by Mark Zuehlke
Dawn fully revealed what a tough nut 231st Brigade was trying to crack. Anchoring the ridge’s eastern flank was the nearly two-thousand-foot summit of Monte Santa Lucia. From its lofty heights the Germans completely dominated the eastern and southern approaches to Regalbuto, which itself stood about sixteen hundred feet above sea level. The town, in fact, was stationed in a saddle where three large features converged. Running to the southwest was mile-long Regalbuto Ridge. To the northwest, a spur named Monte Serione thrust a mile north into the Salso valley. East of Regalbuto, and separated by a deep ravine from Monte Santa Lucia, was the westernmost extremity of a mass of hills and mountains that extended over to Centuripe. It was via the ravine that the road from Catenanuova entered Regalbuto.
On the morning of July 30, Major General Guy Simonds and Urquhart together studied this complex natural system of fortifications and decided that gaining the town would require a major attack with heavy artillery support. By 1000 hours, Simonds had returned to divisional headquarters and begun assembling the artillery plan.6 Despite his past reliance on firepower to blast a path through German defences, Simonds realized this time that a frontal attack would surely fail. The plan therefore called for 2nd Battalion, the Devonshire Regiment, to approach Regalbuto Ridge from the northwest in a night move. Only at the last minute would the battalion cut across Highway 121 to drive up the ridge’s western flank.7
While the attack was being organized, those units tasked with carrying it out were subjected to unrelenting mortar and Nebelwerfer fire regularly reinforced by German artillery. At 1330 hours, the Three Rivers ‘A’ Squadron was badly mortared in its concentration area. One round scored a direct hit on a truck loaded with high-explosive shells, and it “went up in the manner that ammunition trucks usually go up when hit,” the regiment’s war diarist noted. The explosion killed twenty-year-old Trooper Norman Wright, and the regiment’s second-in-command, Major Fern Caron, was wounded in the right knee by flying shrapnel. En route to an ‘O’ Group at Urquhart’s headquarters about an hour later, Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Booth and his intelligence officer were caught in a mortar concentration just east of Agira. Bailing out of their Jeep, the two officers huddled in a stone culvert until the fire slackened slightly. Returning to the Jeep, they careened along the road with mortar rounds exploding around them. After attending the ‘O’ Group, the two men “again ran the gauntlet of fire” back to their headquarters without the Jeep taking a single hit. Another Three Rivers vehicle was not so lucky. Late in the afternoon, a water truck approaching ‘A’ Squadron’s position was struck by a mortar round. Lance Corporal Donald Forrest and Trooper John Frederick Marsh were mortally wounded by shrapnel.8
In the afternoon, 3rd Canadian Field Regiment’s headquarters received news that Major G.A. “Gordy” Rutherford of the 77th Battery, who had been serving as Urquhart’s artillery officer, had been wounded by mortar fire. With the artillery program in support of the Devons about to begin, Lieutenant Colonel J.S. Ross rushed forward to take over Rutherford’s duties.9
At 2300 hours on July 30, the Devons went forward behind a creeping barrage fired by 144 guns from four field and three medium regiments. Coming as they did from an unlikely angle and behind such heavy shelling, the Devons gained the crest of Regalbuto Ridge thirty-five minutes later and fired a flare signalling that the ridge was in their hands. But the battalion was desperately weak, having suffered the loss of about two hundred of its nearly seven hundred men since landing in Sicily. When the Germans counterattacked at dawn with infantry directly supported by three tanks, the Devons were thrown back from the easternmost corner of the ridge. Standing firm on the western portion, the Devons repelled repeated attacks before committing their reserve company to a last-gasp counterattack that proved successful. By midmorning, the entire ridge was regained, but at a heavy cost in casualties of eight officers and 101 other ranks.
While the fight for the ridge had been seesawing back and forth, Urquhart had sent three companies of 1st Battalion, Dorsetshire Regiment, up Monte Serione, to the north of the highway. One company became embroiled in a bloody fight with a group of Germans dug into a walled cemetery, but by midafternoon the Dorsets had won the length of this ridge and were on Regalbuto’s outskirts.
The intensity of the fighting, combined with its earlier losses, left 231st Brigade’s battalions spent. Recognizing this and hoping to retain the momentum won, Major General Simonds rushed 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade’s 48th Highlanders of Canada forward on the morning of July 31. To avoid a loss of impetus while the rest of the brigade came forward to take over the advance, the Highlanders temporarily came under Urquhart’s command.10
At noon the battalion left for the front on trucks from their rest area west of Agira.11 About four miles along Highway 121, the troops unloaded and marched hard cross-country to gain the ridge held by the Dorsets before dusk. There being no road into the area, the 48th Highlanders left all their carrier-borne support platoons behind—the rifle companies would be entirely dependent on the weapons they carried.12
Once the Canadians took over the front lines held by the Dorsets, that battalion sent its reserve company on an eastward patrol to “Tower Hill”—named after a stone lookout perched on its summit. The Dorsets attempted to reach the hill by cutting around Regalbuto’s western flank and then coming up from the ravine. But the moment the company entered the low ground, it came under fire from tanks stationed on a rise to the south and was forced to retire.13
SIMONDS, MEANWHILE, HAD decided Tower Hill held the key to Regalbuto. From its heights, the Canadians would be able to cut the German line of escape to Adrano. Accordingly, at 1630 hours, he ordered the Royal Canadian Regiment to seize it in a night attack. In a hurried Orders Group, Major Tom “Pappy” Powers—who had just been confirmed as the RCR commander the previous day—told the officer that 231st Brigade had “made a balls-up of their attack on Regalbuto and lost heavily ... we are to go in and show the Limeys how it’s done.” ‘B’ Company’s Captain Strome Galloway scribbled in his diary: “That ought to be good. Pappy is going to take the company commanders on a recce [reconnaissance] in about half an hour. It’s damned near dark now and we won’t see a bloody thing. But we have to push off at ten o’clock ... We are to seize the hogsback that runs along the right of the town and thus dominate it in such a way that the Boche will have to pull out before daylight ... Well, Pappy is saying ‘Let’s go.’ Slim [Liddell], Chuck Lithgow and Gerry Nelson are teed up so I’d better get a move on. By the time we get to the forward positions it will be so dark a recce by a blind man would be just as good. Then we have to walk all the way back, put our platoon commanders in the picture and trudge ahead of our companies into God knows what!”14
The reconnaissance played out to Galloway’s expectations. Night fell before they arrived, so there was nothing to see. Worse, to give the artillery specific targets to fire at, a Dorset company had been sent forward to draw enemy fire for marking by the watching FOOs. The Dorsets sent on this mission had become disoriented and had wandered far to the north without contacting any Germans, before finally returning to their lines. Lacking targets, the artillery support was cancelled. The RCR would instead take Tower Hill by stealthy manoeuvre.15
From Agira, the RCR marched along Highway 121 for six miles and then swung south on a rough track to gain the southern flank of Regalbuto Ridge. The march was “hellish. The road was inches thick in white dust and the hundreds of boots churned it up in clouds. Everybody was choking, sweating and cursing as they stumbled along under their heavy loads. There were numerous halts along the way and everybody just slumped down and fell asleep. Then when we started to move again I had to go around and waken them,” Galloway wrote.16
Their forming-up position proved to be on the edge of a thin line of houses curving around the eastern flank of the ridge in a rough horseshoe pattern that marked the town’s southern extremity.17 ‘C’ Company, under Major Gerry Nelson, and the battalion headquarters section set up
among these buildings. Their job would be to provide covering fire and tactical support while the other three companies attacked Tower Hill, which rose dramatically ahead of their position. Set between the hill and the row of houses, the troops could see the dim outline of the ravine. This feature was not indicated on their maps, but the Dorsets had thought it was only about ten feet deep and easily crossed.18
At 0200 hours on August 1, ‘D’ Company descended into the ravine. ‘A’ and ‘B’ companies would follow at thirty-minute intervals. “The object was for the first company to draw fire to pin point the enemy positions and then capture a knoll overlooking the remainder of the feature. The second company was to advance on their right if the first company succeeded, proceed to the top of the ridge, swing east and followed closely by the third company clear out whatever enemy would be encountered,” Powers later explained in a report on the action.19
The ravine Captain Chuck Lithgow led ‘D’ Company into turned out to be about one hundred feet deep with its banks carved into terraced steps separated by four-foot sheer drops. Loose shale clattered noisily underfoot and skittered out beneath the men’s boots. The racket of their descent brought an immediate response of heavy fire, which forced Lithgow and his men to take cover deep in the ravine.20
Thirty minutes after ‘D’ Company disappeared into the gloom and the Germans began firing into the ravine, ‘A’ Company slipped over the lip. Captain Slim Liddell had no idea what had happened to ‘D’ Company, for wireless contact had been lost the moment Lithgow departed. Seeing no sign of the missing company, Liddell’s men picked their way down the slope. The going was so rough that it took thirty minutes to reach the bottom and the same amount of time to scrabble up the other side. As the company emerged from the ravine, it found itself among another cluster of buildings, and Liddell realized “the town extended much farther...than indicated by map.” Passing a building, No. 8 Platoon stepped into the street beyond and drew immediate fire from a nearby tank.21
Liddell signalled Lieutenant M.C.D. “Buck” Bowman to outflank the tank with No. 9 Platoon from the left. Getting behind the tank, they headed up Tower Hill and after a short, hard climb gained the battalion’s final objective. But the rest of the company was still pinned down by the tank below. Bowman told Sergeant E.F. Carron that “something had to be done quickly.” Leaving the sergeant with one section to clear the hilltop, Bowman went back to attack the tank with the rest of the platoon.22
By now the RCR assault was in disarray. On schedule, ‘B’ Company had headed into the ravine and found Lithgow and his men still hunkered on the eastern slope, taking fire from another tank and several machine guns stationed on the lip above. Hoping to break the impasse, Galloway sent a platoon to flank the tank on the right and knock it out with a PIAT, but the platoon was forced back by a hail of fire. Finally, just before daybreak, Lithgow got one of his platoons up the slope and established a link with Liddell’s ‘A’ Company. With the three companies now in contact, it was decided they would dig in on the eastern slope of the ravine and hope for reinforcement or for an easing of German pressure sufficient to allow a renewal of the battalion’s advance on Tower Hill.23
Lieutenant Bowman’s platoon, meanwhile, was cut off from the rest of ‘A’ Company, and stiffening German resistance also prevented it from fighting its way back to the section left on Tower Hill. A runner, who tried to get through to Sergeant Carron with instructions to fall back on Bowman’s position, was captured.
Up on Tower Hill, in the first light of dawn, Carron “saw that the town was occupied in strength” and on the right “were dug in tanks hull down on the reverse slope.” To the left of their position, an MG 42 machine gun began searching for them with bursts of fire. Carron dashed into the tower and climbed its circular staircase to the top to try to catch a glimpse of other RCR units. An armour-piercing round “coming through the tower from a dug-in tank, however, made it not the ideal spot to tarry.”
Running back to his men, Carron learned that the Bren-gun team had been overrun and either killed or captured. The amount of fire coming in was intensifying rapidly. For two hours, Carron’s remaining five-man group endured the enemy fire and occasional poundings by Canadian artillery before the sergeant conceded the situation was hopeless and surrendered. Three of his men were wounded, and the Germans immediately evacuated them to a hospital. One of the wounded men, Private Joe Grigas, shortly managed to escape and reach British lines. The rest of the section was moved to a prisoner-of-war cage at Messina and then ferried to the mainland. Carron and a couple of others escaped from a freight train en route to Germany and were interned in Switzerland. After the invasion of Normandy, the sergeant and several other Canadians made their way to France to be eventually picked up by American troops near Marseilles.24
Lieutenant Bow man, meanwhile, had realized that what remained of No. 9 Platoon would never be able to rejoin the RCR on the edge of the ravine. Instead, he led the men north through the heart of Regalbuto—carefully avoiding the many German positions—and by late morning reached the lines of the 48th Highlanders on Monte Serione.25 Liddell would later write of this feat that “the move was done without casualties and apparently without discovery, reflecting most favourably on Lt. Bowman’s ability to move his men unseen through difficult country.”26 For this action, Bowman was awarded a Military Cross.
While the rest of the RCR spent a day on the eastern flank of the ravine, ‘C’ Company and battalion headquarters were pinned down among the buildings on the western edge. “It was a very helpless feeling because there was very little we could do and we were continually being sniped at, shelled, and mortared,” Major Gerry Nelson later confessed.27 When the anti-tank platoon manhandled a 6-pounder into ‘C’ Company’s position in hopes of taking on the German tanks, it immediately drew fire from a dug-in Tiger and was destroyed by a direct hit. Private Kenneth John Earnshaw was killed, and the anti-tank officer, Lieutenant E.H. “Ted” Shuter, was wounded along with the rest of the gun crew.
At 1800 hours, Major Powers received a wireless signal from 1 CIB headquarters that the RCR should retire as soon as night fell.28 ‘A’ and ‘D’ companies slipped back across the ravine, while ‘B’ Company covered their withdrawal. Then Galloway sent his men back by platoons, with the company headquarters section last to leave. They were under enemy mortar, tank, and artillery fire the entire way—rounds striking all around them—while machine guns searched through the darkness with measured bursts. Yet not a single ‘B’ Company man was even nicked. During the course of the earlier fighting, however, two men had been wounded, and Private Thomas Francis Mason was killed by a sniper round. By about 0100 hours on August 2, the entire battalion was a couple of miles west of Regalbuto and bedding down.29 The RCR’s last action in Sicily had ended in defeat.
AS THE RCR’S frontal attack had clearly failed, Major General Simonds cut a new plan in the early afternoon of August 1. The enemy on the heights east of the town, he explained, would not withdraw “unless ordered to do so by his own higher command. He is well sited and possesses about eight tanks. It is probable that he will fight hard to hold his present position.” Simonds therefore decided that 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade would carry out a wide right-flanking movement to seize first Monte Tiglio, then Monte San Giorgio, and then strike directly northward to carry Tower Hill.30 Meanwhile, on the left, 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade would “cut across country north of the [Salso] River toward Adrano.”31 At the same time, 231st (Malta) Brigade—retaining the 48th Highlanders under command—would provide a firm base in front of Regalbuto and, when the time was right, surge forward and carry the town.32
Once again it fell to the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment to undertake a long trek in darkness over mountainous terrain. Major Bert Kennedy distrusted the maps, and there was no intelligence about the possible dispositions of German forces south of Regalbuto. Twice before, the Hasty Ps had gone forward into this kind of situation with a “buccaneering rush into the unknown.
” At Assoro, such daring had yielded stunning success, but before Nissoria it had brought disaster. Kennedy was fed up with the battalion going in blind. From a hilltop, the battalion commander, his company commanders, and the assigned artillery FOO spent the afternoon studying the ground and developing a detailed battle plan.33 Yet they all knew that observation of such rugged country from a distance could only yield a limited appreciation of possible obstacles and next to nothing about German strength.
So Kennedy sent a patrol of twenty-seven men from ‘C’ Company, under Lieutenant George Baldwin, to check the planned line of advance. The men stripped down to the lightest weapons and ammunition kit possible so they could take along several No. 18 wireless sets. Kennedy had devised a novel idea whereby the patrol would drop these sets off at regular intervals to create a signal chain, which would enable it to maintain communications with battalion headquarters. This system worked flawlessly at first, but at 1500 hours contact with the patrol was lost. Two hours later, Company Sergeant Major George Ponsford—who had accompanied the patrol and was a veteran solo marcher across Sicilian countryside—arrived. When he left the patrol, Ponsford said, it had not yet bumped into any enemy and had been closing on Monte Tiglio.34
This intelligence would have to suffice, because there was no time to wait for the patrol’s return. At 2000 hours, the battalion started marching. Moving with the company headquarters was an artillery FOO team, burdened by their 48.5 pound No. 21 wireless set. The mortar platoon was also manhandling its heavy weapons and ammunition, for once again vehicles could not possibly operate in the mountains.35