Ortona (13 page)

To offset the difficulty he anticipated with the road assault, Forin decided to send his remaining forward company out wide on the left flank. A gully there offered a good route up the valley slope to a position between San Leonardo and the hamlet of La Torre. If successful, this company would be able to cut San Leonardo off from reinforcements out of La Torre. The whole plan was very risky, but he must proceed as ordered by 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade commander Brigadier Bert Hoffmeister.
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Forin issued his orders to the company commanders. ‘B' Company, commanded by Captain W.H. Buchanan, would carry out the left hook manoeuvre to get between San Leonardo and La Torre. ‘C' Company, under Captain David B. Blackburn, would lead the assault up the road, with Major Tom Vance's ‘A' Company supporting its flank. ‘D' Company and battalion HQ would remain in reserve on the other side of the river, ready to move up and reinforce whichever attacking company achieved a breakthrough to San Leonardo. Two of the company commanders were inexperienced in combat. Buchanan, a Calgary Highlander exchange officer sent to gain combat experience in preparation for the northern Europe invasion, had just come to the Seaforths from Britain. Blackburn had been recently shifted from command of the support company to infantry company command.

The inexperience of the company commanders reflected the losses the Seaforths and other 1st Division battalions had taken from sickness, mostly the jaundice epidemic. Forin himself was extremely weak with jaundice. He kept on his feet only by taking some pills
the battalion doctor gave him and by eating a restricted diet of boiled chicken and tinned salmon. Although he thought the jaundice was improving, it still affected his ability to lead because of the weakness he experienced.
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Forin's orders to the company commanders were that, in accordance with instructions from Hoffmeister, their specific task was to establish a bridgehead on the other side of the Moro River by capturing San Leonardo. Third Field Company of the RCE was standing by with the equipment necessary to build an improvised sixty-footlong crossing constructed of steel cribs that would be capable of supporting seventeen-pounder antitank guns.
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The purpose of the Seaforths' bridgehead was to push German infantry back from the destroyed bridge that crossed the river before the town. This would allow the engineers to construct a Bailey bridge without being subjected to small-arms fire. Therefore, if successful in seizing San Leonardo, the companies were not to advance forward but to dig in and await the completion of the bridge. Once the bridge was finished, it would be possible to move tanks up in support of the Seaforths and the bridgehead could then be expanded. Forin completed his briefing by admonishing each company commander to maintain regular radio contact with HQ, so he would know when and where to deploy ‘D' Company.
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Precisely at midnight, ‘B' Company set off. Accompanying it was Captain T. Lem Carter, a forward observation officer for the Royal Canadian Artillery's 2nd Field Regiment. His presence meant that ‘B' Company had the use of two #18 field radio sets, the British mancarried standard radio for company-sized units. The other companies each had one of these radios. Within minutes of ‘B' Company's departure, ‘C' Company set off down the slope. Both companies were following narrow paths located in the afternoon by the scout platoon, which appeared to lead down to the river. Thirty minutes later, ‘A' Company set off on another track. At the head of ‘A' Company was scout platoon trooper Private A.K. Harris.

Harris's job was to get the company across the river. Once finished that task, he was free to return to battalion headquarters. Heavy clouds obscured the moon as Harris led the company along the ridgeline to the path they would use for the descent to the valley floor. In contrast to the men following noisily behind him, Harris
wore rope-soled shoes and carried nothing metal other than his helmet and a pistol. Ahead, German shells started striking the ridge. Harris led the company off on a wide detour away from the ridgeline to avoid the artillery concentrations. He was moving slowly, carefully, the way a scout who wants to stay alive does. This was too slow, however, for Vance, who passed word along to Harris to pick up the pace. Reluctantly Harris did so and soon reached the path leading into the valley. Vance, Lieutenant J.W. Baldwin of the lead platoon, and Company Sergeant Major Angus Blaker joined Harris at the trailhead. Vance insisted Harris take a section of Baldwin's platoon with him to serve as a bodyguard. Harris initially protested, but finally realized he was caught in the age-old dilemma soldiers face when presented with questionable orders from an officer. With his unwanted bodyguard in tow, Harris started the descent. “The noise of the men with me seems more dangerous than their protection is worth,” he later wrote.

Harris proceeded to “drop them off as guides at each turn in the trail. The brush was head high. Every few minutes a flare blossomed in the sky and sparkled brilliantly for a minute or so.
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Each time a flare popped, Harris froze and surveyed the bleached landscape before him. There was no sign of German positions or that enemy soldiers had been using the trail. Safely at the river, which he considered little more than a stream, Harris waded across and up the steep bank on the other side. In a few minutes he was joined by Lieutenant Baldwin and his platoon. Harris's job was done, but he was unable to decide what to do next. His orders were to return to battalion HQ, but HQ itself was expected to cross the river during the night. If he returned, Harris would only face another river crossing. When the Germans started shelling the trail over which the company had just come, Harris decided to stay with ‘A' Company until HQ came forward.

Baldwin's platoon led off, Harris now preceding it as the point man. Soon word came up that the rear platoon was missing, apparently having lost track of the rest of the column in the dark. By this time, Harris was in near panic about the noise coming from the men behind him. “Clinking equipment, boots squelching in the mud, and the odd muttered curse” carried clearly above the sound of distant battle. It seemed impossible that the Germans could fail to hear the
company's approach. Harris later wrote that when he was about ten feet in front of the lead platoon, crossing a small gully, “a stream of fire flies arch . . . through the blackness. They grope for the muffled sounds of ‘A' Company. The quiet is shattered by the rip of Spandaus. There are shouted commands behind and then the pop-pop-pop of the Brens.” Harris, officially a guest at this battle, decided to “lay doggo.”
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While Harris, armed with only a pistol, went to ground, ‘A' Company strung out behind him was pinned down by a hail of fire from what seemed to be at least a dozen machine guns. In the first seconds of the fight, Major Vance was blinded by the brilliant flash from a high-explosive shell exploding right in front of him, Company Sergeant Major Angus Blaker was killed, and Lieutenant Baldwin wounded. Soldiers all along the line were down, some wounded, others dead or dying. Despite being injured, Baldwin tried to work small parties of his platoon forward but the enemy fire was too intense. His radio having broken down during the river crossing, the wounded Vance was unable to reach Forin to either request reinforcement or to seek permission to break off contact with the enemy and withdraw. After the battle raged on for some time and his unit absorbed still more casualties, Vance ordered a withdrawal back across the Moro.
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To Harris, hunkered in cover on the other side of the gully, it seemed the Canadians were engaged in a “much noisier night battle than the Germans. . . . There seemed to be much shouting back and forth from our side. In the short periods of silence it was possible to hear the quiet disciplined voices of the German machine gunners through the darkness. One got the unfair impression that they were the better soldiers.” He realized, however, that the reality was that a unit caught in an ambush was more likely to break noise discipline. Had the tables been turned, Harris figured that the Germans would have appeared just as panicked as the Canadians.
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At 0200 hours, about one hour after ‘A' Company broke contact with the enemy, one of its runners reported to Forin that the remains of two platoons were across the river and returning to battalion HQ with casualties.
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No. 7 Platoon of ‘A' Company, separated from the other two platoons shortly after the river crossing, was apparently still on the other side of the river.

Harris had listened to the soldiers withdraw, knowing it was
impossible for him to safely join their retreat. Even after the company had gone, the Germans continued to rake the area with machine-gun fire. Finally, when the guns fell quiet, Harris crawled over to a haystack he had spotted earlier and wormed into its heart. Once inside he was able to stand and poke his head out for a good look around. He could see precious little, including any of the machine-gun positions that had fired on ‘A' Company. Just as it started to turn light, Harris left the stack and retraced his steps to the south bank of the Moro.
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While two platoons of ‘A' Company were being cut up in an ambush on the right flank of the Seaforth attack, ‘B' Company slipped through to its objective to the west of San Leonardo without a shot being fired. Buchanan set up his positions and waited for the dawn. Despite Forin's orders to report back, battalion HQ heard nothing from Buchanan. As far as Forin knew, ‘B' Company had simply vanished on the other side of the river.
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As for ‘C' Company, it advanced only one hundred yards beyond the river's edge before being struck by machine-gun fire from the facing high ground at 0100 hours. The guns appeared to be firing on pre-fixed lines with excellent overlap, so there was no chance of any platoon pressing an attack without being cut to pieces. The company went to ground, conserving ammunition and offering only token return fire against the German gunners.
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Throughout the rest of the confused night of fighting, Forin's radio stayed completely quiet. He could raise nobody. Lacking any idea of ‘B' Company's whereabouts, able to see the volume of enemy fire raking ‘C' Company, and with ‘A' Company staggering back across the Moro in disarray, Forin saw little point in advancing ‘D' Company into the fray. Meanwhile, the alerted Germans had started heavily shelling the area of the blown bridge. The RCE unit decided that work on throwing the bridge over the river could not continue and the engineers retreated to safety. It was clear to Forin that if anything tangible could be rescued from the night's attack it would have to wait until daylight. Perhaps then he would be able to bring supporting artillery and mortar fire in to break up the enemy resistance and enable the battalion to advance.
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O
F
the three regiments attacking across the Moro River on the night of December 5 and in the early morning hours of December 6, the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry had conducted the most thorough reconnaissance and planning. Early patrols had discovered a ford slightly downstream of Villa Rogatti. Thirty-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Bethel Ware, a permanent force officer before the war, decided to send his entire three-company attack force up this route. ‘B' Company would lead at midnight, with ‘A' Company following in thirty minutes, and ‘C' Company crossing fifty minutes after the first company jumped off. ‘D' Company would remain in reserve, scheduled to join the battle in the morning. Rather than spread his companies out and assault the village from differing flanks, Ware planned to attack on a one-company wide front, hitting Villa Rogatti from the southeast. The two following companies would then move through ‘B' Company to exploit success or provide immediate reinforcement.

Ware had also managed to develop some concrete plans for the battalion's reinforcement in the morning by tanks of the British 44th
Royal Tank Regiment. Under cover of first darkness, PPCLI patrols, accompanied by some 44th tankers, had determined that tanks could negotiate a rough road that led down from the southern ridge to a destroyed bridge directly below Villa Rogatti. The river here was found to be fordable by tanks and unguarded by German sentries. Once across the river, the tanks could follow a circuitous route up to the ridgeline by driving along the valley floor to a point about a mile downstream, and winding up another narrow track to the ridge. From there, a road led back to the village. It would be a difficult task for the tankers to get through the mud of the river and follow the extremely rough and slippery tracks, but all concerned thought the plan should work.

At the same time as the patrols investigating tank routes went into the Moro valley, a ‘B' Company patrol commanded by Lieutenant J.L. McCullough set off on a hazardous reconnaissance up the opposing ridgeline and into the rear of Villa Rogatti. McCullough's task was to assess the validity of Canadian intelligence reports on the defences at the village. The lieutenant and his small patrol managed to slip through the German defensive net, conducted a limited observation, and returned without a shot being fired. McCullough reported to Ware that Villa Rogatti was anything but an isolated German outpost. While the patrol had been on the other side of the valley, they had seen and heard almost constant movement of enemy troops passing in and out of the village. Further, McCullough said it was evident that German armour would be able to easily reach Villa Rogatti from rear positions.