Operation Husky
Page 43
Vokes decided that the Edmontons could easily take Hill 736 after nightfall in a two-company attack and therefore ordered Lieutenant Colonel Jim Jefferson to send ‘A’ and ‘B’ companies eastward to carry Monte Revisotto. After loading up with ammunition, rations, and water from the mule train, the two companies moved “eastward along the valley of the Salso in the shelter of the northern bank” to a forming-up position about one hundred yards east of the base of Revisotto.24
For the Seaforth Highlanders, the advance on the night of August 3-4 had started out easily enough with a welcome truck ride from their rest area near Agira through Regalbuto and up a dirt road that petered out about a mile and a half north of the town. Here they unloaded and started marching—as they had done for most of the miles put behind them in Sicily.25
The terminus of this road had been the starting point for No. 3 Field Company’s road-construction project, which the engineers had wasted no time in launching into once Regalbuto fell. Early in the morning, Lieutenant D.D. Love and a small reconnaissance party had gone forward on foot to the Salso River. Although pinned down for some time by mortar fire, Love was able to examine the railway bridge crossing the streambed and also figure out a crossing point for the road. Love reported that the railway bridge was in good enough condition to take the weight of vehicles, but ramps would have to be built at either end to provide access.
When night fell, the engineering platoons went forward to carry out the work under cover of darkness. No. 2 Platoon erected the ramps to make the bridge usable. At the same time, No. 1 Platoon used bulldozers to develop “a crossing across the dry river bottom. This [was a] difficult task due to [the] huge number of very large boulders” that had to be pushed aside so that the riverbed could be levelled. The crossing would allow for uninterrupted two-way traffic across the Salso—vehicles going one way using the bridge and those travelling the other taking the crossing. No. 3 Platoon, meanwhile, staked out a route for the road from the Salso to the Troina River, where another crossing would need to be constructed.26 While the sounds of machinery working in the valley drew some German fire, this was not the hazard the engineers feared most. A number of men were thrown into a panic when their labours unearthed snakes, which the valley seemed to support by the thousands. Some were known to be venomous, but it was impossible for the Canadians to identify which ones they were. However, by noon on August 4 the engineers reported that the bridge and river crossing were ready to handle traffic.27
The Seaforths had passed by the engineers during the night, marched a mile east along the riverbed, and then “swung north into the range of craggy hills.” They were pushing hard, hoping to reach their objective northeast of Regalbuto and immediately west of the Troina River before dawn. Resistance was scant, nothing more than an occasional sniper who popped off a couple of rounds and then melted into the darkness. Daybreak found the battalion three-quarters of the way to its objective, and at 0630 hours Major Budge Bell-Irving led ‘A’ Company halfway up its slope before coming under heavy fire from the summit. ‘B’ and ‘C’ companies leapfrogged into the lead and, despite having no mortars or heavy machine guns to support their attack, gained the summit at 0900 hours.28 The Germans made a half-hearted attempt to cling to the hill’s north slope, but withdrew after Captain W.G. Harris’s ‘B’ Company fired a few Bren-gun bursts in their direction.29
From their north-facing position, the Seaforths could see Monte Revisotto to the northeast and on the opposite bank of the Troina River. It was “topped on the left by a rocky crag jutting straight up to the clouds. On the right flank of the hill the slope became more gentle, studded here and there with olive trees,” noted the Seaforth’s war diarist. The entire battalion quickly concentrated in this position, with Lieutenant Colonel Bert Hoffmeister setting up his forward headquarters in a small ravine a few hundred yards to the right. In order to maintain wireless contact with the brigade, Hoffmeister’s signallers had dragged a heavy No. 22 wireless set forward on a handcart. ‘D’ Company, which was in reserve, was stationed within a line of trees that ran from the ravine to a small red-stone house where the Regimental Aid Post was established.30
The valley was an eerie place, the horizon on all sides consisting of dense ranges of rocky hills. To the west, the Seaforths “saw the river bed of the Salso winding up through the hills till it passed out of sight north of Agira. In places they could see the track from Regalbuto to the river, and far away they could hear the bulldozers working on the river crossing. Throughout the day the enemy mortars continued to shell this point, trying to prevent the supporting arms coming forward. To the southeast . . . they could see the river winding on down to the Catania Plain, while to the east and northeast other rugged hills were visible, and beyond them the massive outline of Mount Etna. To their rear, on the south side of the valley they could see still more hills with the town of Centuripe crowning the highest one. Closer at hand patches of corn and orange trees dotted the valley, which was furrowed by irrigation ditches but away from any water the ground was as bare as a desert.” There was no shade to be had on the hill or in the ravine, and the men dripped sweat under a blistering sun.31
Once Hoffmeister considered the battalion’s position consolidated, he decided the situation was sufficiently fluid to accelerate the rigid timetable that called for forcing a crossing of the Troina during the coming night. At 1800 hours, he sent ‘A’ Company to seize a height of ground about one and a half miles to the east. Besides gaining a bridgehead across the Troina, this move would put the company in position to dominate the road running from Adrano north to the town of Troina—where the Americans were locked in a fierce battle. As a Saskatoon Light Infantry platoon had arrived with its Vickers machine guns, Hoffmeister placed it on a small knoll in front of his headquarters to support the attack.
Major Budge Bell-Irving was counting more on stealth than fire support to win his objective, so the guns remained silent while his platoons advanced warily along a series of gullies. Gaining the base of the hill undetected, Bell-Irving decided to replicate the stunt used at Grizzly and led his men on a right-flanking manoeuvre. Once again the trick worked perfectly. ‘A’ Company came up on the southern tip of the hill and was immediately entangled in a sharp firefight with a sizable force of Panzer Grenadiers. “The sections had a field day, working sometimes independently, throwing Jerry from his M.G. posts and sniper posts. Many sections rounded rocky crags and came face to face with German sections—slowly the enemy posts were knocked out one by one.”
Back on their knoll, the SLI gunners manning the Vickers found the range too great to provide effective support, and in any case, “they could not distinguish friend from foe.”32 It took ‘A’ Company two hours to drive the Germans off the feature. They did so at a loss of only one man killed and another wounded.33
Hoffmeister’s independent move had jump-started a general advance. After ‘A’ Company’s success, Vokes committed the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry—which had been waiting in the wings on the north side of the Salso next to the railway bridge—to leapfrog the Seaforths and establish a bridgehead astride the Adrano-Troina road. This would provide protection for the engineers to construct a crossing over the Troina River. Because the PPCLI would take some time to reach the river, Captain June Thomas’s ‘D’ Company was ordered to precede its advance. Supporting this move were two troops of the Three Rivers Regiment’s ‘C’ Squadron, which had cautiously used the railway-bridge crossing to gain the north side of the river.
As Thomas and his men started forward, they were fired on by several machine-gun positions and snipers stationed on top of the high crags to the north, but the six Shermans opened up with their 75-millimetre main guns and in short order the German resistance collapsed.34 At 1930 hours, the PPCLI’s ‘A’ and ‘C’ companies pushed across the Troina and solidified the bridgehead as assigned. The other two companies and battalion headquarters joined them at 2045 hours. A patrol sent out by Captain Rowan Coleman’s ‘C
’ Company soon bumped into ‘A’ and ‘B’ companies of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, who were facing Monte Revisotto. Wireless having failed, the Edmontons were no longer in contact with their battalion headquarters. The PPCLI’s Lieutenant Colonel Bob Lindsay “through force of circumstances” took them under his command.35
ON AUGUST 4, as events were unfolding rapidly in the Salso valley, the enemy’s Sicilian campaign was simultaneously entering its final phase. The earlier losses of Agira and Catenanuova, combined with the fall of both Regalbuto and Centuripe on August 3, forced German Tenth Army’s Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring to accept that the time for a general evacuation of the island was rapidly approaching. This meant withdrawal from the Catania plain, the first signs of which were reported by forward divisions of Eighth Army’s XIII Corps that evening. In their haste, the Germans blew up ammunition dumps and other supplies that could not be taken with them.
XIV Panzer Corps General der Panzertruppen Hans Valentin Hube and General d’Armata Alfredo Guzzoni also agreed on a new defensive line. In the north, the 15th Panzer Grenadier and 29th Panzer Grenadier divisions would fall back to a line running from behind the Zapulla River’s confluence with the Tyrrhenian Sea to Randazzo, on the northwestern corner of Mount Etna. The formations of the Hermann Göring Division, currently fighting in front of Catania, would abandon continued defence of this city and withdraw to a line running from the volcano across to the town of Riposto on the eastern coast. In both cases, the withdrawals would dramatically narrow the frontages the Germans had to defend, while putting the most forward units within close range of Messina in preparation for evacuation across the strait. The German strategy henceforth was focussed on “delay, disengagement, evacuation.”36
The British immediately recognized that a major withdrawal was under way, and on the afternoon of August 4, General Bernard Montgomery issued new orders to capitalize on the situation. XIII Corps was to push forward on Eighth Army’s right flank, but “without incurring heavy casualties.” It fell instead to xxx Corps “to do the punching” with a move around the western and northern flanks of Mount Etna. The U.S. Seventh Army, meanwhile, would push straight eastward, with one division following the coastal highway and another advancing from Troina (which fell during the day) towards Randazzo.37 Montgomery conceded that the Americans would enjoy a positional advantage when they reached Randazzo, effectively pinching off the xxx Corps line of advance. Consequently, General George Patton would have the honour of liberating not only Palermo but also Messina.
Before Lieutenant General Oliver Leese convened a meeting at XXX Corps headquarters to inform his divisional commanders of their role in Montgomery’s new plan, he accompanied Major General Guy Simonds, the division’s chief artillerist Brigadier Bruce Matthews, and 78th British Infantry Division’s Major General Vyvyan Evelegh to the top of the steep Centuripe hill. From this commanding height, the entire battleground lay before Simonds and the others like “a miniature model on a sand table,” and the Canadian general examined it with his usual eye for meticulous detail.
“On his right, half a dozen miles to the north-east, the bleached tiled roofs of Adrano, the Corps objective, stood out clearly in the . . . sun against the vast background of Mount Etna. In front of him the ground swept upward from the far bank of the Salso in rolling foothills to the peaks of Hill 736, Revisotto and Seggio, outposts of the great rampart of heights which filled the northern horizon. Below and to his left, a widening of the rocky bed of the Salso marked the entry of the Troina from its ravinelike valley west of Mount Revisotto. Along the floor of the valley at his feet the dry course of the Salso meandered eastward in wide loops to meet the fast-flowing Simeto River, which made its appearance from the north behind a long, outlying spur of Mount Seggio. Near the point where this spur flattened into the level plain the tiny hamlet of Carcaci stood on a slight mound among irrigated plantations of lemon and orange trees. Once a thriving community of more than one thousand inhabitants, Carcaci had been reduced by successive epidemics of malaria to a population of less than one hundred living in a mere handful of houses. Through these ran the road from Troina, to join Highway No. 121 a mile to the south-east, just before the latter crossed the Simetto and began its long zig-zag climb to Adrano.”38
Back at xxx Corps headquarters, Leese explained that “the punching” meant Adrano must fall more quickly than originally thought. Accordingly, 78th Division would establish a bridgehead over the Salso immediately north of Centuripe that night. The following night it was to push across the Simeto River north of its juncture with the Salso. Simonds’s division would secure Monte Seggio on the night of August 5-6 and also force a crossing of the Simeto River. On the third night, 78th Division would take Adrano. Should that attack fail, a joint venture would be mounted twenty-four hours later by both divisions. The 51st Highland Division would continue guarding the right flank of the corps and seize Biancavilla—Adrano’s neighbouring town—in concert with the 78th Division’s attack.
With no time to waste, Simonds rushed back to his headquarters and then on to Brigadier Vokes’s command post. Once the PPCLI had established its bridgehead across the Troina River that evening and the engineers had created crossings, he believed, “a quick blow can be struck in the undulating country north of the river which will carry you right up to the western bank of River Simeto.” To guard the division’s left flank, Vokes would still have to seize the heights of Hill 736, Revisotto, and Seggio. But at the same time Simonds wanted him to organize a mobile force under command of Three Rivers Regiment’s Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Booth. It would be composed of Booth’s tank regiment, one self-propelled artillery battery, one or two troops of anti-tank guns, one infantry battalion, and ‘A’ Squadron of the Princess Louise Dragoon Guards reconnaissance regiment. The force’s objective would be the eastern bank of the Simeto River. “I think that such a move will startle the enemy and will probably result in a good mix up in the open country where the tanks will really be able to manoeuvre. I think Booth will handle such a party well.”
Simonds had already put much of this force on standby and also requested that the 11th Royal Horse Artillery provide the self-propelled artillery battery. Its arrival had been promised for 0830 hours on August 5. Because the division’s artillery was in the process of repositioning to bring the guns within firing range of Adrano, Simonds could only offer Vokes support from 3rd Field Regiment, the 165th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery (which remained under Canadian command), and the 7th Medium Regiment to about noon. After that, the column should be so far forward it would have to rely entirely on inherent firepower.
Back at his headquarters, Simonds detailed these instructions in a formal letter. He concluded by saying: “You must be the final judge as to whether or not the local situation presents an opportunity for the blow I envisage, but indications today are that enemy resistance is crumbling, and I think we can afford to take bigger chances than we have been able to in the last few days.”39
Vokes agreed and had already done much to pull together “Booth Force,” as it was named in honour of its commander. Booth had received instructions from the brigadier at 2100 hours and been told the attack must begin at 0600 the following morning. The Seaforths would provide the mobile force’s infantry. With his ‘C’ Squadron committed to supporting the Edmontons and PPCLI in their operations against the three mountains, Booth would have only two squadrons available. But he judged that more than sufficient.40
After getting the mobile arm of the force organized, Booth went forward to Hoffmeister’s headquarters in the Salso valley. The Seaforth commander was up with ‘A’ Company when a battalion runner arrived with a message summoning him back for the meeting. Sick and weak from an onset of dysentery, Hoffmeister “struggled down from ‘A’ Company’s exposed position” at about 0200 hours on August 5.41 The meeting was held by a candle’s flickering light in the empty farmhouse the Seaforths were using for their Regimental Aid Post. German mortar rounds exploded reg
ularly nearby, and overhead their flares regularly lit up the valley floor. Once Booth finished briefing Hoffmeister, he returned to his headquarters to give a final briefing at 0300 hours to the other officers involved.42
The mobile force was to join the Seaforths at the Troina River crossing that the engineers would create during the night. Leading the column would be the carriers and armoured cars of the Princess Louise Dragoon Guards. Immediately behind would be a section of engineers to lift any mines encountered. The main body of the force would be organized so that a Seaforth company riding on ‘B’ Squadron’s tanks would lead. Next would come a troop of the 90th Anti-Tank Battery and then ‘A’ Squadron with the second Seaforth company aboard. The rest of the force would be in trail.
TO REACH THE start line, Booth Force’s vehicles and tanks had to negotiate the railway bridge across the Salso.43 The PLDG found that driving along the railway line and then over the bridge caused “vicious difficulties for both tracks and wheels. It called for the greatest driving skill to negotiate them in darkness.”44 One delay compounded another, and it was daylight before the mobile elements arrived at the start line. During their wait, the Seaforths—in their khaki shorts and shirts—had been driven nearly insane by the thousands of mosquitoes lurking in the dry riverbed. Not until 0800 hours was Booth Force assembled and able to push off. The engineers had opened the crossing over the Troina and cleared the mines on both banks. Having gained the eastern bank without mishap, the column soon reached the Troina-Adrano road and started rolling at a brisk rate toward Carcaci. The little hamlet was the objective for the reconnaissance squadron, which was to link up there with the 78th Division’s 2nd Battalion, London Irish Rifles, while the rest of Booth Force hooked off the road and headed eastward for the Simeto River.