Ortona (65 page)

During the night, the paratroopers blew up the coastal highway bridge crossing the mouth of the Riccio just west of Torre Mucchia.
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Although the paratroopers seemed determined to defend the headland, it was apparent that they also recognized the inevitable outcome of the battle. They would delay, but Torre Mucchia would eventually fall to the Allies. The only question was how many soldiers on both sides must die in the transaction.

About two miles southwest of the crossroads leading to Tollo from the coast, Americo Casanova and some of the men who had been hiding in the cave behind the stone house had decided the fighting around the area was light enough for them to risk an outside fire. They had a little mutton and were roasting it over the small flame. A pot leaning against the fire contained a thin, watery soup. Americo was almost drooling with anticipation, his eternally empty stomach growling up a storm.

Everyone was so focused on the fire and the food that they only
realized they were not alone when one of the men looked up and saw what they thought were British soldiers surrounding them, rifles aimed their way. Then one of the Tommies spoke, and to the surprise of the Italians told them in rough French to get back in the cave. The men and Americo quickly gathered up the scraps of half-cooked mutton and the pot of simmering broth, kicked mud over the fire, and fled into the dark shelter of the cave.

The French-speaking British soldiers moved off. Americo could hear them continuing to talk French back and forth as they departed. He looked at his uncle, who shrugged, as if to say “Who can make sense of this war?”

Several days later, Americo and the other civilians would leave the cave for good and return to Ortona. He would find his family's apartment building destroyed, his mother and siblings gone. Caught as they were on opposite sides of the front, the fate of his family remained a mystery. Not until June 4, 1944, would he be reunited with them.
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Antonio D'Intino's family owned one of the poor houses in the fishermen's quarters on the northeastern flank of Ortona, as well as the farm across the ravine west of the town. On December 29, D'Intino left his ailing father and ventured into the town to check on the property. He made his way down Corso Vittorio Emanuele and Corso Matteotti, climbing over the massive rubble piles and passing the shattered Cattedrale San Tomasso. Ortona seemed like an alien landscape to him. It took him several minutes to realize that the family's house had been shelled and was nothing more than a ruin. He picked through the wreckage, but could find nothing of value.

As D'Intino searched the ruins, a young Canadian approached. He asked in perfect Italian if D'Intino might know a family that had lived in Ortona. D'Intino recognized the name. They were neighbours who lived just down the street. D'Intino said, “I'll show you.” He led the soldier down the street to a badly battered structure and banged on the door. After a few minutes, the door opened a crack and an elderly man looked out warily. “Grandpapa,” the young man said and embraced his grandfather, whom he had never met. As the two men were joined by the old man's frail wife, D'Intino walked quietly away, leaving the family to its reunion.
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Antonio Di Cesare's family also returned to Ortona a few days after the fighting ceased. His parents had taken precautions against looting by stashing all the family valuables in the ceiling of the house. They had not counted on the house itself being reduced to a burned-out shell. Nothing of value remained. Like many other civilians, they found a place in one of the battered buildings that was semi-habitable and unclaimed by its previous owners. Antonio helped the Canadian tankers clean the cakes of mud off the tracks each day in exchange for food. In this manner, he was able to help his family survive the long winter.
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On the morning of December 30, the Tollo Road crossroads fell to the Royal 22e Regiment. As the paratroopers yielded the ground without offering any real fight, the Van Doos took the position without losing a single man. It was a mixed blessing, however, as the moment the Canadians occupied the new position they were hammered by intensely accurate artillery. An officer and sixteen infantrymen were wounded.
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Meanwhile, the Carleton and York Regiment continued toward Point 59 with ‘A' and ‘C' companies. Again, the paratroopers were waiting with machine guns and mortars. The attack crumbled 200 yards from the tower. Lieutenant D.A.S. Black and four other men were killed. Captain D.H. Andrew and lieutenants W.N. Laughlin and H.G. “Cubby” Morgan were wounded, along with twenty-one other men. Most of the casualties were from ‘A' Company, which had also lost men the previous day.

Lieutenant Colonel John Pangman was deeply shaken by these losses. It seemed as if the New Brunswick regiment was being left out on its own with insufficient resources and support. Brigadier Graeme Gibson appeared uninterested in leaving 3 CIB headquarters to visit the battlefield to gain a first-hand appreciation of the difficulties the battalion faced. Pangman expressed his disgruntlement. Gibson's response was to order Carleton and York second-in-command Major Dick Danby to take over. Pangman was bundled away for a rest. He would never return to the regiment.
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Increasing frustration was the order of the day for the Carleton and York Regiment. The fight for Point 59 seemed hopelessly bogged down in the mud, with an absence of determined backing from supporting arms, either artillery or tanks. The tanks, of course, faced the same problems that had plagued them throughout the past month — mud and mines. On December 31, tanks from the Ontario Tanks tried to push up the promontory in support of ‘A' and ‘C' companies.
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The tanks became mired in the deep mud of a minefield. Two tanks lost tracks to mines. A third bellied out on a Teller antitank mine and had its bottom escape hatch blown in. The tank's co-driver died instantly. A fourth tank got out ahead of the infantry, tripped a mine and, when the infantry attack again failed, had to be abandoned.
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The infantry went into the minefield and formed a defensive ring around the other three tanks, ensuring the paratroopers were unable to move up and destroy the machines during the night.

While this attack was stalling, ‘B' Company's No. 11 Platoon commander, Lieutenant Don Smith, set off on a reconnaissance patrol. He had only one man with him, a lance corporal armed with a Bren gun. Smith carried a Thompson. The two men were in a vineyard, struggling through the broken concrete support poles and fallen wires. Crossing some jumbled ground, Smith suddenly came under fire from a German MG42 machine gun. Smith hit the dirt, landing on top of a small pack. The lance corporal dropped a couple of feet behind him, letting off four rounds from the Bren as he did so. The bullets scythed right over Smith's back. When Smith looked over his shoulder, he saw the man perspiring and looking as if he was in shock. “I'm sorry, sir. I left the safety catch off.” Smith realized he had just about been shot in the back by his own man.

Pressing closer to the ground, Smith noticed the small pack, lying abandoned in the mud. It was a Canadian pack. Printed in black paint on the upturned side was Lieut. H.G. Morgan. Smith and “Cubby” Morgan had been friends since meeting in Britain, and he knew the young officer had been wounded the day before. A few hours later, Morgan succumbed to his wounds while being operated on at the field dressing station in San Vito Chietino.

Smith and the still shocked lance corporal slowly extricated themselves from their pinned-down position and returned to ‘B' Company headquarters. Smith told company commander Major
Burton Kennedy about the gun position, and the three-inch mortar was set up to knock the machine gun out. Smith pointed the German position out to the mortarmen, who popped a shot out that fell a bit short. Their next round was dead on the money and the German gun was knocked out.
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This successful destruction of a German position corresponded with an order from brigade headquarters for the Carleton and York Regiment and the Ontario Tanks to cease further direct assaults. Instead, the Canadians were to engage the Germans with concentrated mortar and artillery fire. When the German defensive positions were considered suitably softened up, another attack would be sent in.

The infantry battalion dug in for a miserable New Year's Eve. Lieutenant Smith found a small brick shack he thought might have once housed geese and established his platoon headquarters there. There was room in the shack for only Smith and two other men from the platoon. Outside, a vicious gale had blown in off the Adriatic and was lashing the men in their slit trenches with mixed freezing rain and snow. Inside the shack, Smith felt a bit guilty at his comparative comfort.

As he was starting to settle down on the floor for a brief rest, however, a German armour-piercing shell slammed into one end of the shack. Smith's runner was killed. The other two men were unharmed. Smith's platoon sergeant was badly shaken by the incident. Had the shell been high-explosive instead of armour-piercing, everybody in the shack would have died. When the sergeant failed to snap out of it, Smith escorted him back to company headquarters. Major Kennedy sent him to the rear as Left Out of Battle, consequently avoiding turning the man in as a battle-exhaustion case.

Smith went back to his platoon. The platoons were conducting hourly patrols, seeking enemy targets and watching for German counterattacks. With the sergeant gone, the only platoon leader left was Smith. He took out every patrol, finally conducting the last two alone. Stupid, he knew, but his headquarters troopers had done their turns. The rain and snow kept falling. Every man in the regiment was intensely miserable.
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