Ortona (10 page)

Outnumbered and outgunned by the Canadians, the 200th and
361st regiments of the 90th would have to make up for these handicaps through effective defensive tactics. The Panzer Grenadier's relied on initial heavy defence from fortified positions backed up by lightning-quick, violent counterattacks to throw the enemy back in confusion before it could solidify any gains won. Along the Moro River ridgeline, the Germans started digging into the reverse slopes of the many gullies and ravines that crisscrossed the heavily terraced farmland.

The Germans knew from long experience that fortified positions dug deep into reverse slopes were immune to virtually anything but a direct hit by a bomb or artillery round. It was also extremely difficult for either planes or guns to achieve a direct hit because of the angle of arc a bomb or shell must attain to strike the reverse-slope position. Moreover, when the bombardment ceased, the German soldiers could tumble out of their shelters and rush forward to prepared positions built near the edge of the slope. From there, they could catch the approaching enemy infantry in the open on the opposing side.

There was no doubt in the mind of 76th Panzer Korps General der Panzertruppen Traugott Herr, whose korps included the 90th Division, that the division would face heavy aerial and artillery bombardments designed to shatter its defensive positions. Montgomery's standard offensive tactic was to precede any major advance of infantry and tanks with the heaviest artillery and aerial bombardment he could deliver. This had been the key to Montgomery's success at El Alamein and it was an essential aspect of the British general's tactics. The “watchword for one and all,” Herr told his commanders, is “into the ground.”
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While on one side of the Moro the Canadians prepared to attack, on the other side the Germans worked frantically with pick and shovel, burrowing deep into the Abruzzo clay.

T
HE
fear was in them all. Only a fool claimed otherwise and such a man would be considered a potential hazard by the others. Since July 10, 1st Canadian Infantry Division and 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade had been on campaign. Five months of fighting and marching. Moments of terror and horror interspersed with extended periods of boredom and the drudgery of the advance across Sicily and up Italy's boot. Now the battalions were strung out in a long line facing the Moro River and every man in the line companies knew that soon — in a few hours, or a day, or two, or three at the most depending on his brigade and battalion — he would again face directly the fire of German machine guns and rifles. In the slit trenches, waiting for the attack to commence, there was time to think — time for the fear to grow in his belly.

For most the fear was not crippling, but it gnawed the gut and rendered the rations tasteless or unappetizing. Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment Lieutenant Farley Mowat imagined it as a worm. Looking out over the Moro River, he felt the worm in his gut grow, enlarge, become harder to thrust away and ignore.
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Some found it no longer possible to quell the fear. Instead they collapsed under it. The day prior to the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry's move from San Vito Chietino to the battalion's Moro River position, Lieutenant Jerry Richards discovered one of his men cowering in a slit trench, gibbering, refusing to fall in. Richards was momentarily baffled. In his short tenure as a platoon commander he had not faced this situation. He thought of ordering the man at gun-point to rise and join the ranks. Then the inanity of such an action struck him. Richards ordered two of his other soldiers to drag the man out of the hole. They grabbed the shaking soldier by the arms and yanked him to his feet, but he continued weeping and babbling. Richards ordered the soldier taken to the field dressing station for the medical officer to sort out. The man disappeared into the divisional medical system, never to be seen again. Perhaps he was evacuated, as was occasionally the fate of the worst battle-exhaustion cases. More likely he was reassigned to less hazardous rear-area duty, where the fear of dying at any moment was lessened.

It was military medical policy that first priority should be given to treating a battle-exhaustion case quickly so that the man could be returned to his unit. However, as the Italian campaign progressed, ever fewer soldiers so affected were returned to the front-line platoons. A major reason for this was that neither the officers nor the soldiers involved in the up-front fighting wanted these men at their side. Dr. Arthur Manning Doyle, divisional psychiatrist, found that infantry commanders sought to quickly get rid of any soldiers they deemed unstable or jittery in action. Such men were believed to pose a danger to themselves and a threat to their comrades. Doyle wrote of the normal attitude of the officers: “Though they frequently use such uncomplimentary terms as yellow they usually recognize that the soldier with an anxiety neurosis just can't help it. . . . The worst possible situation in the line is a body of troops led by a neurotic officer. Troops that have fought well under another break and run when under an officer they know to be himself abnormally nervous and vacillating.”
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Saskatoon Light Infantry Major Thomas de Faye had faced such a situation in Sicily. During a routine check of his battalion positions, de Faye discovered that one heavy-machine-gun platoon commander had ordered his men to set up their Vickers guns in positions on a
forward slope. This was a very dangerous position for the guns, and the men all seemed justifiably anxious. When he asked where the commander was, they shrugged their shoulders and said they had no idea. Searching about, de Faye discovered the officer huddled in a cave well behind the gun positions. “I can see so well from up here, sir,” the man blathered. “I can maintain better control over the situation here.” Whether simple cowardice or battle exhaustion, de Faye knew not; but he ran the officer back to the divisional commander with the message that he didn't want the man in his unit, that he presented a hazard to his men. The officer was shipped out of the division in twenty-four hours. The major later heard he was returned to Canada where, rumour had it, he was promoted and assigned to training duties.
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Cowardice. Courage. Two poles on a spectrum of behaviour. By December 1943, the soldiers in Italy knew that most of them were capable of either extreme. The hero today might break down completely the day following and the supposed coward might suddenly display a selfless disregard for his own safety. It all depended on circumstance and a man's physical and mental condition. Bravery was a consumable commodity, like water in a bottle. Eventually, if drawn upon too often without an opportunity for the bottle to be refilled, the last reserves of courage must inevitably be drained. For this reason, most of the troops and officers felt only pity and sympathy for the men who fell victim to battle exhaustion. It could happen to anyone. It could happen to them. It was a form of illness, not much different than the dysentery, the jaundice, and the malaria that had afflicted the division since it hit the beach in Sicily.

Every army on campaign has been faced with dysentery, caused by the miserable hygienic conditions inherent in an environment where men cannot bathe regularly, where eating utensils are usually filthy, where sources of water are often polluted, and where the feces and urine of those already afflicted with dysentery remain unburied. Intensely painful and bloody diarrhea is the most noticeable symptom, accompanied by dehydration and exhaustion. As the malady progresses, victims become weak and usually lose their appetite. Most soldiers suffering dysentery were expected to tough it out, for the illness
would usually clear up over time. Severe cases were generally treated with the drug sulphaguanidine. Rarely were dysentery cases taken into hospital. Of course, the presence in all the battalions of men experiencing dysentery contributed to its spread. But there was little alternative — the illness was too endemic to all the units for every sick soldier to be sent for hospital treatment.
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Another illness that persisted during the summer and fall months of 1943 was jaundice. More properly known as infectious hepatitis or hepatitis A, the disease reached near epidemic levels within the Canadian units in early September 1943. Doctors later determined that the troops were most likely infected almost immediately upon landing in Sicily, as the disease has a four- to six-week incubation period. During the first two to seven days of the infection's cycle, soldiers experienced “malaise, fatigue, lassitude, and loss of appetite, sometimes accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.”
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The loss of appetite was a particularly difficult aspect of the disease because it greatly weakened infected soldiers.

Loyal Edmonton Regiment Lieutenant Alon Johnson contracted jaundice shortly before the Canadians reached Campobasso. His skin turned a definite yellow and he was tormented by peculiar cravings for specific foods. “Boy,” he'd say to himself, “if I could just have some chicken that'd taste so damned good.” Presented with a platter of chicken, however, he would feel nauseated just looking at it.
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Fatty foods were particularly intolerable because jaundice usually causes an inflammation of the liver and in some instances of the spleen, making fat difficult to digest. Fever was usually also present for at least a few days. Because of the severity of symptoms associated with jaundice, many infected soldiers were evacuated to hospitals well to the rear, even to Africa or Great Britain. In 97.5 percent of cases, it took fifty days from the onset of symptoms until a soldier was generally thought fit to return to full combat duty.
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In Johnson's case he was never sent to the rear but remained at battalion headquarters.

Present throughout the summer of campaigning in Sicily and then in the lower parts of Italy were mosquitoes — a good many of which carried malaria. Allied high command had known this would be the case and initiated a plan to combat the disease. Quinine, a natural alkaloid extracted from the bark of the cinchona tree in Java,
effectively masked the effects of malaria, while not curing it. But there was precious little quinine to be had by the Allies because Java had been captured in January 1942 by Imperial Japan. Fortunately, however, there were chemical substitutes for quinine that achieved the same effect.
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While the Americans relied on a drug called atabrine, the British and Canadian divisions in Sicily took nepadrine.

Twenty-one-year-old Lance Corporal Jack Haley, a radio signaller with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, dutifully took his nepadrine each day and never suffered from malaria. As he marched across Sicily, Haley was always amused by the small billboards the medical units erected here and there which read: “If you pee a golden stream it means you've taken your nepadrine.” Despite the propaganda campaign, many soldiers refused to take the drug because it was rumoured that the pills would render them permanently impotent or sterile. The rumour reached such a point that officers had to line their troops up and personally ensure that each man swallowed his daily pill.
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Despite these precautions, malaria was common throughout the ranks and many soldiers were hospitalized when their symptoms became too severe. Although new cases of malaria ceased once the Canadians had advanced far enough up the Italian boot, the disease typically recurs several times over a period that can run for several months or even years. The after-effects of passing through a malarial region continued to be felt for many months, and were still a problem when the battalions deployed before the Moro River.

While illnesses wore men down and resulted in 1st Canadian Infantry Division and 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade always being well below strength, the short firefights and battles that typified operations prior to the Moro River further decreased the troops as men were wounded or killed. “When you're killed in battle it doesn't really matter to you that the battle was a little one or not,” Johnson would say.
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Johnson had come to the division as a replacement, taking over the scout platoon after its officer had been shot dead by a German sniper when his jeep rounded a corner in the road. The jeep still had a bullet hole through its body near the passenger seat, serving as a reminder to Johnson of how easily death could come for you in
this strange business of war. So far he had been lucky, but such was not the case for all the men who had accompanied him into active military service.