Ortona (35 page)

Jones led his patrol back to San Leonardo and reported to Captain Burns. After consulting with the tank squadron commander, Lieutenant F.P. Clarke of ‘B' Squadron, it was decided that Jones's No. 10 Platoon and the tankers would attack along the discovered route at first light on December 13. Once across The Gully, the combined force would advance to Casa Berardi.
²⁹

M
AJOR
General Chris Vokes was under terrific pressure from Eighth Army headquarters to break through The Gully and continue the advance to Pescara. General Montgomery had not yet abandoned his “colossal crack” strategy to open a road from the Adriatic to Rome. On December 12, he sent Canadian liaison officer Major Richard S. Malone to Vokes's HQ. “Old Monty wants to know what the problem is, why you are getting along so slowly,” Malone told Vokes.
¹

Vokes could hardly believe what he was hearing. Didn't anyone at Eighth Army HQ read the situation reports that 1st Canadian Infantry Division filed every day? Livid, Vokes roared at Malone, “You tell Monty if he would get to hell up here and see the bloody mud he has stuck us in, he'd damn well know why we can't move faster.”
²

Monty's response was to have Malone take the Eighth Army Tactical HQ road sign and set it up a mile forward of Vokes's divisional HQ. When Vokes called Malone to find out what the sign was doing up ahead of him, Malone informed him that Monty was moving his headquarters forward to that position in the morning, so Vokes had best get his troops moving ahead.
³

While this unsubtle harassment from the rear was going on, Vokes was also being pressured by the Canadian correspondents hanging about the HQ between their brief sorties closer to the front. Among these was CBC radio reporter Matthew Halton. Vokes considered Halton one of the more polite members of the press, but still a man capable of asking downright silly questions. “Sir,” Halton said, “could you please tell me why you aren't getting on faster?” Gritting his teeth at hearing virtually the same question Monty had asked, Vokes replied in a steely voice, “For two very good reasons.”

“Do you mind telling me what they are, General?”

“Not at all. The Germans and the mud.”

An apparently bemused Halton said, “I never thought of that.”
⁴

Exchanges such as this reflected a growing problem, for which the Canadian regiments were paying the price in casualties. Vokes was being pressured to produce instant success against the German defences. Eighth Army wanted results. The press, realizing the battle was the hardest Canadians had so far fought in the Mediterranean theatre, were beginning to cast the struggle in terms of almost mythic proportions. “I don't know how to tell you about Canada's battle of the Moro River,” Halton said in a broadcast. “The German is fighting us to the death and he opposes us for once in superior numbers of men.”
⁵
In another broadcast, Halton said, “The time has come when the Germans have to stop the Eighth in its tracks or leave the road open to Rome. They are trying to stop us and are fighting hard.”
⁶

Halton was not alone. On December 8, Montreal's
Gazette
had rated the German defences at the Moro River as “makeshift.” The
New York Telegram
on the same day afforded Ortona only scant attention, describing it as an Adriatic backwater port town of little importance. On December 11, however, the reports changed dramatically.
The New York Times
now declared Ortona the “chief obstacle facing the Canadians.” Three days later, Associated Press in Algiers reported that the Canadians were “closing in on strategic road junction of Ortona.” The
Ottawa Citizen
added: “The whole current Eighth Army thrust hinges on success of the Canadians in capturing Ortona.”
⁷
The press, observed Major D.H. Cunningham in an analysis of the role of reporters in the December battle, “is a power for evil as well as good. . . . It played a large part in turning a tactical fight into a prestige battle with the consequent unnecessary loss of many lives.”
⁸

To what extent the growing press attention and Montgomery's insistence that Vokes hurry up the offensive influenced his decisions cannot be known. It seems probable, however, that the pressure contributed to Vokes's continuing to throw his battalions against The Gully in a piecemeal fashion apparently governed more by a desire for haste than any form of sound planning. On the night of December 12, Vokes issued yet another flurry of orders directing one of the only two battalions remaining in reserve to launch a frontal assault against the Panzer Grenadiers.

This time the futile task fell to the Carleton and York Regiment, composed primarily of men from New Brunswick. The 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade battalion was to pass through the Loyal Edmonton Regiment's position on Vino Ridge and advance up the main axis of old Highway 16 toward Cider Crossroads. A creeping artillery barrage supplemented by the mortars of both 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade and 3 CIB would closely precede the advancing troops. Fourteenth Canadian Armoured Regiment (Calgary Tanks) was “to give what support was possible in the deteriorating weather. On both flanks of the main thrust a coordinated effort to reach the lateral road was to be made with the West Nova Scotia Regiment on the left and the PPCLI on the right.” The Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment was to continue pressing up the coast road. One company of the Royal 22e Regiment was to follow behind the Carleton and York Regiment to “mop up.” Zero hour was set for 0600 December 13.
⁹

While looking fairly impressive on paper, this coordinated plan failed to acknowledge the weakness of the supporting battalions. The West Novas, the PPCLI, and the Hasty P's could no longer function as regiments — casualties had reduced them to the size of mere companies. None of these regiments could offer much punch to support the fresh Carleton and York Regiment. The attack plan was basically a replay of those that had failed previously. One battalion was to go forward, virtually alone.

At 0600 hours, under an unexpectedly sunny sky, the attack kicked off with ‘A' and ‘D' companies leading and ‘B' and ‘C' companies following close behind to serve as a reserve. The Panzer Grenadier response was an immediate and violent opposition with medium machine guns, mortars, artillery, and tanks. The Canadians' creeping artillery barrage rolled on across The Gully, leaving the
stalled infantry far behind. While managing to destroy three of the German machine-gun positions and taking twenty-one prisoners, the Carleton and Yorks were forced back from the ridgeline overlooking The Gully an hour after the attack began. Attempts to counter the German tanks with Shermans of the Calgary Tanks also proved fruitless, as one of the Canadian tanks was destroyed and most of the others bogged down in the deep mud.

Commander Lieutenant Colonel John E.C. Pangman tried repeatedly to rally his troops and move them forward, but each assault crumbled before it could get underway. At 1600 hours things went from bad to worse when No. 16 Platoon of ‘D' Company was cut off from the rest of the battalion by a German counterattack. Taking shelter in a house near Cider, the platoon was surrounded. Attempts by ‘B' Company to break through to relieve them failed. The whole platoon was lost, twenty-eight of the men forced to surrender and the rest killed.
¹⁰
In all, the Carleton and Yorks lost eighty-one men, including four officers. Two were company commanders.

Among those taken prisoner was ‘C' Company commander Major Graeme “Buck” Simms and the RCHA forward observation officer Captain Bob MacNeil. The two officers were part of a small unit overrun by a superior force of Germans. As MacNeil, the third RCHA FOO lost in as many days, walked into custody, a sergeant major said, “Come, Englander, for you the war is over.”
¹¹

Just as the Carleton and York attack faltered, so did the supporting assaults by the West Novas, the PPCLI, and the Hasty P's. The PPCLI attack saw ‘B' Company use the artillery barrage to advance to the crest of Vino Ridge. As the barrage rolled on, the soldiers slugging their way through the mud saw a green flare come up out of The Gully. Seconds later, they were caught in a devastating counter-barrage that was obviously firing on a pre-targeted position in anticipation of their advance. The company staggered back to its start line.
¹²

The West Nova Scotia battalion really never got underway in the morning, being pinned down by heavy artillery, mortar, and small-arms fire throughout the day. At 1630 hours, ‘A,' ‘C,' and ‘D' companies, with a strength of little more than one hundred men
remaining, attacked what Major Ron Waterman thought to be a lightly held machine-gun position that had been harassing the battalion all day from about 300 yards to the right. The attack proved the position was anything but weak. Casualties were heavy. ‘D' Company, with only one commander and ten men remaining, actually reached the objective but had to withdraw without succeeding in knocking it out.
¹³

On the coast, the attempt by the Hasty P's to push two companies up the road was stopped dead on The Gully's forward slope by intense machine-gun and mortar fire. Their gain was measured in mere yards.
¹⁴
“Everywhere along the divisional front the enemy fought with that remarkable tenacity which he had displayed a few days before on the banks of the Moro; this morale factor, combined with his knowledgeable exploitation of the lateral gully as a tactical feature, made 90th Grenadier Division a formidable adversary,” stated one after-action report.
¹⁵

Finally, however, Vokes was recognizing that the only way of defeating The Gully was to outflank it. Urged by Brigadiers Graeme Gibson and Bert Hoffmeister to try combined tank and infantry sorties around the western flank of The Gully, Vokes had cut orders on the night of December 12 to mount two limited versions of such operations in the morning. Like someone who has burned his hand and is afraid of the heat, Vokes authorized both the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada and the West Nova Scotia Regiment to commit a company each in an attack at the separate potential crossings the two battalions had discovered the previous day. Each would be supported by a squadron of Ontario Tanks.
¹⁶

At 0700 hours, West Nova Scotia's ‘B' Company platoon commander Lieutenant James Jones and Lieutenant F.P. Clarke of ‘B' Squadron of Ontario Tanks set out to attack the clearing they had scouted the previous night. Clarke had three tanks and Jones's No. 10 Platoon spread itself in equal numbers on the outside hulls. The racket made by the advancing tanks was masked by the creeping artillery barrage supporting the Carleton and York attack. Clarke drove the tanks in fast. The lead tank tore past a small house containing one machine-gun position, startling the half-awake gunners. Before they could man
their weapon, the second tank destroyed the position with a shot from its 75-millimetre main gun. The machine gunners were all killed. Farther along the trail an antitank gun was spotted. This, too, was knocked out by cannon fire before the dazed Panzer Grenadiers could get it into action. Infantry staggered out of their slit trenches with their hands up as No. 10 Platoon leapt off the tanks and rushed their positions.

Bursting through brush into a clearing, Jones's men and the tankers confronted a farmhouse and three Panzer Mark IVs in cover under some nearby trees. The house appeared to be a battalion headquarters. Officers, orderlies, and other soldiers who were too clean and well dressed for front-line troops were clambering out of windows and doors and taking flight into the surrounding vineyards and olive groves. The head of a German popped up in the turret of one of the tanks. Jones threw himself prone, shoved the butt of the Bren gun he carried into his shoulder, and killed the man with a short burst. Clarke punched a tank shell into the enemy tank. Seconds later, another of the Canadian tankers dispatched one of the other tanks. The third German tank got off one round before being destroyed.