by Mark Zuehlke
On the same day these radio operations were detected, 1st Canadian Infantry Division radios went silent and the division withdrew covertly from the front line to the Campobasso area. On April 28, however, German intelligence began picking up radio intercepts from what appeared to be 1 CID’s HQ now established at Nocera, ten miles from Salerno. Soon radio messages, some coded, some broadcast in the clear, were being regularly intercepted.3
These messages revealed that 1 CID, supported by two regiments of 5 CAD, was engaged in an exercise code-named Wilderness along a ten-mile section of coast just north of Ogliastro Marina. Ogliastro was situated on a promontory forming the southern coastal boundary of the Gulf of Salerno. With the support of Royal Navy transport and combat ships and elements of the Desert Air Force, it appeared that the Canadians were practising an opposed amphibious landing. The exercise, started on April 28, was scheduled to terminate on May 3, with an actual mock assault against beaches on May 2.
Maps were pulled from drawers and the terrain surrounding Ogliastro was subjected to intense scrutiny by German intelligence. The topographical profile of this area was then carefully compared to coastal sections of the Tyrrhenian Sea still under German control. The resemblance between Ogliastro and the area immediately to the north of the German-controlled port Civitavecchia was striking. Even more so when the presence in the mock assault of a notional airfield just north of Ogliastro was revealed by messages regarding that target’s capture. At Tarquinia, just a few miles north and inland of Civitavecchia, there was an airstrip that corresponded with the map reference being used by the Canadians to represent the notional airfield. As Civitavecchia was just forty-five miles northwest of Rome, it could well be the target for a forthcoming amphibious invasion intended to outflank both the German Tenth and Fourteenth armies. A successful landing that far north by two Canadian divisions supported by an armoured brigade and an American infantry division could prove disastrous.4
Δ Supplying 11th Canadian Infantry Brigade regiments stationed on International Ridge in April 1944 was only possible by mules. A supply column sets off from the rear area supply depot toward the ridge.
— STRATHY SMITH, NAC, PA-166756
On March 3, 1944, Lieutenant General Harry Crerar (right) turned command of I Canadian Corps over to Lieutenant General Tommy Burns (left). — ALEXANDER MACKENZIE STIRTON, NAC, PA-132784
∇ Westminster Regiment Private W. Sutherland (left) and Cape Breton Highlanders Regiment Private V.A. Keddy repack comporations for transport to International Ridge.
— STRATHY SMITH, NAC, PA-151177
Major General Chris Vokes treats personnel of the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment to one of his trademark speeches peppered with bombast and profanity, May 13, 1944.
— C.E. NYE, NAC, PA-132770
Δ By the time the Canadians arrived in the Liri Valley area in late April, the town of Cassino had been destroyed by repeated aerial and artillery bombardment. In the background, above the town, is the ruin of a medieval-era castle.
— W.H. AGNEW, NAC, PA-136204
General Sir Oliver Leese (seated in car) faced his first major test as British Eighth Army commander during the May fighting in the Liri Valley.
— STRATHY SMITH, NAC, PA-131420
In late April, I Canadian Corps undertook a major move over the Apennine Mountains to Italy’s west coast to participate in Operation Diadem. The roads through the mountains were ill-suited to handle large amounts of military traffic.
— STRATHY SMITH, NAC, PA-140132
To prevent the Germans defending the Gustav Line from realizing that a major offensive was imminent, positions were thoroughly camouflaged. The headquarters of 3rd Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery, for example, was dug into a hillside and screened with sandbags in such a way that from the air it would appear to be part of the natural landscape.
— J. ERNEST DEGUIRE, NAC, PA-140133
Operation Nunton — a major radio and communications network deception scheme carried out by I Canadian Corps — deceived the Germans into thinking that the Canadians were preparing an amphibious operation against the German rear rather than joining the direct assault up the Liri Valley.
— J. ERNEST DEGUIRE, NAC, PA-143895
Δ Δ Heavy mortars of I Canadian Corps added the weight of their firepower to the massive barrage of May 11–12 against the Gustav Line.
— C.E. NYE, NAC, PA-116819
Δ Daybreak found the Canadian artillery still firing in support of the attacking British infantry regiments and 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade. Here, a Canadian self-propelled gun loader casts a shell casing overboard immediately after firing.
— ALEXANDER MACKENZIE STIRTON, NAC, PA-139892
Major Strome Galloway realized early in 1944 that not being a Permanent Force officer would deny him the possibility of ever commanding the Royal Canadian Regiment.
— PHOTO COURTESY OF STROME GALLOWAY
A Sherman tank of the 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade crosses a Bailey bridge over the Gari River on May 12. The smoke canisters in the foreground screen the bridge from German observation.
— ALEXANDER MACKENZIE STIRTON, NAC, PA-173362
Δ A bulldozer of the Royal Canadian Engineers’ Field Park Company improves the approach to a Gari River bridge crossing.
— ALEXANDER MACKENZIE STIRTON, NAC, PA-142069
The shattered ruin of the village of San Angelo looks down upon the hastily erected London Bridge spanning the Gari River.
— ALEXANDER MACKENZIE STIRTON, NAC, PA-193898
Δ A 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade Sherman advances toward a Gari River crossing point on May 11.
— ALEXANDER MACKENZIE STIRTON, NAC, PA-139890
A German soldier emerges from the ruins of a village across the Gari River to surrender.
— ALEXANDER MACKENZIE STIRTON, NAC, PA-167301
∇ 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade vehicles and tanks wait for orders to cross a Gari River Bailey bridge that is being concealed from enemy observation by a heavy smoke screen.
— ALEXANDER MACKENZIE STIRTON, NAC, PA-177098
Canadian infantrymen advance into the open countryside beyond the Gari River, supported by artillery concentrations directed against the facing ridgeline.
— G. BARRY GILROY, NAC, PA-141698
Men of the Carleton and York Regiment advance beyond Pignataro on May 16.
— ALEXANDER MACKENZIE STIRTON, NAC, PA-166753
Intense German shelling sends a group of Canadians scrambling for cover.
— ALEXANDER MACKENZIE STIRTON, NAC, PA-136205
Despite the overall dry conditions, the poor tracks that Canadian regiments had to use to advance up the Liri Valley quickly broke up under heavy motorized traffic.
— STRATHY SMITH, NAC, PA-140208
Major General Bert Hoffmeister believed he could exercise better divisional control from a highly mobile tactical headquarters that consisted of his tank Vancouver and a large armoured command vehicle (visible to left). Here, Hoffmeister is shown looking out of the turret hatch on May 26, 1944.
— STRATHY SMITH, NAC, PA-201346
Δ Major General Bert Hoffmeister briefs 5th Canadian Armoured Division personnel on their role in the planned breakout from the Hitler Line toward Rome.
— STRATHY SMITH, NAC, PA-189920
Six snipers from the Royal 22e Regiment move into the field on May 23, the day of the major offensive against the Hitler Line.
— W.R. AGNEW, NAC, PA-117835
Such an invasion also matched Commander-in-Chief Southwest Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring’s personal fears. Kesselring was convinced that the Allies would attempt a spring amphibious invasion at either Civitavecchia or Leghorn “to force a decision more cheaply by landings” than by launching a single-front offensive to break through the Gustav Line in the Liri Valley. Kesselring knew that the divisions he had in Italy were too extended to successfully counter a well-coordinated invasion “by superior land, sea, and air force
s.” The defending Germans had no major coastal defence fortifications and could not mount a defence in depth against any landing force. The best he could offer was a thin screen of defence right at the beach. If that defence were breached, the Germans would be hard pressed to contain any aggressive advance.5
Knowing he must immediately throw any invasion force into the sea or face defeat, Kesselring moved the 90th Panzer Grenadier Division to guard the coast from the Anzio beachhead north to the southern bank of the Tiber River and the 29th Panzer Grenadier Division to the Civitavecchia area. The 3rd Panzer Grenadier and 26th Panzer Grenadier divisions were put on readiness either to respond to an offensive in the Liri Valley or to move rapidly to reinforce whichever coastal section was struck by an amphibious landing.6
Through the top secret Ultra operation, which had broken the codes used by Germany’s Enigma encryption machines, Deputy Supreme Commander Mediterranean General Harold Alexander’s staff happily read decoded German high-command messages that showed Kesselring doing virtually nothing to reinforce the Gustav Line at Cassino. Instead, he was actually drawing divisions away to meet the potential threat of a Canadian invasion fleet. Since the German air force in Italy, Luftflotte 2, was barely able to conduct any daytime aerial reconnaissance flights over Allied lines, Kesselring was operating almost blind.7 His only relatively reliable means of determining the whereabouts and activities of the enemy was through wireless transmission intercepts, reports from patrols penetrating the Allied front lines, and sightings made by the many observation posts that were monitoring activities in the Liri Valley from the surrounding heights. With the exception of 11 CIB on International Ridge, the Canadians had disappeared from the front lines. It was consequently easy for Kesselring to accept at face value the radio traffic emanating from the Salerno area.
There was no invasion force. The only Canadians in the Salerno area were 37 officers and 191 men operating sixty-one radio sets from the confines of sixty signal trucks.8 The messages they sent back and forth and up the communication line to Eighth Army headquarters were drawn from a carefully written script drafted over a two-month period by Alexander’s intelligence staff. Alexander knew Kesselring was obsessed with amphibious attacks and so had ordered a scenario created that would feed on his fearful preoccupations. Dubbed Nunton, the scheme was an elaborate ruse intended to mislead Kesselring and his staff about the true location of I Canadian Corps, which was being carefully safeguarded by an equally elaborate exercise in concealment.9 Keeping I Canadian Corps’s whereabouts hidden was vital to ensuring Alexander’s bluff was not exposed.10
Under cover of darkness on May 1, Lieutenant Patrick Harrison directed the four guns of ‘F’ Troop in ‘C’ Battery of the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery into a thicket of trees. These hid its new gun position situated just behind the crest of a hill looking toward Monte Cassino. Digging in was relatively easy, because the position had previously been occupied by a gun troop of the British 78th Division. The British left behind nine gun pits — four for upper register firing and five for lower register firing. The pits designed for upper register firing were steep ramps, so that the gun wheels could be run up the ramp, the trail lines anchored at the bottom, and a 45-degree angle attained that could bring plunging fire down on targets inside ravines or behind hills.
Since landing in Sicily, Harrison had never fired an upper register mission and didn’t anticipate doing so now. He ordered his crews to set their 25-pounder field guns up in the best of the existing, basically level, lower register pits and to empty the trailers and trucks of their ammunition. Then most of the unit’s vehicles were taken to the rear where they could be well hidden. The men sweated in the humid, warm spring night digging hides near the guns in which to stash the ammunition and to improve the gun pits. Once the guns were in place and the ammunition stowed, camouflage netting was installed to help conceal their presence. Telephone lines were soon strung, linking Harrison’s troop command post to all the guns, and radio communication was established to the battery headquarters. Before sunrise, Harrison’s gun troop was ready to carry out any firing missions that came its way. Not that the gunnery officer expected anything this morning. The Canadian gunners were supposed to lie low so their presence in the Liri Valley would remain unknown to the Germans.
In the growing dawn light, Harrison walked fifty yards up the hill into the ruins of the little hamlet of San Michelle. There, about 7,000 yards to the northwest, he saw for the first time the shattered hulking form of the Abbey of Monte Cassino, with Monte Cairo rising up massively behind. The two features were partially screened by smoke, and as Harrison looked on more smoke shells burst, adding further to the concealing fog intended to prevent German observation units from seeing the Allied activity in the valley bottom. In front of Monte Cassino, the town of Cassino appeared to have been laid waste by the fighting and the more devastating artillery and aerial bombardments.
A thick, greasy grey-black fog blanketed the valley to the west of his position.11 This was the product of a massive Eighth Army–wide smoke-generation operation. Throughout the army’s positions, hundreds of fuel barrels were kept replenished with a slow-burning oil mixture that cloaked the ground in a turgidly churning cloud that limited visibility in the low-lying parts of the valley to about 200 yards.12 In I Canadian Corps’s sector alone, 2,250 of the barrels officially identified as either No. 24 or No. 38 Smoke Canisters were employed, with between forty and eighty generators installed at each designated Emission Point.13 The putrid stench of these fires mingled with the reek of death that seemed to hang over the valley and emanated particularly strongly from the wreckage of Cassino. How many bodies lay unburied among the town’s ruins was beyond imagining. The twenty-four-year-old former bank clerk who had enlisted in Winnipeg on March 15, 1940, just two days before his twentieth birthday, walked back to his gun position thinking that the entire scene he had just looked upon was about the grimmest and most darkly depressing he had ever witnessed.14
He had little time to dwell on this, however, as the gun troops of ‘C’ Battery RCHA had been attached to the 77th Field Regiment of the Royal Artillery. Soon Harrison and the other officers of the battery were receiving firing coordinates and timing schedules for a smoke shoot that would be laid down that night to obscure the movement of supply columns coming up to replenish the front-line units with ammunition, food, and other necessary supplies. Without the artillery-created smokescreen, the columns would have been nakedly exposed under moonlight or German star shell and illumination flare fire. Although the German artillery was heavily outgunned by a ratio of about four guns to one, the Allies had little idea where the German batteries were hiding and could not silence them. Therefore, they tried to blind the spotters so they would be unable to direct their artillery, mortar, and Nebelwerfer fire. Called “cigarettes,” these smokescreen artillery missions were to be part of Harrison’s nightly ritual until the big offensive to cross the Gari River got under way.
While ‘C’ Battery prepared for its first “cigarette” mission, ‘A’ and ‘B’ batteries settled into the new positions they had occupied on the night of May 1 inside leafy olive groves. By dawn, a large network of camouflage nets that rendered the eight guns virtually invisible a few yards away had supplemented this naturally excellent cover. The grove was situated behind Monte Trocchio, where Major George Browne quickly established an observation point called Whiskey. From its position on the leading edge of a razor-backed ridge jutting out on the plain to the southwest of Cassino, Browne could observe the fall of shot from the two batteries and make corrections as needed. Hard to hide in, the spot was in constant danger of attracting enemy fire if the observing officer was detected. Browne alternated with Captain F.P.O. (Paddy) Leask on this hazardous duty. Supporting their efforts was Lieutenant Norm Cram, kept busy most nights and often during the day crawling along the telephone line running from Whiskey back to the Regimental Command Post to repair breaks created by the frequent enemy shelling and mortaring.15<
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During their first day in the new position, the gunners of ‘A’ and ‘B’ batteries spent several hours carefully sawing through the trunks of the trees standing directly in front of the guns. When the trees were nearly severed, they were secured in place by lines tied to untouched adjacent trees. This procedure was under way at many Eighth Army gun positions, so that when the major barrage that would precede the assault on the Gustav Line began, the trees could be dropped flat on the ground. This would ensure the trees would neither hamper the line of fire when the guns were swung to new firing coordinates nor be set ablaze by the muzzle blasts emanating from the rapidly firing weapons. Lance Sergeant Victor Bulger of ‘B’ Battery’s ‘D’ Troop didn’t like this scheme of removing the trees. From the front of the grove, through the haze created by the oil-burning barrels scattered around their position, they could see the vague outline of Monte Cassino and Monte Cairo. Bulger thought that when the trees were pulled aside, the Germans would see them manning their guns and they would be in for a hell of a lot of counter-battery fire.