Ortona (57 page)

Brigadier Bert Hoffmeister had spent the day getting a good sense of the high price the Canadians were paying. He had nearly become a casualty himself on three occasions. First, when the shell hit the building that Gibson had used as a supply depot. Second, when he was moving across a street and looked down just in time to see and avoid two tiny prongs that betrayed the presence of an S-mine where his foot was about to land. And third, when he was walking across an open square to confer with a tank commander and the tanker was
shot by a sniper. Had the sniper shot the infantry officer instead, he would have bagged a brigadier rather than a lieutenant, but Hoffmeister took care to look like any other soldier.

He was understandably still a bit shaken from those close calls when he paid a final evening visit to the Edmonton battalion headquarters. As he waited for Lieutenant Colonel Jim Jefferson to finish a radio conversation with one of the rifle company commanders, Hoffmeister was drawn to a line of bodies lying in one corner of the room. A blanket was draped over each body, the faces covered. For some reason he could never afterward explain, he bent down and pulled back one of the blankets. He found himself looking into the unseeing eyes of the young reinforcement officer who only that morning had appeared so bewildered by Ortona.
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S
URROUNDED
by paratroopers of the 1st Parachute Division, the 48th Highlanders of Canada endured a “most unhappy Christmas.” The regiment's war diarist went on to note that its soldiers were “practically unable to move in battalion area owing to enemy snipers and MGs.”
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The diarist's summary of the battalion's Christmas accurately reflected the experience of all the Canadians fighting on the Ortona front. There was no day off from the war for festive celebration. German and Canadian spent the day doing their best to kill each other. For many, Christmas 1943 was the last day of their lives.

The position the Highlanders occupied on the summit of a low ridge overlooking the hamlets of San Tomasso and San Nicola was a mile inside the German lines. Throughout December 24, the battalion's presence had gone mostly ignored by the paratroopers. But, as of first light on Christmas Day, the Highlanders became the target of increasing enemy attention. By midafternoon, Lieutenant Colonel Ian Johnston feared that the paratroopers were massing in front of ‘A' Company's positions for a major attack on the beleaguered battalion. The sniper and machine-gun fire was now supplemented by increasingly
heavy mortar and artillery bombardment. Some self-propelled guns, mounted with 88-millimetre cannon, lurked near the Canadian perimeter, smashing it with shell after shell.

If the Germans struck the Highlanders with a concerted counterattack and managed to penetrate the outer defences, it was entirely possible the battalion might be overrun and wiped out. All the Highlanders had were their light weapons and a very limited supply of ammunition. Attempts to bring supporting arms into the Highlander position during the night had been unsuccessful. The squadron of Ontario Tanks was still more than a mile away and hopelessly mired in mud. Although the weather was starting to cooperate by bringing colder temperatures and no rain, it would be at least another day before the ground firmed up sufficiently to support the weight of the tanks.

There is an old military precept that the best defence is a good offence. Johnston thought it time to implement this tactic. If ‘A' Company forayed into the German forming-up positions it might disrupt the paratroopers' plan to stage an attack. About 300 yards from the Highlander front stood two fortified houses, jointly code-named The Rock. The largest of these houses was thought to be a German headquarters. It became the attack's objective.

Responsibility for carrying out the attack fell to Major John Clarke's ‘A' Company. The officer who had led the Highlanders single file through the dark night of December 23 to their current position knew his men faced a tough challenge. He also agreed with Johnston that it had to be done. Clarke gave the task to Lieutenant Jack Pickering's No. 9 Platoon, saying, “Put the fear of God and the 48th Highlanders into them.”
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As Pickering set about readying his understrength platoon, he was approached by Lieutenant Ian MacDonald, commander of No. 8 Platoon. “Look here, Jack,” MacDonald said, “both platoons should go. One can't do it alone. Go ask John.” Pickering did and Clarke immediately agreed to the two platoons attacking as one. He warned both officers to be cautious, not risking heavy casualties unless there would be obvious gains realized. They were to withdraw if German resistance proved too stiff.
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To soften the way for the attack, a heavy bombardment from the supporting artillery regiments was called in by the forward observation
officer, Major Hawker. The two platoons then moved forward, supported by several Bren gunners providing covering fire. Initially, the two platoons made good progress, sweeping German snipers and light machine-gunners out of slit trenches set up practically on the edge of the Canadian lines.

The Highlanders got within 200 yards of the target house and paused in a small gully to organize a rush on the objective from two directions. Pickering was about to give the order to advance when two heavy machine guns opened up from the right flank. The ground between the gully and the house was level, providing no viable cover. Had the platoons already moved forward, they would have been decimated by the German guns. Pickering and MacDonald realized they could not reach the objective without suffering heavy casualties. All they could hope was that their limited attack would dissuade the Germans from risking an all-out offensive against the Highlanders. The two platoons withdrew to the Canadian lines.
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To maintain the pressure on the Germans, FOO Major Hawker directed artillery throughout the day against targets identified by Highlander patrols. Luring the German gunners into betraying their presence was a dangerous task. Private Gerard Michaud, who because of casualties among non-commissioned officers found himself commanding a small section, discovered the simplest way to expose German machine-gun positions was to draw their fire by moving out into the open where the gunners could see him. Several machine guns were discovered this way and destroyed by Canadian artillery. Inevitably, perhaps, Michaud's luck finally ran out. He was hit by a burst of MG42 fire and died instantly.
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The artillerymen back at 226th Battery, which supplied most of the support, radioed back several times to verify Hawker's map references. The salvoes were forming a perfect circle around a very small position and the danger of shells landing within that circle was high. The gunners were not to worry, Hawker said. “Just keep shooting. Just imagine we're an island.”
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The analogy was apt. By December 25, it was apparent that the 48th Highlanders were seriously isolated. Acting Brigadier Dan Spry, commander of 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade, could see no way
either to reinforce the lost battalion or to facilitate a withdrawal from its tenuous position. The brigade's other two battalions — the Royal Canadian Regiment and the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment — were too depleted by casualties to break through the German defences standing between their positions and the Highlanders.

An attempt at first light by the RCR to push through had stalled mere minutes after it began. ‘A' Company, which led the attack, had advanced only a short distance before coming under devastating artillery, mortar, and machine-gun fire. Almost twenty men in a company numbering barely fifty were killed or wounded.

Lieutenant Jimmy Quayle, commanding No. 8 Platoon of ‘A' Company, could scarcely believe the orders he had been given prior to the attack. Two hours before dawn, RCR commander Major Strome Galloway told the men at the Orders Group to go up the track to a cluster of buildings close to the Highlanders' lines, and dig in. Quayle wondered aloud if artillery or tanks would be in support. He was told airily that neither was necessary, since patrols had found no presence of German units in the area. A disgruntled and skeptical Quayle returned to his unit in time to welcome four new replacements. The only thing he noted about the men, whose faces were obscured by darkness, was that their last names all started with B.

Quayle prowled the lines of his platoon. During these wanderings, he later wrote, he saw that “two white objects protruded from the ground like strange fungi. I had passed them a dozen times. As light improved the strange blooms became hands with gray sleeves attached. One of our tanks had run right up the centre of the German's body and pushed him back down flush with the mud. All that showed were two pale hands projecting in a supplicating gesture. The face and greatcoat were level with the soil and hard to distinguish.”
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No. 8 Platoon led the assault as ordered, with No. 7 Platoon immediately behind, and proceeded up the track without any artillery or tank support. Quayle, suspecting that the reports upon which the attack was based were bogus, sent two scouts ahead of the column and ordered his men to advance up a ditch bordering the track rather than on the track itself. They had gone only a short distance when the two scouts came running back full tilt, narrowly escaping a barrage of stick grenades and submachine-gun fire.
Quayle, ordering his men to ground, wondered if the earlier patrol had dodged danger by going into the field and just hunkering down at the first sign of shelter. It was not uncommon for reconnaissance patrols to shirk their assignment, then file a false report.

Mortars started quartering the platoon's position with deadly accuracy. One of the new “B” men took some shrapnel that passed right through his chest. A veteran private named McDonald said quietly to the man, “You can quit moaning now, I've been hit too.” Blood ran down McDonald's face from a scalp wound. The platoon started returning fire with their small arms and achieved a spectacular result. In front of them, a German half-track vehicle loaded with ammunition and hidden in a haystack exploded in a massive blast.

Quayle saw Corporal Davino, a fearless veteran — “blood and saliva dribbling from his mouth, his face a bloated pumpkin” — being led past by a stretcher-bearer. Then came another veteran, Max Engleberg, with a right arm rendered useless by a wound. One of the ‘B' men lay off to Quayle's left, crying softly. Quayle asked what was wrong. The man whimpered that his legs were gone. Quayle said he would carry the man back. “Sir, we'll both be killed,” the new reinforcement said. The two men argued while bullets and shells whined overhead. Then Quayle hefted the man onto his back and carried him to safety. Twenty-three men from No. 8 Platoon had gone into the attack. An hour later, only Quayle and three other men remained unwounded. No. 7 Platoon had been similarly hard hit. Its lieutenant, Jim Joice, had been severely wounded; only eight men were unhurt. Together the two platoons mustered eleven men.
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Despite its losses, ‘A' Company went to ground and held its position rather than withdrawing.
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Major Strome Galloway pushed ‘B' Company up on ‘A' Company's left with instructions to outflank the machine guns holding up ‘A' Company. That attempt failed, but Galloway persisted in pressing the attack. By midafternoon, he had established the regiment several hundred yards forward of the Hastings and Prince Edward positions.
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But he was still more than a thousand yards short of the Highlander lines. The RCR, which had been seriously understrength on the morning of December 24, had lost more than fifty men in two days of fighting. The battalion's rifle companies mustered between them only about 150 men as dusk fell on Christmas Day.

Galloway established his headquarters in a small house inside the RCR perimeter. The largest room was overflowing with Italian civilians. German machine-gun positions in two houses no more than 250 yards from the building hammered the walls with occasional bursts of gunfire.