Ortona (31 page)

On Canadian tactical maps The Gully was indicated as a thin line, but its significance was little appreciated. Italy was riddled with gullies, ravines, and valleys descending from the eastern flanks of the Apennines to the Adriatic. To the Canadian high command, this small feature was just another of many minor obstacles. Outflanking The Gully was never considered.

What Vokes and his staff overlooked was the fact that this feature formed a natural trench, deeper and better designed by inherent topography than most major defensive fortifications constructed on the Western Front during World War I. Into its steep southern slope, the Panzer Grenadiers had dug deep gun pits and shelters that were impervious to Canadian artillery fire and difficult to hit with mortars. From these positions, the infantry could foray at will into the densely tangled vegetation covering Vino Ridge and fronting The Gully to engage the advancing Canadians. On the northern side of The Gully, the lateral road provided an excellent link for communications and the movement of German armour from one hot spot to another.

The Canadians had breached the Moro River line, but The Gully would render that victory hollow. As the Loyal Edmonton Regiment set off from San Leonardo toward Cider Crossroads at 0945 hours on December 10, it moved into the jaws of a superbly set ambush.

At first the attack proceeded smoothly, infantry and tanks advancing into the smoke that drifted over the landscape following another softening barrage laid down by the Canadian twenty-five-pounder artillery. A cold steady rain fell, deepening the mud underfoot. Leading the advance was Lieutenant John Dougan's No. 16 Platoon of ‘D' Company. Dougan's commander was Major Jim Stone, a six-foot-five bear of a man with a thick black moustache. Since Sicily, Stone had carved out a reputation for fearlessness on the battlefield. English born, the thirty-five-year-old Stone had been working in a northern Alberta forestry camp near Blueberry Mountain when Canada declared war. Four days later, he mounted his black mare Minnie, rode thirty miles to Spirit River, and hitched a ride to Grand Prairie where the Loyal Edmonton Regiment had opened a recruitment office. Having spent a couple of years as a school cadet in England, Stone knew his left foot from his right when it came to marching. This was sufficient in the poorly trained Canadian volunteer army to earmark him for promotion from private to lance corporal. Possessing a keen intelligence and great determination of will, Stone was soon fast-tracked into officers training.
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By the time the Edmontons reached the Moro River, most every officer in the regiment recognized Stone as the natural heir to Lieutenant Colonel Jim Jefferson, the Edmonton commander.

Jefferson and Stone were polar opposites. Stone was a boisterous soldiers' soldier who mixed easily with the men from the ranks and could drink anyone under the table. Jefferson was a quiet, even shy, veteran of the prewar permanent force. Although Jefferson won the Distinguished Service Order for his regiment's determined stand in Sicily at a village called Leonforte, he was not a commander noted for directing his companies from close by.
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On December 10, Jefferson and his battalion headquarters remained in San Leonardo. Also left behind was ‘C' Company, kept in reserve to provide a solid footing for the Edmonton advance.

Dougan's platoon leading, the Edmontons made good progress and at 1000 hours the signal “Punch” reached Jefferson, who immediately radioed Brigadier Bert Hoffmeister at 2 CIB headquarters. “We are now proceeding to final objective,” Jefferson said.
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Brushing
aside light sniper resistance that melted away as quickly as it materialized and enduring sporadic artillery and mortar fire, the Edmontons pressed on. At 1330 hours, Jefferson radioed Hoffmeister to report that three companies were on the objective and consolidating: “Exploitation not possible yet but will organize as soon as possible. Visibility poor, endeavouring to gain contact.”
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According to the plan, the PPCLI was to now jump off from San Leonardo to cross Vino Ridge and dash for Ortona. Hoffmeister ordered PPCLI Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Ware to move out. Ware, who was at Jefferson's headquarters when the Edmonton commander reported receiving the “Punch” signal, was certain the message was wrong. “Christ,” he said to Jefferson, “you haven't taken the crossroad yet.”
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Despite Ware's protests, Jefferson insisted the report was accurate and that his regiment now held Cider. Backing Jefferson, Hoffmeister ordered Ware to attack.

In fact, the Edmontons were far short of their final objective, still just approaching Punch — the point where the road crossed Vino Ridge. The signal reporting Punch as being taken had not originated from either Stone's ‘D' Company or Dougan's forward platoon. Later investigations failed to resolve the mystery of where the erroneous report had originated, or if in fact Jefferson's headquarters had misunderstood some garbled message. One theory posed was that the messages actually originated from Germans having knowledge of the objective codes and using Canadian radios mounted in a captured jeep.
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Whatever their source, the messages failed to justify Jefferson's more extensive report to Hoffmeister that assumed the capture of the vital crossroads.

Ware was convinced his battalion was in danger of being cut to pieces by an enemy heavily entrenched on Vino Ridge, but he had his orders. With Majors W. “Bucko” Watson and Donald Brain, who had just rejoined the battalion the previous day, Ware walked over to ‘B' Squadron of the Calgary Tanks, the PPCLI's designated supporting armour. Just as the officers reached the tanks, a “stonk” — as the Canadians called heavy German artillery, mortar, or Nebelwerfer salvoes — pummelled San Leonardo. Ware ducked inside ‘B' Squadron's command tank, while Brain and Watson could only shelter behind the tank. Both men were struck by shrapnel. Brain was killed instantly, Watson wounded in the foot.
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Having lost two
of four company commanders, the PPCLI attack was delayed for reorganization of its command structure.

The sporadic shelling of San Leonardo created havoc among 2 CIB's battalion commands. All three battalion headquarters were squeezed into a village of fewer than fifty buildings, few of which were habitable because of battle damage. Saskatoon Light Infantry battalion commander Major Thomas de Faye spent much of December 10 darting from one HQ building to another, trying to maintain an accurate picture of the fighting. The mortars and medium machine guns of the SLI were supporting all three battalions. Everywhere he went enemy shells seemed to follow. One stonk falling around Jefferson's headquarters was so intense that the two men sought refuge inside a large fireplace as protection against the shrapnel singing through the house's windows.

Later, de Faye encountered PPCLI second-in-command Major R.P. “Slug” Clark, just a few minutes after Brain was killed. Clark was inside the PPCLI headquarters, a battered cement and stone house. Outside stood the tank behind which Brain and Watson had become casualties. As de Faye entered the house, another Moaning Minnie salvo plunked around the house. He and Clark dived under the cement stairwell for cover. Huddling there, washbasin-sized chunks of shrapnel banging against the walls, de Faye said, “This is a place that makes you very damned nervous.” Clark tugged a jug of rum from inside his jacket, pulled the lid off, and handed it over to de Faye. The SLI major took a grateful, hearty pull. Clark followed suit. “A little old heart starter,” Clark said, passing the rum back to de Faye, “a touch of the whip.” The two men stayed in their shelter, drinking rum until the enemy bombs stopped falling.
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The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, in accordance with the battle plan, moved out of San Leonardo to form a line on the Edmonton left some 800 to 1,000 yards west of the village. Resistance was light to nonexistent, but enemy shelling continued to take its toll.

Following behind the lead companies came Lieutenant Colonel Doug Forin and his battalion headquarters. The battalion's scout
platoon led, providing a protective screen for Forin and his staff. Several staff were encumbered with the heavy radio sets that were normally mounted in a jeep or Bren carrier, but today had to be carried on the men's backs because the mud was too deep for the vehicles. Seaforths scout Private A.K. Harris led the way across a small meadow to a house Forin planned to use as his forward headquarters. The door facing them was barred, so Harris battered it open, then turned to get help from another soldier in lifting the door off the hinges. Forin, increasingly weakened by jaundice and with nerves stretched close to the snapping point, came up behind him. At that moment, a German shell struck a tree just behind the small group. Shrapnel, wood splinters from the tree, and the blast of concussion ripped into the men.

Harris felt like someone hit him “in the back of the leg, hard, with a club.” He rolled into a ditch, yelling with pain. When he sorted himself out in the bottom of the ditch, Harris saw only a tear in his trousers at calf level. Closer examination showed there was a hole in his leg and undoubtedly a shell fragment inside. His first clear thought was, “Hooray, Christmas in bed.”
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Above Harris there were many groans of pain. He crawled out of the ditch and found Lieutenant D.S. McLaughlin, the intelligence officer who, like the PPCLI's Brain, had only returned to the battalion the previous day. McLaughlin was in considerable pain from shell fragment wounds to both legs. Harris thought because the officer had the energy to curse his wounds he should survive. Crawling on, he found Forin's runner, Acting Lance Corporal L.W. King, “going fast” from a stomach wound. A radio signaller, Private F.B. Beaton, lay dead a few feet away. Somebody said that Forin was also wounded by shrapnel, but Harris could get no idea of how badly. He lost track of Forin, who did not accompany the rest of the wounded to the advanced Regimental Aid Post — a house back on San Leonardo's outskirts.

As the RAP was under heavy shelling, Harris, King, and McLaughlin were loaded into an ambulance jeep for evacuation to the main RAP inside San Leonardo. King was unconscious and very pale, but still breathing. Harris wet his lips with water, knowing that he shouldn't give the man a full drink because of the stomach wound. The jeep, Harris later wrote, crept cautiously down “the
shell pocked road to San Leonardo. . . . Shells blossom on the road on both sides. But the driver has critically wounded aboard. To hit a shell hole at high speed might kill them. He risks his life and takes his time.”
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The jeep arrived safely at the RAP.

Harris continued: “The RAP is a dark room in a battered house. Lights from car batteries hang over blood stained stretchers. Shells are still falling outside. Their crump is varied occasionally by the peculiar whir of slate shingles blown from nearby roofs. There are many wounded.

“The MO takes a quick look at King and he is carted through to the back room. He glances briefly at the field dressing on my leg. I suddenly realize I am also hit in the head and hand, scratches only. . . . The door opens to a weird noise. Two men come in. One is over six feet and heavy. He is only a boy. His eyes are glazed and from his open mouth comes a scream that rises and falls with the noise of shelling outside. Behind him is an RAP man. He has his hands over the youngster's ears and is talking to him in a soothing voice.