Ortona (45 page)

The Seaforths' start line was on The Gully's southern crest. At noon, ‘D' and ‘C' companies would scramble over the lip of The Gully, down the muddy slope, and head for their objectives. ‘D' Company commander Captain Alan W. Mercer's immediate objective was the peak of a long spur overlooking the mouth of The Gully. From this position, Mercer's men would provide covering fire for ‘C' Company, which was to cross The Gully, scale a steep embankment, and establish a foothold on Ortona's outskirts around the Byzantine-era church, Santa Maria di Costantinopoli. Captain Don Harley, the mortar company commander who had accompanied Captain June Thomas's ‘A' Company during its bold flanking attack a week before, had only assumed command of ‘C' Company two hours before the attack started. He replaced Major David Blackburn, who had fallen sick and been evacuated.
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Harley had attended the morning's Orders Group thinking he would be in reserve. He was feeling quite content, not disappointed at missing the forthcoming fight. Then Lieutenant Colonel Syd Thomson turned to Harley and said, “Oh, by the way, Don, you're in command of ‘C' Company. Davie is not well and he's going back.” Harley would later recall that he “immediately got the jitters.”
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When the Orders Group broke up, however, he rushed to ‘C' Company and got the men organized. Soon they were looking out over The Gully. Below them lay a brick factory, and on top of the facing escarpment Harley could see the church with Ortona behind. The day was clear and cold, visibility good.

‘D' Company jumped off first, moving behind a light screen of artillery fire. Company Sergeant Major Jock Gibson stuck close to Mercer's side. Recently promoted to CSM, Gibson still had no real idea what his role was supposed to be. He figured it was safe to assume a CSM should be near the commander. As they approached the spur, some shells landed short, falling around the company HQ unit. Mercer was hit. Gibson took the runner's rifle, the runner grabbed Mercer, and the two men dragged the injured officer to cover.
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‘D' Company started taking heavy small-arms fire from the area around ‘C' Company's objective. At the peak of the spur, the men found what shelter they could and returned fire. As intended, this focused the German attention on themselves and away from ‘C' Company.

Harley's eighty-six-man force got into the bowl of The Gully without incident. Sergeant J. Elaschuk's No. 13 Platoon was on point, the other two platoons following in an arrowhead formation with Harley's company HQ section in the centre. The men jogged forward, feeling very exposed. Because the Loyal Edmonton Regiment was closing on the outskirts, the supporting artillery had started to break off for fear of hitting the Edmontons. ‘C' Company passed the brick factory. They had yet to be fired upon. The paratroopers were completely engaged in trading fire with ‘D' Company.

Elaschuk suddenly yelled back to Harley that his platoon was inside a minefield. Mines were sown thickly all across the line of advance. ‘C' Company started bunching up, slowing its pace to pick a path through the mines. They were out in the open, beginning to act like men fearful of trampling a field of daisies. Harley told everyone
to pick up the pace, double time. There was no time for caution. If the Germans spotted them, they were going to get shot up. The men plunged into the minefield. Harley saw mangled bodies of Germans lying in the field among the mines. He also saw the mines. They had been poorly dug in. Each mine was clearly visible as a little hummock of soil. The Canadians leapt over and around them, like a group of prairie children running through a field riddled with gopher burrows. By the time they reached the other side, ‘C' Company was going at a flat-out sprint.
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The men reached the embankment. It was fronted by a road and a waist-high stone retaining wall. The men crossed the road, vaulted to the top of the wall, and started climbing up the high bank. Harley, like every man around him, slung his rifle by its shoulder strap across his back, and went up on all fours.
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Gasping from the exertion, fearing that any moment the Germans would see them, ‘C' Company climbed desperately upward. So far they had suffered no casualties.

Just as they neared the crest of the cliff, the Germans awoke to their presence. A shower of grenades poured down. Several men were killed or wounded. The others paused, lying prone, feet dug into the steep slope. They fixed bayonets on their Lee Enfield rifles. Then Harley led them over the top. The men plunged into four machine-gun posts dug in on the cliff crest, killing some of the enemy soldiers and taking the rest prisoner. They gathered up about a dozen prisoners. Other paratroopers withdrew quickly, efficiently covering their departure with well-directed fire.

Harley realized that remaining at the cliff edge was dangerous. If the enemy counterattacked, his company was vulnerable to being thrown back down the slope. Across about 400 yards of vineyards, Harley could see the church belfry and roof. He decided to make for the church immediately. Sergeant Elaschuk's platoon was sent to the left to clear paratroopers out of several small huts. Lieutenant D.C. Hanbury took No. 14 Platoon to the right and made for the church.

Elaschuk's men cleared the huts, but as Hanbury closed on the church his platoon was subjected to heavy mortar and small-arms fire. Snipers in the church belfry joined in. Hanbury and five other men fell wounded, Sergeant J. Mottl and two privates were killed.

With the leaderless Seaforth platoon wavering, the Germans struck
back with a counterattack. No. 14 Platoon's survivors fled in disarray. But Elaschuk's No. 13 Platoon dug in its heels and repelled the attack with well-placed rifle and light-machine-gun fire. Harley ordered Lieutenant L. Robinson to take No. 15 Platoon out to the right and continue the advance on the church. Robinson led two sections of the platoon forward in a bayonet charge. They knocked out two machine-gun posts and forced the soldiers to withdraw. Robinson and two enlisted men, however, were killed. Two other men were wounded.

‘C' Company threw back repeated counterattacks by the 1st Parachute Division. As evening fell at about 1730 hours, Harley's men were still 300 yards short of the church and taking heavy fire from enemy positions around the building. Sniping from the belfry added to the casualties. Half the company was either dead or wounded. The only Regimental Aid Post man with the company was himself wounded. Once it was dark, Harley had the company dig in and sent the walking wounded to the rear. A couple of these men wandered into the minefield on their way back and were killed.
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By radio, Harley and Lieutenant Colonel Syd Thomson discussed the day's events. Thomson said he was putting Harley in for the Military Cross. Harley said, “I'd rather be at the Savoy, Syd, than sitting up here.” Thomson replied, “You wouldn't see the fireworks at the Savoy that you're seeing here.” Harley snorted. “Well, I sure could do with a drink, chum, would you send one over?” Thomson agreed to see what could be done about that.
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Harley's company came under temporary command of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, which was well ensconced to ‘C' Company's left. The Gully was now at the back of the Edmontons and of Harley's company. Its entire length was clear of the enemy. The obstacle that had caused so many casualties over so many days had again become nothing more than a geographical feature. Come morning, the job to take Ortona itself would begin.

During the night of December 20, as part of the plan to fight a delaying action in Ortona until the Canadians threatened to turn the town's flank, German engineers laid charges at the base of a high watchtower that rose up adjacent to Cattedrale San Tomasso. Precisely at 0700 hours the following morning, as Ortona rocked with explosions
from demolitions being set off by the paratroop engineers along Corso Vittorio Emanuele, a terrific explosion rolled out of the northern end of the city. Smoke and dust obscured the plaza containing the old cathedral. When the smoke cleared, the watchtower and the southern half of the cathedral were gone. As if struck by a mighty cleaver, the grand dome of the cathedral had been sliced cleanly in half. Whether the cathedral was destroyed by explosives set inside it or by the watchtower toppling onto its dome remained a mystery. The Italian civilians near the cathedral could only gather briefly to stare at the damage before the continued demolitions and the artillery barrages hammering down on the town drove them back into the railroad tunnels and basements.

The magnificent and delicate frescoes that adorned the dome were half destroyed, the southern portion reduced to masonry fragments lying in a great pile below the undamaged half of the cupola. What remained was exposed to water and wind damage as the weather worsened. The Portale, a massive door designed by Nicollo Mancino, was completely destroyed. The ancient bas-relief, depicting the arrival at Ortona of the boat from Illyria which bore the casket of the apostle Thomas, was lost in the rubble.
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December 21 was a day the citizens of Ortona had celebrated for centuries. It was the Feast Day of Saint Thomas, the disciple said to be entombed in the town's great cathedral. On seeing the devastation wrought upon the cathedral that held the community's soul, the people of Ortona were convinced the German engineers had carried out the destruction purposefully. That they had done this act on the great holiday was considered an added dose of maliciousness.
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D
URING
the night of December 20, Major Jim Stone and Peter Carr Harris, an officer in the Royal Canadian Engineers, walked up the road from the Loyal Edmonton Regiment's front line to Ortona. Their purpose was to determine if the road was mined. In the morning, Stone hoped to take a combined infantry and tank force up the road and roll from one end of Ortona to the other without stopping. Everything was still. Stone and Harris moved cautiously, ready to retreat at the first challenge or shot from a German sentry.

The two men paused when they reached the first buildings on the south edge of Ortona. They waited. Listened. Still there was no sound from the enemy. Before them stretched the wide, seemingly arrow-straight Corso Vittorio Emanuele, the town's main street. Stone signalled to Harris, and the two men advanced quietly up one side of the Corso. They hugged the walls of the dark two-storey houses bordering the street. Stone and Harris went another eighty to ninety yards without seeing a soul.

Neither man saw any immediate signs of mines or even gun
positions. The two returned to the Canadian line without incident. It seemed from their reconnaissance as if the Germans were not in Ortona at all. Stone knew this was false. They had to be there somewhere. But it appeared they did not plan to deny the Canadians a toehold in the town. He expected little resistance in the morning. Stone thought there was a good chance that the plan to push down the Corso to the other end of Ortona might succeed.
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