Ortona (63 page)

As another day of fierce bloodletting drew to a close in Ortona, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation war correspondent Matthew Halton lifted his microphone and gave one of the updates that, since the Moro River battle, had transfixed Canadians across the nation. “An epic thing is happening amid the crumbling and burning walls
of the compact town. . . . For seven days and seven nights the Canadians have been trying to clear the town and the action is as fierce as perhaps modern man has ever fought. For seven days and seven nights the Canadians have been attacking in Ortona, yard by yard, building by building, window by window. And for seven days and seven nights the sullen young zealots of a crack German parachute division have been defending like demons. Canadian and German seem to be both beyond exhaustion and beyond fear. The battle has the quality of a nightmare. It has a special quality of its own, like . . . the fight at Stalingrad. . . . the same apocalyptic pall of smoke and fire and maniacal determination. . . . The splitting steel storm never stops and the men in there are as if possessed. Wounded men refuse to leave and the men don't want to be relieved after seven days and seven nights. That is the report of effect of the Canadians in Ortona, that they have asked not to be relieved and deeds that have been done there will add records of selfless courage on the heritage of all men. . . . For us at least there is nothing but Ortona today. The infantry and the tanks fight from yard to yard with all the more stubbornness after the seven days and seven nights. And the Germans now know all too well the identity of the troops on the right.”
¹⁵

Unknown to the Canadians, the seven-day nightmare of the battle of Ortona was ending. There would be no last-ditch desperate counterattack. No fresh battalion was being embarked on “Operation Ortona.” Canadian intelligence had misinterpreted the intercepted German communiqué. General der Panzertruppen Traugott Herr, commander of 76th Korps, had in fact requested authority to withdraw the para-troops from Ortona. After consulting with Tenth Army commander General der Panzertruppen Joachim Lemelsen, Tenth Army chief of staff Generalmajor Fritz Wentzell responded to Herr's request at 1100 hours on December 27. “Army Commander gives consent to immediate beginning of preparations for withdrawal. The movement may be carried out during the night.”
¹⁶

The paratroopers disappeared like ghosts moving into the darkness. Feldwebel Fritz Illi and his platoon gathered up their weapons and other gear. Then they simply walked away from their positions in the front lines with hardly a backward glance. They marched past
the cemetery and up the coast highway. At no time during the withdrawal was Illi's platoon fired on. And Illi had no sense that the Canadians knew the Germans were leaving.
¹⁷

Obergefreiter Karl Bayerlein received word in the early evening that a withdrawal was underway. He wrote in his diary, “There is no town left. Only the ruins. In the evening at 2200 hours we left without making noise. The enemy did not realize this. We left with all our weapons. I had only five rounds of ammunition. The enemy gained a destroyed city. We left undefeated.”
¹⁸

On the morning of December 28, Ortona did not waken to the rage of battle. Instead an eerie calm lay over the ruins. With two other men, Lieutenant Alon Johnson conducted a dawn patrol of the front lines. He later wrote that, “coming through a battered building near a well-known and very dangerous doorway, I heard something unfamiliar — the sound of excited voices somewhere in the distance. The significance of this babble seemed to escape the tired company rifleman guarding the doorway, but to me it suggested a sudden and radical change in the situation. Important enough to risk being shot at by showing myself in the doorway. Nothing happened, so I stepped into the street, once again drawing no enemy fire. Immediately the scouts and I moved forward through the rubble and battered buildings, taking what cover we could as we searched for the source of the ever-louder sound of chatter.”

Johnson saw a group of civilians, who beckoned the Canadians forward. Seeing people coming out of cellars up and down the street, Johnson reckoned it safe to show himself. A young Italian who spoke English came up and proceeded to show Johnson the location of the German headquarters in town, warning him that it was probably mined. He then gave Johnson that curiously disdainful, haughty expression that Italians master so well. “I can't understand what took you so long. There weren't many Germans here.” Johnson curbed a sharp retort. The young man guided Johnson through the rubble all the way to the shell-torn castle. It was empty. The paratroopers were gone. The Battle of Ortona was over.
¹⁹

A
T
0800 hours on December 28, CBC Radio war correspondent Matthew Halton bumped his jeep through the deep ruts that Three Rivers tanks had gouged into the road leading into Ortona. The town seemed strangely silent. Only a few machine guns could be heard chattering, and hardly any German shells were falling on the town. Canadian guns were quiet. In front of the battalion headquarters of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, a group of bearded soldiers “who hadn't had their shoes off for thirty days were laughing.” Halton jumped out of his jeep and went into the headquarters. As he came in, Lieutenant Colonel Jim Jefferson gave him a wide grin.

Halton said, “Don't tell me.”

“Yes, I think we have Ortona,” Jefferson said. “There's a patrol going through the fort now and if they find no Germans there, we'll know the thing is over.”

A few minutes later Corporal Bill Clover, the radio operator, removed his earphones and reported, “Sir, the Germans are gone or else they are all dead.”
¹

Halton wandered through the ruins of Ortona. His guide was
Edmonton Captain Vic Soley. He fed Halton a steady stream of stories, but Halton hardly heard him. The correspondent was horrified by the destruction he was seeing for the first time. “I went slowly down another main street and came to another square,” he later reported. “The buildings were either empty shells or piles of brick and rubble, some covered with German dead and blood. And this havoc caused by shells, not bombs. On one pile of rubble, precariously balanced . . . was a Canadian tank. I see it now as I speak, as I will always see it — not static and dead, but dynamic in that minute when gallantly it climbed the mine-filled pile of rubble only yesterday and was struck down.”
²
The tank was Corporal Joe Turnbull's
Amazing
.

Only one of Soley's stories imprinted itself onto Halton's consciousness. Last evening, Soley said, amid a final heavy German artillery bombardment, a young Italian woman was discovered buried alive in the rubble of a building. Edmontons and Seaforth Highlanders of Canada worked together to rescue her. The woman, they discovered as they pulled her out of the ruin, was not only pregnant but in the middle of labour. A sergeant from Vancouver got to work and helped with the delivery. Both mother and child were healthy and well. The woman had promised the men her son's middle name would be Canadese.
³

Throughout Ortona, Canadian soldiers wandered in a bewildered daze. Some sat down, kicked off their broken boots, leaned back, and slept like the dead. Others looted the buildings that had been left relatively unscathed. Major Jim Stone hated to see this. Posted throughout the town were German notices warning the paratroopers that looting was punishable by death. In many rooms, trinkets and various valuables sat untouched. Soon after the fighting stopped, however, Stone and the rest of the regiment learned that a couple of soldiers had discovered some silver hidden behind a wall. From then on, the plundering became rampant and there was a lack of will on the part of commanders to bring it to a halt. Stone tried speaking to some of the men, hoping to convince them that the looting was wrong. In no mood for lectures, they ignored him. Short of arresting a large number of his best soldiers, Stone saw that nothing could be done. So, like the other officers, he turned a blind eye. Soon a stream
of packages containing everything from gold sovereigns to fine lace linens was making its way back by military post to Canada.
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Not all the soldiers were engaged in looting, of course. Many respected Italian property, taking only what was considered fair game for soldiers at war — food, liquor, and clothing. And meanwhile, the Edmonton pioneers set to work digging through the rubble of the building in which Lieutenant E.D. Allan's platoon had been buried, hoping that some of the nineteen men lost might still be alive. On December 30, Corporal J.H. Johnman and Private R.J. Williams heard sounds coming from the rubble. A frantic recovery mission ensued, and in minutes Lance Corporal Roy Boyd of Wembley, Alberta, was rescued from the ruins. He was the only one of the nineteen men to be dug out alive.
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During the days following the fall of Ortona, Seaforth and Edmonton officers made a token effort to extend and consolidate the hold the two battalions had on the town. Patrols were sent out to investigate all areas that had formerly been in German hands. In the rail tunnels, a patrol found a nicely decorated Christmas tree bearing a handwritten sign that read: “Sorry we can't stay to put mistletoe on, but we'll make it hot for you in the hills.”
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It was still fairly hot in Ortona. Since December 28, the Germans had hammered the town repeatedly with artillery and mortars.
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Throughout the last days of 1943, about three daily bombardments were usually directed against Ortona. The concentrations of artillery caused little damage to the already mangled town. The enemy shells also did nothing to deter the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry from moving through Ortona and advancing up the Coast Highway toward the Riccio River and Torre Mucchia, an ancient, tall tower standing atop a seaside promontory. On December 28, the battalion passed through Ortona and reached its objective about halfway between the town and Torre Mucchia without firing a shot.