sniping from the belfry added to the casualties. Half the company was either dead or wounded. The only Regimental Aid Post man with the company was himself wounded. Once it was dark, Harley had the company dig in and sent the walking wounded to the rear. A couple of these men wandered into the minefield on their way back and were killed.25

  By radio, Harley and Lieutenant Colonel Syd Thomson discussed the day’s events. Thomson said he was putting Harley in for the Military Cross. Harley said, “I’d rather be at the Savoy, Syd, than sitting up here.” Thomson replied, “You wouldn’t see the fireworks at the Savoy that you’re seeing here.” Harley snorted. “Well, I sure could do with a drink, chum, would you send one over?” Thomson agreed to see what could be done about that.26

  Harley’s company came under temporary command of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, which was well ensconced to ‘C’ Company’s left. The Gully was now at the back of the Edmontons and of Harley’s company. Its entire length was clear of the enemy. The obstacle that had caused so many casualties over so many days had again become nothing more than a geographical feature. Come morning, the job to take Ortona itself would begin.

  During the night of December 20, as part of the plan to fight a delaying action in Ortona until the Canadians threatened to turn the town’s flank, German engineers laid charges at the base of a high watchtower that rose up adjacent to Cattedrale San Tomasso. Precisely at 0700 hours the following morning, as Ortona rocked with explosions from demolitions being set off by the paratroop engineers along Corso Vittorio Emanuele, a terrific explosion rolled out of the northern end of the city. Smoke and dust obscured the plaza containing the old cathedral. When the smoke cleared, the watchtower and the southern half of the cathedral were gone. As if struck by a mighty cleaver, the grand dome of the cathedral had been sliced cleanly in half. Whether the cathedral was destroyed by explosives set inside it or by the watchtower toppling onto its dome remained a mystery. The Italian civilians near the cathedral could only gather briefly to stare at the damage before the continued demolitions and the artillery barrages hammering down on the town drove them back into the railroad tunnels and basements.

  The magnificent and delicate frescoes that adorned the dome were half destroyed, the southern portion reduced to masonry fragments lying in a great pile below the undamaged half of the cupola. What remained was exposed to water and wind damage as the weather worsened. The Portale, a massive door designed by Nicollo Mancino, was completely destroyed. The ancient bas-relief, depicting the arrival at Ortona of the boat from Illyria which bore the casket of the apostle Thomas, was lost in the rubble.27

  December 21 was a day the citizens of Ortona had celebrated for centuries. It was the Feast Day of Saint Thomas, the disciple said to be entombed in the town’s great cathedral. On seeing the devastation wrought upon the cathedral that held the community’s soul, the people of Ortona were convinced the German engineers had carried out the destruction purposefully. That they had done this act on the great holiday was considered an added dose of maliciousness.28

  FIVE

  LITTLE STALINGRAD

  20

  A BUNCH OF MADMEN

  DURING the night of December 20, Major Jim Stone and Peter Carr Harris, an officer in the Royal Canadian Engineers, walked up the road from the Loyal Edmonton Regiment’s front line to Ortona. Their purpose was to determine if the road was mined. In the morning, Stone hoped to take a combined infantry and tank force up the road and roll from one end of Ortona to the other without stopping. Everything was still. Stone and Harris moved cautiously, ready to retreat at the first challenge or shot from a German sentry.

  The two men paused when they reached the first buildings on the south edge of Ortona. They waited. Listened. Still there was no sound from the enemy. Before them stretched the wide, seemingly arrow-straight Corso Vittorio Emanuele, the town’s main street. Stone signalled to Harris, and the two men advanced quietly up one side of the Corso. They hugged the walls of the dark two-storey houses bordering the street. Stone and Harris went another eighty to ninety yards without seeing a soul.

  Neither man saw any immediate signs of mines or even gun positions. The two returned to the Canadian line without incident. It seemed from their reconnaissance as if the Germans were not in Ortona at all. Stone knew this was false. They had to be there somewhere. But it appeared they did not plan to deny the Canadians a toehold in the town. He expected little resistance in the morning. Stone thought there was a good chance that the plan to push down the Corso to the other end of Ortona might succeed.1

  At dawn, under a grey, overcast sky, the Edmontons went into the attack. They advanced on a two-company wide front, with ‘D’ Company on the left and ‘B’ on the right. ‘B’ Company made good progress, quickly cutting through a cluster of small vineyards, olive groves, and vegetable gardens to establish a position inside some buildings on Ortona’s edge.

  ‘D’ Company had no such luck. Stone’s men advanced in a line across an open field. Seventy-five to one hundred yards away stood the houses of Ortona. The company was immediately taken under fire by machine gun–armed paratroopers hidden in slit trenches fronting the buildings. Snipers, firing out of upper-storey windows and from the roofs, added to what Stone later described as “murderous fire.”2 Men fell in droves, killed or badly wounded. ‘D’ Company was forced to withdraw, leaving many of the wounded on the field. They tried again a few minutes later with the same result. The company had gone into the first attack about one
hundred strong. After the second failed attempt, only seventeen riflemen were still on their feet.3

  Besides Stone, only one officer remained — Lieutenant John Dougan. Stone divided the company into three groups. He commanded one, Dougan another, and the third fell to Company Sergeant Major Ron Bowen. Stone was in a quandary. Attempting another attack seemed suicidal. But Edmonton commander Lieutenant Colonel Jim Jefferson was on the radio urging him to get his men forward. ‘B’ Company was on its objective. Jefferson told Stone, “You must push on.”

  Stone snapped back, “Reinforce success.”4 He wanted Jefferson to change the line of advance so that everyone followed ‘B’ Company’s route into Ortona. Jefferson insisted Stone had to establish a position on the left side of the Corso. He needed part of the battalion on both sides of the street. Otherwise it would be unsafe for the tanks.