by Mark Zuehlke
Montgomery, preparing to return to Britain to take direct command of Operation Overlord, responded with surprising civility that he had “the highest opinion of Simonds. . . . Briefly my views are that Simonds is a first class soldier. After a period with an armoured division he will be suitable for a corps. He will be a very valuable officer in the Canadian Forces as you have no one else with his experience; he must be handled carefully, and be trained on. Vokes is not even in the same parish. I am trying hard to teach him but he will never be anything more than ‘a good plain cook.’ I do not, of course, know what has taken place between you and Simonds. He is directly under my command for training and so on, but of course would deal with you on purely Canadian matters. If you have been sending him any instructions or directions on training he might possibly ignore them! He gets that from me — verbally. I suggest you discuss it with me when you visit Eighth Army. Come whenever you like.”24
Montgomery’s relatively light tone to Crerar was obviously intended to defuse the situation between Crerar and Simonds, but he was also deeply concerned about the friction between the two Canadian generals. In a letter to Field Marshal Brooke on December 28, he offered extensive suggestions on how matters throughout the European and Italian theatres should be organized. In his fourth point, Montgomery wrote: “The more I think of Harry Crerar the more I am convinced that he is quite unfit to command an army in the field at present. He has much to learn and he will have many shocks before he has learnt it properly. He has already (from Sicily) started to have rows with Canadian generals under me; he wants a lot of teaching; I taught him about training; Oliver Leese will now have to teach him the practical side of war.”25 Three days later, Montgomery bid farewell to the Eighth Army and left for Britain.
In Britain, changes were under way as McNaughton, who had led First Canadian Army overseas since September 1939, resigned, having lost the confidence of both the British Chiefs of Staff and the Canadian War Committee, particularly Ralston. His resistance to the breakup of the army for the Italian operation had heightened tensions between himself and Ottawa. Although he enjoyed the quiet support of Prime Minister King, this proved insufficient. On Boxing Day 1943, he flew home to Canada in the wake of a resignation tendered just before it became obvious Ottawa was about to fire him. Lieutenant General Kenneth Stuart was made acting commander of First Canadian Army, but his was only a caretaker role. Ottawa’s intention was that the command would go to Crerar once he completed another couple of months as corps commander in Italy.
That Crerar’s tenure in Italy was to be short was not revealed to his divisional commanders. Following Montgomery’s departure and the promotion of Leese to command of Eighth Army, 1 CID commander Major General Chris Vokes was led to ponder the future of his division. Although he would miss Montgomery, Vokes believed Leese a competent replacement. Leese, he wrote, “had experience in all lower echelons of command and was very likely to require a similar experience in the corps commanders of the Eighth Army.” The tall, forty-nine-year-old general had been twice severely wounded while serving with the Coldstream Guards during World War I and had commanded XXX Corps since September 1942. Vokes found him cheerful, “a complete extrovert with a ribald sense of humour. His favourite form of dress was khaki plus-fours, a khaki shirt and a woolen pullover, topped by the red-banded general’s hat worn by all general officers in the British Army. At all times he attired himself for personal comfort and never to the regulation pattern.”
Leese’s style of dress and personality stood completely at odds with that of Crerar. Vokes observed that “Crerar was meticulous in his observance of the clothing regulations. If he was improperly dressed I’m quite sure he felt naked. If he had a sense of humour it was never in evidence. I think he was inclined to look on the Canadian generals of the younger generation, like myself, as ignorant upstarts who in spite of considerable operational experience really knew nothing.”
Vokes envisioned Leese and Crerar clashing sharply and worried that “mutual antagonism” would lead to I Canadian Corps’s not having “much of an operational future.” He also thought that Crerar had a lot to learn before he should be entrusted with commanding a corps in battle. Crerar, he wrote, “had outstanding administrative and organizational ability and was a disciplinarian, but there was all the difference in the world between the make believe training in England and the real thing in Italy with the lives of men at stake.” He added that he “did not view with much enthusiasm the prospect of serving under a corps commander and his staff all totally inexperienced in battle.”26
While concerned about Crerar’s battlefield command abilities, he was equally uncertain of the wisdom of the entire Canadian corps concept. “The permanent grouping of the two divisions in a Canadian Corps was our national policy, but it did not accord with British operational doctrine. British army commanders regarded field divisions as their tactical pawns of manoeuvre. He could concentrate divisions for an attack at a place and time of his choosing or disperse them in defence.” This meant that the grouping of divisions by corps “was a purely temporary one and the number and type of the divisions under operational command in any army corps was usually a gauge of the army commander’s confidence in its corps commander’s capability and field experience. It was rare to have the number of divisions exceed six in an army corps. It was usually three to four.”27
First Canadian Corps, however, had only two divisions — the two Canadian divisions in Italy. And it was unlikely that, given Crerar’s inexperience, any other Commonwealth or British divisions in Eighth Army were to be assigned to the corps until Leese considered its commander sufficiently competent. In a letter to his wife, Leese wrote: “I am having a big problem with Canadian commanders. Harry Crerar is here — & of course knows nothing of military matters in the field — but is presumably the commander designate of the Canadian Army in England. So I have to teach Crerar for a time — and then change again to another totally inexperienced commander.” Montgomery had done nothing in the latter part of 1943 to teach Crerar anything, Leese remarked. Now he was stalling at returning Crerar to Britain to take command of First Canadian Army in the wake of McNaughton’s resignation.28
While the squabbling at high command continued, 5th Canadian Armoured Division pulled up stakes near Naples on November 15 and set off on a long march across the Apennines to the Adriatic. Its destination was the town of Altamura, twenty-eight miles southwest of Bari. Simonds was glad to be gone from Naples, wanting to “get the troops away from this sort of suburban ‘built up’ area” which “was a very poor training area, the squalid slums are depressing and constitute a very bad atmosphere in which to condition troops.”29 The division left Naples with many of its trucks towed by others. Along the way, increasing numbers had to be abandoned because of breakdowns. Drivers soon discovered on the steep mountain grades that their brakes were often barely capable of keeping a fully loaded truck from running out of control. Three weeks after the journey was completed, 11th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) were still recovering broken-down vehicles that had been abandoned.30
Shortly after Simonds and 5 CAD settled into the new bivouac at Altamura, Crerar and his corps establishment moved from Sicily to set up shop in the same area. Crerar was actively pressing Leese for the corps and its divisions to be assigned an active combat role. But Leese kept assigning segments of the Canadian divisions to tasks that threatened to spread them across Italy, which added nothing to their training and kept them away from combat. Four of Crerar’s artillery regiments were shunted back to Salerno to operate a transit camp for the divisions preparing to invade Anzio. Two days after complying with this order, Crerar was told to dispatch 1,700 men for refugee control duties in Brindisi and Bari. He complied by sending the Royal Canadian Dragoons and more artillerymen.
Crerar complained directly to Alexander, who replied that it was “in no sense derogatory to ask fighting troops to carry out such duties when for any reaso
n they cannot be employed on the battlefront.”31 Soon, however, Crerar convinced Leese to allow I Canadian Corps to take over command of its two divisions and begin operations in the field by the end of January.
Not all of 5 CAD’s regiments were out of the line during January. As an armoured division, 5 CAD’s operational structure divided it into several distinct elements. One was the 5th Canadian Armoured Brigade, composed of the Lord Strathcona’s Horse, 8th Princess Louise New Brunswick Hussars, and British Columbia Dragoons. These were all tank regiments, largely still awaiting their tanks. Also awaiting armoured vehicles was the reconnaissance regiment, the Governor General’s Horse Guards. The motorized Westminster Regiment was continuing to equip itself with vehicles to fulfill its mobile role. Collectively, these units provided 5 CAD with its mobile armoured component. The division also included the 11th Canadian Infantry Brigade, with three regiments: the Perth Regiment, the Cape Breton Highlanders, and the Irish Regiment of Canada. These regiments were intended to support the armoured brigade in combat operations.
As the infantry brigade was not hampered by the lack of tanks and also less affected by the shortages of trucks and other vehicles, Simonds requested in early January that 11 CIB be sent forward “to get its first experience of contact with the enemy.” On January 4, he advised its commander, thirty-four-year-old Brigadier George Kitching, that 11 CIB would relieve 1 CID’s 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade on the front lines north of Ortona. The brigade’s diarist wrote, “The intention is to ‘break us in easily.’ We shall soon see whether it is ‘easy’ or not.”32
3
BAPTISM OF FIRE
Just before dark on January 12, Perth Regiment Private Stan Scislowski marched with the rest of ‘D’ Company through the eerie ruins of Ortona. The entire regiment was strung out in a long slender thread snaking its way single file through the town. A number of troops from the Loyal Edmonton Regiment stood watching from the doorways of the few scattered houses that remained more or less intact. Along with the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, the Edmontons had spent eight December days fighting, often hand-to-hand, with men of the elite 1st Parachute Division for possession of the town. They were still bloodied, exhausted, and all too glad to see somebody else manning the Canadian front-line positions.
Two days earlier, Scislowski and his mates in No. 18 Platoon had listened with a mixture of trepidation and anticipation as Captain Sam Ridge explained that the opposing line was still held by the paratroopers. “These guys you’re going up against are fanatics,” he said, “and their greatest wish is to die for their Führer.” Ridge smiled. “And it’s your duty to see that their wishes come true.” Scislowski and the others responded with a rousing cheer.1
A few of the men were still feeling cocky. One, referring to 1st Canadian Infantry Division’s red identification sleeve patches, joked loudly to a clutch of Edmontons: “Okay, you red patch bastards, you can get your lily-white asses to hell out of here, because you’re looking at real soldiers now. We’ll show you what the hell fightin’s all about!”2 Within hours of 11th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s arrival, the story of the derogatory remark made by the Perth in Ortona had raced through the entire ranks of 1 CID. Royal Canadian Regiment Acting Lieutenant Colonel Strome Galloway laughed when he heard the story. “We’ll show you red patch bastards how it’s done,” he muttered. “I doubt it.” Galloway knew that Brigadier George Kitching, whom he had served with in the RCR prior to the Sicily invasion, commanded the brigade. Another old RCR hand, Lieutenant Colonel Bobby Clark, led the Irish Regiment. Galloway expected the new infantry brigade would soon learn the harsh reality of combat.3
Major General Chris Vokes told Kitching that his task was to “build up a detailed picture of the enemy defence on the brigade’s front. This was to be obtained by forward observation during daylight and by intensive patrolling at night.”4 Between the Canadian and German lines was the riverbed of the Riccio River, which remained dry despite the heavy rains and occasional snow that had fallen in past weeks. The enemy positions on the opposing bank were well concealed, as were those of the Canadians. Everyone lived underground in slit trenches, shell craters, root cellars, or behind the stout walls of shell-battered farmhouses and outbuildings. Within a couple of days of the brigade’s getting settled into their soggy slit trenches, Vokes summoned Kitching for another meeting.
Kitching and Vokes were physical opposites — Vokes a big, burly, rough-hewn man with a loud, profane, bullying manner; Kitching slender, soft-spoken, and possessed of English public–school manners. Yet the two had become fast friends during their service in Sicily and had spent some rollicking leave times in May 1943 prior to the launch of Operation Husky, drinking and carousing through Cairo’s finer hotels and watering holes. Vokes gravely told Kitching his instructions were changed and, on January 17, 11 CIB would attempt to seize the plateau on the northern shore of the Riccio, which overlooked the lower reaches of the Arielli River. Its capture, Vokes said, “would be a valuable territorial gain.”5
Possibly more important, the attack would fulfill a directive from theatre commander General Harold Alexander for Eighth Army to maintain pressure on the Adriatic front to keep German divisions from being shifted westward where they might interfere with the forthcoming Anzio landings. Accordingly, V Corps commander Lieutenant General Charles Allfrey — under whose command 1 CID continued to serve until I Canadian Corps reached operational status at month’s end — decided the newly arrived brigade should be blooded.
Vokes opposed the operation and tried hard to get the attack order rescinded. Having just brought 1 CID through a month of hellish battles during which he had repeatedly squandered his reserves and devastated his regiments through ill-conceived one-battalion assaults against heavily entrenched German positions, Vokes knew the hard way the folly of such ventures. He thought the major strategic goal behind this order was based on a far-fetched premise. How could a brigade-sized attack on the Adriatic divert enemy attention away from Cassino? This would work only, he later wrote, if “the enemy believed it to herald a renewal of the Eighth Army offensive. The Germans were not military incompetents. They knew full well . . . any attack mounted on the Adriatic front in the prevailing mud had to be a very limited operation. Furthermore they were fully aware it had little or no prospect of success against organized defence.”
Allfrey told Vokes to get on with the attack precisely because of its “diversionary connotations.” Then, incredibly, Allfrey emphasized that Vokes ensure the brigade did not suffer heavy casualties. How, Vokes wondered, can “I prevent heavy casualties in an operation in which they would inevitably be so?” What did Allfrey consider heavy casualties, anyway? “How will I know if casualties have become heavy?” Vokes knew from the December fighting that it was impossible to get accurate casualty reports in “the heat of action. Such reports are often exaggerated and very inaccurate. Once infantry is committed to an assault there is no way to avoid casualties, whether they be ‘heavy’ or ‘light,’ if the attack is to be pressed home. It is only possible for the assaulting troops to count heads when the fighting dies down, usually at night.” Vokes decided that “it would be impossible for me to assess the degree of casualties suffered by the 11th Brigade until the end of the day’s fighting.”
The fact that 11 CIB was a green outfit ensured heavy casualties. Vokes considered the brigade “well trained and eager for combat, but this would be their first battle, their baptism of fire. They would be forced to assault, as inexperienced troops, in the worst possible going conditions.” And they faced the 1st German Parachute Division, which “all ranks of the 1st Canadian Division regarded with respect. I doubted whether any other infantry brigade in the whole Eighth Army, no matter how battle seasoned, could succeed in the task given to the 11th Brigade. It was asking too much as it could only result in very heavy casualties with no hope of success.”6
Vokes, however, had his orders and he passed the task to Kitching, leaving the details to a man he knew to
be a competent, battle-experienced officer. Kitching’s men might be green, but their commander was not. While Vokes stood back and gave Kitching operational freedom, Allfrey stepped in and interfered. Allfrey had an idea about how to bring the attack off successfully and made sure Kitching planned his deployments accordingly. Allfrey’s plan was to direct all available artillery in the corps ahead of a single attacking battalion. Once that battalion followed this sheet of shrapnel and blasted through to its objective, another battalion would advance, protected by a second wave of corps artillery, and then the third battalion would receive identical support. Allfrey was convinced the paratroops would be stunned by the massive bombardment and so disorganized that 11 CIB could charge through and gain the objective. This scheme meant that Kitching’s leading battalion would have to operate without support from the brigade’s other battalions for several hours, until the guns could institute a new firing plan.
Although Kitching thought “it might be better to disperse the enemy’s counter fire by attacking with two battalions,” he did not voice his opinion, and he agreed to Allfrey’s proposed course without complaint. He thought that perhaps Allfrey was right in arguing that “the overwhelming fire support of sixteen artillery regiments would neutralize the enemy during that critical period when our leading companies would close with him.”7 Kitching was also confident that the tank support provided by the Three Rivers Regiment, which he had fought alongside in Sicily with excellent results, would ensure the attacking battalion had a good shot at taking its objective.