Ortona (14 page)

The report confirmed Ware's suspicions. Assuming his infantry companies could seize Villa Rogatti during the night, he absolutely must receive early morning support from the British tanks to hold on when the Germans inevitably launched a strong counterattack supported by Panzer tanks. Success would hinge almost entirely on the tankers getting over the river and into the village before the enemy could organize and deploy a strong reaction force.
¹

First, however, Villa Rogatti had to be taken. Intelligence reports, relying largely on aerial reconnaissance photos, showed that the Panzer Grenadiers had heavily fortified the village. Gun pits had been dug in the surrounding orchards and vineyards; houses had been transformed into bunkers. The village itself presented a difficult
obstacle, set on a point where the ridgeline was shaped roughly like a horseshoe with the two spurs facing the river. Villa Rogatti's small stone houses circled the edge of the horseshoe and were backed by a mixture of terraced vineyards and orchards interspersed with small, deep gullies. There was very little depth to the village, as most of the buildings bordered the edge of the ridge. The whole place was little more than two streets wide.

To disorganize and suppress the German defenders, an artillery barrage had originally been scheduled for just prior to the lead company's jump-off time of 2359 hours. Ware received no indication from either divisional or brigade headquarters of Vokes's decision that all the attacks that night would be made silently, without artillery support. At 2350 hours he was still anxiously awaiting the beginning of the barrage, thinking that if the barrage were delayed for some reason the shells would catch ‘B' Company as it entered the valley on schedule. It was a hellish moment for the PPCLI commander as he had to decide whether to wait for a barrage which might or might not come, or plunge ahead with the attack. Ware gave his orders and at 2359 hours ‘B' Company descended into the valley.
²

Without an artillery barrage, the only way for the PPCLI to capture Villa Rogatti would be to get as close as possible before the Germans realized they were being attacked. Captain R.F.S. Robertson led ‘B' Company down the steep, slippery slope on a narrow donkey trail that cut through the olive groves to the river. The company waded across and moved downstream along the northern bank to a junction in the valley-bottom trail, from which two trails ascended to either spur of the village. Robertson's lead platoon set off on the trail heading up to the southeastern portion of Villa Rogatti. When the advancing soldiers entered a narrow defile leading to the village, a German machine gun started to fire from the high ground to their left. This was followed by a shower of stick grenades and another machine gun opening up on the right. ‘B' Company faced an arc of enemy positions, well concealed in the dense foliage of the vineyards and olive groves.

Despite the intensity of the resistance, Robertson's unit immediately went on the offensive. Bren guns and the company's two-inch
mortars were put into action, the latter firing at almost the minimum extent of their range on a virtually flat trajectory. Lieutenant J.G. Clarke was hit in the throat by a bullet, but ‘B' Company succeeded in closing with the enemy positions and destroying them with bursts of small-arms fire and grenades. Some of the defenders abandoned their positions and retreated toward the village, others surrendered on the spot. Pressing forward, the company moved past the houses on the outskirts and found it had breached the Germans' primary defensive line. ‘B' Company was now in the midst of the Germans, most of whom were staggering half-dressed and bleary-eyed out of their billets in the village's houses to become prisoners.

Following close on ‘B' Company's heels was ‘A' Company under the command of Major W. “Bucko” Watson. He swung his company to the right, heading for the most northerly reaches of the village. As the lead section rushed across a road leading into Villa Rogatti, a German motorcyclist roared out of the darkness toward the village yelling, “Achtung! Achtung!” at the men he obviously thought were Germans. Several of the Canadians raised their rifles and a volley of fire tore the soldier off his BMW motorcycle. The motorcycle barrelled into the ditch and the body rolled in next to it. The company pushed on, leapfrogging platoons as they swept through the buildings. More prisoners were taken and more Germans killed or sent fleeing into the darkness beyond Villa Rogatti. The village was essentially in Canadian hands. In some of the houses where Germans had been billeted, the Canadians discovered half-eaten meals abandoned on kitchen tables.
³

Although two companies of the PPCLI were now inside Villa Rogatti, the Germans still had numerous fortified positions on all sides of the village. ‘C' Company was heading up a trail directly in front of Villa Rogatti, with Lieutenant George Garbutt's platoon leading. The path broadened slightly, and just as the first soldiers entered this ground a grenade exploded about fifteen feet to one side. The Calgary-born officer heard no prior challenge issued by the German sentries. Seconds later, another grenade went off ten feet away, followed almost immediately by a slight plopping sound directly behind Garbutt. He hunched over, waiting, and then the grenade detonated
only three feet behind him. Shrapnel whizzed between his legs, one small piece biting into his calf. Realizing the trail was a preset killing zone, Garbutt plunged to the left, pushing up a slight rise through some bordering bushes, and found himself on open ground. Meanwhile, his men backed around a corner in the path. So far there had been only one man in the platoon significantly wounded. Corporal Ralph Andros had a small piece of shrapnel sticking from his boot that had penetrated about half an inch into his foot.

A machine gun positioned seventy to eighty yards ahead of the platoon started firing down the path. Pulling the pin on his one grenade, Garbutt threw it straight up the hill toward the gun, hoping to cause them some worry. He was sure the grenade failed to explode anywhere near the gun because of the throwing range. Still, the gun stopped firing and the platoon was able to use the lull to get off the path to safer ground.

Silence fell over the battlefield, the Germans practising excellent noise discipline so that Garbutt was unable to fix their position. He lay on the ground, searching up the hill for any silhouettes against the light from the village, but could see nothing. He thought that the grenade throwers were probably to his right, roughly in a position directly above the ambush point. Garbutt raised his Thompson submachine gun, intending to put a burst of fire where he guessed the Germans were. The gun snapped out one shot and then jammed. Garbutt cursed himself for carelessly loading the magazine and started scrabbling in his front-leg pockets, which were hard to reach lying prone as he was, for another magazine. Then he fumbled the jammed clip clear and replaced it with the fresh one. It seemed an eternity had passed since the gun jammed; he was damned scared, knowing the shot and resulting muzzle flash had betrayed his position.

Just as he was ready to open fire again, Garbutt heard a soft rustling on the path below him and then a quiet “Sir? followed by “Mr. Garbutt?” Recognizing the voice as that of his young runner, who had been cut off from him when the ambush started, Garbutt realized the man had crept back to the spot where he and the platoon had parted company in hopes of finding his commander. The officer slipped down to his runner and whispered to him to go back to the platoon and bring up some grenades. When the man returned with a satchel of grenades, Garbutt sent him back to the platoon.

Alone again, Garbutt started tossing grenades into the position from which he thought the Germans had sprung their ambush. When the grenades were used up, he crawled back to his men, who had now been joined by the rest of ‘C' Company. A medical orderly quickly put a bandage on Garbutt's calf and then he led off again, taking his platoon about fifty yards to the left in hopes of getting up to Villa Rogatti by a different route. After going only a short distance, he heard a soft challenge issued in German, followed almost immediately by another grenade exploding harmlessly some twenty feet away. The platoon backed off, reported to ‘C' Company commander Captain M. Cousins, and the entire company hunkered down to await first light.
⁴

Taking a slightly different line of approach than ‘C' Company, Ware was advancing with his headquarters combat section, following closely on the heels of ‘D' Company and the machine-gun platoon of Saskatoon Light Infantry assigned to the battalion. Ware liked to lead from the front and he was determined to get into Villa Rogatti by dawn so he could personally direct the defence.
⁵
With him was Lance Corporal Jack Haley, his radio signaller. Haley and his assistant were using two mules to transport the heavy #22 radio set Ware used to communicate with brigade and divisional headquarters. The radio was usually transported by Bren carrier or truck, but neither of these vehicles was currently usable, so Haley had resorted to mules. The radio was slung on one mule and its two large rechargeable batteries were on the other animal, with wires running between. This gave him power and enabled the use of the radio while moving forward. The two mules were linked together by a chain running between their necks. A wiry Moroccan muleteer was along to handle the large beasts.

As Ware's group moved into the valley, Haley saw tracers arcing through the fading darkness. It seemed to be mostly German fire concentrated on fixed lines rather than a firefight. A lot of the firing came from Schmeisser 9-millimetre submachine guns. Just as Haley and his mules started heading directly down into the valley, one of these guns opened up with a long burst of fire into the brush some way off from the advancing column. The mule skinner jumped and took one
long, wild-eyed look over at Haley. “No good, Johnny,” he said, then scampered off up the slope and disappeared.

Haley was now a mule skinner. As they descended into the valley, the soldiers near the mules groused in whispers that the damned animals were making too much noise and were going to draw German fire. Haley could hardly blame them because it was true. The mules were blundering into the stabilizing poles the Italian farmers used to train their grape vines, and as every pole cracked underfoot the racket was terrific. With each outburst of noise caused by the mules, the German Schmeisser fire intensified.

Things suddenly went from bad to worse when the mules, led inexpertly by Haley, blundered one on either side of a tree, whereupon the connecting chain pulled them up abruptly in their tracks. Both mules started pawing the ground, snorting, and trying to bull forward. Haley and his assistant vainly attempted to guide the animals backward to untangle them from the tree. The German gunfire increased in volume and intensity, tracers searching along the hillside for the source of the noise. Then the chain snapped and the two mules crashed off down the hill, the one with the radio trailing electrical wires in its wake. The only consolation for Haley was that the German fire stopped creeping toward him.