Ortona (26 page)

Not realizing that Spry had brought battalion HQ forward with ‘C' Company, he was surprised to find the battalion commander sitting calmly on the mud floor next to the RCR's assigned forward observation
officer. The FOO was passing on firing coordinates that were almost exactly those held by the RCR to the on-call gun batteries. Quayle told Spry of the danger posed by the closeness of the shelling. “I know. It has to be that way,” Spry responded. He then turned his attention back to interrogating a German officer who remained “very erect, very polite, and totally uncommunicative.”
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Realizing that Spry was right and that some rounds of the protective wall of fire would likely fall inside the Canadian position, Quayle returned to his platoon position.

Minutes later, rounds from one salvo did fall short, landing near the headquarters. Three soldiers were wounded and two Indian muleteers killed. Several mules, used to carry the FOO's radio equipment and the three-inch mortars, were torn to pieces. The German armour, apparently deterred by the heavy shelling, never appeared. Soon enemy shells started falling to the immediate south of ‘A' Company's position. Spry realized that the Germans, seeing shells land in the area occupied by ‘A' and ‘C' companies, had assumed the RCR must be dug in farther to the south. They remained deceived throughout the night, continuing to bombard the wrong location. For his part, Spry kept calling salvoes down on the edge of his battalion's position whenever the Germans made the slightest move toward it.

As the night wore on, the RCR reorganized. The battalion HQ was full of wounded. When moonlight shone down through the rickety roof onto the mud floor, it was decided they had to be moved to a more solid location. The cream-coloured building occupied by Lieutenant Mitch Sterlin's ‘D' Company platoon was sturdy and sound, so the wounded were transferred there.

Spry and his battalion command staff on the scene spent the remaining hours of darkness gathering an appreciation of their current position. One thing was clear. The Panzer Grenadier resistance was too strong and the casualties suffered so far too heavy to enable the RCR to continue its attack toward San Leonardo. Spry concluded that the flat little hilltop his battalion occupied was defensibly untenable due to an overlooking low ridge and the flat terrain, providing perfect ground for tank manoeuvre. Downhill from the house, already dubbed Sterlin's Castle, was a slight reverse slope.

Spry decided to shift everyone down the slope and to leave Sterlin and his platoon in the house to hold the right flank closest to
the road. This meant again moving the wounded out of what would now become the RCR's forward defensive point. The move was completed without incident. The regiment concentrated in a tight little island with Liddell's ‘A' Company holding the northern flank, Lavoie's ‘C' Company the east, and Galloway's ‘B' Company the remaining edges of the circle around battalion HQ, the three-inch mortars, the wounded, and the surviving muleteers. The lateral attack had failed. The RCR was cut off and possibly surrounded.

There remained one glimmer of hope. Shortly before daylight, Spry received word from Brigadier Howard Graham that 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade supported by tanks would cross the river in the morning and smash its way into San Leonardo. Once San Leonardo fell, the RCR should be able to fight its way through to the village. Failing that, it was probable that the Panzer Grenadiers would at least have to divert their attention to containing the 2 CIB assault. That would enable the RCR to withdraw to the Hastings and Prince Edward bridgehead. Immediate orders for the RCR were to dig in and hold.

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0430 hours, December 9, Brigadier Howard Graham signalled Major General Chris Vokes at 1st Canadian Infantry Division headquarters. Graham was plagued by a duodenal ulcer that was causing him increasing pain. Now that pain was accentuated by the admission of failure. “It appears,” he reported, “that it is not possible for me to form the bridgehead as ordered by you, but at least the operation enabled the diversion to be prepared. . . . It would be of great assistance if tanks were pushed over as soon as possible. . . . It has been an exceedingly busy night.”
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Vokes had assumed as much from the night's 1st Brigade radio traffic and reports. He had accordingly reworked his offensive plan. Originally the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada battalion, supported by the 14th Canadian Armoured Regiment, more commonly called the Calgary Tanks, was to use San Leonardo as a jumping-off point to attack toward the Ortona-Orsogna lateral road. Now the combined force would have to first take the village.

At least Vokes finally had a bridge across the Moro. It had not helped his disposition to learn that during the night the 8th Indian
Division engineers had achieved what the Royal Canadian Engineers had deemed impossible. By manhandling all the parts of a Bailey bridge across to the northern bank of the Moro, the Indian sappers had succeeded in launching a stable crossing in the reverse direction over the river directly below Villa Rogatti. Lieutenant Colonel Geoff Walsh's “impossible bridge” had proven possible after all. The opportunity to have outflanked the defences around San Leonardo by moving armour and infantry out of Villa Rogatti, as advocated so fiercely by Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry commander Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Ware, could have worked. That was nothing but fodder for speculation by historians now; the opportunity had been lost and the Canadians must continue with the more direct, undoubtedly bloodier, head-on attack. An added insult came when the Indians erected a sign over the new structure naming it “The Impossible Bridge.”
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Vokes's bridge before San Leonardo was ready at 0600 hours, not a minute too soon. The tank attack was scheduled to begin in precisely one hour. German shelling of the bridge location intensified as dawn approached. Time and again, Major Robin Fraser's exhausted engineers rushed out on the bridge and frantically repaired damage caused by shell strikes. The engineers took heavy casualties. While only three engineers had been wounded during the bridge's construction, twenty-two were killed or wounded keeping it in repair for the duration of the attack.
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Brigadier Robert Andrew Wyman, commander of 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade, listened soberly as Vokes changed the tasking for the Calgary Tanks. The new mission would be a desperate attempt to retrieve victory from failure. Carrying a company of Seaforth Highlanders of Canada on the outer hulls, a squadron of Sherman M-4 tanks would race across the bridge and gain entry into San Leonardo. Wyman personally carried the news to twenty-five-year-old Major Ned Amy, whose ‘A' Squadron of the Calgary Tanks would undertake the risky mission. Amy and his tanks were already formed up astride the road on the southern ridgeline of the Moro River valley. With a false dawn only just penetrating the overhanging cloud, Wyman gave Amy the news. “They [1st Canadian Infantry Brigade]
haven't taken the bridgehead. You take it now,” he said simply.
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Amy, a graduate of Royal Military College who had been born in Newcastle, New Brunswick, had only been promoted to the rank of major two months earlier. Given overall command of the combined infantry and armoured force, he now shouldered responsibility for the attack.

Amy got underway immediately. At 0730 hours, the tanks fired up their engines and the Seaforths' ‘D' Company, commanded by Captain Alan Mercer, broke into sections and boarded the twelve tanks. Setting off in a single-file column, the tanks descended into the valley. The sound of the tank engines and tracks churning through the mud of the road immediately attracted German mortar and artillery fire.

With the valley slope exploding all around, Amy directed the leading tanks to speed up. Careering down the hill, two of the tanks failed to negotiate a tight corner and the thirty-two-ton machines both rolled down a thirty-foot embankment.
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While most of the infantry jumped to safety as the tanks toppled over the edge, Private McConnell, ‘D' Company's one-hundred-pound, five-foot-tall runner, was pinned under one of the tanks. It would take several hours for one of the tank crews to dig him out unhurt.
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The two tanks had to be abandoned until tank recovery equipment was able to winch them back out of the ravine.
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As the remaining ten tanks approached the valley bottom, the German mortar bombardment was joined by intensive machine-gun fire, forcing the Seaforths to abandon the tanks and make their way forward on foot through the limited protective cover of the vineyards and olive groves. The infantry refused to be driven to ground, advancing despite heavy casualties.

Grinding up the steep road toward San Leonardo, the lead tank triggered a pressure-activated Teller mine. Shaped like a covered cooking pan about two and a half inches deep and fifteen inches across, the Teller mine was loaded with high explosive. When the tank rolled over the plunger-style trigger buried just under the surface, the mine exploded. While a single mine lacked the force to destroy an armoured vehicle, it was sufficient to break a track and immobilize the tank. Amy's tank column lurched to a halt behind the damaged tank blocking the road. The infantry were moving off beyond the armour. There was only one way Amy could continue the
tank attack. He ordered his driver to head cross-country toward the top of the ridgeline and radioed for the remaining eight tanks to follow. The combination of mud, devastated olive orchards, and tangles of wire and torn vines in the vineyards made the going next to impossible. Five of the tanks soon bogged down, but the other four bulled their way forward.
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Lieutenant John McLean's infantry platoon was first to scramble up to the ridgeline. It advanced with Amy's clutch of tanks following close behind. Cannon and machine-gun fire from the tanks helped McLean sweep aside strong concentrations of German defenders and gain entrance to San Leonardo. One hundred yards from the village, Amy's tanks were held up by a German antitank minefield. McLean, with only ten men left, stormed into the built-up area, setting off a deadly house-to-house battle. McLean himself killed eight Germans, took eighteen prisoners, and captured ten machine guns. Amy could do little more but wait impatiently for a team of Seaforth pioneers to come up and sweep a path for the tanks with mine detectors. The mine-detection team arrived on a tank, bolstering Amy's strength.
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Meanwhile, twenty-two-year-old Corporal Thomas James Price found himself relieved of command when an officer whose tank had become bogged down ordered him to turn over his tank to the officer's command. Price started trudging toward the rear, but he realized the need for tanks at San Leonardo was desperate. Spotting a tank that appeared to have suffered mechanical failure rather than becoming bogged down in the mud, Price ran over and got the demoralized tank crew to come out of the safety of their hull to effect repairs. As Price and two crewmen worked to fix the tank, they were subjected to heavy fire from nearby enemy machine guns. Soon the tank was operable and Price took over command, directing the tank up the slope toward San Leonardo. He arrived just as Amy led his tanks into the village.
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Of nearly one hundred men who had started off on Amy's tanks, only thirty-nine Seaforths remained. Among them was twenty-three-year-old Company Sergeant Major Jock Gibson, who had just been promoted to his new position and still wondered what exactly a CSM was supposed to do. Gibson figured one task he might perform was helping out his old unit, No. 18 Platoon. He headed toward San Leonardo with a runner and signalman in tow. As he led the way
behind some buildings a shot rang out. Feeling a bullet clip his ear tip, he turned to see the young runner sagging toward the ground. The same round had struck the man in the side of the face and blown out the back of his skull. Gibson rolled into cover and continued working his way into the town, trying to find the remainder of No.18 Platoon.
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From his position on the outskirts of the village, Amy caught only occasional glimpses of the infantrymen “as they ducked from doorway to doorway or scurried from cover to cover.”
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He was paying scant attention to the firefight going on between German and Canadian infantry inside San Leonardo. His concern was to keep an eye on the approaches for enemy armour, which he expected to arrive imminently. This task was complicated when the Germans set a haystack in front of his position on fire, sending a thick screen of smoke drifting across the enemy's probable line of approach. Amy told his driver to shift the tank to one side of the burning haystack. When the move was completed, he looked northward and saw a German tank bearing down on him. Swivelling the turret, Amy engaged the tank at a range of 150 yards, quickly knocking it out. Moments later, one of his other tanks destroyed another advancing Panzer that came within forty yards of it. As the German tank started to burn, a Seaforth infantryman, who had been helplessly hiding in the grass just in front of the advancing enemy tracks, jumped up and rushed over to pat the Calgary tank on the side. “You big cast-iron son-of-a-bitch,” the soldier cried, “I could kiss you.”
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