Ortona (32 page)

“The boy is an advanced case of ‘shell shock.' The MO sends him into the back room to make way for the wounded. The company of the dead won't soothe his nerves much.”
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Although Forin's wounds were not particularly severe, Hoffmeister moved quickly to relieve him of command and ordered Major Sydney W. Thomson, the battalion's second-in-command, to take over the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada. Like the boy, Forin had succumbed to battle exhaustion, which was starting to chalk up a heavy toll throughout the engaged Canadian regiments.
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While the Seaforths were sorting themselves out after the loss of their commander and some of the battalion headquarters staff, including two officers wounded when a room in the rear battalion headquarters was riddled with shrapnel, the Loyal Edmonton Regiment was only now closing on the western flank of Vino Ridge. Lieutenant Dougan's No.16 Platoon still led, a couple of Calgary Sherman tanks rumbling along in support. Suddenly, from the thick vegetation blanketing the ridgeline, several German antitank guns opened up with deadly accuracy. The tanks supporting his platoon were struck and knocked out in seconds. Dougan watched in horror
as the commander of one crawled out of the tank cupola, one leg blown off cleanly above the knee. Dougan's stretcher-bearer rushed over and dragged the man away from the burning tank. All the bearer could do to treat the wound was to dust the bleeding stump with sulpha and cinch a belt around it to serve as a tourniquet.
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Major Stone ran up and ordered the three Edmonton companies to immediately shift to the right and attack up the ridge toward the German antitank guns, now being protected by many hammering machine guns and rapidly firing mortars. The Edmontons headed directly into the face of this wall of fire.

No sooner had Dougan's platoon got underway than one of the worst personal battlefield calamities befell the young lieutenant. Wracked for weeks by dysentery, Dougan had to defecate — immediately. Seeing a small grove of olive trees he thought might provide a safe and somewhat private shelter, he rushed over, yanked his pants down, and crouched. From almost directly above him, Dougan heard a German officer start issuing commands that sounded like he was directing mortar fire toward a target. Seconds later, he heard the dreaded swish of a mortar shell falling and was horrified to see the bomb land tail first no more than four feet in front of him. Digging deep into the mud, the bomb sat there with its detonating fuse pointing harmlessly into the air. As he took flight from the grove, Dougan was unsure whether he had finished his business or not.
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Rejoining his company just as the Edmontons' attack against the ridge fizzled, Dougan scrambled with his platoon down the ridge to regroup. They could see Cider Crossroads about 1,000 yards away, well beyond reach.

PPCLI Lieutenant Colonel Ware remained certain the Edmontons were well short of the crossroads. His men faced a gauntlet of fire as they moved against the forward slopes of Vino Ridge. Deep mud rendered it almost impossible for the Shermans to keep abreast of the advancing infantry and the dense olive groves and vineyards reduced visibility to near zero. ‘D' Company of the PPCLI, under Major P.L. Crofton, got up almost face to face with the hidden Panzer Grenadiers before the Germans opened up with devastating machine-gun fire. Crofton was struck in the leg, the third company commander
lost that day.
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The battle became virtually hand to hand. Germans and Canadians lay in the mud throwing grenades across the ridge at each other. Ware could see the effort was “abortive.” When Ware heard on the radio that the Germans had opened a counterattack against the Edmontons' left flank, he ordered his men to break off, so they could move about a quarter mile west to directly support the Edmontons if necessary.
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While the Edmontons managed to beat off a series of successive counterattacks, the ferocity of these attacks showed that the Panzer Grenadiers were determined to continue the same tactics they had practised since the beginning of the Moro River battle. The Germans' growing desperation was also revealed by a repeat of an act of treachery that the Panzer Grenadiers had implemented earlier in San Leonardo. Following one failed counterattack, a group of Germans emerged from the brush with hands up to indicate surrender. As soldiers from one platoon walked out to meet the surrendering troops, the Germans dropped to the ground, as if on command, and a machine gun emplaced behind them ripped into the Canadians. Nobody was killed, but a good number of the Edmontons' wounded resulted from this incident. Edmonton casualties in the day's fighting totalled one soldier killed, twenty soldiers wounded, and one officer and nine of what Commonwealth armies called “other ranks” missing.
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Vokes was so outraged when he learned of this ambush that he issued an advisory to the entire division informing the men of the event. His message ended erroneously with: “The Edmonton platoon was murdered in cold blood.”
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As the battle wound down and darkness cloaked the ground, Edmonton patrols crept up to the very lip of The Gully. They stared down into its darkness, none daring to enter its depths to test the strength of the enemy forces hidden there.

To the rear, Private A.K. Harris lay in the San Leonardo RAP watching ever more fresh casualties arrive. The runner named King had died earlier from his stomach wound. “The MO is desperately tired,” Harris noted later, “but he never stops working or loses patience with the shock cases. He is talking to another of those, not as bad as the boy. This one is a friend of mine. He has had this trouble before
and been evacuated before. But he is always sent back up. He is a bundle of nerves but never asks for a favour and gives everything until he snaps. The MO is asking him, ‘Are you hit anywhere?' ‘No.' ‘Is there anything physically wrong with you?' ‘No.' He probes his man but quickly comes to the conclusion that this one is genuine and has to be taken out. There is deep humiliation in my friend's face and he goes back to join the dead and the screaming case in the back room. He thinks he has let his friends down. He will be back again and again, shaking like a leaf every time we see action, going on to the breaking point.”
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Later Harris, Lieutenant McLaughlin, and the boy with shell shock were put in a jeep with two RAP men and driven toward the south bank of the Moro River. The boy sprawled across Harris's sound leg. “With every shell burst or rattle of machine gun, he screams and twists convulsively. I have to hang on to him tightly to keep him in the jeep. We cross the repaired bridge and start up the other side. There is a hair-pin bend ahead that comes under fire regularly. The RAP men go this way often. There is tension in their voices. I hold my breath and wonder how I'll control the boy if we get a close one. We pass the turn safely. The RAP men and I suddenly feel talkative as the strain eases. We are over the bank on the south side. Ahead is rear RAP. It is night, and for me the battle is over.”
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F
IRST
Canadian Infantry Division's orders for December 11 showed that Major General Chris Vokes and his staff still failed to appreciate how formidable a defensive obstacle The Gully presented. Vokes had two alternatives. He could try bulling his infantry and armoured regiments across The Gully in the area of Highway 16, or he could outflank The Gully by shifting westward to where this feature dwindled near the secondary road running from San Leonardo to the Ortona-Orsogna lateral. In this situation, once his forces were astride the lateral highway, they could attack Cider and then Ortona from the southwest and entirely avoid The Gully's defences.

Despite accurate reports by 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade patrols that the enemy was so deeply entrenched in The Gully and along Vino Ridge that their positions were virtually impregnable, Vokes told Brigadier Bert Hoffmeister to renew the frontal attacks. He also directed the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment to push out from its coastal bridgehead to find any German weakness that might exist directly in front of Ortona.
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Vokes then ordered the divisional reserve of 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade forward from its holding area north of the Sangro River to San Apollinare, a village on the southern ridge of the Moro River across from San Leonardo.
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During the night of December 10–11 the weather, relatively moderate by winter standards, deteriorated drastically. A heavy, cold rain poured down and the temperature plunged toward freezing. The already miserable conditions in which the troops fought worsened. By morning, tanks could barely move through the mud.

At first light, the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, and the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry prepared to attack the same positions that had stopped them cold the previous day. The Edmontons jumped off first, repeatedly battering directly at The Gully along the western edge of Vino Ridge. Each time, they were hurled back by devastatingly effective machine-gun and mortar fire. Radio reports on gains realized by this regiment continued to be confused and inaccurate. At 0950 hours, Hoffmeister's headquarters signalled Vokes that “two sub-units” of the Edmontons were apparently on Cider and that the PPCLI with a squadron of tanks would soon attack through the junction toward Ortona, “as soon as crossroads . . . firmly in our hands.” At 1245 hours, this message was corrected with a terse signal referring to The Gully: “Loyal Edmonton Regiment have NOT crossed stream.”
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The PPCLI, supported by a squadron of Calgary tanks, then moved off to create its own breach in the German line. This force attempted to cross Vino Ridge and establish a link between 2 CIB and the Hasty P's. Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Ware's men stumbled through tangled vineyards and olive groves heavily laced with booby traps, S-mines, and antitank Teller mines. By midafternoon, the battalion had bogged down near the edge of The Gully. As had been the case the previous day, PPCLI troopers engaged in a grenade-throwing exchange with soldiers of the Panzer Grenadiers 200th Regiment. The results were deadly for both sides. At one point, the PPCLI threw back one of the Germans' reckless counterattacks, taking forty prisoners. Despite breaking the enemy attack, the battalion was unable to renew its own advance.
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West of the Edmontons, the Seaforths' objective was a ridge overlooking The Gully and a three-storey, white stucco farm–manor house located on the opposite side, called Casa Berardi. ‘A' Company, under the command of Captain Ernest Webb Thomas, was to seize the ridge and support the Edmontons' left flank. The twenty-nine-year-old, slightly built captain was a popular officer known to almost
everyone as June, short for Junior. Supporting Thomas's company was ‘C' Squadron of tanks from the 11th Canadian Armoured Regiment (Ontario Tanks), commanded by twenty-three-year-old tank commander Major Herschell Smith. Originally from Dauphin, Manitoba, Smith had been a university student before the war and a member of the Manitoba Horse militia. Nicknamed “Snuffy,” he was regarded as one of the most competent tank commanders in the regiment. However, not even Smith could overcome the mud on the slopes, which made it impossible for the tanks to advance to the ridgeline.
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Slipping and sliding a foot or more back for every three feet gained, and bracketed by enemy mortar fire, Thomas's men pushed on without the Shermans toward The Gully's lip. Despite heavy casualties, ‘A' Company gained its objective at 1300 hours. As the company's remaining forty-five men started digging in, Thomas saw a large Panzer Grenadier group forming up for a counterattack against his position. Hopelessly outnumbered, Thomas withdrew his company's remnants down the ridge's reverse slope and called artillery fire onto the enemy formation.
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