by Mark Zuehlke
Thirty-year-old Peter Stursberg, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation correspondent, recorded his impressions. “The night is lit by the flashes of the guns. It’s just as though hundreds of arc lights were flickering and sputtering in the valley and behind the mountains too. The white flames bring the hills out in black relief. . . . Sometimes it’s so bright that I can see the CBC engineer, Lloyd Moore, bending over our equipment recording this. . . . It’s an amazing and terrifying sight and yet thrilling. I don’t know how to describe it properly in words, and I think it is easier for you to picture it by listening.” He held the microphone up and for several seconds Moore’s recording device captured the incessant booming of the guns. “There are guns in front of us,” Stursberg then explained. “They’re the ones that make the sharp cracks — and guns behind us — if you listen carefully you’ll hear the whoosh of their shells going over our heads.”38
At the headquarters of the Royal Canadian Regiment, Major Strome Galloway joined the rest of the regimental staff on the verandah of the house they occupied. Although their position was almost sixty miles away from the gun lines, the flashing of the weapons lit the sky so brightly that when Galloway opened a newspaper he found it easy to read the small print.39
So, too, did Lieutenant Patrick Harrison of the RCHA’s ‘C’ Battery, ‘F’ Troop. With little to do once his four guns went into action according to the fire plan worked out earlier, Harrison stood outside his command post and read the paper “just to be able to say I did it.” Harrison believed the counter-battery bombardment that the Allied gunners were laying down must be devastating the enemy, for it was estimated that a hundred guns were firing for every German gun deployed along the Gustav Line. The men worked the guns feverishly, maintaining a steady, unrelenting rhythm of three shells per minute until, at 2340 hours, the order to cease fire was given.40
Like the other gun crews, Bulger’s had no time to rest. Another firing program, scheduled to begin in fifty-five minutes, would directly support the attacking divisions with a combination of high-explosive and smoke shells. He and his men spent the time between shoots quickly checking and servicing their gun, piling the empty shell casings out of the way, and bringing fresh ammunition to hand. There was no thought of sleep. Men wiped blood away from ears battered by the tremendous concussion and wadded cotton batting back into them or wrapped their heads in heavy cloths to provide some scant protection.41 At 0035 hours on May 12, the guns resumed firing. They would continue to fire with only brief pauses throughout the night and on through the rest of the day. By day’s end, the RCHA alone had fired 10,248 rounds — its largest firing scheme to date.42
Journalist Stursberg visited one of the British medium gun emplacements during the firing program of May 11–12 and recorded his impressions for later broadcast. Around the Gari River, he said, lay “a nightmare land that shakes and trembles as though pounded by a sledgehammer and the sounds of the fearful rushing noises that might be the angel of death on wings. At no time in the war has the Eighth Army had so many guns. And the Eighth Army is very fond of artillery. Remember the barrage at El Alamein, the hundreds of thousands of shells that were fired during the battle of the Moro River? Well, they are small shoots now.” The gunners of the medium battery, Stursberg said, would fire more shells in these two days than were fired during all of the previous Italian campaign. “They are tired, these gunners. Their eyes red-rimmed from the dust and smoke and the lack of sleep. . . . But the shells that the gunners are firing are breaking up the Gustav Line. . . . That bloody little creek which is no more than forty feet wide,” he declared, “was the main ditch before the German defenses.” The battle, he said, was all but won.43
The radio correspondent’s prediction was premature, for the battle raged on, its outcome very much in the balance.
7
AN UNHOLY BALLS-UP
Fifteen minutes after the barrage ceased at 2355 hours, the 8th Indian Division and the British 4th Division closed on the eastern bank of the Gari River. The men staggered across the spongy ground under the weight of their battle gear and the assault boats they were to use to cross the fast-moving stream. Within minutes of the leading companies’ launching their fragile flat-bottomed craft into the river, things went badly wrong. The current proved stronger than had been experienced during rehearsals on other streams. Many boats were dragged far downriver and units became hopelessly jumbled. This difficulty was only partially addressed when those troops managing to cross in the right sector ran ropes back to the opposite shore so that other boats could be pulled across.1
Frantically paddling troops often overbalanced, causing their boats to flip or swamp. Machine-gun fire slashed boats to pieces or rendered them adrift when the men aboard were all killed or wounded. Most of the men who ended up in the water drowned as their eighty-pound equipment loads dragged them like stones to the river bottom.2 A terrific number of boats were lost. By dawn, one brigade of British 4th Division had only five of its forty assigned boats still afloat.3
Although the thick mist so blinded the Indian and British infantry that they were unable to see the defenders, the Germans were largely unaffected. Following a predetermined firing plan, they saturated the river and its banks with automatic weapons fire and mortar rounds. The massive artillery barrage had failed to suppress the German machine-gunners and riflemen.4 They were there in force and suffering no apparent shortage of ammunition. The dead quickly piled up on the riverbank, mingling with the badly rotted corpses of American and German soldiers never recovered or buried after a failed assault on January 20, 1944, by the 36th U.S. Infantry Division, in which 1,681 men were killed or wounded in a fruitless forty-eight-hour battle.5
When the artillery began the scheduled creeping barrage which the infantry was to advance behind at a rate of 100 yards every six minutes, the Indian regiments were unable to follow. German small-arms fire never slackened, even when the artillery fire crawled over the weapon pits and pillboxes on the ridge. The Indians could only start frantically digging in on the river’s western bank. Those companies that did try to fight their way up to the ridgeline and capture San Angelo simply disappeared into the fog, many never to be seen again. Battalion commanders lost all radio communication with these companies, since most of the sets they had carried across the river either broke down or were knocked out. When the company and platoon commanders tried to indicate their positions by firing flares, the fog swallowed the bright light. Some resorted to having men shout traditional war cries so the company commander would know where platoons were. The few platoons and sections that did close on the ridge were mired in minefields or hung up in the tangles of barbed wire the artillery had failed to blast out of the way.
In the first twenty-four hours, the 8th Indian Division had been scheduled to complete three tasks. First, establish a bridgehead; second, expand that bridgehead to a depth of about 2,000 yards; and, finally, clear any opposition from San Angelo and consolidate its hold on the Horseshoe. Once this was achieved, British 78th Division, currently in reserve, would pass through and broaden XIII Corps’s grip on the western shore. Then I Canadian Corps could sweep through and crack into the Hitler Line.
By dawn, the attack was in a shambles, with the twenty-four-hour schedule thrown completely out the window. The two divisions held only precarious beachheads on the river edge and desperately needed armoured support just to hold on.6 For the tankers of the Ontario and Calgary regiments waiting to cross the river, it was possible to read the perilous state of things from the sound of the battle that drifted back from the western shore. While the crack of British Lee Enfield rifles and the slow thudding fire of Bren guns could be heard, the sound that threatened to drown out all else was the sheet-tearing rip of German MG42 light machine guns that could loose up to 1,200 rounds a minute.
At the earliest, the bridges were now scheduled to be up after 0830 hours. Until then, the Canadians could only fidget impatiently in their Shermans while men they had worked with in the past f
ought and died a few hundred feet away.7 Lieutenant Al Cawsey of the Calgary Regiment’s ‘C’ Squadron was to have led his troop across a bridge code-named Cardiff in British 4th Infantry’s sector, north of San Angelo. However, at about 0300 hours, construction of this bridge had been abandoned because the site was subject to withering small-arms fire. The entire squadron consequently shifted a few hundred yards left to where Oxford Bridge was being built in 8th Indian Division’s sector, about three-quarters of a mile south of San Angelo. Hearing their wait would be at least another half-hour and being well sheltered from German fire by an interposing hill, Cawsey and his crew took advantage of the time to eat a quick breakfast and even have a shave and wash. While they were busy with their ablutions, the men followed the battle’s progress on the tank radio set. Directly across the river from their position, the 3rd Punjabi Regiment was having a very tough time. Many casualties had been suffered, including Major Sujohn Singh, who was reported killed. Cawsey had worked previously with the major, and the two had become friends.
The Canadian tankers had first fought alongside the 8th Indian Division in the mountains west of Ortona. Upon learning that they would support the Indian attack on the Gustav Line, everyone had been delighted. Most of the battalions were composed of either Punjabi or Gurkha troops, equally known for their steady bravery and fierce combat skills. The language barrier proved only a minor problem, since Indian and Canadian troops could usually communicate with each other in pidgin Italian and all the Indian officers spoke English. During combat training, the tankers taught the infantry to indicate where they wanted the tank’s main gun or machine guns directed by firing a burst of tracer fire from their light machine guns into the target area.
Like many of the tankers, twenty-five-year-old Major Frederick Ritchie, who commanded ‘B’ Squadron of the Calgary Regiment, was both amused by and fond of the Indian division’s commander, Major General Dudley Russell, known as “Pasha” Russell by almost everyone in his division and consequently by the Canadian tankers. Russell had a large, walrus moustache, wore sandals instead of combat boots, and carried a shepherd’s crook that he used to point out things that caught his attention. He seemed to be fluent in every Indian dialect spoken by his troops and often paused to chat with privates or corporals, apparently taking into account their interpretation of developments as much as that provided by his officers. Ritchie knew the major general spent many hours every night reading all patrol or after-action reports filed to the divisional staff, but he frequently showed up in the forward areas by 0900 hours to see things for himself. He was, Ritchie thought, one of the last of the breed of old India officers who knew well how to lead Indian troops and bring out the best of their exceptional fighting abilities.
Russell and his officers were at pains to consult the tankers in the same way they did their own troops. Ritchie never heard an 8th Indian officer tell a tanker, “You are under my command. I order you to do such and such.” Instead, the common line was “I say, what can you do for us here?” The Canadians would then discuss the matter with the infantry officers and quickly work out a plan that best got the job done. Ritchie thought the Indian division’s approach resulted from its senior staff’s being very experienced soldiers and passing that experience down to every level of command. It seemed a refreshing change from the way the tankers had generally been treated by officers in 1st Canadian Infantry Division, who often seemed to think they knew more about tank tactics than did the tankers.
If the Indian troops were having a hell of a time across the Gari, Ritchie knew it was not for lack of valour, determination, or ability. They needed support, plain and simple.8 But the fog was blinding the artillery gunners from doing more than shelling selected grids. It also prevented the Three Rivers Regiment squadrons from providing the promised direct fire support against specified targets.* And the engineers were having a harder time than expected installing the bridges. If they failed to complete the task, every tanker knew the infantry divisions on the other side could be destroyed. That would mean the failure of the entire offensive.9
In the shelter of a small copse a few miles back from the Gari River, Captain H.A. Kingsmill was orchestrating the last details required to undertake launching an innovative new form of bridging that he and his staff had invented over the past few weeks. Twenty-four-year-old Tony Kingsmill was an officer of the Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. He commanded the Calgary Tank Regiment’s RCEME 61 Light Aid Detachment. A native of Toronto and a graduate of the University of Toronto’s engineering program, he had trained as a chemical engineer but had also studied mechanical engineering. Using sheer eyeball engineering methods, Kingsmill and his team had designed a mobile bridge that could be driven into position already fully constructed.
The decision to build a new type of bridge had developed out of a shortage of normal bridging materials for the offensive. Calgary Tanks commander Lieutenant Colonel Cyril H. Neroutsos had been deeply concerned when the XIII Corps planning for the offensive allowed construction of just one bridge in his sector — Oxford. Neroutsos told Major General Russell that being dependent on only one bridge would seriously hinder the ability of the tankers to adequately support the 8th Indian Division attack. Russell agreed, but the two officers could think of no immediate solution.
When they discussed the matter with some of their staff officers, the 8th’s Lieutenant Colonel Schoolhouse asked, “Well, why can’t we build a Bailey bridge and push it across the damned river? It’s only a couple hundred yards wide.” Neroutsos and Russell thought the idea humorous at first blush, but the more the Canadian lieutenant colonel pondered the scheme the more practicable it seemed.10
Meanwhile, the Calgary Tanks technical adjutant, Captain Bert Linnel, told Kingsmill that nobody could figure out how to position a 30-ton Bailey bridge over the Gari River because the area was so terribly exposed to German fire. Making such an attempt in the conventional manner, Linnel said, would be suicide for the engineers. When Linnel told Kingsmill about the crazy tank-bridge idea, he agreed it was foolish. Then the two men shrugged and decided to take a good hard look at a Bailey bridge.
Kingsmill later wrote: “After a few hours of looking and measuring, it became obvious that to have a Bailey bridge on top of a Sherman tank, it would be necessary to remove the turret. Eventually, we conceived the idea of welding a launching ramp with the four rocking rollers to the turret ring that rotates the turret. The launching ramp beam was twenty feet long, which would be strong enough to carry a 30-ton Bailey bridge. By welding the beam to the turret ring we could rotate the beam 90 degrees so that it was parallel to the tank. This meant we could drive the turretless tank with the launching beam down a normal road.”11
Kingsmill realized that one tank alone would not suffice, since there was no way to control the bridge’s launching or positioning from the tank it was mounted on. The solution was to tie the back end of the bridge to a second tank and have the first tank drive into the river with the bridge on top of it. The rear tank would then push the bridge across the river by sliding it along the carrier tank’s installed roller system. Kingsmill and Linnel decided the idea was feasible, but it needed testing.
Enlisting the help of a platoon of Royal Sikh Engineers commanded by Captain Cyril Howe, Kingsmill rustled up four Calgary tanks. Along with the tanks came four drivers and a wireless operator, Trooper Ian Seymour of Calgary. After several days of planning, the team mounted a bridge on a turretless tank and, using a mechanism that could be released by pulling a single pin, hooked it to a rear tank. The release mechanism allowed for speed and simplicity because the operation would be conducted under enemy fire. The engineers successfully launched the prototype over a large hole dug in a field. Kingsmill reported to Neroutsos that the idea was practical, but more trials showed that the pin release could be prone to problems. A simpler method for releasing the rear tank from the bridge was just to wrap plastic explosive around the fitting and blow it apart once the bridge was in
place. On May 5, a test launch was conducted across a river with Russell and his staff present. While not entirely successful, the bridge was included in the overall battle plan. Kingsmill was told he had six days to get everything ready to go, as the launch must take place on the night of May 11–12.
Up to now, Kingsmill had been approaching the whole thing in quite theoretical terms. He had given no thought to where the bridge should actually be launched and had little direct battlefield experience. Howe, however, had built many a bridge under fire and said he knew what kind of site to look for. The two men slipped down to the Gari River in the middle of the night under a full moon. Holding the end of a measuring tape in his mouth, Howe swam into the river and was soon being swept away by the strong current. Clinging to his end of the tape and to Howe’s clothes, Kingsmill ran along the shore trying to keep up with Howe. About 100 yards downstream, the engineer managed to return to shore. The river, they decided, was somewhere between sixty and eighty yards wide and where they stood made as good a launching point as any.12
Russell, meanwhile, was having second thoughts and asked Neroutsos if he wanted to abandon the scheme. Neroutsos replied that he still believed in it and was intending that the bridge — named Plymouth — would carry most of his traffic. One squadron would cross on Oxford, he said; the rest of the regiment would use Plymouth. Neroutsos ordered the creation of two duplicate bridge systems, each served by its own engineering platoon. For the launch, Trooper George MacLean from Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia, was selected as the carrier driver and Seymour as the radio operator.13