Esprit de Corps

For two hours on Christmas Day 1943 weary Canadians came in from the war in Ortona where they ate and thought of home.

On Christmas Eve 1943, between the burp of Schmeissers, the Canadians could hear voices in the enemy trenches. Voices singing “Stille Nacht …heilige nacht” made Christmas at Ortona even more bizarre and the next day the Seaforth Highlanders went to the church of Santa Maria di Constantini-poli not to pray but to eat. There had been ample praying on the 450-mile drive up the Apennine spine and on Christmas morning the padre was wise enough to let religion find its own level as the men came in from the killing ground for two hours of Christmas.

Pork sizzled in cookers behind the altar and the first sip of beer eased some of the tension which almost four months of combat etched on weary faces. Conversations started haltingly and then grew almost hysterically as men re-discovered the simple art of talk. When the memorable meal was finished, empty plates were stacked on the altar as the reality of war blended with the Christmas story and thoughts of home. Then it was time to go back.

Uptown, in another church, legend had it that whoever looked upon the tomb of St. Thomas would get safely to Rome. The Canadians were tasked to get through Ortona to link up with a road which led to Rome, but every time a man stepped outside he ran an exceedingly good chance of becoming dead. Casualties since September’s invasion of Italy ran to about 4000 all causes, and they were still mounting. Small wonder that few Canadians were impressed by the legend of St. Thomas.

At best the Italian campaign was a marriage of reluctant partners. For two years the Americans had been thirsting for an invasion in North-West Europe, although terribly unprepared, and saw no point in committing forces to Italy. The British, on the other hand, wanted to reduce the enemy’s strength, tie up his forces and establish a line of communication through the Mediterranean. The reason for the latter is not obvious since the war in North Africa was over. As for tying up troops, the advantage was definitely with the superbly entrenched enemy. When Canadians invaded the “soft underbelly of Europe” on 3 September 1943, they were pawns in a confused military campaign and Canadian politics, which ultimately cost General Andy McNaughton his job.

Canadian losses at Dieppe notwithstanding, Mackenzie King had long been seized with the idea of having Canadians more actively involved in the war. During the North African campaign he continuously pestered Churchill to get the Canadians in action. As a result, the 1st Canadian Division and the Three Rivers Tank regiment were part of the invasion of Sicily. McNaughton stipulated that the army not be split up and that troops sent to Sicily be returned to England in time for the invasion of NW Europe. But when landings in Sicily led to the invasion of Italy, the Canadian government decided not only to leave the 1st Division in Italy, but to add to it to form an army corps, much against the wishes of the British.

Although it reached a conclusion in January 1944, this muddled scenario was being played out, unknown to field commanders, when the 1st Canadian Division and the 1st Canadian Tank Brigade crossed the straits of Messina on 3 September 1943. It was a pleasant 10-mile cruise which ended in a long walk in the sun; the operation was a feint for a larger landing by the Americans which would come at Salerno in six days. Canadian columns marching north over parched mountains met exuberant Italians coming south, rushing like lemmings not to the sea, but to give themselves up.

Vanishing enemy

North of Reggio di Calabria, the Canadians were soon in the mountains where mules became man’s best friend. The Apennine mountains run down the spine of Italy and are serated by rivers. In the summer of 1943 they were also serated by German defence positions and as the Canadians moved north, the war became a series of brief engagements and a vanishing enemy who fought well and then withdrew.

Within 17 days of the landing, the Canadians took Potenza, a communications centre, just south of the major airport at Foggia. An entry in a German war diary suggests that the Canadians had already established a reputation: “Opposite the 26th Panzer Division, the 1st Canadian Infantry has appeared again which explains the rapid advance of the enemy.”

Capture and Escape

After Foggia, the Canadians moved northwest clearing several Apennine locations. By 13 October The Royal Canadian Regiment and 48th Highlanders moved to the outskirts of Campobasso with the Hastings and Prince Edwards in reserve. After a night skirmish, the Canadians walked into Campobasso next morning. However, Major Bert Kennedy and two privates of the Hasty Pees were captured when they tried to link up with the RCR’s, and four days later Kennedy was on a truck bound for Rome and a prison camp. As it slowed to round a sharp turn, he jumped, and ended up in a brook below. It was raining and the guards seemed to have more important business elsewhere. They fired a few shots in Kennedy’s direction and moved on. Kennedy lived on the land and with Italian peasants for 25 days. He finally contacted an American patrol and returned to duty although he lost 15 pounds in the adventure.

The enemy counted heavily on the snows and rain of November to bring the fighting to a close for the winter. Meanwhile they waited in winter defensive positions on the north bank of the Sangro River. Late in November, the British 78th Division broke through the German Hitler line in a five-day battle, then the 1st Canadian Division moved through to take up the pursuit.

Bridges blown

The Canadians made their way up a coastal plain about two miles wide with mountains on the west and the Adriatic on the east. Every mile a gully and rushing torrents impeded movement. The Germans had methodically blown up all bridges and followed the progress from the high ground, shelling at will. By early December, the Canadians faced yet another river.

As the Canadians prepared to cross, enemy shelling increased. Milton McNaugh-ton waited two hours for the enemy shelling and sniper fire to abate. His job was to drive a bulldozer into the Moro River to gouge out a diversion, enabling them to bring equipment across. While waiting, he went out and got himself two German prisoners. Then he said ‘the hell with waiting’ and drove out where he worked under fire for five hours. Two hours later the tanks rolled across and San Leonardo was taken.

Rain, mud and bodies

The 1st Division then moved towards the Ortona-Orsogna road but a ravine stood between the Canadians and the road. Here the Germans were strongly entrenched in the slopes, protected from artillery. When firing stopped, they came out and fought savagely and held. Heavy rains churned the floor of the gully to a thick mud worthy of Passchendaele; and the dead built up in repeated attacks and counterattacks. Finally, after five days the Seaforths and the West Nova Scotias each breached the defences with Ontario Regiment tanks as back up and established a bridgehead beyond the Gully.

Next morning the Royal 22nd Regiment was ordered to take a cluster of farm buildings known as Casa Berardi and a critical crossroads beyond on the road to Ortona. With Captain Paul Triquet were 81 men and seven Ontario Regiment tanks. While intelligence reports suggested that the Panzer unit holding the area had been badly mauled, they didn’t mention that it had been relieved by a fresh parachute battalion armed with tanks, one of the best in Italy.

Heavy losses

After a one-hour barrage, the Canadians advanced across the ravine with infantry leading the tanks. They took one outpost where an officer was suffering from shellshock but a few hundred yards further on the slap of 88’s (German tanks), destroyed one of the Canadian tanks. Countering fire knocked out one of four attacking tanks. There was a brief pause as a woman led two children away from the area, and then the Canadians destroyed a second enemy tank. Triquet lost 30 men and his radio was smashed in the heavy fighting.

They pushed on towards the houses a mile and a half away, every foot costing casualties. By late morning, Triquet’s losses stood at 50 men and they were surrounded by the enemy. Triquet decided the safest course was to take their objective. The 14 survivors reached Casa Berardi seven hours after they started and then the job of cleaning out the houses began. Although they drove the enemy out, many returned during the night. Ammunition was exhausted and Major Smith’s lead tank was knocked out. The others formed a circle with two infantrymen in slit trenches guarding them throughout the night.

Next day brought heavy shelling which wiped out half a relief company. The last member of Triquet’s headquarters company was killed while urging him to eat, and Triquet spent the rest of the day under fire hopping from trench to trench, encouraging his men. After midnight on the second day, a squadron of tanks arrived with reinforcements for the Ontario Regiment. Four days after the attack went in, the Royal Canadian Regiment made contact but came under heavy attack with many casualties.

Mouse-holing

Promoted to major, Triquet was awarded the Victoria Cross. He later wrote: “The RCR dead were buried not far from our dead – French Canadians and English Canadians sleeping their last sleep side by side.” The RCR and the 48th Highlanders took the vital crossroads on 19 December and two days later the Loyal Edmontons and the Seaforths were fighting in the streets of Ortona which had now become a prestige battle the Germans did not intend to abandon. The 1st Parachute Division toppled houses to block passage and force the Canadians along routes lined with mortars, anti-tank guns and machine guns. They also mined buildings. Twenty-four men of the Edmontons were buried alive when the enemy blew up a building as they entered. One was recovered three days later. In response, the Edmontons later lured two dozen Germans into a block house and blew it up. Three Rivers tanks became adept at blasting paratroopers from the upper floors of buildings and the infantry developed the technique of mouse-holing. The idea was to blow a hole from the wall of one building to another, usually on an upper story, then grenades and submachine-gun fire cleared the adjacent room and house. Canadians became superior mouse-holers and could clear a block in the 10,000 population seaport without touching the ground floor.

Christmas fighting

When some of the troops came to dinner on Christmas Day, the fighting was still going on. About the time of the first sitting, Major Alex Campbell of the Hastings and Prince Edwards was leading a company attack on a strong point west of the city when he was killed. He had recently written a poem evoking God’s help in his command, and the last two stanzas of the poem first published in the Maple Leaf say it all:

Make me more willing to obey,

Help me to merit my command,

And if this be my fatal day

Reach out O God, they helping hand

And lead me down that deep dark vale.

These men of mine must never know

How much afraid I really am

Help me to lead them in the fight

So they will say - “He was a man.”

REPRINTED FROM:

Esprit de Corps, Volume 3 Issue 6

AUTHOR:  

Norman Shannon

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