by Mark Zuehlke
Kennedy led his men “through some of the roughest country yet encountered.” ‘A’ Company led, followed in line by ‘B’, ‘C’, and ‘D’ companies. By midnight, the battalion was halfway to Monte Tiglio and able to make good time because a bright moon lit their path. They followed a mule track that “went twice as far up and down as it went along.”36 At 0300 hours on August 2, the battalion stood at the mountain’s base. Hoping to catch the Germans on the summit literally napping, ‘A’ and ‘B’ scaled it in a mad scramble that brought them to the top in just fifteen minutes. “There were no enemy on the hill,” the battalion’s war diarist noted, “but from equipment captured it appeared that they had moved out shortly before the arrival of our troops.”37
For once, the wireless set worked, and Kennedy reported the first objective taken. Brigadier Howard Graham told him “to rest for a few hours while the final details of the second part of the plan for the attack northwards were worked out.”38 Lieutenant George Baldwin’s patrol turned up on the hill just after first light. Baldwin told Kennedy that Monte Tiglio had still been occupied by Germans when he had probed the position during the night, and the patrol had also determined that Monte San Giorgio had enemy paratroops on its summit. At 1000 hours, to the consternation of all on the mountain position, two Bren carriers ground up to its base. Regimental Sergeant Major Angus Duffy and a couple of drivers had somehow managed to pick their way cross-country with a heavy load of rations and water. “With several hours’ rest and a good meal, the battalion was ready to go again,” the war diarist recorded.39
While the Hasty Ps rested and ate, the artillery supporting the division spent the entire morning and afternoon pounding Regalbuto and the highway east of it. Twenty-five fighter bombers also bombed and strafed a position that the artillery marked for the planes with smoke shells. When the Hasty Ps moved off, they were to go forward behind a barrage laid down by the three Canadian field regiments. Fighter bombers would be circling overhead in readiness to attack the German transport, tanks, and towed guns expected to be flushed from Regalbuto.40 Divisional headquarters was certain “that the enemy would withdraw when the assault developed and it was hoped that the air attack would pin him down to the ground and prevent this.”41
Zero hour for the Hasty Ps’ assault kept getting pushed back through the afternoon because of persistent trouble maintaining wireless communications in “such extremely rough ground” between the various headquarters involved in the full-scale attack. Just before the latest start time of 1600 hours, the 48th Highlanders reported that one of the many patrols they had sent forward to harass the Germans had managed to enter Regalbuto and found it abandoned. On the basis of this intelligence, Simonds cancelled the artillery plan and ordered Kennedy to move immediately on his two remaining objectives.42
The battalion went forward, with ‘D’ Company leading, followed by ‘A,’ ‘B,’ and ‘C’ companies. As ‘D’ Company started across the Catenanuova-Regalbuto road, it came under fire from the direction of Regalbuto and the southern slope of Tower Hill. Carrying on without pause, the company clambered up Monte San Giorgio and found it recently vacated. Kennedy had the 3-inch mortars deployed on the summit so they could support the northward advance to Tower Hill. ‘D’ Company descended from the summit alone to test the German reaction, which was immediate and consisted of heavy machine-gun and mortar fire from Tower Hill. The bombardment struck just as the Hasty Ps reached the bottom of the intervening valley. There was little vegetation or folds in the ground to provide cover, and the company would have undoubtedly suffered heavy casualties had the 3-inch mortars not suddenly opened up “with such an effective barrage that the enemy’s fire became very inaccurate and considerably reduced.” ‘D’ Company withdrew to the summit of Monte San Giorgio, and Kennedy decided on a new plan.
This time, he sent ‘B’ and ‘C’ companies down the slope with the mortars and the other two companies throwing out all the weight of fire they could. Enjoying a sustained period of wireless communication, the 2nd Canadian Field Regiment officer with the battalion called in accurate artillery fire. As Kennedy’s battalion headquarters was also in wireless contact with the two advancing companies throughout the attack, the FOO was able to shift the guns to any targets their commanders identified. ‘B’ Company reached the base of Tower Hill first and quickly drove off the few Germans who had hung around to meet the Canadians. Leapfrogging past, ‘C’ Company pushed to the summit in time to see the last of the two estimated companies of paratroops that had fought to stem their assault legging it down the other side. “The outflanking movement, by the battalion, succeeded in smashing this strongpoint and opening the way for the advance on Adrano,” the Hasty Ps’ war diarist rightly concluded.43
Regalbuto, which had been the last bastion barring a Canadian advance on Adrano, was now taken. From Tower Hill, the Hasty Ps could see a line of German vehicles fleeing eastward. Allied fighter bombers were diving down and dropping bombs or shooting up vehicles with their guns. The flyers would report destroying forty vehicles caught on the open road between Regalbuto and Adrano. To the north, Troina was being attacked by the 1st U.S. Division and another general withdrawal had begun there, which put heavy traffic onto Highway 120 paralleling Highway 121. Allied flyers claimed that fifty vehicles were turned into wrecks by their bombs and bullets along that route.44
Regalbuto’s fall did not mean an end of the fighting for 1st Canadian Infantry Division, but it did conclude 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade’s part in hostilities. The brigade’s three battalions moved into reserve positions south of Highway 121. Regalbuto was a ruin. “Attacked several times by aircraft and heavily shelled by artillery, hardly a building remained intact. One section of the main road through the town was completely blocked with rubble, though the engineers, with the aid of bulldozers had forced a one-way route through a side street. The town was deserted; most of the inhabitants had fled to the hills or the railway tunnels, but with the entry of the Allied troops they were beginning to return. They were a pitiful sight, dirty, ragged, frightened and apparently half-fed,” one divisional staff officer observed.45
“When the folks around Belleville, Trenton, Picton and Madoc are preparing their welcome for the Hasty Petes, they’ll do well to note that the town hall steps are strictly out,” Toronto’s Globe and Mail correspondent Ralph Allen wrote in a story blazed across the paper’s front page on August 18. “The Hasty Petes have already done enough climbing to put a mountain goat on full retirement pension. They’ve done a lot of fighting too. While the brigade and divisional staff officers sort out the triumphs and lessons of the Canadians’ first major campaign in this war, no single group earns higher marks than the hard young warriors from the farms, hills and factories of Eastern Ontario . . . There’s a story for every mile of the Hastings’ grim journey.”46
[22]
Such a Party
AFTER REGALBUTO’S CAPTURE, 1st Canadian Infantry Division shifted its line of advance about a mile north of Highway 121 to the point inside the Salso valley where the river exited a deep gorge and entered a wide plain. Forming the valley’s northern flank was “a tangle of peaks and ridges extending eastward to the base of Etna [that] was virtually trackless,” while low hills composed its southern boundary. Although the railway from Regalbuto to Adrano snaked alongside the Salso’s winding course, the valley was devoid of roads. The Canadians, well-versed in fighting their way “across territory so rugged that the passage of a body of troops seemed a virtual impossibility,” must carry out such a task yet again.1
During a meeting held at 1100 hours on July 31, Major General Guy Simonds had warned 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade’s Brigadier Chris Vokes that his troops would carry the advance through the valley. Following the Salso, he added, was necessary because 79th British Infantry Division was rapidly closing on Highway 121 from the southwest and the two formations would soon be rubbing shoulders. The Canadians slipping northward a little would give both divisions room to manoeuvre.2
Vokes spent several hours with the division’s photographic interpretation officer getting a sense of the ground.3 As far as the two men could determine, the area “appeared to be unoccupied, but the route along the Salso Valley was strewn with boulders and therefore impassable for wheeled vehicles, or even tanks.”4
Knowing this, Simonds had promised Vokes every mule and donkey the division possessed to ensure that each battalion could carry a forty-eight-hour allotment of rations, the 3-inch mortars and their ammunition, and the heavy Vickers machine guns of the Saskatoon Light Infantry. While 2 CIB was advancing, the engineers of 3rd Field Company would construct a road in its wake to enable vehicle traffic into the area as soon as possible.5
Intelligence officers reported the valley defended by 382nd Panzer Grenadier Regiment, which fielded two battalions. Its soldiers were either veterans of the Russian front or had served with the 164th Light Africa Division in North Africa. Stationed behind this regiment to defend the Simeto River—a tributary that flowed into the Salso from the north about a mile west of Adrano—were the 1st and 3rd battalions of the 3rd Parachute Regiment. The strength of this regiment had been bolstered by absorbing the officers and men of the 923rd Fortress Battalion, dissolved after its disgrace in the July 30 rout from Catenanuova.6
On the night of July 31-August 1, the Loyal Edmonton Regiment made the Canadians’ opening gambit by sending two patrols to determine if the Germans were occupying Hill 736. This promontory, identified by its height in metres, stood on the eastern flank of a string of mountains overlooking the gap through which the Troina River met the Salso. One patrol was commanded by Lieutenant C.F. Swan and the other by Sergeant J.W. Robertson, both of ‘C’ Company.7
When one patrol reached the base of Hill 736, it fired several Bren-gun bursts towards the summit without drawing any response. Both patrols returned on the morning of August 1 and reported seeing no sign of German troops. They cautioned that the trails shown on aerial photographs were only “dried up stream beds filled with rocks and the going would be difficult even for personnel and mules.”8
Vokes ordered Lieutenant Colonel Jim Jefferson to quite literally saddle up the Edmontons and take Hill 736 that night. It was afternoon before the mule train was delivered to the battalion area. Each animal had a pack saddle, and the men started loading these with ammunition, mortars, wireless sets, water, and food. Although many of the Edmontons had experience working with livestock, they found the mules cantankerous and difficult to handle. The hours trailed away, and soon the loading was slowed even more by nightfall. Finally, an exasperated Jefferson ordered the rifle companies to move out without the mules. These would be brought up by the rear-area units. Jefferson had been “hoping to . . . take at least some signal sets with him when he joined the battalion but he had to go on without anything, thus being out of communication for many hours.”9
The march turned into a terrific ordeal, which Lieutenant John Dougan thought “seemed to go on for miles and miles and miles.” It was hot and terribly dusty. What they could see of the valley in the moonlight seemed “bleak, forbidding.”10 The terrain was so difficult to negotiate that the battalion progressed at a mere one mile per hour. Several times unidentified aircraft dropped flares, and the troops quickly threw themselves to the ground to avoid being spotted by any Germans who might be on Hill 736. August 2 dawned with the Edmontons still a mile short of the hill.
At 0600 hours, the battalion paused on a low rise to reorganize for the assault and immediately came under fire from machine guns and mortars stationed on the summit. From the hills on the valley’s southern flank, several German self-propelled guns also opened up.11 Despite the intensity of fire, Jefferson ordered three companies into the assault. While ‘A’ and ‘B’ companies went straight for Hill 736, ‘D’ Company tried to work around the eastern flank. Jefferson held ‘C’ Company back as a reserve alongside his battalion headquarters section, their position continually hammered by artillery and mortar rounds.
Captain Pat Tighe’s ‘A’ Company along with ‘B’ Company managed to gain a foothold on the lower slopes before being driven to ground by sheer weight of fire. The platoons scattered into cover provided by boulders or pressed up against cliff faces to avoid the German machine-gun fire. Captain Jim Stone, who had only recently returned to the regiment from duties as a beach master, had finally realized his ambition of commanding a rifle company. He led ‘D’ Company through thickening fire that finally stopped it cold on a shelf next to the hill’s eastern flank.12 The ground was so rocky that digging in proved impossible, so the men found whatever shelter they could behind rocks and in a couple of shallow gullies.
All three companies repeatedly tried to renew the advance, only to be driven to ground again. ‘B’ Company took several casualties, and a call went out for stretcher-bearers. Private John Low and Private Colback, both from ‘D’ Company, crawled “from boulder to boulder up the fire-swept slope” for 150 yards. Colback was knocked down by a bullet wound, but Low pressed on. “To his comrades, the further advance of this soldier could only end in death, but to their amazement he continued on towards the wounded men. German fire appeared to centre around him. Bullets were seen kicking up the dust along the line of his path, but [Private] Low, showing intense devotion to duty and conspicuous bravery, successfully crawled the remaining 300 yards and reached the wounded men. In the open, and under... murderous fire, he dressed the wounds of each of the three in turn, found cover for them, and carried and aided them to it.” Low would be decorated with a Distinguished Conduct Medal for this courageous and selfless act.13
Late in the morning, a leading element of the mule train arrived. Its twenty-eight mules were laden with the heavy machine guns of the SLI group. The animals and handlers drew the attention of the machine guns and mortars on the hill. Breaking free of the men holding their reins, the mules scattered and three of the Vickers guns were lost. Weaponless, the SLI trudged back to their starting point. Only Corporal M.J. Taje stayed behind to search for the strayed mules and missing guns that were strapped to their backs.14 Taje’s efforts eventually resulted in the retrieval of two guns and sufficient ammunition to bring them into action—an achievement that won the corporal a Military Medal.15
As morning gave way to afternoon, the German fire continued relentlessly. Jefferson ordered the Edmontons to disengage, and the three companies fell back to a sheltered area near the riverbed. From here reconnaissance patrols were sent out to find a better line of approach.
Meanwhile, back at 2 CIB headquarters, the day was “one of grave uncertainty . . . About noon reports began to trickle back to the effect that the unit had bumped opposition, and could not gain their objective without hard fighting, into which they had entered with their usual eagerness to set about the enemy,” wrote brigade intelligence officer Captain Norman Pope. That evening Jefferson clarified the situation by coming back to personally brief Vokes and Pope. He described the fighting as heavy, but said the Edmontons could soon have things in hand if the mule train got forward with the needed supplies. Until then, the rifle companies were too low on ammunition to renew the attack.16
Jefferson headed back into the Salso valley, and the remainder of the mule train was finally assembled during the night of August 2-3. Setting off in the morning, the train moved into the valley. Soon muleteers and mules alike were struggling across the rough terrain. Not until the evening of August 3 did the train reach an orchard behind the Edmonton position, where a patrol from ‘C’ Company made contact and led them forward.17 By this time, the men in ‘D’ Company’s No. 16 Platoon had been out of rations and water for more than a day. Lieutenant Dougan had come across a potato patch and was able to hand out raw potatoes to his men. Someone else found a number of eggs. Dougan cracked one open and swallowed its contents raw because they had no means of boiling water.18 The arrival of the mules was greeted with relief. Loaded onto them was not only food and water but, more importantly, a No. 22 wireless set and the battalion’s 3-inch mort
ars. There was also a good supply of ammunition. The Edmontons were back in action.19
During the course of August 3, patrols had also identified a better path for carrying Hill 736. Instead of striking at it frontally, the battalion would move that night against a spur that lay about a mile south of the main objective. This was Point 344, which lay midway between Hill 736 and the Troina River. From here they would advance from one ever-higher point to another until they reached Hill 736 itself. While this plan would undoubtedly take a couple of days to complete, its prospects for success seemed good.20
REGALBUTO HAD FALLEN on August 3, and with this obstacle finally clear, Major General Guy Simonds directed Brigadier Vokes to push the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada northeast from the town that night to gain a railway bridge that crossed the Troina River. From the bridge, patrols would then “tap out” the high ground east of the river to reconnoitre a route for an ensuing advance on the night of August 4-5 to the eastern flank of Monte Revisotto. This mountain loomed over the junction of the Salso and Troina rivers from a position immediately to the northeast. On the night of August 5-6, a squadron of Three Rivers Regiment’s tanks and a 3.7-inch howitzer battery would be attached for the brigade’s final leg to the Simeto River.21 Thereafter, the division’s other two brigades would pass through to cover the three remaining miles to Adrano.22
At 2300 hours on August 3, ‘C’ Company of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment started towards Point 344. The company was under the command of thirty-six-year-old Major A.S. “Archie” Donald whose prematurely grey hair made him look far older. Donald had taken over the company a few days earlier when Major W.T. Cromb had contracted sandfly fever. ‘C’ Company fought its way forward against considerable resistance. By 0430 the next morning, Donald reported that his men controlled the heights and were patrolling towards Hill 736 but were taking heavy fire from its summit.23