The Liri Valley

by Mark Zuehlke

  Concussion walloped Scislowski in the back and flung him in a swan dive face-first into the road. His mouth full of gravel and dirt, and momentarily disoriented, Scislowski stared in horror at McRorie’s “body lying in the middle of the road — a welter of blood, guts, and bone.” He felt himself on the edge of cracking apart. Then there was an almost audible click in his brain, followed by calm. “Glad it’s not me,” he thought.

  Two massive explosions caught his attention in time to see two Hussar tanks disabled by Teller mines. Everyone in Scislowski’s platoon lay on the ground, afraid to move for fear of tripping mines. The private was the second man in the lead section “and it took some guts to get up and go on.” Go on the Perths did, crossing the railroad embankment and entering the two-mile-stretch of open terrain leading to Ceprano.8

  Brigadier Eric Snow thought the country reminiscent of “bush country in Africa.” Given the density of ground cover, the poor tracks, and the presence of so many mines and booby traps, the 11 CIB commander considered the sluggish pace unavoidable. Major General Bert Hoffmeister disagreed. He hovered at Snow’s shoulder, urging the brigadier to “get on, that the advance was much too slow and that something must be done.” The divisional commander’s temper flared considerably at 1430 hours when the supporting Hussar squadrons ran low on fuel. On the right flank, the Cape Breton Highlanders had just passed ‘A’ and ‘B’ companies into the lead. Lieutenant Colonel Jim Weir ordered his men to form a defensive position around the tanks and dig in until the Hussars could pull back for refuelling. Perth commander Lieutenant Colonel J.S. Lind halted his regiment’s advance to avoid outrunning the Highlanders. When this situation was reported to Snow, Hoffmeister ordered the “battalions to get going at once. The Perths got going within thirty minutes, but it was nearly two hours before the CBH got going again,” Snow later wrote.9

  Hoffmeister was exasperated by Snow’s apparent failure to exert command. The major general had spent the morning searching for Snow and failed to find him at either his brigade or tactical headquarters. Instead, the brigadier and a few staff officers were discovered at the end of a dusty road that formed a “bit of a cul-de-sac, without adequate knowledge of what was going on and in no position to control the battle.” Hoffmeister decided then and there to get rid of Snow. If he could have fired Snow on the spot, he would have. Instead, Hoffmeister hovered close by, taking personal control of the brigade’s operations.10

  As Hoffmeister steamed and fretted, the Hussars conducted a devious smuggling operation to bring badly needed fuel and ammunition up to their leading tank squadrons. Early in the morning, the tank regiment had been given permission by 11 CIB staff to send only five resupply vehicles across the Melfa because of heavy traffic behind the front lines. Knowing this was totally insufficient, rear-echelon staff smuggled thirteen more trucks into the convoys of other regiments. By 1030 hours, ten lorries bearing ammunition and eight loaded with fuel were across the river, able to rendezvous with the tanks when they needed resupply.

  When the tanks hit the refuel or stall point, they withdrew to designated rendezvous points. ‘B’ Squadron arrived at 1430 hours and was ready to go back into action at 1600. A small hill, however, combined with dense foliage and confused tracks, prevented ‘A’ Squadron from marrying up with the supply convoy and this squadron’s refuelling and rearmament were not completed until 1845 hours.11

  Lieutenant Sted Henderson of ‘A’ Squadron was just leaving the resupply area when a German soldier popped out of brush and threw a stick grenade into his open turret. The grenade landed on the tank floor, was scooped up by the driver and handed up to Henderson, who threw the charge out seconds before it exploded. Without pausing to engage the German, the tankers rejoined the still slowly advancing Highlanders.12

  Because of the resupply delay, the Highlanders did not renew their advance until 1900 hours. This was fully four and a half hours after the Hussars had run out of fuel, rather than the two hours that Snow believed had passed before they returned to the offensive. His confusion derived from the fact that some of the regiment had moved off two hours earlier without the tanks. At 1630 hours, ‘A’ and ‘B’ companies had led off for 500 yards and then for no apparent reason huddled down to await return of the Hussars. When ‘A’ Squadron caught up, Weir called a thirty-minute Orders Group to clarify an already well-determined plan of advance.

  Finally the regiment started moving again, but it was quickly engaged by German snipers firing from an overlooking hill. The tankers killed several and drove off the rest with machine-gun fire and the infantry then filtered forward apprehensively.13 Snow was abandoning hope that the brigade might reach Ceprano before nightfall. The brigadier set a low ridge about two miles east of the river as the final objective. Once there, the two regiments were to dig in for the night.14

  While the Highlanders dithered, the Perth Regiment had returned to the offensive, practically reaching the ridge objective before Snow’s order arrived. The Perth advance had been uneventful, more bothered by the sweltering heat and lack of streams for refilling empty water bottles than by German action. The Hussars’ ‘B’ Squadron Shermans, however, had banged into an antitank ambush as they swept aside a German machine-gunner pestering the Perths. A German gun sheared the suspension off the right side of Lieutenant Jim Jones’s Sherman. Stopped dead in its tracks, the tank was a sitting duck. Many a tank crew would have bailed out then and there, especially as the tank was out of armour-piercing shot. Instead, Jones and his men stuck to their guns. They fired high-explosive rounds at a persistent muzzle flash coming from a thicket. To their surprise, a huge Panther tank exploded in flames as the result of a direct hit from their gun. That spelled the end of the ambush, as the other German armour fled.15

  ‘D’ Company was in the middle of a wide meadow when the order came to halt. “What the hell are we stopping here for!” Scislowski groused. “Nobody’s shooting at us. Shit, we might as well keep going.” The Germans were running, he figured, and the Canadians should deny them opportunity to regroup. “What a way to fight a war,” he thought, “sitting here in the hot sun, fingers up our ass, while Jerry’s up ahead somewhere probably building himself another Hitler Line.”16

  Snow hesitated out of fear of tripping a counterattack. He wanted his brigade and the Hussars circled in a tight group capable of all-round defence. With the British still on the east side of the Melfa and only two companies of the Westminster Regiment and a squadron of the Governor General’s Horse Guards linking his regiment back to the rest of the division, Snow fretted that his brigade held “a rather precarious position.”17

  Curiously, Snow forgot the presence of Adams Force, composed of 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade’s West Nova Scotia and Carleton and York regiments and the Princess Louise Dragoon Guards armoured car regiment. They had also crossed the Melfa that morning and driven to the blown bridge on the eastern end of the reservoir without meeting significant resistance. Unable to get armoured cars across the Liri River, ‘C’ Squadron of the PLDGs sent a foot patrol out. The troops waded across the stream and advanced two miles west to the southern shore of the Sacco River, where they found a 120-foot-span bridge blown out. Wading this stream, the men advanced a further 500 yards toward the Ceprano railroad station and dug in for the night — becoming Eighth Army’s most advanced unit.18

  When Hoffmeister heard Snow’s report, he countermanded the brigadier’s orders and told him to get on to Ceprano. Snow “ordered the Irish to send two companies out of the fortress and secure the crossing if these were not strongly held by the enemy, and to reconnoitre the whole line of the river for possible crossings.”19

  Whatever the precise wording of his orders, Lieutenant Colonel Bobby Clark, understanding that he was to send one company forward from the ridge to the Liri River, gave the duty to ‘D’ Company.20 He also dispatched Lieutenant G.J. Wood and five men, including Royal Canadian Engineer Lieutenant Y. Young, to determine whether Ceprano was defended and to check two main bridges cr
ossing the Liri River near the town.

  Passing through the Canadian lines at 2200 hours on May 26, Wood’s party reached the Liri River at 0430 hours. They found both bridges blown and determined that Ceprano was probably unoccupied. Wood tried radioing a report to Clark, but an intervening ridgeline blocked the transmission. Leaving the four other ranks near the river’s edge, the two officers returned on foot to report. While they were gone, the four soldiers intercepted a German truck and killed the driver. Apparently deciding the shots that had killed the driver betrayed their presence in no man’s land, the four men got in the truck and hightailed it north on Highway 6 in an attempt to reach the advancing Eighth Army lines. Promptly meeting a German-manned roadblock, they were taken prisoner. Two escaped captivity six days later.

  By first light on May 27, ‘D’ Company was on its objective — a low rise overlooking Ceprano from 500 yards back of the Liri River. A narrow gravel track cut along the base of the ridge. This road, extending in front of the Melfa River and paralleling the Liri River’s eastern bank to Ceprano, was designated Highway 82. It crossed the Liri just north of town to intersect Highway 6.21

  The Liri River followed a tightly snaking path out of the northern mountains for about four miles before passing Ceprano. Another ancient Roman town, Ceprano was built on a narrow height of land protected on three fronts by a bend in the river. Lieutenant Wood’s reconnaissance had determined that here the river was about a hundred feet wide and ran swift and deep. With all bridge crossings destroyed, Snow decided to cross the infantry in boats. Once his regiments secured Ceprano, he would raft over antitank guns, mortars, and Vickers medium machine guns to consolidate the Canadian hold. During the night, engineers would throw a Bailey bridge over the river to get tanks over.22

  At 0600 hours, Snow held an Orders Group at the Perth Regiment’s headquarters. The Perths were to put two companies more than 1,000 yards downstream from the town. Once these companies established a strong bridgehead, the remaining Perth companies were to occupy Ceprano. The Cape Breton Highlanders would then cross the river and come up beside the Perths to cut the lateral road running from Ceprano south to Ceprano Station.23 Snow was uncertain about the whereabouts of his Irish Regiment and fearful of hitting them with friendly fire. Accordingly, he advised 8th New Brunswick Hussars commander Lieutenant Colonel George Robinson that Irish patrols were across the river — probably inside Ceprano. Robinson’s squadrons were “not to fire upon the town under any circumstances and not to fire on anything until it had fired upon the tanks.”24

  At 0730 hours, the Hussars’ ‘B’ Squadron with the Perths’ ‘B’ Company aboard rolled toward the Liri River. Once ‘B’ Company commander Major Harold Snelgrove reported his men secure in the woods bordering the river and beginning the crossing, ‘D’ Company would follow on foot. As the tanks closed on the river, the Germans started mortaring. The infantry scuttled for cover. Most of the fire originated from positions on the Canadians’ badly exposed right flank. The Perths pressed on through flying shrapnel and explosive blasts to the river’s edge. Snelgrove had been told that trucks carrying the assault boats would meet his company at the river, but soon learned the trucks were delayed.

  An initial order that Snelgrove’s men should swim the river was rescinded when the major reported that the current was too swift and the water too deep for wading. The flurry of German mortar fire had petered out by this time and the Hussars, with nothing to do but sit in their tanks because of the standing order not to engage targets across the river, received permission from Major Howard Keirstead to stretch their legs. They stood around smoking and chatting, some even sitting down and brewing tea. One tanker noticed that the Perths were hastily digging slit trenches. A warning light went off in his head just as a stonk of German artillery rained down on the knots of tankers. For forty-five minutes the shelling continued, so heavily that the men were unable to seek refuge in their tanks. When the fire lifted, five Hussars were dead and eight wounded. Among those killed were Keirstead’s gunner and radio operator.25 Keirstead moved his squadron away from the river to a sheltered rise that provided a spectacular view of Ceprano and beyond the town for about 3,000 yards. Still shaken by the loss of his men, the major watched helplessly as German vehicles streamed west out of Ceprano on Highway 6 while his orders prevented his firing on them.

  At 0950 hours, an Irish patrol approached his tanks. They said that no Irish troops had crossed the river, no Canadians were in Ceprano, and they had no idea whether Germans occupied the town. Soon Keirstead noticed a half-track just west of Ceprano painted with the Red Cross symbol. Accompanying the vehicle was a file of infantry. Knowing it was impossible for there to be any Canadian vehicles across the river, the major sought permission to fire on the infantry. Leaving the vehicle unscathed would still honour the Geneva Convention rules. Permission was refused.26

  Although their reasons were different, both Hussars and Perths spent a wasted and frustrating early morning. While the Perths’ ‘B’ Company waited for the promised boats, ‘D’ Company sat in the open meadow it had occupied the previous evening, sweating under a hot sun. Scislowski had no idea why the company had not moved. He easily imagined the Germans across the river frantically improving positions while everyone sat on their hands.

  With growing curiosity, Scislowski watched a Lynx scout car roar up the road toward the regiment’s position in a cloud of dust. Soon he recognized one of its passengers as Major General Bert Hoffmeister. Pulling up forty feet from Scislowski’s slit trench, Hoffmeister started scanning the terrain around Ceprano through his field glasses. Scislowski was certain the divisional commander had come up to “the sharp end to see what the hell the bloody hold up was.” He wished, however, the officer would leave before his scout car drew fire from the German artillery that undoubtedly had the valley bottom under observation from the many surrounding hills. Sure enough, a few minutes later mortar rounds howled down. “The first salvo dropped short of the scout car, close enough though, to give even the bravest a good scare. But damn it, Hoffmeister didn’t so much as blink an eye — just stood there with those big glasses scanning the terrain ahead.” Hunkering in his hole, Scislowski asked nobody in particular, “Why doesn’t the son of a bitch get the hell outta here before he gets us all killed?”27 No sooner was the question uttered than the scout car wheeled about and sped off.

  Scislowski imagined flying orders. The Perths’ commander would be blasted for not getting his men moving, Snow would get a rocket for being so slow. This was pretty much the case. Within half an hour of Hoffmeister’s visit to the front, boats were being manhandled from the trucks to the shoreline and ‘B’ Company started paddling across by platoons. Mortar fire was heavy throughout the crossing and several boats were hit. Others capsized in the fast-running current, but the men tossed into the water managed to reach the other side safely despite the weight of their equipment.

  The crossing effort was well under way when ‘D’ Company reached the river. A few minutes later, the trucks bearing the rest of the boats arrived. These proved so riddled with shrapnel that only one was serviceable. The crossing effort slowed dramatically as an entire regiment waited its turn to cross in the tiny vessel.28

  ‘B’ Company was finally across by mid-morning and Snelgrove led his men into the town. Because Ceprano was a major junction for Highway 6, it had been subjected to much artillery and aerial bombardment. Most buildings were badly damaged or entirely destroyed. Rubble from collapsed walls and roofs choked the streets. Shell and bomb craters added to the overall destruction. Snelgrove’s men were amazed to meet only sporadic small-arms fire from no more than a rearguard screening force attempting to delay the Canadian advance. The Perths quickly cleared the town. By 1400 hours, the entire Perth Regiment was across the Liri River. ‘B’ Company was on the right, to the west of Ceprano, and ‘D’ Company was on the left. ‘C’ Company, commanded by Major T.H. White, took position immediately behind.

  The three companies were
being heavily shelled and raked by heavy machine-gun fire from a ridge to the west designated as Point 119. White was ordered to take the ridge. His company was to be supported by a section of ‘D’ Company moving forward on the right. As the ‘D’ Company section closed on a large villa, machine guns fired out of windows and doorways. White directed two sections from No. 13 Platoon to come up on the flank and support the ‘D’ Company element. Despite heavy opposition, the combined force managed to press up close to the house, killing several of the defending Panzer Grenadiers and taking some prisoners along the way.

  German fire lulled. A moment later, two Panzer Grenadiers appeared in the main doorway. Although one was waving a white flag, both men were fully armed. A soldier shouted, “Are you surrendering?” The answer was a burst of fire from their guns, followed by the men ducking back inside. The firefight resumed.29

  Finally, with dusk falling and the sound of heavy vehicles approaching, White retreated because he had no weapons with which to meet an armoured attack. Brigadier Snow advised White that no further attempt to secure the ridge should be made until the Cape Breton Highlanders crossed the river and could protect the regiment’s left flank from counterattack.30

  While the Perths had been advancing, the Cape Breton Highlanders spent the day waiting for Lieutenant Colonel Jim Weir to issue orders. At 1100 hours at an Orders Group, he outlined the regiment’s river crossing. The rifle companies would cross in single file, followed by regimental headquarters and then the support platoons. Everyone hunkered in slit trenches awaiting orders. And there they waited, occasionally being potted at by German artillery and mortars that caused several casualties.