by Mark Zuehlke
— STRATHY SMITH, NAC, PA-136311
A Three Rivers Regiment tank moves through woods in front of the Hitler Line en route to support the advance by Royal 22e Regiment.
— PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN, NAC, PA-204153
ΔLieutenant W.H. Salter and Gunner J. Misckow of Royal Canadian Artillery’s 4th Anti-tank Regiment examine two captured German Nebelwerfers knocked out by the regiment on May 24.
— STRATHY SMITH, NAC, PA-169111
Royal Canadian Regiment Lieutenant W. Smith (left) and one of his platoon sergeants, F.G. White, in Pontecorvo shortly after its capture.
— C.E. NYE, NAC, PA-144722
∇ Pontecorvo, like most towns in the eastern Liri Valley, was mostly destroyed in the fighting. German dead were found scattered throughout the rubble.
— C.E. NYE, NAC, PA-144721
A Cape Breton Highlander trudges past a dead German soldier during the march from the Hitler Line to the Melfa River.
— STRATHY SMITH, NAC, PA-135904
A heavily camouflaged Governor General’s Horse Guard armoured car moves out from the Hitler Line toward the Melfa River.
— STRATHY SMITH, NAC, PA-137999
After the collapse of the Hitler Line, some surrendered prisoners eagerly offered information on German dispositions. Here, a German prisoner briefs a Canadian Intelligence Officer in a Liri Valley grain field.
— STRATHY SMITH, NAC, PA-114915
Two B.C. Dragoon tanks from ‘C’ Squadron knocked out during the disastrous attempt to break open the bridgehead across the Melfa River. In the foreground is a knocked-out Bren carrier.
— C.E. NYE, NAC, PA-143903
Honey tanks of Lieutenant Edward J. Perkins’s reconnaissance troop at Benedictine Crossing immediately prior to the advance to establish a bridgehead across the Melfa River.
— PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN, NAC, PA-204157
A bridging tank, called a Scissors bridge, moves into position. In the foreground is a destroyed Stuart tank from a reconnaissance troop.
— ALEXANDER MACKENZIE STIRTON, NAC, PA-201347
Δ Major John Mahony of the Westminster Regiment would win the Victoria Cross for his leadership during the heroic stand by the Westminsters and the Strathcona’s reconnaissance troop at the Melfa River.
— PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN, NAC, PA-140089
∇ Canadian supply vehicle drivers wait for some sign of forward movement on a clogged road leading toward Rome. Throughout the Battle of the Liri Valley, Eighth Army was plagued by massive traffic jams that seriously slowed the advance.
— W.H. AGNEW, NAC, PA-151180
Δ Possibly taken in Frosinone. Canadian troops run down the street of a town during the final days of I Canadian Corps’s advance on Rome.
— ALEXANDER MACKENZIE STIRTON, NAC, PA-141699
Westminster Regiment Private Dan Nikiforuk (left) and Private Bill Paticho in Caserta shortly before the Battle of the Liri Valley. — PHOTO COURTESY OF DAN NIKIFORUK
A provisional cemetery somewhere near Pontecorvo for Canadians killed during the Liri Valley fighting.
— C.E. NYE, NAC, PA-115143
Two young boys and their pet dog enjoy the Royal Canadian Regiment pipe and drum band practice prior to the band’s unofficial trip into Rome.
— C.E. NYE, NAC, PA-152153
Members of the Royal 22e Regiment meet Pope Pius XII at the Vatican on July 3, 1944.
— DND PHOTO, NAC, PA-166069
In the same instant, a shell ripped through the right-hand side of Coppinger’s tank, spraying the interior with cordite and propellant charge. His radio operator–loader died instantly. The blast threw Coppinger into a pool of flames on the floor. He saw his gunner tumbling out of the turret hatch. Clawing his way up, Coppinger followed him. The driver and co-driver also managed to escape, although everyone’s clothes were ablaze. They rolled on the ground and tore off bits and pieces of uniform to extinguish the flames. Coppinger was in agony.24
Davis ran over to him, who was screaming the name of a sergeant from some former unit in which he had served. When his present sergeant calmed him down a little, Coppinger told Davis to gather the rest of the troop together and lead them back to the river. Because of his severe facial burns, Coppinger was virtually blind. Davis pulled his own gloves off and put them on the lieutenant’s charred hands. Then he got him down on his hands and knees, pointed him in the right direction, and told him to crawl to the river. He and the other men in the troop crawled along behind.25 At the river, Coppinger staggered into the water. The cool liquid washing over his burns felt so good that he had to resist the temptation to lie down in the river and drift off to sleep.26
Just as Coppinger’s troop was knocked out, Hockin had started leading No. 2 Troop out into the field. He ordered his driver to stop immediately, believing his tank still sufficiently covered by trees. A sharp wham shuddering through the tank told him otherwise. The driver reported that the warning light had come on, indicating an engine fire and that he had turned on the fire extinguishers mounted inside the engine compartment. Hockin called Turnley to say his tank was hit and told the crew to get out. He could smell gasoline and engine parts burning and knew the extinguishers had failed to smother the fire.
Jumping out of his tank, Hockin thought he saw the antitank gun that was killing the Dragoons out on the right flank. He ran to where his sergeant’s tank stood about fifty feet behind his own burning Sherman. Scrambling up on the turret, Hockin rapped Singbeil on the helmet to get his attention. Singbeil had spotted the same German gun and was traversing his gun to bring it under fire. The antitank gun won the race and a round slammed hard into the tank. With only one foot securely placed on the back deck and the rest of his body sprawled across the turret, the concussion ripped so severely through Hockin’s body that it broke a bone in his foot and chucked him off the tank. As he gathered himself up, he saw the last tank in the troop burst into flames. Singbeil and his crew all suffered burn wounds, as did the men bailing out of the other tank.*
Hobbling on his broken foot, Hockin led his troop back to the river. Standing on the Melfa’s shore, he watched in dismay as the remaining two Dragoon troops started across. Hockin tried to signal them, wanting to warn them of the danger. They rolled on, either ignoring or having failed to see him. When the tanks moved up into an area that was less exposed than that utilized by No. 2 and No. 4 troops, Hockin thought they might be safe.
As he gathered up some of the wounded men in the river bottom, Hockin asked which troop they were from. One man said that he, Hockin, was their lieutenant. Hockin knew now that he would never get to know most of these men. He led them across the river to the Westminsters’ Regimental Aid Post.27
While No. 4 and No. 2 troops were being butchered, the other Dragoon troopers had listened helplessly to their radio traffic. Sergeant Butch Smitheram in No. 3 Troop heard somebody yell, “Sunray [standard radio term for a unit commander] has been hit and his tank is on fire!” Turnley came up, saying, “Very well, push on to your objective, but be very, very careful.” Another tank was reported hit, then another, then the man speaking trailed off “into a bedlam of screams as his own tank was hit while he was on the air.”
Turnley ordered the remaining two troops forward, crossing as well with his squadron headquarters section. No. 3 Troop was on the right flank and No. 1 on the left, with the two headquarters tanks in the centre and slightly behind. When Smitheram’s tank came out of the riverbed onto the open ground, he saw the burning wrecks of the first two troops. No. 3 Troop assumed an arrowhead formation and halted in some cover. The men sat there for twenty minutes. A heavy artillery piece was dropping shells nearby. Each time a shell landed, the concussion brought tears to Smitheram’s eyes and he felt as if someone had punched him in the nose with a boxing glove. When the shells started creeping closer, Smitheram edged his Sherman further to the right to avoid the line of fire. A massive explosion tore up the ground in front of him and then another shell struck just behin
d. Smitheram realized he was being bracketed and the next round would likely hit him. He moved the Sherman again to the shelter of a large oak tree that stood next to a knocked-out German half-track mounting an .88-millimetre gun.
Smitheram dismounted to check out the German vehicle. The corpse of a young blond soldier was hanging half out of the door on the driver’s side. Blood had run out of the man’s nose and mouth and dried over his face. Smitheram rolled him onto the ground and searched the cab. The radio was still on and he could hear Germans chattering away to each other, but had no idea what was being said.
On the return trip, Smitheram encountered a Canadian infantryman “coming back down the flat with his rifle slung and his steel helmet hanging on the back of his head. He was talking and crying.” Smitheram asked how far away his platoon was, but the man stumbled on toward the riverbank without stopping or responding.
Back aboard his Sherman, Smitheram learned it had developed battery trouble. The electrical system was out. The engine wouldn’t start and there was barely any juice for the radio. Unable to move, he decided to fire some shots at a house about 400 yards away that appeared to be sheltering German snipers. While his gunner banged away at the target, Smitheram scanned the vicinity and spotted a half-track mounted with a short-barrelled .88 that sat among several others knocked out earlier. This one moved. Looking closer, Smitheram saw a driver and another German sitting in the front seat. They were staring toward his tank. The vehicle advanced through some tall wheat and then rolled up on a small rise with its gun pointed directly toward Smitheram. The sergeant reported his sighting to Lieutenant MacKinnon. The troop commander said he was unable to see the vehicle. Then the radio died.
Smitheram ran over to MacKinnon’s tank and tried pointing out the half-track, but the officer still couldn’t find it among all the foliage and tall grain. Running back to his own tank, Smitheram had his gunner use the manual traverse crank to bring his gun to bear on the half-track. Earlier, the gunner had loaded a high-explosive round. When they tried to switch it for armour-piercing, the case pulled free, leaving the HE shell jammed in the breech. Now the only option was to carefully fit the case back on the shell, fire it, and quickly reload with armour-piercing.
The high explosive landed short and before the AP shell could be loaded, the half-track started backing up over a hill. The AP round missed, but the half-track disappeared behind the hill for good. Smitheram’s driver had been working on the battery and reported that he had managed to tape some melted wires back together, restoring power. Just as well, for Smitheram spotted what he thought was a Tiger tank off to the right. Knowing his Sherman’s .75-millimetre gun was useless against the other’s armour, he ran back to where a 4th Canadian Anti-tank Regiment self-propelled 13-pounder gun had just come across the Melfa. The powerful weapon, noted as the latest thing in Allied tank destroyers, rolled up and fired three shots at the German tank. The latter retreated into the smoke and dust that were increasingly obscuring visibility over the entire area. Smitheram returned to his tank.
The Dragoons continued holding in place, frustrated that the deteriorating visibility made it difficult to provide effective support to the infantry, which were somewhere out front driving toward the railroad objective.28 Because of the uncertainty regarding the position of the German guns that had knocked out the first two Dragoon troops, Turnley had abandoned the plan to cross the open field. The infantry were carrying the battle forward largely alone, with only ‘B’ Troop of the 4th Anti-tank Regiment’s 98th Anti-tank Battery in support.That battery had been assigned to back up the Irish Regiment of Canada in the absence of any available tank squadrons.29
Finally crossing the Melfa River, the Irish Regiment’s ‘A’ and ‘C’ companies led, followed by the other two companies and the anti-tank regiment’s self-propelled guns. The regiment’s war diarist later wrote that the “battlefield of the Melfa vied with the Hitler Line in its fury. Burning tanks . . . littered the field and everywhere enemy shells were bursting, directed at our tanks and SP Guns. Our return fire disintegrated houses in a cloud of smoke and masonry and the enemy could be seen fleeing from their posts.”30 Shortly after crossing the river, one of the SPGs took a direct hit, resulting in four crew casualties. The battery commander, who was aboard this vehicle, was the only one uninjured. The three remaining SPGs got through the rest of the battle without significant damage or casualties.31 At about 1330 hours, the Irish were on the objective. They dug in and sweated through the rest of the day under intense German shelling.32
On the Irish right flank, the Westminsters had jumped off in concert with the Irish’s crossing of the Melfa. Lieutenant Edward Perkins and his plucky troop of Strathconas fired the last of their .50-calibre Browning machine-gun ammunition over the heads of the advancing Westminsters to provide some covering fire. Then Perkins ordered the three Honeys withdrawn to the Strathcona’s harbour. They crossed back over the Melfa at 1215 hours. It had been, Perkins wrote, “an extremely eventful twenty-four hours.”33
The Westminsters had gone into the attack with ‘B’ Company on the right and ‘C’ Company on the left. They measured their pace to match that of the Irish Regiment, so that the Canadians maintained a fairly continuous line as they pushed across the open ground. A four-company-wide advance was almost unknown in World War II, more reminiscent of the Great War. Soldiers in ‘C’ Company were even more reminded of the World War I scenes they had read about as they walked through a wide field of grain mixed with vivid red poppies.
Five minutes out from the start line, ‘C’ Company’s headquarters section saw an entire platoon of Germans suddenly materialize out of the grain. The Germans started marching toward them with their hands in the air. One German had a fine pair of Zeiss binoculars hanging on a strap from his neck. The company signaller said, “Those are mine.” He plucked the binoculars from around the German’s neck and carried on without pausing, leaving the Germans to surrender to someone else.
When the Westminsters were 900 yards out, they started taking artillery fire. They were still about 600 yards from the low ridge and railroad line that was the objective. Sergeant Ron Hurley of ‘C’ Company saw men start to fall with shrapnel wounds. Then one man in his section took a direct hit from a mortar bomb and disappeared in a spray of gore. Two other men, fresh reinforcements who had arrived only a few days before, were killed by another direct hit. One of them was almost decapitated and his face mangled.
The Westminsters had now reached the objective and were trying to dig in. Hurley and others tried using the No. 25 antitank grenades to loosen the hardpan soil without success. The explosives barely raised a puff of dirt. They retrieved some picks and shovels from some knocked-out German tanks standing nearby and started hacking at the ground.
Their bodies ran with sweat raised by their exertions, fear, and the sizzling sun that beat down upon their exposed position. There was nothing the Westminsters could do to improve their situation. They just had to lie there on the open ground and take the shelling. Hurley was amazed at how much ammunition the Germans had. Shells seemed to fall like raindrops. The constant danger grated on his nerves. He kept wondering when he “was going to get smoked like those other guys.” Occasionally, he would take a pull from his water bottle. As always, this was filled with vino bianco. Hurley avoided Italian water, fearing dysentery. He would avoid it even more after today. Just before the attack, he had watched in disgust as a Canadian water truck rolled up to the edge of the Melfa. The water crew had chucked a filtering system that looked like a child’s toy swimming pool into the river and started pumping water up into the tank. Floating around the filter system were German corpses and several dead horses. Hurley figured it unlikely the little water purification tablets they were supposed to add to their water bottles could disinfect all the contagion lurking in water gathered like that. Wine was safer. Most of his men felt the same.
As the terrible day dragged on, officers tried to organize parties to evacuate the wounded, but
everyone was afraid to volunteer. Going back over the killing ground of the field while carrying or helping wounded men to walk seemed suicidal. For seven hours, the Westminsters and the Irish Regiment held their ground under the pounding of the German artillery, mortars, tanks, and self-propelled guns. Finally, with darkness closing in, the German fire slackened and the men heard the roaring of engines from enemy positions.34
Just before dark, one of the Westminsters in the rear, Ted Boyer, risked exposing himself to German fire by driving a White scout car up to the forward position. Hurley and some of the other men hurriedly loaded nineteen dead and wounded on board. Among them was the nearly decapitated soldier, whose identity discs were missing.
Boyer looked at the body and said that, given the grubby condition and the pallor of the skin, it had to be Private Lou Schachter. He then drove back to the river with his load and duly reported to the chaplain that Schachter was dead.
With unusual speed and efficiency, a telegram reporting the private’s death was dispatched to Schachter’s family within hours. No sooner had it been sent, however, than Boyer bumped into Schachter returning from the front lines. “God, that’s not you,” Boyer gasped. Schachter was devastated to hear that his family had been wrongly notified of his demise, so distraught in fact that he had to be taken out of the lines. The unit never saw him again.35
During their fierce two-day battle, the Westminsters had suffered about 100 casualties, of which 20 were fatalities. They had accounted for between 50 and 100 Germans killed and more than 100 captured.36 More important, the regiment had secured a bridgehead across the Melfa River that threw the German defensive plan into disarray.