by Mark Zuehlke
At midday on May 25, Commander-in-Chief Southwest Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring phoned Tenth Army commander Generaloberst Heinrich von Vietinghoff and stated that the Battle of Rome was at “a decisive stage. . . . The main goal must be to paralyze the offensive spirit of the enemy by the infliction of very heavy casualties. This can only be done by fanatical defence of the main lines.”
Kesselring specifically forbade “the withdrawal of any division and the giving up of any strongpoint without my prior explicit consent.”37 Kesselring’s Chief of Staff, General der Kavallerie Siegfried Westphal, also rang von Vietinghoff. “The Führer absolutely demands that any withdrawal be carried out step by step with the consent of Army Group. If at all possible, no withdrawal is to be made without the personal concurrence of the Führer.”38
Von Vietinghoff duly called up LI Mountain Corps commander General Valentin Feurstein to say, “I would like to emphasize that according to the Führer’s orders the Melfa Line must be held for several days. An early withdrawal is out of the question. Enemy elements that have crossed the river must be thrown back.”39 Feurstein was amazed that his commander could be so blind as to think a counterattack could throw the Canadians back across the Melfa. The 90th Panzer Grenadiers had been so reduced by casualties that the 200th Grenadier Regiment numbered only 300 men and the 361st Grenadier Regiment a mere 100.
“I report as a matter of duty that we will not bring back many men if we have to hold at all costs,” Feurstein said stiffly.
“We must accept that risk; Army Group has given explicit orders to hold the line for several days.”
“I report to the Generaloberst that the enemy has already crossed the Melfa in two places and that no forces are available to rectify the situation,” Feurstein replied.
Von Vietinghoff went back to Kesselring in the early morning hours of May 26 and the two had a long, painful discussion in which they tried to balance reality against Hitler’s delusional orders. The Tenth Army commander wanted a retreat back along Highway 6, with a new line formed somewhere behind Ceprano that could be used to stall the Canadian advance. Kesselring, normally so calm, exploded: “It is the Führer’s explicit order and also my belief that we must bleed the enemy to exhaustion by hard fighting. You have always been so optimistic; why has your attitude changed?”40
The Tenth Army commander’s attitude was only rational. Increasingly, his LI Mountain Corps and the XIV Panzer Corps were at risk. He feared that the Americans breaking out of the Anzio beachhead and the Corps Expéditionnaire Français’s rapid advance on the Canadian left flank could soon cut them off. Von Vietinghoff’s Chief of Staff, Generalmajor Fritz Wentzell, was even more out-spoken. He declared, “We have to get out of here as fast as we can or we shall lose the whole XIV Panzer Corps!”41
Finally Kesselring saw the light, mainly because a rapidly developing crisis on the Fourteenth Army’s front left him no option but to consider withdrawal. On May 25, the VI U.S. Corps, breaking out of the Anzio beachhead, overran two German divisions, captured Cisterna, and ended the day midway between Anzio and Valmontone. Americans from the main divisions of Fifth Army advancing up the coastline toward Anzio also linked up with the beachhead’s southern flank. This brought to an end the encirclement of VI Corps inside the Anzio beachhead. It also left the Fourteenth Army and the far right divisions of Tenth Army holding a long, badly fragmented, curving line that was impossible to defend. Should the Americans reach Valmontone and sever Highway 6 before XIV Panzer Corps was able to slip west and escape, it might be encircled and destroyed.
Kesselring finally won Hitler’s agreement to a redeployment that would see the northern wing of Fourteenth Army holding firm between Velletri and the sea. The south wing of this army would then move into a blocking position in front of Cisterna. Tenth Army would meanwhile fall back, conducting a slow, determined delaying action against the Eighth Army as a general withdrawal was conducted to the Caesar Line, anchored on the Alban Hills. Kesselring’s orders to his commanders stated that their immediate objective was not “to reach the Caesar Line soon. Rather, whilst stubbornly holding the sectors designated from time to time,” they must “inflict such heavy casualties on the enemy that his fighting potentiality will be broken even before the Caesar Line is reached.”42 The Germans planned to bleed Eighth Army, particularly the Canadians, to a point where the Allied advance might falter and die through attrition.
As night fell on the weary Canadians holding the lines west of the Melfa River, the thought that casualties might break them seemed not improbable. The Westminster Regiment had lost approximately a quarter of its fighting strength. Among the Irish Regiment, casualties had totalled ten other ranks killed, and three officers and thirty-two other ranks wounded.
At 1630 hours, Brigadier Snow finally managed to get his other two infantry regiments moving across the Melfa. The Cape Breton Highlanders led the way, supported by the 8th New Brunswick Hussars. The tankers had ‘C’ Squadron leading, followed by the regimental headquarters section, then ‘A’ and ‘B’ squadrons. ‘C’ Squadron had advanced only a few hundred yards into the open on the west side of the river when it became tangled in a duel with some antitank guns. Three tanks were knocked out, but they managed to destroy the three .75-millimetre antitank guns and an SPG.43 Remarkably, only three men were wounded. One of these died later in hospital.44
The infantry were not so fortunate. About a thousand yards from the river, the leading ‘A’ and ‘B’ companies “encountered terrific mortar fire from SP guns.”45 ‘B’ Company commander Major Tony MacLachlan was hit in the chest and leg by shrapnel. He doggedly led his men to the objective before agreeing to evacuation. His act earned him a Military Cross. The commander of ‘A’ Company, Captain C.M. Archibald, was killed as that company moved onto the objective. He was one of six Highlanders to die reaching the objective, which was to be the jumping-off point for their forthcoming advance. The Perth Regiment of Canada got through to its objective on the Highlanders’ left flank with only three other ranks wounded.46
South of the 5th Canadian Armoured Division’s operations, the 1st Canadian Infantry Division had continued its advance toward the Melfa. ‘D’ Company of the Carleton and York Regiment had won the bridgehead early in the day. The regiment had then advanced with ‘D’ Company leading, followed by ‘C’, ‘B,’ and ‘A’ with two troops of Three Rivers Regiment tanks. The West Nova Scotia Regiment then passed through the Carleton and York Regiment and established a forward position as the jumping-off point for a follow-on attack toward the Isoletta Reservoir. Shelling of the Melfa River crossing caused such casualties that the Carleton and York troops named the crossing point “Death Valley.” The regiment, already badly depleted by casualties resulting from breaking the Hitler Line, suffered five other ranks killed and two officers and eighteen other ranks wounded. The regimental war diarist wrote: “Positions were firmly established by last light in spite of depleted state of the companies.”47
For the badly battered ‘C’ Squadron of the B.C. Dragoons still in place at the bridgehead on the west side of the Melfa River, the day ended with a heart-stopper when German artillery smothered the forward area with a massive smoke barrage. The sun was sinking in the west, making it extremely difficult for the men in their tanks to see any German tanks or gun positions. Their radios crackled with warnings passed back and forth to be on the lookout for signs of a counterattack. Corporal G.T. Dodd, serving in Major Jack Turnley’s headquarters’ tank, noted that the “tension was very high.” Nothing happened. Instead, the smoke was masking a general withdrawal of German armour. ‘C’ Squadron’s battle was over. Soon they got word to withdraw to the east side of the Melfa and rejoin the regiment.48
Back in the harbour, Sergeant Butch Smitheram was in a cold fury. He thought the entire battle a stupid disaster. That opinion had only hardened when Turnley ordered one of the headquarters tanks to move to some high ground to gather an appreciation of what German positions might be visible fro
m there. As the tank crested the top of the hill, it was hit. The tank commander’s body flew “out of the tank like an old pair of overalls, all limp and floppy.” That evening, Turnley gathered the survivors around and called the roll. Many men were missing.49
The squadron had lost seven of fourteen tanks. Three men were dead, nine wounded, and fourteen missing. Turnley made the mistake of citing the action as a victory. After the meeting ended, Smitheram went up to Turnley and asked if the commander had been “trying for a DSO or something.” The two men had a hot and heavy argument, during which Smitheram called his commander “Blood and Guts Turnley” to his face. The major demanded to know if Smitheram wanted a transfer. “Yes,” Smitheram said. He had had enough of Turnley and had no better opinion of Lieutenant Colonel Fred Vokes. Smitheram thought both men vainglorious and ignorant. Turnley paraded Smitheram in front of Vokes, who gave the sergeant a stern dressing down. Smitheram asked for a transfer to the Calgary Tank Regiment, but Vokes assigned him to regimental headquarters.50
When Vokes finished with Smitheram, he called an Orders Group to discuss actions for the morning. On May 23, Major George Carrington Smith had returned to the regiment to resume command of ‘B’ Squadron. As the regiment was moving into battle right then, Smith remained in reserve and the squadron’s present commander, twenty-nine-year-old Acting Major David Kinloch, led it into action. When the fighting was over, Kinloch reverted to being a captain and resumed command of one of the squadron’s troops. This back-and-forth movement in rank had become so common for the Vernon, B.C., orchardist and prewar militiaman that he had two battle-dress tunics — one fitted with the three pips of a captain and the other with major’s crowns. Each morning, Kinloch sent his batman over to regimental headquarters to find out whether he was to be a captain or an acting major that day.
Kinloch wore his captain’s uniform as the officers left the meeting and walked along a hedgerow in single file toward their squadrons. Throughout the meeting, the area had been receiving sporadic shelling. Captain George Baker was leading the file, followed by Major Gerry Eastman, then Major George Smith, and lastly Kinloch. Hearing the whoosh of incoming Nebelwerfer fire, Kinloch dived between the bogies on the tracks of a tank and into a pit sheltering its crew. Six massive explosions rocked the tank. Kinloch crawled out into the thinning smoke and dust to see Smith, Eastman, and Baker being carried off on stretchers. Although relatively minor, their wounds would keep them all out of action for at least a few days. Kinloch walked back to his tank, retrieved the uniform with crowns and was reanointed an acting major.51
* Singbeil would die several months later from burn-related complications just two weeks after being returned to Canada and hospitalized in Vancouver. Coppinger, however, was fortunate enough to come under the care of a doctor in Caserta who was a leading specialist in burn injuries. His treatment, which involved extensive use of blood transfusions and constant, regularly changed, wet dressings on the burns, resulted in the lieutenant’s recovering not only from his first-, second-, and third-degree burns but suffering no scarring. Coppinger would return to active duty in the Calgary Regiment later in 1944.
23
A BIT OF A BLACK EYE
In the predawn hours of May 26, the men of the 11th Canadian Infantry Brigade’s three regiments ate hard rations from their packs. Heavy traffic congestion in the rear area of 5th Canadian Armoured Division prevented the regimental cooks’ bringing a hot breakfast forward. The same congestion was becoming a routine nightmare in the narrow Liri Valley as the two Eighth Army corps competed for routes forward. They followed the maze of dirt tracks and narrow gravel roads that, other than Highway 6, were the only viable paths. The bad roads reduced the divisional artillery regiments to a crawl toward positions from which they could support the advance and also delayed the trucks bearing fuel and munitions to the 8th New Brunswick Hussars. Tanks rolled toward battle with fuel tanks that were little more than half-full.1 Brigadier Eric Snow’s orders were to drive his brigade and supporting tank regiment around the northern shore of the Isoletta Reservoir to effect a crossing of the upper Liri River near Ceprano. This entailed traversing a distance of about four and a half miles.2
Everyone knew a hard day lay ahead. The maps told the story with unexpected accuracy. Once across the railroad, the regiments would enter ground covered in thick scrub. Tank movement would be “restricted to tracks” clear to the reservoir. Countless little streams snaked across the line of advance and irrigation ditches were plentiful. This was ideal ground for a delayed withdrawal, something at which the Germans were masterful.
The Cape Breton Highlanders moved out first at 0700 hours, with ‘C’ Company on the right and ‘D’ on the left. Behind was regimental headquarters, followed by ‘A’ Company on the right and ‘B’ on the left. The Perth Regiment was left of the Highlanders, with ‘D’ Company left and ‘B’ Company right. Each regiment had a squadron of the 8th New Brunswick Hussars — ‘A’ Squadron with the Highlanders and ‘B’ Squadron with the Perths.
Perth Regiment Private Stan Scislowski, serving in No. 18 Platoon of Major Sammy Ridge’s ‘D’ Company, marched through shin-deep grain. At first it was a walk in the park, “no small-arms fire, no mortars, no shells.” Only the Highlanders, momentarily confused, fired on the men appearing on their left — a situation quickly corrected without injuries. Scislowski later wrote: “The way things were going thus far, it looked very much like the Germans had picked up and skedaddled across the Liri River. . . . Our momentary reverie, however, evaporated in the express-train rush of enemy shells slamming into the wheat all around us.”3 Scislowski dived into an irrigation ditch he was following and crawled like crazy about fifty yards forward. Then, hearing the German shells landing well behind him, the private jumped up and sprinted another 200 yards ahead. The move toward the source of artillery was reflexive — a response to training. Scislowski was surprised to find himself alone, none of his mates having followed.
Shells were exploding all around the platoon. “There won’t be a damned one of my guys alive after that,” he thought. When the shelling stopped, however, he was relieved to see his friends popping up out of the grain and coming on. In fact, nobody had been killed and just a couple had suffered superficial wounds.
It suddenly struck Scislowski, with a surge of pride, that for the last fifteen or twenty minutes he had been the “point man in the whole damn Canadian Corps on this beautiful spring day, May 26, 1944. The only people ahead of me on that battlefield were guys wearing field-grey — the Jerries. So there I was, standing all alone, waiting for the rest of the corps to catch up to me, feeling like an all-conquering hero.”
Scislowski sat down on a mound of dirt, calmly took out an overseas edition of the Windsor Star, and started reading the comics page. He was just digging into “L’il Abner” when a machine gun ripped up dirt about five feet away. Scislowski tossed the paper and rolled into a ditch just in time to avoid a burst that tore across the ground where he had been sitting. Then he heard the clanking of tank tracks and a New Brunswick Hussars tank rolled out of the brush. Scislowski realized the tankers had nearly killed him, thinking he was a German. One of the men was perched on the turret, waving a Thompson at him to stand with hands raised. As he rose up out of the trench, the soldier relaxed at the sight of his uniform and Tommy helmet. “What in bloody hell are you doing up this far?” the man shouted. Not waiting for an answer, he jumped back into the tank without apology and the Sherman rumbled off. Scislowski’s platoon came up moments later. “What the hell kept you guys so long?” the still-shaken private demanded. “Did you expect me to fight the war alone?” Everyone ignored him and just trudged on.4
On the brigade’s right flank, the Cape Breton Highlanders met heavier resistance than the Perths. They faced heavy machine-gun and sniper fire twenty minutes beyond the start line. Forced to ground, the infantry hid while the Hussars knocked out German positions in some farmhouses and bunkers.5 The Hussars in Major P.M. Blanchet’s ‘
A’ Squadron easily erased the German resistance points with machine-gun or main-gun fire. When the advance renewed, however, the Shermans were reduced to a crawl. While the infantry proceeded alone, the Hussars warily advanced in single file down tracks rife with antitank mines and booby traps. Engineers, riding in Honeys, came forward to clear obstacles. They also built diversions across seemingly endless streams and irrigation ditches. The engineers and tankers were routinely subjected to German small-arms fire from the railroad embankment that formed an unnatural ridge cutting across the line of advance. Finally, at 1430 hours, Blanchet’s tankers and the Highlanders succeeded in clearing the Germans off the embankment.6
Just beyond the railroad, the Highlanders encountered signs of a hasty German retreat. Among scattered bodies were some food supplies, which “disappeared in a big hurry,” noted the regiment’s war diarist. “A lot of the boys also got a change of socks, which was more than welcome.”7
‘B’ Squadron, commanded by Major Howard Keirstead, had an even more difficult time getting across a series of streams that cut across its line of advance. Only the ingenuity of the engineers, who used explosives to blast ramps into the banks, enabled the armour to keep pace with the Perth infantry.
Shortly before noon, the combined force reached the reservoir. It proved to be nothing more than a giant mud flat cut in the middle by the river. The Germans had blown the dam that also served as a bridge across the southeastern edge. In the distance, the Canadians could see the rooftops of Ceprano. Bright red tiles glowed in the sunshine.
Scislowski’s company marched up a dirt road paralleling the reservoir. They passed two horses killed by artillery fire, still harnessed to a wagon loaded with ammunition boxes. Just beyond the dead animals, Scislowski passed Sergeant Pete McRorie returning from a reconnaissance patrol. Scislowski greeted him, but before the heavily built sergeant could reply he stepped on the detonator of a Teller antitank mine. McRorie’s lower body disappeared in a shower of blood and body parts.