Tug of War

by Shelfold Bidwell

  There was, however, trouble ahead. Leese had put his strongest corps, the 5th, on the hilly inland route, changing his original plan, since Anders had already found it was less well defended and the strongpoints on the coast could be turned from the higher ground. However, Leese, having given the Canadians what the Poles told him was the toughest route, along the coast, neither reinforced them, nor made arrangements to do so were they to break through on the direct route to Rimini. He had no flexible plan for his mid-battle, the “dog-fight”, when inevitably a melee with the panzers and panzer grenadiers rushing up to counter-attack would develop, and it was vital to reach the ground with his own armour first.

  Leese’s third handicap was not of his own making. Deprived of the services of the experienced South African and British 6th Armoured Divisions, he had given Keightley the British 1st Armoured. Now in the course of the war in Italy the armoured divisions, following the German example, had learnt to fight in mixed teams of tanks and infantry, and like the New Zealand Division had added an extra infantry brigade. The 1st Armoured had not been in action since April 1943 in Africa, it was unaware of and untrained in the new tactics, its reorganisation on the new model had been only just completed, the armour and infantry were strangers to each other, and Major-General Richard Hull had only recently assumed command. In short, it was not yet battle-worthy. The consequences of all this lay ahead.

  The men of the Eighth Army went into battle cheered by the presence of Winston Churchill, and in the best of spirits.

  It was a clear night on August 25/26 when the 1st Canadian Division with the British 46th Division on its left passed through a screen of Polish troops and established bridgeheads over the Metauro. In daylight the 1st Canadian Division advanced, the 21st Tank Brigade in support. There was resistance, so they quickly learned that the enemy had not withdrawn. The advance was hindered by cratering and mining which delayed the tanks, radio communication failed here and there and some units lost their way in the confusing country. By the evening of the 26th the division had advanced about five miles.

  Next morning the vanguards arrived at the hill-towns of Monteciccardo, S. Angelo and Ginestreto. In the afternoon Monteciccardo was bombed, unfortunately too early for the Edmontons to attack it at once, but in the small hours of the 28th their A Company entered the town and found it empty. Ten minutes later its forward platoon, having placed Bren guns to command the main street, was amazed to see a company of German infantry in threes marching down it towards them. Opening fire with two machine guns they inflicted about sixty or seventy casualties in less than a minute. Shortly afterwards, a tank appeared behind the Germans and the platoon was soon attacked by the rest of a German battalion; the company prudently withdrew to a ridge outside the town.6 The Germans were, indeed, in some disarray and still unaware of the weight of the Eighth Army attack. They were playing for time to occupy the Green Line but also unwilling to weaken themselves so that they could not hold it. The Canadians had not attacked in great strength anywhere, and their tanks, delayed by demolitions, had not always been up with their infantry. Fortunately, this served to conceal their real strength from the Germans who did not positively identify their presence and took them for a force that was closing up to the Green Line, not one intent on pushing through it in strength.

  By the evening of the 27th Burns felt less confident that he could bounce the Green Line. The 71st Division was giving ground and yielding prisoners, but though the Parachute Division had recently absorbed 2,000 half-trained replacements the Canadians found Heidrich’s men their usual aggressive selves. When Burns asked Vokes whether he would reach the Foglia on the 28th he replied: “Seems unlikely.”

  Opinion in Army Group “C” was divided. Kesselring, supported by the staff of HQ Fourteenth Army, considered that the Eighth Army’s Schwerpunkt would be in the centre, on the Arno front. The Germans had come to regard the Canadians and the New Zealanders as elite assault troops, whose presence on any part of the front was significant. Their intelligence staff was misled by identifications of both on the central front, and reports that the area behind it was buzzing with activity. This was correct, but the Canadians were from the independent 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade, attached to the British 13th Corps, and the New Zealanders were resting. Consequently, when Kesselring heard that Canadian prisoners had been taken on the coastal sector he told Wentzell that he believed that it was a diversion. This impression was strengthened by the fact that as the 76th Corps was already in the process of falling back from its outpost positions to the Green Line it had not felt the full weight of the Eighth Army’s opening blow. The Canadians, in the opinion of the German staff, never took risks. Kesselring felt that his only immediate problem was to ensure that the Green Line was fully manned in good time, so he decided to wait for the battle to develop before altering his plans.

  Wentzell disagreed. He told Kesselring that if the Canadian attack now under way was in fact the main Eighth Army effort, it was (in his view) on the correct axis. He recalled von Vietinghoff, who was on leave. “Then,” in the words of the Canadian official history, “came one of those dramatic finds that sometimes fall to a groping Intelligence.” The Germans got hold of a copy of the message sent by Leese to the troops on the eve of the battle. It spoke of “the last lap”, secret concentrations of great strength to break the Gothic Line, and bringing the campaign to an end. On the night of the 28th, with von Vietinghoff back from leave, the Germans were at last convinced that the objective of OLIVE was, indeed, the Romagna. “Such was the cost of a single sheet of very inferior paper,” wrote Lieutenant-Colonel Nicholson, the Canadian official historian.7 In fact, Kesselring had already started the 26th Panzer on its way on the 27th and the 29th Panzer Grenadiers were warned to follow it as soon as they could be relieved. The Tenth Army ordered the 98th Infantry to relieve the 71st. On the 29th, the retreating divisions crossed the Foglia, with orders to hurry their occupation of the First Green Line. But despite that, Wentzell thought that the 30th would be a day of crisis, for neither the 98th nor the 26th Panzer Divisions could reach the front until that day at the earliest.

  On the 29th Leese, Keightley and Burns considered whether to pause and mount a set-piece battle, for which fire-plans had been prepared in advance, or to try to bounce the Green Line. The 46th Division had kept almost abreast of the Canadians and patrols from both corps which had penetrated the two-mile-wide flat valley of the Foglia in the evening reported that the Green Line was lightly held. While the wire obstacles were formidable and the minefields well sited, the latter had been bombed and considerably disarranged by the Desert Air Force and so some patrols had passed through them without difficulty. On the morning of the 30th, when more aggressive patrols reached the road connecting the villages of Montecchio on the left, Osteria Nuova in the centre and Borgo S. Maria on the right, battalion commanders recommended that an immediate attack be attempted. By this time Burns had brought his armoured division into the line on the left of the 1st Division which was concentrated on a narrower front. He intended to attack with the two divisions in line, each with one brigade up, whatever form the attack took. After receiving the latest patrol information he recommended to Leese that his corps should attack immediately, pushing forward with companies, followed by battalions to make a lodgement while the Green Line was still only partially occupied.

  From this time the “gate-crash battle”, as Burns called it, was the responsibility of the “lieutenant-colonels who rose to the occasion and gave notable examples of leadership”. This was well said, for the breaking of the Green Line was an occasion when Canadian units were faster to the punch than the Germans, exhibiting excellent minor tactics, out-fighting the parachutists and the 26th Panzer Division and opening the door for the Eighth Army to roll forward into the plain. Major-General Bert Hoffmeister sent his 11th Brigade infantry forward in the late afternoon of the 30th without a preliminary bombardment. Vokes’ 3rd Brigade advanced at about the same time. The Cape Breton Highlanders o
n the left of them were to take Montecchio and Point 120, on the right the Perth Regiment went for Point 111 and then Point 147. Vokes’ Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry were to take Osteria Nuova and the West Nova Scotias Point 133. Behind the 11th Brigade, tanks of the 5th Armoured Brigade would cross the river and the anti-tank ditch, pass through the minefields as best they could and support the infantry as soon as possible. They could offer some fire-support even from the midst of the minefields but their direct presence would be required when the infantry fought their way through the German defences.

  At first things did not go well because the Germans came to life and reacted strongly. (They had either been lying low or had arrived just in time to meet the advancing Canadians.) The Cape Breton Highlanders were thrown back from Point 120, where the 71st Division had been relieved by the 67th Panzer Grenadier Regiment of the 26th Panzer Division. However, the Perths took Point 111 and the Irish Regiment of Canada were brought across from the left flank and passed through between them and the battling Highlanders to attack Point 120 from the rear. The move took time in the darkness but when their attack with the tanks of the New Brunswick Hussars did go in at midday on the 31st it was entirely successful and freed the left for a further advance. In the meantime the West Novas had a dreadful time in the minefields, especially from the “schu-mines”. The “Princess Pat’s” persevered, cleared the village of Osteria Nuova of enemy, went on to take Point 115, pushed a company down the road to contact the 11th Brigade, and collected a good haul of prisoners from the Parachute Division.

  During the night the tanks of the British Columbia Dragoons worked their way through the minefield with much shouting and cursing and not a little chaos to catch up with the Perths during the morning. The Perths had outflanked and taken Point 147 from the rear and sent a company up the spur beyond leading to the heights behind the Green Line, only for it to be pinned down by fire. The Dragoons were ordered forward to pick up the Perths and make a joint attack on their objective, Point 204 and Tomba di Pesaro, but the Perths were immobilised by “the severest shelling and mortaring that we had ever experienced”, and the Dragoons went on alone. So difficult was the climb that the tank commanders dismounted to pick out a route for each tank, to be sniped and ambushed by the parachutists, until they were down to eighteen tanks, but they reached the goal, Point 204 in the very heart of the enemy position. Now the Dragoons could shoot into the rear of the enemy holding up the 3rd Brigade at Pozzo Alto, and had cut the road from the top of the hill to Borgo S. Maria.

  It was now vital to get infantry on to Point 204 before dark, when the parachutists would certainly counter-attack. Fortunately the tanks of Lieutenant-Colonel McAvity’s Lord Strathcona’s Horse by then had passed through the minefields and they picked up the Perths’ infantry late in the day. Fighting a model action, troop covering troop as they climbed the ridge with the battalion, they relieved the British Columbia Dragoons at nightfall. The BCD had lost their commanding officer, Fred Vokes, brother of the commander of the 1st Division, killed, together with twenty-one others, and forty-nine wounded.

  There was no sleep that night for the men on Point 204. Attack followed attack by parachutists and sniping assault guns. A farm cart was driven into the position and set on fire, brilliantly illuminating the tanks. Solid shot flew in all directions and mortar bombs crumped persistently, but the Perths gave as good as they got, chased away their assailants and at sunrise still held the position. Their friends on either side benefited immediately as the Strathcona’s tanks were able to shoot at Pozzo Alto and help the 1st Division forward. Had Hoffmeister been able to listen to the agitated telephone calls between the 76th Panzer Corps, Tenth Army and Kesselring’s HQ he would have been greatly encouraged. What the Germans most feared — a thrust from Point 204 to the summit of the ridge at Tomba di Pesaro and M. Peloso — was to be his next step. It would split the German defences and enable the 1st Canadian Division to take M. Luro and drive from there to the sea. The 1st Parachute Division would be cornered in Pesaro and the Green Line rolled up from the east.

  The plan was for the Straths and the Perths to take both objectives early in the morning of September 1. However, the Perths had been fighting hard for two days and were too weak to go on. (Their commander Lieutenant-Colonel Reid, twice wounded, was awarded the DSO for outstanding leadership.) Their place was taken by the 4th Princess Louise Dragoon Guards — the “Plugs” — fighting for the first time as infantry, with the Strathcona’s tanks. They were not deterred by a sharp artillery bombardment that greeted them as they arrived on Point 204, costing them several men, and at 1 p.m. jumped off together with the tanks supported by an artillery fire-plan. The newly converted infantry scored a great success, recorded blow by blow in the Strathcona’s radio log. Working closely together tanks and foot soldiers remorselessly drove the enemy from one fire position to another; from behind corn stooks, hedgerows and inside houses until, when all was over, his dead lay in rows and a bulldozer had to be summoned to dig a trench for a mass grave. (Lieutenant-Colonel W. W. G. Darling, the commanding officer of the “Plugs”, who controlled the battle, was also awarded the DSO for “sheer gallantry and personal example”.) The victors from the grassy slopes of M. Peloso now had a panorama of the Second Green Line: M. Gemmano on the left, Coriano beyond the Conca river and to Riccione on the Via Adriatica, where the routed enemy was flying in the hope of occupying it during the night.8

  A wonderful opportunity waited to be seized. If M. Luro fell as well as Tomba di Pesaro, a swift thrust by the 1st Infantry Division would seal the fate of the whole 1st Parachute Division, which had already lost its 4th Regiment; with it eliminated the Second Green Line could not be held. In the 5th Armoured Division the 11th Infantry Brigade was exhausted and needed time to reorganise, and the armoured troops, equally tired, required time to recover and repair damaged vehicles and to replenish. General Hoffmeister still had in reserve his second infantry brigade, the 12th. Reinforcing it with his 3rd Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment (tanks and armoured infantry), he sent it forward that night.* The 11th Brigade followed up in their troop carriers. Hoffmeister’s objective was S. Fortunato in the third or reserve German line south-west of Rimini — the Rimini Line — and he had the satisfaction of driving through the Second Green Line before it could be occupied by the enemy. On his right the 1st Division had taken rather longer to get off the mark. It did not capture M. Luro until five hours after M. Peloso had fallen, and then Vokes had to organise a pursuit group with the tanks of the British 21st Tank Brigade, just too late to catch the remnants of the Parachute Division. The Canadians were now in full cry.

  Earlier that afternoon General Burns had reported to Alexander and Leese at Eighth Army tactical HQ that the Green Lines had been crossed and his pursuit had begun. Leese and Alexander expressed their delight but seemed startled by the news that the advance had actually started and the speed of Burns’ coup. Burns formed the impression that both men were completely at a loss. When he made to leave, Leese called him back. Alexander told him that he would recommend him for the DSO. In the book he wrote later Burns recorded that he took this to mean that at last Leese and Alexander had decided he was fit to handle his command and that “confidence had replaced the doubts that had formerly existed”.9 This was all very well, but Burns’ immediate need was not a DSO but another armoured division. Leese’s first error, his failure to provide Burns with a reserve division before OLIVE started, was one of judgment. Now, condoned by a passive Alexander, he was guilty of criminal inertia. The door to the enemy position, if not open, was at least ajar. Leese could not have been in any doubt that given the shortest breathing space Herr, like any German commander, would leap to slam the opening door in Hoffmeister’s face, nor could he have been in any doubt that according to his own plan the 1st Armoured Division could not reach even the line of the Metauro for twenty-four hours. It was not impossible to improvise a mobile group to exploit Burns’ success. A German or an American general
would have galvanised his staff into immediate action. Any action would have been better than none. Leese did nothing.

  On the 3rd, having crossed the Conca river, Hoffmeister’s division pushed on and took Misano but on the 4th, as they were fighting their way down the ridge which terminated in the village of Besanigo, beyond the Second Green Line, the New Brunswick Hussars were heavily fired on and attacked by troops from their left flank. It transpired that the ridge from Coriano in the north to the villages of Passano and S. Savino in the south was held by the enemy. The corps boundary ran down the Besanigo stream, the Coriano ridge was in the 5th Corps sector. What had happened was that the 98th Infantry Division had arrived on the 3rd, and that night the 29th Panzer Grenadiers’ 71st Regiment. It is questionable whether closer action between the 46th Division, held up at S. Clemente, and the Canadians would have been able to dislodge the 98th Division which was now supported by the 26th Panzer Division. However, the Irish and the Cape Breton Highlanders pushed on and took the hamlet of Besanigo on the 5th. Meanwhile on the 4th the 1st Division was echeloned back on the right of the 5th, held up in the Second Green Line by parachutists in S. Maria di Scacciano. That night it threw them out by turning their seaward flank and moved forward to the Melo stream crossing it on the 5th, but was held up there. The 1st Brigade lost 300 men in these few hours of fighting. Neither it nor the armoured division could go any further as long as the Germans were firmly entrenched in their left rear. Where was 1st Armoured Division, which was supposed to dislodge the enemy from the Coriano ridge?