Ortona (67 page)

What remains clear is that, in the same way that 1st Canadian Infantry Division would rebuild itself to once again be considered one of the crack units of the Allied forces, so, too, would 1st Parachute Division remain an elite German force throughout the continued fighting in Italy. The Canadians would meet both the paratroopers and the Panzer Grenadiers several more times during their long march through Italy.

The casualty figures tallied by Vokes's staff on December 31 did not take into account those men of 1st Canadian Infantry Division killed or wounded after January 1. It appears that Vokes and his staff considered the battle over once Ortona fell. There were the small actions along the Riccio River, but these were considered of little import once the Germans withdrew from Ortona. Vokes turned his attention to writing after action-reports. Yet the dying was not done.

On the forward slopes of the promontory known as Point 59, the Carleton and York Regiment and ‘B' Squadron of Ontario Tanks continued a bitter, almost forgotten battle. ‘B' Company platoon commander Lieutenant Don Smith saw a corporal in an adjoining platoon take a bullet in the chest. The man was out in the open between the Canadian and German lines. He fell into a muddy pool of water almost a foot deep. Smith marked the man's fall and turned his attention back to his platoon's efforts. Soon, however, Tommy, his batman, came over looking agitated. “Mr. Smith,” he said, “are you going to let that man lie out there and die alone? Those bastards are ignoring the Red Cross when the stretcher-bearers try to get to him. I've been out, but I can't go back.”

A track separated the company from the wounded man, and a German machine gun was firing down its length. Smith thought about it, and when the firing eased for a moment, dashed across the track to the wounded soldier. The man was unconscious, blood gurgling from his mouth and from holes in his lungs. Smith stood up, trying to throw the man in a fireman's carry over his back. Bullets from the MG42 machine gun whined around him, throwing up splashes from the water. His feet sank deeply into the muck. He struggled toward
the Canadian lines. Then the paratroopers started using a rifle launcher to drop stick grenades around him. The little bombs seemed so close that Smith imagined he could reach out and catch one as it fell. Fortunately, the mud and water suppressed their explosions.

After ten minutes spent futilely trying to get the wounded man out, Smith had to give up. He lowered him into the mud and fled across the track to cover. His batman was sobbing hysterically, “Are you going to let him die out there alone?” Smith checked his platoon. It was holding out fine. No excuse there. Once again, he ran to the wounded man. Again the muck, again the rifle grenades, again the machine gun, again another ten minutes of futility before his nerve broke. As Smith dropped the man again he saw that blood no longer gurgled from the soldier's lungs or lips. He fled for safety.

That night, Smith crawled out to check the soldier. He was dead.
¹³

On January 4, after repeated and costly failures to capture Point 59, the Carleton and York attack finally was properly supported by a complexly planned and heavily delivered artillery barrage. ‘B' Company led the assault. No. 11 Platoon, which numbered fifteen men, including Smith, was in front. The other platoons had even fewer soldiers. Smith formed his men up in a line. Five on each side of him, with the last in line at either end a corporal. The acting platoon sergeant and four platoon headquarters personnel were immediately behind Smith. They had no idea how many Germans were up on the promontory. The shelling lifted at 1600 hours and the company commander blew his whistle. “Mr. Smith, get moving.” Smith blew his own whistle, knowing that the men probably couldn't hear it. Then, rather dramatically, he pointed at the objective some 140 yards away and started to run. Much to Smith's relief, his platoon followed. After the casualties the regiment had suffered, it was foolhardy not to assume the men might balk at yet another dangerous charge.

The mud formed like giant snowshoes on the soldiers' boots. But they were in the open and could only keep going. Smith gasped for breath. Everyone was slogging forward with tortured difficulty, the mud dragging on their legs. Small-arms fire started snapping at the
line. On his immediate right, a formerly unreliable soldier sped up. Smith was impressed until he realized that the man was merely pitching forward in response to a mortal wound.

The platoon reached a row of barbed wire. Smith fought his way over it to find a slit trench immediately behind. It contained three paratroopers working an MG42. Smith brought up his rifle and emptied the clip into them. Then he threw a Type 36 grenade on top of the middle man in the position to guarantee the kill.

From the tower of Torre Mucchia, standing only yards away, a shot rang out. Smith saw a German soldier firing from its doorway. He charged the man and shot him in the chest at point-blank range. He then threw grenades through the doorway and a nearby window. Several of his men then rushed into the tower and swept through it, finding no other Germans inside.

Lying in a small defile running down to the Adriatic from the tower, a German cried, “Tommy, Tommy, help me. I'm wounded.” Smith's first thought was, “We aren't Tommies. We don't want to be called Tommies.” He also wondered, he later said, “how the bastard who was killing us for days now had the gall to call for help.” Despite this, Smith sent a stretcher-bearer down to care for the wounded German.

Smith set the platoon to digging in, with no time to spare. No sooner had the paratroopers retreated from Point 59 than the Germans started to pound the promontory with artillery. One of Smith's men suddenly threw down his rifle and shouted, “I can't take it any more. I'm leaving.” Smith walked over, shells exploding around the two men. Shrapnel sang through the air and cordite-reeking smoke rolled over the battlefield. Smith picked up the soldier's rifle and said, “Look, Junior, you hold onto your bloody rifle, get into that slit trench, and don't go anywhere unless I tell you to.” Worried that the man's panic might spread and that the Germans might counterattack any moment, Smith could ill afford to lose even one more of his men.
¹⁴

Minutes later, the other platoons of ‘B' Company captured their supporting objectives. Point 59 was secure. ‘B' Company had taken eighteen prisoners. The Canadian walking wounded marched them back. As the last rifle fell silent at Torre Mucchia, the great Canadian battle fought from the Moro River through Ortona to the Arielli River drew to a close.

D
ECEMBER
1998. I stand before the tombstones of the Moro River Canadian Cemetery. It is one of those crisp, clear, early winter days that CBC war correspondent Matthew Halton likened to a Cézanne painting. Sea purplish gray, sky azure, grass deep green, tombstones soft white marble. This Canadian cemetery is the largest of its kind in Italy. Of 1,613 graves, 1,375 hold Canadian soldiers. Not all died during December 1943. Some were moved here from other battlefields nearby. All too many others perished in an ill-conceived January 1944 offensive launched against the Arielli Line by the newly arrived 5th Canadian Armoured Division.

Canadian Forces Major Michael Boire and I have come to this cemetery, as must all pilgrims drawn to Abruzzo province by the Battle of Ortona. Michael walks slowly from one tombstone to another. A name read, date of death noted, regiment identified, a moment of silent remembrance passed. He has a slight limp, the result of an airborne drop gone wrong. Michael, a keen military historian in his spare time, is stationed in Germany at Heidelberg. Once
he heard I was coming to Ortona on a research trip, luring him down from Germany was easy.

We have spent several days going methodically over the December battlefield. Michael has offered me his soldier's eye and understanding of how ground affects a military operation. Today we measure the costs. Michael's parent regiment is the Three Rivers — the tankers who fought in Ortona's streets alongside the Loyal Edmonton Regiment and the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada. He carries a ring-binder version of his regiment's unpublished history. Many names cited in its pages correspond to those etched in marble.

There are also names that I will come to know well as I write this book. Mitch Sterlin, the unlikely hero. Tom Vance, a gentle and trusting soul. Bob Donald, the too-often-forgotten RCHA forward observation officer, who was part of the triad of officers who made Casa Berardi's capture possible during the gallant dash of Captain Paul Triquet's Van Doos. Sometimes on paper their short lives and the manner of their deaths can seem remote, distant. Today, I look at the ground on which they died, then the tombstones under which they lie, and they are cast in a clearer, sorrowful light.

Later, Michael drops me on the Moro River's southern ridge across from Villa Rogatti. He is returning to Germany. I plan to retrace part of the physical journey of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division regiments. I will walk my own short road to Ortona.

Fittingly, clouds have blown in from the Adriatic and drizzle is falling as I set off alone. The Canadian soldiers had only rough wool uniforms to repel the water. I wear Gore-Tex. Where they were heavily burdened by the tools of war, my pack holds featherlight 7x21 binoculars, a camera and lenses, a Swiss Army knife, a bottle of mineral water, and a thick wad of
lire
.

The Moro is now spanned by a stout concrete bridge on the road to Villa Rogatti. Once across it, I veer off the road and follow the river to a point that seems roughly in line with my understanding of the route the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry took during their night assault on Villa Rogatti. Behind me the river runs high. It is narrow, barely twenty feet across. Deeper this December than it was for the Canadians. A stick shoved in sinks to thigh-depth.

I climb through olive groves and vineyards. Moro River mud sucks at my boots, glues on, and forms the wide globular snowshoes the
soldiers cursed. I add my own curses to the historic litany. But I can stop now and then to bang away some of the accumulation. Under fire, such fussiness would have been foolhardy. The vineyards offer difficult terrain. Overhanging wires force me to hunker down. It's hard to look up the slope bent over. Everywhere I see endless terrain features that even to an unpractised eye appear perfect for defensive gun positions. The same is true in the olive groves. There I stand straight, but the mud is deeper.

Eventually I circle up and into Villa Rogatti from the right flank, just as the PPCLI did. The town was rebuilt out of the battle's ruins. Stone and brick walls are deeply pocked by bullets and shrapnel. From Villa Rogatti, I walk winding country lanes toward San Leonardo. Farmers work the fields. They spread nets under the olive trees and then shake the fruit down to be harvested like fish swept from the sea by seiners. They are intent on their work. I pass unnoticed.