Ortona (36 page)

A splinter from that shell hit Jones in the shoulder, as he was mowing down the German staff fleeing the house. Despite serious pain, Jones continued to lead his platoon forward.
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At 1030 hours the rest of ‘B' Company, led by Captain F.H. Burns, arrived to reinforce the small raiding party. Jones “expressed the wish to carry on with the attack, but was ordered back for medical aid by his company commander,” read his subsequent Military Cross citation.
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Jones's platoon of about twenty-five men was credited with killing some thirty Germans and capturing a further fifty-two.

No. 10 Platoon remained to mop up enemy resistance around the tank harbour, while the rest of ‘B' Company and ‘B' tank squadron turned The Gully's flank and advanced northeast toward Casa Berardi. They followed a track running between the Ortona-Orsogna lateral highway and The Gully. When they were but 1,000 yards from Casa Berardi, with Cider Crossroads visible beyond, the combat team was barred from further advance by a narrow, deep ravine lying at right angles to The Gully. The tanks could not cross this obstacle, and when Burns tried leading his infantry across alone they were driven back by a now fully awake enemy. ‘B' Company and the supporting
tanks formed up on the western flank of the narrow ravine and refused to be budged by Panzer Grenadier counterattacks.
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Captain June Thomas of the Seaforths' ‘A' Company still expected to be relieved of command of the thirty-five men left in his unit. The wet, cold morning that dawned on December 13 did little to brighten his despondent mood. Neither did the arrival of Captain Don Harley, who was the battalion's mortar platoon commander and a capable rifle company leader. The two men talked little, both seemingly embarrassed by the other's presence. Thomas was sure Harley was just waiting for his watch hands to reach noon — the time that Thomas thought he was to report to Major Syd Thomson at battalion HQ.

About 1100 hours, Thomas's radio crackled with a message telling ‘A' Company to go around the left flank along the track Thomas had discovered. A squadron of Ontario Tanks commanded by Major Herschell “Snuffy” Smith would provide support. The major was to have overall command of the combat force.

Thomas looked at his watch, then turned to Harley. “Look,” he said, “you're not taking over until noon and it's only eleven o'clock. I'm still in command.”
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Harley didn't contradict Thomas. Neither did he assure Thomas that he was not supposed to assume command unless Thomas appeared unfit to continue leading his battle-weary and much reduced company.

The small unit set out, following a long, sweeping approach that crossed The Gully via the culvert Thomas had discovered the previous day. They met no resistance, but the mud caused two of the tanks to bog down. Only three remained operational as Thomas's platoon reached a low rise overlooking The Gully.

By now, the Germans were aware of the force's presence and sporadic sniper fire was picking away at them, but it seemed they all lived charmed lives — not a man was hit. Thomas could see that the gently rising terrain bordering the northern edge of The Gully before him was probably riddled with dug-in Panzer Grenadier positions. He broke his infantry into two sections that he and Harley would lead, and a third smaller section consisting of only three men. The two larger sections would take either flank, while the smaller provided some base of fire from the centre. Yelling up at Smith, he said,
“Light up what you can see. I'm going to just form open line and go over the top, because I think there's something down in the bottom of the valley.”
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He then told his men to fix bayonets and prepare to charge.

With a burst of cheers at Thomas's signal to advance, and screaming as they went, the thin line of infantrymen went over the top of the rise at a full run. The previous day Thomas had feared these men would rebel at another futile assault up Vino Ridge, but they didn't let him down today when there was a chance of success. The tanks rumbled along immediately behind. Thomas's section was on the left, Harley's on the right. The attack went in with such speed and force that the Panzer Grenadiers failed to realize the true size of the attacking force. Germans jumped up out of their holes and fled, others cast aside their guns and surrendered. Smith's Shermans knocked out two Mark IV tanks and their machine-gun and cannon fire prevented the Panzer Grenadiers from mustering effective resistance. As they closed on a small farmhouse, the door opened and an officer came out to surrender. Thomas discovered he had overrun 3rd Battalion's headquarters.

The infantry captain's biggest concern now was how to maintain control of all his prisoners, who must soon realize they outnumbered their captors. “Hell, how am I going to cope with all these people?” he muttered. He told his radio signaller to dump his set and take a couple of other men to round up the Germans before they started filtering back to their weapons. Thomas would retain communication with battalion HQ through Smith's tank radio. Leaving one tank to help with controlling the prisoners, Thomas and Smith pushed on toward Casa Berardi. They could hear heavy fighting in that direction, which they imagined was made by the Carleton and York Regiment breaking through The Gully and closing on their day's objective.

Another of the tanks got stuck, leaving them with only Smith's tank positioned in the centre of the advancing line. They overran another enemy trench system, taking more prisoners and sending many others scrambling toward Casa Berardi, which was little more than 500 yards away. A few minutes later, Smith's tank became mired in the muck. Frustrated, Smith and Thomas both knew they would have to halt the advance and withdraw.
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22 They radioed the Ontario Tanks HQ and received permission to break off the action.
Having knocked out two German tanks, two antitank guns, and three self-propelled guns, and rounded up seventy-five prisoners, the small force had achieved miracles — especially as they had suffered not a single casualty.
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Smith's crew abandoned the tank. Rather than see the enemy capture it, Smith tossed a grenade inside to set off the ammunition and destroy it. The men then walked out to a position at the head of The Gully and dug in for the night. Thomas was surprised when Thomson congratulated him on the action and never raised the subject of his relief. Fearful of reopening the question, Thomas kept his own silence. He imagined that the success his company had enjoyed might have led Thomson to change his mind.
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While the attack was recognized immediately by Vokes's intelligence staff as a “spectacular thrust on the left which almost loosened the whole front,” it also revealed the foolishness of the previous strategy of trying to crack The Gully from the front.
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A handful of men with a meagre number of tanks had achieved what several battalions, squadrons of tanks, thousands of artillery shells, and hundreds of aerial bombardment missions had failed to accomplish in three days of bitter fighting.

Adding to the frustration was the fact that the Canadians were unable to capitalize on either successful foray. Vokes had so scattered his three infantry brigades and the supporting tank brigades across the battlefront that he had nothing left in reserve. Moreover, his battalions were desperately weak from heavy casualties and losses to sickness, and the mounting toll that battle exhaustion was wreaking on the front-line troops. Most of his rifle companies had been in near continuous combat for over a week. The men were worn out from being able to catch only short naps between mounting assaults, conducting reconnaissance patrols, standing sentry duty, fighting off counterattacks, and enduring the endless concussive racket and danger posed by the night-and-day shelling and machine-gunning of forward positions. Nobody had changed his clothes. They were all unshaven, covered in filth, mud, and blood from their own minor cuts and scrapes and those of badly wounded or killed comrades. There was never enough food or an opportunity to eat it in
any degree of comfort. At night they froze and during the day sweat and rain saturated their clothing, preparing them to endure yet another chilling night. Nerves were wire taut.
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Vokes now realized his error and in the late afternoon of December 13, he set about planning for a renewed offensive in the morning that would follow the path by which the Seaforths had achieved their spectacular success. The only battalion at close to full strength was 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade's Royal 22e Regiment (Van Doos). With support from ‘C' Squadron of Ontario Tanks, commanded by Major Herschell Smith, the Van Doos were ordered to advance at 0730 hours behind yet another creeping artillery barrage. This time, however, Vokes was certain the attack would finally open the door to the main lateral road.
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What Vokes didn't know was that the German defences in The Gully were never weaker than they were on the afternoon of December 13. The 90th Panzer Grenadiers were all but finished as a fighting force, and 1st Parachute Division had not yet managed to effect a complete relief. Some of its regiments were still only approaching Ortona from the north, others were in Ortona but still preparing to move toward The Gully. Had the reserves been ready to follow up the turning of the German western flank that day, the Canadians might have shattered the enemy line entirely before a defence of Ortona could be mounted by the paratroopers. Ortona might have fallen in the kind of short, sharp action that Vokes had originally envisioned once he won the north side of the Moro River. He was too late. As the Van Doos prepared, the Germans rebuilt and reinforced. The morning would see a bitter fight — one that would become a legend in the history of the French-Canadian regiment.

Feldwebel Fritz Illi was a platoon commander of 6th Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Regiment of the 1st Parachute Division. He had been eighteen when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. Hearing the news that Germany was at war, his entire high school class in Zuffenhausen had enlisted at nearby Stuttgart. Illi volunteered right away to be a paratrooper. Third Regiment was just forming, so Illi became one of its original members. His first action had been on May 10, 1940, when 2nd Battalion ghosted down from the sky onto the
Dutch airfield at Rotterdam. By December 1943, Illi had survived seven combat jumps: Rotterdam, Narvik, the Corinth Canal, Crete, Leningrad, Tobruk, the Caucasus Mountains, and finally Catania in Sicily. In Crete a mortar fragment had left his little finger dangling by some sinew. The medical officer sliced the finger off, slapped on a bandage, and sent him back into the action after yelling, “Germany needs every soldier to fight on!” Illi fought on for the fourteen days it took the parachutists to win Crete. At battle's end, 75 percent of Illi's company were casualties.

In June of 1942, twelve paratroopers, including Illi, were dropped deep in the Caucasus Mountains near a backwater called Mycoptoobasch. The entire team was heavily overloaded with weaponry. Illi went out of the Henckel 110's bomb-bay door armed with a Schmeisser, a pistol, plenty of ammunition, grenades, and forty kilograms of explosives. The team found its target, a railway bridge on the Tehran-Caucasus line, unguarded. They blew the bridge and, aided by a local anti-communist guide, walked for ninety-four days through Russian territory to reach the German lines.