by Mark Zuehlke
He also contended that the persistent fog that blanketed the valley each morning blinded the Germans as much as it did the Allies. Beach suggested that the brigade’s three regiments open up “the bloody tanks, put on the sirens, and just roll ahead.” In this way, he said, the Germans would be overwhelmed before they could react because they had few tanks or antitank guns deployed forward that could engage or slow such an armoured juggernaut. Caron patiently heard the young officer out and then went back to outlining XIII Corps headquarters’ plan. Beach had not really believed his idea would be adopted. It was not the way of Eighth Army or General Sir Oliver Leese to ever take a chance. He did, however, feel better for having spoken his mind and appreciated that Caron was willing to let his officers do so.3
‘C’ Squadron crossed Oxford Bridge at 0100 hours on May 14, followed by ‘B’ Squadron at 0400, and ‘A’ Squadron and the regimental headquarters tanks at 0500. Although control of the bridgehead was considered firmly in XIII Corps’s hands, Beach found this hard to believe as the headquarters unit formed up for its crossing. “It was an eerie feeling,” he wrote, “to move along, and visibility nil, due to fog and heavy smoke screens laid to cover the bridges. There were several halts; finally up to the bridge and our tank drivers took them over. Still dark, shells bursting all over, mortars, more lethal crumps, machine gun bullets whining through the air. At last we halted, tight into the side of a little road with steep banks on either side.”4
At the same time Beach was moving out from Oxford, ‘C’ Squadron attacked. The infantry and tanks groped forward through the thick fog, which reduced visibility to little more than twenty yards. The tankers had trouble maintaining contact with the virtually invisible infantry that snaked off into ravines and disappeared into dense vineyards. Deep pockets of mud mired some of the tanks and the Shermans encountered unexpectedly heavy antitank defences.
Headway slowed to a crawl and the Punjabi troops took heavy casualties. As the morning wore on, the tanks pressed 500 or more yards ahead of the infantry, ultimately breaking through to Point 66, the first objective, alone. Just short of the objective, ‘C’ Squadron commander Captain A.E. Wood’s Sherman took a direct hit from a high-explosive shell. Not knowing what kind of shell had struck the tank and fearful it might at any second catch fire, or in tanker parlance “brew up,” the crew bailed out. When it became apparent that the explosion had failed to crack the armour, the men jumped back in. Discovering that his radio had been disabled by the blast, Wood switched to another tank. Behind the tankers, the infantry went to ground every time they encountered machine-gun, mortar, or sniper opposition and their advance soon petered out, leaving ‘C’ Squadron dangerously isolated and forcing it to withdraw.5 Twice more the tanks surged ahead to the objective, but each time the infantry failed to follow and the squadron had to retreat. Although possession of Point 66 continued to change hands, it was obvious to the tankers that the German defenders were absorbing heavy casualties. With each advance, the tanks were able to knock out more defensive positions, particularly after the fog lifted in the late morning. Still, the seesaw battle continued with no sign of a breakthrough.6
Three ‘C’ Squadrons tanks were stuck, two had been knocked out by antitank mines, and one destroyed by an armour-piercing round fired by an antitank gun. The crew of this tank had managed to escape without injury, but Sergeant McKinnon was killed when a mine knocked out his tank, and two of his crewmen were wounded.7 More tanks might have been knocked out by antitank fire, but when Caron learned that a ‘C’ Squadron troop was planning to advance across some ground that on the maps looked particularly exposed he provided outside assistance. “I think the Germans are going to take a shot at them as they go across the valley,” he told Beach. “I think we’ll throw a little smoke down there.” An artillery smoke concentration soon blanketed the little valley and the troop crossed without incident. Its commander radioed back that he had been very happy to see the smoke and had ordered his men “to beetle right across fast as you can.”8
Finally at 1730 hours, ‘B’ Squadron passed through ‘C’ Squadron with the Royal West Kent Regiment, relieving the Punjabi regiment. These fresh units proved too strong for the now exhausted German defenders, and the tanks and infantry quickly crashed through Point 66 and 500 yards beyond. During this advance, they were engaged by two .75-millimetre antitank guns that were both quickly knocked out by the tanks. When the tankers raked several trench lines with machine-gun fire, many of the soldiers manning the position threw down their arms and surrendered.
Shortly after the prisoners were taken, Captain Wood returned to the regimental headquarters and handed Beach a sheet of paper he had confiscated from a surrendered German sergeant. Beach excitedly realized the paper was a sketch map detailing the locations of mines within a field the Germans had laid on May 1 near Ceprano. He immediately sent the map up the line and was pleased to see the details come back a few days later as part of an intelligence summary update issued by army headquarters.9 It was a refreshing change to see something that had been captured at the regimental level given credence by the higher-ups, while Beach was often hard pressed to really use the plentiful stream of data that flowed his way from on high. The information on enemy dispositions, strengths, weapons, and tactics seldom referred to what lay immediately in front of the regiment’s tanks and he had to sift through everything in search of useful grains. Then he had to package that information into an easily digested form that would be useful to the usually harried and often exhausted squadron leaders and troop commanders.10
In mid-afternoon of May 14, however, Beach had received some news from 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade headquarters that was easily digested by everyone in the regiment when he passed it over the radio net. The second front had been opened! A vast Allied armada was landing troops at two locations in France, one at Marseilles and the other at Dieppe. As soon as he relayed the news, Beach could hear the excited chatter on the radio net and the regiment’s morale surged. Beach credited ‘B’ Squadron’s breakout from Point 66 as resulting from this great morale boost.11
News of the second front opening spread throughout XIII Corps as the day went on, energizing everyone. On the corps’s far left flank, ‘A’ Squadron of the Calgary Tank Regiment was so buoyed that it slammed fiercely into the Germans holding a position known as the Liri Appendix. They met only scattered opposition from a relatively small force of German infantry trying to hold this salient, which extended from Panaccioni into a finger of land bordered to the south by the Liri River and to the east by the Gari River. Whenever the infantry were held up by machine-gun positions, the tankers rolled up and the Germans manning the guns immediately surrendered before the Shermans had to fire. After only six hours’ fighting, the Appendix was clear. ‘A’ Squadron and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders formed a line bordering the Liri River and extending north to Panaccioni, thus securing XIII Corps’s left flank.12
Meanwhile, the Ontario Tank Regiment had faced a stiffer fight pushing out of San Angelo with the Royal Fusiliers and the Royal Gurkha Rifles. The objective was a point midway between the village and the Cassino-Pignataro lateral road. ‘C’ Squadron was just pushing off when tanks from the British 26th Armoured Brigade passed through its rear area, causing confusion and congestion. By the time the traffic jam cleared, the attack was late. The infantry and tanks met strong opposition from German infantry and antitank guns, the latter positioned within the thin cover of some hedgerows. The Shermans hammered the exposed weapons with high-explosive shells and left in their wake a string of wrecked guns, while suffering no losses.13
‘B’ Squadron and the Gurkhas had banged directly into a determined German counterattack. An antitank round hit one Sherman and it burst into flames. At 1030 hours, about fifty German infantrymen were observed forming up around some farmhouses to join the counterattack that threatened to drive the Gurkhas back. The Forward Observation Officer for the supporting artillery regiment, who was riding along in one of the t
anks, directed an artillery concentration on the German position. When the concentration came in, however, some rounds landed among the Gurkhas, who hastily retreated. Minutes later, the tank in which the FOO was riding was knocked out by antitank gun fire. The situation became badly confused and ‘B’ Squadron was ordered to withdraw to where the Gurkhas were digging in to fend off the German counterattack. While the other tank troops in the squadron pulled back, Lieutenant R. Mulcaster’s troop failed to hear the order and held firm. As the Germans closed on his position, Mulcaster, who had just erroneously been reported as killed, established radio communication with the artillery regiment and the supposedly dead officer called down effective fire that broke the counterattack.
The rest of ‘B’ Squadron, the Gurkhas, ‘C’ Squadron, and the Royal Fusiliers renewed the attack and, despite one ‘C’ Squadron tank being knocked out by a German Mark IV tank, succeeded in capturing the objective by 1200 hours. Eight German antitank guns, one self-propelled gun, and the Mark IV tank were all destroyed. By 1700 hours, the Ontario tanks and 17th Indian Brigade regiments were well west of San Angelo and in a strong position to drive toward the Cassino-Pignataro lateral road in the morning.14
With the onset of evening, the Canadian tankers were dismayed to hear that the news of a second front being opened in France had been nothing more than an unfounded rumour. Lieutenant Beach described the initial report as “The Ballox of the day. . . . A big let down.”15
For Tenth Army Chief of Staff Generalmajor Fritz Wentzell, May 14 had been a day fraught with disappointment. He realized that “hope of recovering our positions in the Gustav Line had to be abandoned when, on the third day of the offensive, 14th May, the vital sector of the Gustav position from Cassino to the sea, was lost.” Field Marshal Kesselring was less disturbed by events. He told Wentzell that, if required, the “enemy offensive could be stopped on a line somewhat farther back; for example on the Senger [Hitler] Line, or in the Melfa sector, somewhat after the manner in which it had occurred in the Sangro battle.” There, the severed Sangro River line had been reformed first on the Moro River and then again rebuilt on the Arielli River. That position had held throughout the winter of 1943–44. Kesselring told Wentzell that if that success could be repeated “by and large, the basis of our winter position would have been retained.”16 There was, of course, a major difference between the earlier situation and that currently faced. The fighting from the Sangro River to the Arielli River had taken place from November to December and, with the New Year winter rains, had effectively drowned in mud any possibility of immediate large-scale offensive action by Eighth Army. Leese’s army could now expect six months of good campaigning weather, rendering Kesselring’s comparison between the two situations an exercise in optimistic delusion.
So strong was his belief that things were not as desperate as his army commanders were reporting that Kesselring refused to consider a withdrawal to the Senger Line. Since Monte Cassino held firm and much of the ruined town itself was in German hands, he believed the offensive could still be checked if the line between Cassino and the sea were stiffened. Should this happy outcome be realized, Kesselring knew the paratroopers could hold Monte Cassino indefinitely against any attacking force Eighth Army cared to deploy. Everything hinged on preventing the current offensive into the Liri Valley from successfully turning 1st Parachute Division’s right flank. Kesselring ordered the 26th Panzer Grenadiers forward to reinforce the German forces fighting in the Liri Valley, and the reserves of 94th Infantry Division to deploy in the Aurunci Mountains to blunt the French Corps’s advance.17
An intelligence summary prepared at the end of May 14 by I Canadian Corps staff gloomily reported that German resistance from Cassino to Pignataro had strengthened despite the regiment’s losing more than 200 men taken prisoner there. “This definitely indicates the arrival of fresh troops, but who they are is not known at this time,” the report stated. Aerial observation suggested the reinforcements were regiments of the 90th Panzer Grenadier Division, but intelligence staff also believed the new troops could as easily represent a polyglot of units formed into an “ad hoc battle group.” The intelligence report went on to state: “The interesting thing about today’s fighting has been the series of counterattacks mounted by the enemy and the noticeable increase in the number of tanks forward.” Intelligence staff noted that the Ontario Tank Regiment operations for the day had faced the most determined counterattacks on the whole front “and progress continued only against stiff resistance. Although these attacks have slowed down the advance, they had probably also provided the enemy the opportunity to carry out a certain amount of re-grouping and to establish a more defined main line of resistance.”18
May 15 dawned to the standard Liri Valley fog, but by 0700 hours it had lifted and warm sunshine washed over the lush landscape. At first, only the soft call of mourning doves and nightingale song was heard. Then small knots of men in khaki, hunched forward as if moving into a wind, walked out of their previous night’s positions. Behind them, scattered in twos and threes, came the dull green Shermans. Moments later, the snap of rifles, chatter of machine guns, and thump of guns drowned out the natural sounds. Another day of battle began.
In the Calgary Regiment’s sector, ‘B’ Squadron and the Royal Frontier Force Rifles headed toward Pignataro, passing through a squadron of Three Rivers Regiment at a crossroads about a thousand yards east of the village. German resistance was light and the advance proceeded more quickly than anticipated.
On ‘B’ Squadron’s left, ‘A’ Squadron supported the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders’ advance to a line parallel to Pignataro that extended south to the Liri River.19 Shortly after the squadron moved off, No. 1 Troop encountered a small cluster of houses only recently evacuated by the Germans. The tankers paused to check the buildings and Trooper Stan Kanik warily entered a large house, where he found stacks of German supplies tightly packed from floor to ceiling. To his delight, there was a large stock of food — all sorts of wonderful food. Quickly Kanik loaded up on tins of Danish butter, pickled herrings, pumpernickel bread, and beer. Soon every extra inch of space in the already cramped quarters of the tank was bursting with a cornucopia of delicious-looking German rations. There were even boxes of German food and beer strapped on the outside of the tank. Then Kanik and the other tankers in No. 1 Troop rejoined the advance.20
Lieutenant Jim Quinn’s troop led. Following one bound behind was Lieutenant Al Wells’s No. 1 Troop with Wells in the lead, Sergeant Rolly Marchant’s tank immediately behind, and the corporal’s tank bringing up the rear. Passing through a vineyard, the corporal’s Sherman pushed through a row of vines and long strands of supporting wire tangled in its tracks and trailed out behind. When the wire twisted around the track sprockets, the tank was disabled. It was soon obvious that only a recovery crew armed with a blowtorch could cut the wire out of the tracks and render the tank operational.21
Wells and Marchant carried on alone, hurrying to catch up to Quinn’s troop. So far, except for mechanical problems, ‘A’ Squadron’s advance had gone well. At about 1430 hours, the tankers and the Argylls approached the Cassino-Pignataro lateral road and were bracketed by heavy artillery and mortar fire. They pressed on regardless, the infantrymen using the cover of the many vineyards and small gullies to conceal themselves from enemy observation. As Quinn’s troop rolled out on a height of ground, the lieutenant spotted an armoured vehicle moving through the trees on a ridge about a hundred yards back of the western side of the road. Quinn ordered his troop to drop down into a depression next to the road. In front of the troop was a deep ditch and what looked like a pillbox. As the infantry had yet to come forward, Quinn dismounted and conducted a brief reconnaissance to ensure that the tanks could safely cross the ditch and that the pillbox was clear of Germans. He could hear the grinding sound of an armoured vehicle moving about on the ridge-line but was unable to see it.22
Meanwhile, No. 1 Troop crossed the road and pressed up onto the ridge. Fr
om his position behind the gun in Marchant’s tank, Kanik was surprised at how many dead infantrymen and burned-out German trucks and guns were scattered along the roadside. He could also see very alive grey figures dashing about in the woods, but they were always gone before he had time to bring the machine gun to bear on them. So far, there had been no signs of operational enemy tanks or antitank guns.
Kanik peered through the telescope. He was a bit nervous because they were well ahead of the infantry. That was safe enough if the opposition was only infantry with small arms, but if an antitank gun was lurking about they could be in deep trouble. Suddenly there was a hellishly loud boom inside the tank. The air seemed to fill with a million little splinters and Kanik could feel them piercing virtually every inch of his flesh except his eyes, which were still glued to the telescope sights. It was over in a second. Sitting back from the telescope, Kanik saw that he was completely covered in blood. Marchant was down on the deck and looked dead. There was a hole in the tank right behind where Kanik was sitting. One of the loader-operator’s arms was a real mess. It dawned on Kanik that the shell had penetrated the tank and then shattered into shrapnel rather than exploding. Instinctively, Kanik bailed out of the tank, knowing it might start burning at any moment. As he hit the ground, a German machine gun opened up, kicking up bullets around him. Kanik crawled quickly into a shell hole. He was in a field of two-foot high wheat with red poppies laced through it. He knew he was badly wounded or perhaps even dying. A German machine-gunner was trying to finish him off.