Ortona (55 page)

The Edmontons were now fighting their way toward Piazza Plebiscita and also advancing along Corso Matteotti toward Cattedrale San Tomasso. Directly behind the Piazza was the head of Fosso Ciavocco, a narrow ravine that trailed down to the Adriatic, creating a physical barrier between the two northern sections of Ortona. The part of the town dominated by the great cathedral and the ancient castle was effectively isolated from the coast highway by this ravine. For this reason, the Edmonton advance into this area was less determined than the fight to seize the piazza and follow Via Tripoli. Once the Edmontons reached the northern end of Via Tripoli, any Germans in the area of the cathedral and the castle would likely withdraw along the Adriatic shoreline across the base of the ravine. They would be under Canadian guns the entire way. The Canadians did not expect the Germans to seriously defend the castle. It could be easily isolated, and the thick sandstone walls offered little protection from modern artillery. Already the seventeen-pounder antitank guns had punched several large holes in the walls, and artillery fire falling inside the castle walls had caused considerable damage to the interior of the ancient structure.

West of the Edmontons, the Seaforths were concentrating on capturing Piazza San Francesco. Once in possession of the square, they could drive the paratroopers up Via Cavour and Via Monte Maiella toward Piazza Plebiscita, which was expected to soon be firmly in Edmonton hands. Again, the Germans would be faced with either
abandoning the section of town lying between these two streets or being crushed between the two advancing pincers of the Seaforths and the Edmontons' blocking force at the Piazza Plebiscita. To escape this entrapment, the paratroopers would have to allow the Canadians possession of virtually all the built-up areas of Ortona. They would be left holding the cemetery and a small scattering of houses in the Via Roma area. There would be no advantage in trying to defend this ground, so a complete withdrawal from Ortona should follow..
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While this strategy seemed sound, its execution was anything but systematic. The Seaforths and Edmontons spent most of the day battering against fiercely defended German positions, in the most bitter fighting soldiers on either side had yet seen.

It seemed inevitable to Seaforth Bren gunner Private Fred Mallett that whenever a German position was located and engaged, at least one man in ‘B' Company was killed or wounded during the ensuing fight. It also seemed that the number of German positions the Seaforths had to face ultimately outnumbered the company's dwindling ranks.

Ahead, another German position was discovered. The riflemen started closing on it. Mallett's job was to provide covering fire for the riflemen. He climbed to the top of a two-storey building, so he could fire over the heads of his comrades. The building was badly shot up. Only a half wall remained to offer some protection. To his right, the wall had a great gaping hole in it. But that area had already been cleared, so he didn't worry about being exposed to the windows of the buildings on that side.

As he looked over the half wall, Mallett sensed a movement in a window of the building that the riflemen were attacking. He rose to a crouch, bringing up the Bren to fire a burst at the shadowy target. Blinding pain engulfed him before he could squeeze the trigger.

Mallett regained consciousness perhaps five or ten minutes later, although he had no real idea of how long he had been unconscious. The soldier discovered that his right side was paralyzed. He lay on his right side, his back to the gaping hole facing the houses that were supposed to have been cleared of snipers. His left side seemed to still function. He started crawling toward the stairs. The moment he
did so, however, another burst of fire hit him in the back. The sniper, obviously occupying one of the upper storeys of the buildings that Mallett had believed clear, had been keeping an eye on him, waiting to see if the first burst had succeeded in killing him. Mallett lay still for a long time, knowing if he moved again the German would shoot him. It was unlikely he would survive being shot three times.

Eventually he started crawling again, clawing his way across the floor with his left arm and leg. The German sniper must have dismissed Mallet as dead, for no third burst came his way. Mallett reached the stairwell and slid painfully down two flights to the ground floor. The men in his rifle section were across the street. They saw him struggling to reach the doorway.

One of the soldiers, ignoring the sniper fire, ran across. The man bent down, picked Mallett's 190-pound body up in his arms as he would a baby, and raced back to the rest of the section. Mallett was vaguely aware of a first-aid man working on him, then of four comrades carrying him on a stretcher through the streets. Later he found himself in a jeep, lying on one of its three stretchers. By evening, he was in an operating theatre in the field dressing station in San Vito Chietino.

When he awoke from surgery, Mallett assumed he must be dead. He could hear angels singing — a heavenly choir welcoming him with Christmas carols. Then a gruff voice brought him back to earth. He stared up at the doctor, who said, “Would you like one of the bullets as a souvenir?” Mallett said yes. A bullet with a flattened tip was handed over. Mallett discovered the choir was a group of nurses and orderlies singing Christmas carols to the wounded. Outside the building, the roar of incoming mortar shells threatened to drown the sweetly singing voices.
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In the signals area of the Seaforths' battalion headquarters, Lieutenant Wilf Gildersleeve was worried that the radio team in ‘D' Company might have been wiped out by a German sniper or artillery shell. His repeated attempts to raise them produced no response. It was possible, he knew, that the team's batteries had failed or that for some other reason their radio was out of commission. Gildersleeve stuffed a couple of batteries in his haversack, picked up his Thompson sub-machine
gun, and headed into the Ortona streets to find out what was going on.

The tall former invoice clerk who had won a scholarship to the Pitman Business College for his boy-soprano singing at a British Columbia Music Festival competition moved warily. Eventually he came to a building near Piazza San Francesco, where ‘D' Company's headquarters were located. As he stepped into the doorway, a very nervous sentry shoved a Thompson into his stomach and snapped, “What's the password?” Gildersleeve fumbled a moment, remembered, and gave it to him. The man stepped aside. The officer went upstairs to the radio room. Inside, he found the two signallers hunched over the radio. Both men were dead asleep. The set was still operating, the chatter of the various companies passing back and forth.

Gildersleeve gently shook his men awake. He supposed he should be angry. But the officer knew that the men had probably not slept for three days and had finally just surrendered to exhaustion. They were both good soldiers, one the oldest and the other the youngest member of the Seaforths' signals section. Private Vic Warner was forty, and it had only recently been discovered that Private Howard Wiley was a mere seventeen. When this battle was over, he would be shipped back to Canada for being underage. Gildersleeve left the spare batteries with the two men and returned to battalion HQ. He then ordered a third signaller to go to each of the company radio teams. The men were to ensure they alternated sleeping schedules so nobody fell asleep again while on duty.
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Lieutenant Colonel Syd Thomson held the right wrist of his good friend, Major Tom Vance. The young officer, temporarily blinded by an exploding artillery shell in the first Seaforth attempt to cross the Moro River, had returned to duty only two days earlier. Now he lay in the Forward Aid Post with a sniper's bullet lodged just below the collarbone in the left side of his neck. Dr. Anderson stood opposite Thomson, slowly feeding plasma into Vance's left arm.

Vance was the son of a well-known Vancouver criminologist and had just qualified to practise law when war broke out. He and Thomson had met in Calgary in early 1940 during an officers training course. They had been fast friends ever since. In Britain, Thomson
had a steady girlfriend, whom he had asked to marry him. Vance and Thomson had often gone on double dates, Vance taking out Thomson's girlfriend's sister. If asked to describe Vance, Thomson would have said he was an intelligent, unassuming, possibly too trusting young man with a brilliant future ahead of him in the postwar world.

There would, however, be no future. Holding Vance's right wrist, urging the beat of life in his veins to keep throbbing, Thomson felt the young officer's pulse slow and then cease beating altogether. Dr. Anderson and Thomson stared sadly across the operating table at each other. Then Anderson turned, picked up two glasses, and filled each with precious Scotch whisky. He set the glasses on Vance's chest. Doctor and battalion commander raised the glasses in a silent toast.
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Many individual soldiers Thomson had known since the beginning of the war had died or been severely wounded in Ortona, and the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada itself seemed to be perishing. Thomson wondered how the regiment would ever rebuild after such loss of experienced personnel. The stream of wounded and dying flowing through the Forward Aid Post was staggering. In the streets, the bodies of Seaforths lay scattered through the buildings and on the cobblestones. Nobody had time to gather up those who died, so they were left where they fell.
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The new men coming in as reinforcements, although they had experienced extensive training in Canada and Britain, were usually chewed up and spit out by the meat grinder of Ortona in mere hours. Thomson had seen Tom Middleton, the brother of long-time Seaforth Lieutenant Fred Middleton, arrive as a reinforcement that morning. The Middletons were both from Thomson's hometown of Salmon Arm in the British Columbia interior. Thomson had sent Tom Middleton out to ‘A' Company, which was badly understrength.
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Two hours later, the young man came back on a stretcher severely wounded. He started the long evacuation down a line that would end back in Canada with a medical discharge from the army.
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