The Liri Valley

by Mark Zuehlke

  Brigadier Dan Spry detailed the capture of Ferentino to the Royal Canadian Regiment, preceded by ‘C’ Squadron of the Princess Louise Dragoon Guards. Much to the relief of the RCR’s rank and file, Lieutenant Colonel Bill Mathers had been assigned to run a training centre at Avellino. He handed over command to Lieutenant Colonel Jim Ritchie at noon on May 31. The regiment’s second-in-command, Major Strome Galloway, had not for a moment dreamed that he would get the regiment. Nor was he surprised to see an old-guard Permanent Force officer show up from rear-area administrative duties to assume command.10

  Across the valley, preparing for the assault on Monte Radicino, Major Jim Stone felt bitter at learning that the Loyal Edmonton Regiment would not remain his. Stone’s tenure was to be short-lived, with another officer to assume command on June 6.11 Extremely popular throughout the regiment, Stone would lead it through one more fight, then revert to second-in-command. At 1130 hours on June 1, the Eddies crossed the start line and marched toward the mountain. In support was a squadron of the British North Irish Horse Armoured Regiment. ‘D’ Company was on the right and ‘A’ on the left. A blown bridge over a wide irrigation ditch named Fosso Terravalle delayed the advance. It took Lieutenant R. Hayter and his pioneer platoon thirty minutes of frantic work with shovels and explosives to create a diversion for the tanks. Although the diversion was passable, another hour and fifteen minutes slipped by as the fourteen tanks in the squadron struggled, one after the other, over the crossing.

  At 1440 hours, the regiment assaulted the mountain. ‘D’ Company made the charge and was soon consolidated in a clearing just below the rocky summit. No opposition was met. A fighting patrol was sent to the summit, which proved undefended. Moving across the mountain’s left flank, ‘B’ Company engaged an MG42 machine-gun position at 1500 hours. Several Germans were killed in the short, sharp engagement and three were captured.

  On the right flank, ‘C’ Company and a troop of tanks went to secure a small, isolated hill. A large convent had been cut out of the rock at the base. As the Edmontons closed on the structure, which looked like a massive cave with several doors and windows, a machine gun fired from a doorway and wounded two men. The company went to ground and put patrols out on the flanks. One of these took four prisoners, who were immediately sent back to brigade headquarters for interrogation. The prisoners reported that 200 men, supported by four heavy mortars, held the convent. Their orders were to fight a delaying action until dark and then withdraw. One of the prisoners volunteered to help direct artillery fire on the position. Although the Edmontons felt nothing but contempt for this traitor, they used his services to good effect as, under his supervision, tanks, medium artillery, 4.2-inch mortars, and 3-inch mortars all pounded the convent. Nevertheless, the defenders continued to hold out. Finally, at 2200 hours, ‘C’ Company rushed the convent only to find that the Germans had beat a hasty retreat minutes earlier. Several German corpses were found and eighteen prisoners rounded up. The Edmontons had suffered two men killed and four wounded. By 0100 hours on June 2, the small hill was secure.12

  While the Edmontons were seizing Monte Radicino, the RCR and PLDG moved on Ferentino. In the late afternoon, as the force approached the base of the hill on which the hamlet perched, German artillery fired from positions inside the town. Both the troops in the armoured cars and the infantry were delicately picking routes through a dense blanket of mines and booby traps that covered the wide-open ground, so hastening to cover was not an option. RCR Intelligence Officer Lieutenant Gordon Potts was amazed that nobody was hit, particularly as “there were between 800 and 900 men moving across the valley.”13 One PLDG trooper, R.K. McCrae was, however, mortally wounded during a brief engagement between ‘B’ Squadron and a German gun position.14 The force reached the base of the hill and dug in for the night.

  After dark, scout platoon commander Lieutenant Bill Rich — the bell-ringer of Pontecorvo — sent three patrols up the hill into the hamlet. They reported that the Germans had left only a screening force.15 At dawn, Major Sandy Mitchell took ‘B’ Company forward, with ‘D’ Company following closely behind. A smattering of German infantry fired off a few quick shots, then fled, except for seven who took the opportunity to surrender. Another German was plucked out of a bed he was sharing with a woman.

  With the possible exception of the German’s lover, the towns-people were wildly excited by the Canadians’ arrival. As Lieutenant Colonel Ritchie strode into Ferentino, which had been badly battered by aerial bombardments over the past few days, a girl ran up, kissed his hand, and presented him with a red rose.

  The Canadians were given little pause to celebrate the hamlet’s capture. Orders came at 1400 hours to march another ten miles and seize the next hilltop village, Anagni. Initially, Captain D.W. Rose’s ‘D’ Company proceeded straight up Highway 6 before swinging off to the right on a lateral road leading to the town. No reconnaissance to test the strength of its defences had been possible. As the Canadians pushed forward, they came under sporadic gunfire from small pockets of Germans, but these were easily swept aside. Night found the RCR on the lateral road facing Anagni. “At 0500 hours,” Lieutenant Potts later wrote, “the leading company was punching through one side of the town and the Germans were going hell-bent out of the other. . . . By 0800 hours the whole regiment was sitting astride the centre of the town. Again the populace gave us a great welcome and Colonel Ritchie was accorded the honour of receiving an egg which half an hour later broke in his pocket.

  “The Germans had been sent scuttling out of Anagni before they had time to do much looting. The case was quite different in the town of Ferentino, which they had systematically cleaned out. In Anagni the food situation seemed easy and we had roast chicken for lunch today accompanied by music by the daughter of the house.”16 Anagni marked the end of the RCR advance.

  The Canadian advance continued, however, in the form of a five-Jeep patrol by the Princess Louise Dragoon Guards toward the village of Colleferro, ten miles up Highway 6 from Anagni. Arriving in the village at 1600 hours on June 3, they established contact with a Corps Expéditionnaire Français company that had earlier occupied the town. With the French cutting across the Canadian front to drive up Highway 6 to Rome, I Canadian Corps operations abruptly ended. They were only thirty miles from the centre of Rome. At noon on June 4, Fifth Army’s General Mark Clark paraded into the largely undefended city, fulfilling his vision of himself as Rome’s liberator.

  About the same time, the RCR held its Sunday service in Anagni’s small auditorium. Ritchie then paraded the regiment down the narrow central thoroughfare lined by the traditional two- and three-storey Italian houses and shops. From the overlooking windows and balconies, women showered the men with flowers. Roses of all colours soon blanketed the cobblestones. In the main square, Ritchie formed the regiment up to salute about 500 partisans, who had come in from the hills in the wake of the German retreat. The partisans marched past to the applause of the townspeople. As the partisan march past was concluding, Brigadier Dan Spry arrived. “Noting that he was of superior rank to the Commanding Officer of the RCR, the Partisan leader had his men march back into the square so that the brigadier could take the salute. The whole affair was most dramatic and colourful, and the square was draped with Italian flags and bunting in Savoy colours.”17

  Although Military Police hurriedly erected signs ten miles outside Rome that read “ROME OUT OF BOUNDS — TURN BACK NOW,” there was a steady, unofficial flow of Canadians into the city. One of the first to enter Rome had been Seaforth Sergeant Bill Worton. On June 2, two days before Clark’s triumphal march, Worton had ridden into the city on the back of Corporal Gabe Kennedy’s motorcycle. They found the city virtually deserted and saw no signs of Germans. Worton and Kennedy went into a bar and bought liquor. Then they purchased some new clothes at a shop, took in a few of the famous sights, and rode back to the Highlanders’ position with the authorities none the wiser.18

  In the wake of every major campaign comes a p
eriod of assessment, self-examination, and recrimination at every level in the chain of command. Operation Diadem had achieved only a limited victory. Although Rome was liberated, the German army in Italy had escaped to fight another day. Casualties on both sides were high. The Fifth and Eighth armies collectively suffered 43,746 casualties in exchange for losses estimated at slightly more than 50,000 on the German side. Of these, 24,334 were men taken prisoner. Total Canadian battle casualties from May 11 to June 4 were 3,368: 789 killed, 2,463 wounded, and 116 missing. Hardest hit was 1st Canadian Infantry Division, which suffered 1,964 casualties, including 487 killed.19

  That division’s losses reflected the fact that the majority of the Canadian casualties had come at the Hitler Line. A narrow two-kilometre front that invited concentrated German resistance, XIII Corps’s failure to distract the Germans at Aquino, an inflexible artillery fire plan, Vokes’s decision to hold 2 CIB back so that it had insufficient time to reconnoitre its final line of attack were among the reasons mustered by generals, staff officers, and line soldiers alike to explain the casualties.20 Each factor had contributed — the measure free to be mixed as desired.

  Then there was the perpetual traffic congestion that had badly hindered Eighth Army’s operations in the Liri Valley. The congestion had combined with poor staff work, particularly by 5th Canadian Armoured Division headquarters, to slow I Canadian Corps’s advance more than German resistance necessitated. Lieutenant General Tommy Burns had been made sharply aware of this fact when Eighth Army commander General Sir Oliver Leese had given him a “rocket” regarding the slow advance west of the Melfa River.

  In early June, Leese told Burns that 1st Canadian Infantry Division was the best infantry division in Italy and that in time 5th Canadian Armoured Division would undoubtedly emerge as the best armoured division. Leese said that he was, however, less impressed with I Canadians Corps’s headquarters. Burns agreed and plans were made for making replacements. When Burns asked Leese straight out whether he was satisfied with his performance as corps commander, Leese dissembled by asking how Burns felt himself. Could he do the job? Burns replied that he could and had no doubts about that. In fact, Leese and Alexander did not believe Burns capable. They also did not believe that a Canadian corps possessed the staff competence to operate effectively and were consequently “loath to put a British or Indian Division under a headquarters in which [Leese] did not have full confidence.”21 Burns would spend much of the summer of 1944 fighting to keep his job. Several of his staff officers would be sacrificed, including his general staff commander, Brigadier Nick McCarter, and corps engineer, Brigadier A.B. Connelly.

  Burns thought that Major General Bert Hoffmeister had performed excellently. Vokes, Burns said, “did very well,” although he required direction and some prodding from Burns to perform his job properly.22 For his part, Hoffmeister made good on his resolve to fire 11th Canadian Infantry Brigade commander Brigadier Eric Snow. On June 6, Hoffmeister recommended that Snow be given a “change of employment,” preferably a posting to command of a basic training camp, a posting for which he “has had a great deal of experience . . . and has demonstrated that he is suitable.” Hoffmeister’s recommendation was written on the same day that he read a report submitted by Snow on the brigade’s actions during the campaign.

  Snow described that report as “outspoken and inclined to be critical of my commander as well as myself.” He detailed the arguments that had flared between the two men and recorded the flow of changed and often contradictory orders issued by Hoffmeister. “It was terribly confusing to the junior officers to have plans changed as many times as they were during the campaign.” The men, he argued, had felt they were being carelessly tossed about and there had been a resultant “loss of efficiency.”

  There was also implied criticism embedded in his comments regarding the exercise of command from tactical headquarters rather than main headquarters. Although addressing only himself and his regimental commanders, Snow’s comments here could easily be extrapolated as applicable to Hoffmeister, who had spent much time roaming the battlefield in his highly mobile and pared-down tactical HQ, which relied on a tenuous radio communication link back to main headquarters. A brigade commander, Snow said, should remain at main headquarters rather than basing himself in a small tactical headquarters. Being away from main headquarters more “than five hours,” he wrote, “means that neither my staff nor myself are thoroughly in the picture.”

  Finally, having often had Hoffmeister at his shoulder offering critical comment, he wrote, “under no circumstances must I nag or hound my battalion commanders while they are conducting their battle even though I am being pressed by my own commander. . . . To hound battalion commanders when they are doing their best and things are going well will only cause disorganization and perhaps adversely affect the results of the battle.”23

  The report brought a summons to divisional headquarters, where Hoffmeister told Snow it “was insubordinate and that he would not have [Snow] in the Division any longer.” When Snow demanded the right to appeal to Burns, the corps commander backed Hoffmeister, telling Snow he could appeal the matter in England. Snow did so, but was unable to win reassignment back to combat command.24

  The same day that Hoffmeister fired Snow, the Allies struck the beaches of Normandy and opened a new front in northern Europe. Immediately, the Italian theatre was overshadowed to the point that many at home forgot that Canadians fought there at all. Soon, Allied soldiers in Italy started calling themselves D-Day Dodgers. Initially, this was considered a derogatory term assigned them by Britain’s first female Member of Parliament, Lady Nancy Astor. Although Astor’s role may be apocryphal, derogation soon developed into a mark of honour. The theme song, “We Are the D-Day Dodgers,” sung to the tune of “Lili Marlene,” followed.

  On June 6, Royal Canadian Regiment’s Major Galloway and the regimental adjutant drove a Jeep into Rome, ignoring the signs declaring it out of bounds. After driving around the Coliseum and pausing to have their picture taken in the Piazza di San Pietro, with the towering basilica in the background, they drove back to regimental headquarters. On entering his office, Galloway learned of the invasion. He turned to his orderly, Corporal Baker, who was typing up the regiment’s casualty list for the battle. “Baker,” Galloway said excitedly, “it’s just come over the air that the 3rd [Canadian Infantry] Division is fighting on the beaches of Normandy.” Without pausing in his typing, Baker responded, “It’s about fucking time that those bastards did something, isn’t it, sir?”25

  Not all the Canadians had to sneak into Rome. The Royal 22e Regiment received a formal audience with Pope Pius XII on July 3. Among those in attendance was Captain Pierre Potvin, who because of his wounds had to wear his dress jacket draped like a cape over his shoulders. Lieutenant Colonel Jean Allard had personally fetched Potvin from his hospital bed in Caserta for the audience.26 Most of the Van Doos were devout Catholics and accordingly were “all extremely moved at meeting the Pope, a frail, ascetic giant,” wrote Allard. “After his kind words to us, in French, a special mass was said by our chaplain.” Canadian ambassador Georges-Philéas Vanier briefly addressed the Van Doos outside the Basilica San Pietro.27

  Two weeks before the papal audience, another group of Canadians entered Rome with great formality. These were “The Drums” of the Royal Canadian Regiment. Since October 1943, the regiment’s pipes and drums, smuggled into Sicily during the invasion and thence into Italy, had been stored in Campobasso. With the regiment standing down for a few weeks, the instruments were brought forward. As Canadian leave parties to Rome then allowed each regiment to send a mere ten men at a time, the adjutant had restricted the band accordingly. Galloway, ever one to fiddle a rule, let them all go.28

  And so it was on June 22 that twenty-three Canadians had entered Piazza di San Pietro. The drum major, thirteen buglers, and nine drummers — dressed in khaki drill, white webbing, full dress cords, and all other accoutrements of an infantry bugle corps — form
ed up in the centre of the ever crowded square under a brilliant blue sky. For forty-five minutes, Drum Major Sergeant T.W. Beales led them through a dazzling display of stationary playing and counter-marching. Hundreds of Italians gathered around shouting, “Bravo!” and “Viva il Canadese!” as Canadians and Italians together celebrated Rome’s liberation.29

  EPILOGUE

  VALLEY

  OF LOSS

  Fifty-six years gone by and the first months of a new century. I stand upon the rough stones of a path possibly set in place by Benedictine monks more than a thousand years ago. Two continuous deep grooves gouged into the stones by carts are proof of the path’s antiquity. The path, once a main route up the east slope of Monte Cassino to the Benedictine Abbey, survives now as only a fragment. Most of it is undoubtedly buried beneath the bed of the aptly named Via Serpentina, which switchbacks up the steep slope so tightly that its asphalt base and the concrete retaining walls shoring it up leave scant space for archaeological remnants or even vegetation.

  Several hundred metres upslope, the reconstructed Benedictine Abbey stands majestically atop Monte Cassino’s summit. The architectural plans for the abbey were removed to Rome, along with its artworks and library, before the bombs and shells reduced the structure to a half-million-cubic-metre rubble pile. On February 15, 1945, one year after its destruction, new foundation stone was set down for its rebuilding. Nineteen years later, the Marshall Plan–supported rebuilding was completed and Pope Paul VI consecrated it. All the treasures and archival documents were returned. The great paintings, carvings, and other artwork built into the abbey’s walls, floors, doors, and ceilings were meticulously reproduced. The abbey is a perfect replica of its past self. Today, convoys of tour buses grind slowly up Via Serpentina in long lines and tourists throng through the abbey. Mostly they come to the abbey as a day trip out of Rome or Naples.