Ortona (41 page)

When the shells fell on his farm and D'Intino was caught in the open, he took cover in the nearest of the many small holes he had dug for shelter from the German work crew roundups. The Germans who were now in Ortona had no further interest in D'Intino, as there were no more work crews. The soldiers were only interested in what vegetables he had in the garden that were ready to harvest. He could not stop them carrying off the food. D'Intino and his aged father frequently went hungry as a result. His father's health worried him. The old man grew weaker each day. He could not go outside, for he could not run fast enough to reach shelter if the shells came.

Across the ravine, Ortona was sometimes battered by shells or Allied bombers. Often smoke rose from the town. D'Intino also heard the sound of explosives going off throughout Ortona. He wondered if the Germans intended to destroy the entire town. Why else were there so many explosions?
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Americo Casanova had been sent to Tollo, a village to the north of Ortona and Villa Grande. His mother had thought the thirteen-year-old would be safe there from the fighting. Now the shelling of Tollo was increasing daily because of the nearby German artillery and mortar emplacements. Americo and about 150 other civilians took shelter in a large cave near the village. The cave had a big stone house in front of it. It had been the house's winery, and made an excellent shelter from the bombardments. There were no lights, however, only candles. And few of those. So the civilians lived in an almost perpetual nighttime. Food was scarce. There was little to eat other than grapes and apples. Everyone was hungry, all the time.

There were other young boys. Every day, a few of them would sneak from the cave to explore and watch the Germans who had occupied the village. They also foraged for food. Americo and two boys found some roasting corn and made a small fire to roast it on. They sat in a row before the fire, Americo in the centre. A shell fell nearby and a piece of shrapnel struck the boy on Americo's right. There had been no time to duck or flatten on the ground. Americo looked at his friend. He sat as before, still gazing into the fire at the corn. But the boy was dead.
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The Germans used their two-day respite well. They dug deeper holes, set more minefields, and rigged more booby traps. They also started demolishing buildings in Ortona to create obstacles in the event that they must defend the town. Although this preliminary work was underway, the paratroopers still did not expect to seriously defend Ortona. Both Allied and Axis infantry doctrine did not support fighting in built-up areas, because it was difficult to control the flow of battle and the forces involved were often at risk of being encircled. When the Canadians came to Ortona they would probably bypass it. Such a manoeuvre would necessitate a German withdrawal from the town to avoid being encircled and trapped there, as
the German army had previously been trapped in Stalingrad. If the Canadians breached The Gully for good, the expectation was that there would be a delaying action and then a retreat to the next natural defensive barrier — the Arielli River. That the Canadians would fight their way right into the town was almost unthinkable.

But it was well to be prepared. Since December 12, Feldwebel Fritz Illi and his platoon had been busy digging positions into the rubble created by knocking down buildings throughout Ortona. Sometimes the Allies helped by destroying buildings with their shelling. As Illi and his men worked on setting up positions that enjoyed good fields of fire down the streets, Fallschirmpioniers laid mines all over, especially where they would serve to protect the paratroopers' firing positions.

There were few veterans in Illi's platoon. Most of the men were new recruits and Illi thought their training substandard. The youngest man in the platoon was seventeen, the oldest twenty-eight. Few had seen combat before. Illi expected that many of them would die in Ortona. They had too little experience. The inexperienced soldier in battle was a danger to himself. He knew that those who survived for a week or two would have a better chance of surviving in the long term. It was the new soldiers who died most quickly. They made stupid mistakes and sometimes those mistakes got veterans killed as well. It made the veterans wary of the inexperienced soldiers. For now, however, the front was rather quiet. This would give the new soldiers a bit of time to get used to the sound of battle. It also meant they had time to prepare. When Tommy came, Illi's men would be able to give him a proper welcome.
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B
EFORE
the major offensive to seize Cider Crossroads got underway on December 18, Major General Chris Vokes decided to test the waters one last time at The Gully. Intelligence reported that the Germans were thinning out their lines, slowly withdrawing strength from their formerly uncrackable defensive positions around Cider. If this were true, it might still be possible to break through to Cider with a more limited, less complex, assault than the one being mounted.

The battered West Nova Scotia Regiment was ordered to probe the German defences with a strong attack. Three companies would participate: ‘A,' ‘B,' and ‘C.' Their combined strength was only 160 men. At 1600 hours on December 17, the West Novas lunged at the German lines, supported by three Ontario tanks.
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They stumbled only a short distance through the mud before the Germans opened fire. The war diarist for 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade wrote after the action that the West Novas walked into “very heavy enemy opposition . . . estimated enemy strength 500 with heavy covering fire from North of gulch. Enemy in area attacked appeared to have large number of MGs.” The West Novas gave everything
they had, bravely pushing head on into the gunfire despite mounting casualties. The tanks set a couple of houses on fire with shells and destroyed several haystacks that camouflaged German firing positions.
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One tank was damaged when a Teller mine tore a track apart, but none of the tankers was wounded.
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Around the armour, the West Novas were cut to bits. In only twenty minutes, the regiment was forced to retreat. A fifth of its remaining men had been killed or wounded.
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Six officers were wounded, including Lieutenant G.F. Archibald, who had been mortally wounded and had to be abandoned on the field with a few other casualties. Rescued by the Germans, he died in their first aid post. Lieutenant Gordon Romkey narrowly escaped death on the very lip of The Gully. Rushing an enemy gun position, he was hit in the side of the head by a Schmeisser submachine gunburst fired at point-blank range. The unconscious officer was dragged to safety by his men.
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After the West Novas returned to their slit trenches, Major Ron Waterman wearily returned to brigade headquarters and reported to Brigadier Graeme Gibson. To date, he said, the West Novas had suffered 44 killed and 150 wounded in front of The Gully. Eighteen officers were dead or wounded, including former battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Pat Bogert. These casualties, combined with losses due to sickness and battle exhaustion, rendered the regiment unfit for further offensive combat.
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In ordering the attack, Vokes had brought about the near destruction of one of his nine infantry regiments.

Vokes, however, still had eight other battalions. He had the close-to-normal fighting strength of the 48th Highlanders of Canada. And he had a combined arms two-stage offensive. The first stage was code-named Morning Glory, the second Orange Blossom. Morning Glory was the 48th Highlanders' show. The regiment would cross the Ortona-Orsogna lateral road west of where the Royal 22e Regiment was isolated in Casa Berardi, advance north across open ground, and then swing right to cut into a road running from Cider Crossroads to Villa Grande. Once the 48th Highlanders had blocked this road, Orange Blossom would kick into action. This stage of the offensive called for the Royal Canadian Regiment to follow the Highlanders'
path across the Ortona-Orsogna lateral but to swing right much earlier. The regiment would advance on a path bordered to the south by the Ortona-Orsogna lateral and to the north by a railroad track leading to Ortona. Once the RCR were astride the road from Cider Crossroads to Villa Grande, it would take a sharp right and, approaching from the north, overrun Cider. With Cider secure, the RCR would then advance up the Ortona-Orsogna lateral to Ortona's outskirts.

Both regiments were given tank support by 12th Canadian Armoured Regiment (Three Rivers Tanks). ‘B' Squadron would attack with the 48th Highlanders, ‘A' Squadron with the RCR. Held until now in reserve, this was the first involvement of the Three Rivers in the prolonged December battle.

Success for Morning Glory and Orange Blossom depended on overwhelming artillery support. The Germans were dug into defensive positions rivalling those of the Western Front in World War I. Just as it had required massive artillery barrages to blast the Germans out of their holes in that war, so the same force would be required to break the defences surrounding Cider Crossroads. The planned artillery operation dwarfed the earlier Moro River barrage, especially in terms of the concentration of fire. Fully 250 guns would participate.

Beginning at 0800 hours, the Morning Glory barrage would plaster a 1,000-yard-wide front and advance a distance of 2,200 yards. Every five minutes, the barrage would lift from the 300-yard-deep area it was concentrating on and move another 100 yards forward. The 48th Highlanders would follow behind this curtain of explosive at a distance never greater than 100 yards. The artillery officers promised the infantry that the trajectory of the shells would assure that the shrapnel and blast would be thrown into the faces of the Germans rather than back at the advancing soldiers.

Accurate fire was essential. If the barrage failed to hit where it was supposed to, and at the time it was supposed to, the attack would fail. In the worse case, misdirected or ill-timed artillery might slaughter the 48th Highlanders, who would be completely exposed to the exploding shells. Everybody knew the military maps that had been based on Italian sources were riddled with topographical and distance errors. To correct for this, observed artillery fire was carefully carried out along the planned line of advance throughout December 16 and 17. The firing was so spread out that to German eyes it would
have appeared as nothing more than the normal random harassing fire both sides engaged in every day. New map references were then drawn up by artillery command. Forty-Eighth Highlander commander Lieutenant Colonel Ian Johnston was assured that, despite the fact that the new references bore little relation to coordinates on the previous maps, they would be accurate. The thirty-five-year-old officer from Toronto could only hope the gunners were right.

Due to the presence of the Royal 22e Regiment at Casa Berardi and increasingly deteriorating weather, observed artillery fire to correct the maps for Orange Blossom proved impossible. The gunners were forced to develop a firing plan based on the Italian maps. In the past, firing plans had sometimes been out by as much as 500 metres because of map inaccuracies. Everybody knew that basing a 250-gun barrage on the maps was extremely risky, but there was no alternative.
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It was estimated that each gun involved in Morning Glory and Orange Blossom would fire 600 rounds. During Morning Glory, the guns would be firing continually for 130 minutes — the time allotted for the 48th Highlanders to cross the start line and reach the objective.
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The Royal Canadian Horse Artillery alone manhandled 8,880 twenty-five pounder shells and cartridges to its guns for the day's shoot — a total weight of 111 tons.
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In addition to the artillery, every mortar in 1st Canadian Infantry Division, as well as the Saskatoon Light Infantry's anti-aircraft guns and Vickers medium machine guns, would rake the German positions in The Gully to force the defenders there to stay under cover while the attack went in behind them.
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