Ortona (49 page)

A Canadian intelligence summary written by Major N.L.C. Mathers on December 22 cited the most noteworthy characteristics of 1st Parachute Division's tactics as exemplifying “dogged tenacity, extreme economy in manpower (evidenced by their reluctance to counterattack), skill in timing a withdrawal, and skill in concealment. . . . Often they are thrown in to help restore a critical situation. This manner of employment has largely governed the organization and equipment of parachute troops: they tend to be well supplied with machine guns, mortars and antitank guns, but generally operate without their own artillery. . . . The fact that these ‘specialists' have appeared on our front to relieve the exhausted 90th Panzer Grenadier Division gives us a clue to the enemy's intentions and fears.”
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The fear, surmised the intelligence report, was an Eighth Army breakout and seizure of Pescara. The German intention was that 1st Parachute Division stem that breakout and hold the 1st Canadian Infantry Division in place until a strong defensive line could be constructed behind the Arielli River. This was, Mathers noted, the first time 1st Parachute Division had fought as a complete division. Usually it was sent into battle only on a regimental or even battalion scale.

Mathers's summary added that for purposes of interrogation any captured paratroopers “were the toughest we have had to face yet and, of course, the most security minded.” Most of the veterans had served on the Russian front and had fought in Crete or Sicily, or
both. When captured, they “knew what the score was and their discipline, morale and security are excellent. It is no wonder that they are the ‘picked troops' and sent to whichever sector of the front needs strengthening. It is also interesting to note the condescending way in which the parachutists talk about the infantry, ‘they always mess things up, and we, the parachutists, have to straighten them out.' And they too are the troops which have been put into the line to stem the advance of our Division.”
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Canadian intelligence determined that by the evening of December 22, the 90th Panzer Grenadier Division, except for its inherent artillery unit, which remained behind to add to the German artillery presence, had withdrawn from the Ortona area. Generalleutnant Ernst-Günther Baade now faced the challenging task of rebuilding the devastated division he had inherited only a few days earlier. The 90th Panzer Grenadiers were broken as a combat division. It would require months to rebuild its manpower and develop a renewed unit integrity. The losses of veteran troops, however, could never be replaced. None of the division's battalions were believed to have more than one hundred men left. The 3rd Battalion of the 361st Regiment had been hardest hit. Even on December 15, Mathers reported this unit had only 12 men left out of a normal strength of about 300. The division's strategy of repeated counterattacks had virtually destroyed it. More than 400 Panzer Grenadiers had been taken prisoner, most when counterattacks had crumbled. Hundreds of others had been killed or wounded.
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While the German division had succeeded in slowing the Canadian advance to a crawl through the mud and had blocked it for days in front of The Gully, the price paid robbed the achievement of both glory and strategic value.

H
AVING
committed 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade to a slugging match against the 1st Parachute Division over ownership of the streets of Ortona, 1st Canadian Infantry Division commander Major General Chris Vokes now sought to speed conclusion of that battle by threatening the German defenders from the rear. During the battle for The Gully, the 48th Highlanders of Canada had inserted a narrow salient into the heart of the German defences northwest of Casa Berardi. This had enabled the Canadians to cut the road linking Cider Crossroads to Villa Grande. Since creating the salient on December 18, the Highlanders had been trying with little success to expand the depth of penetration into the German line.

In the afternoon of December 22, Vokes decided that the salient could serve as the jumping-off point for a major northeastern thrust by 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade. The ultimate goal of the attack would be to cut the roads running from Ortona to Tollo and the coast highway leading to Pescara. All supply and reinforcement of the paratroopers defending Ortona was confined to these roads. If he could break through and put blocking forces across the roads, the
Germans in Ortona would be surrounded. If successful, Vokes could transform Ortona into a miniature Stalingrad.

It was common knowledge among the Allies that a similar strategy had forced the February 2, 1943, surrender of the 91,000 remaining survivors of Generalfeldmarschall Friedrich Paulus's starving and exhausted Sixth Army to the Russians at Stalingrad. During an unparaleled, brutal six-month battle, more than 200,000 Germans had perished amidst the ruins of the city. For the last three months of the battle, the Sixth Army had found itself trapped in Stalingrad after the Russian army succeeded in surrounding the city with a two-pronged pincer-style offensive launched on November 19, 1942. Allied military analysts were declaring Stalingrad to be the turning point in the war on the Russian front. Where before the Germans had been on the offensive, they were now permanently thrown into a defensive stance, slowly and inevitably being forced to withdraw from Russia's heartland. Paulus had been given no choice but to allow himself to be surrounded. In one of his increasingly common, irrational directives, Hitler had ordered the Sixth Army to hold Stalingrad at all costs. Paulus had done so. The cost had ultimately been the destruction of an entire army. The chance that General Richard Heidrich would allow his paratroopers to suffer the same fate was comparatively remote.

Nevertheless, once the Canadians started to threaten its lifeline, the parachute division's options would be limited. Either stay and face destruction or flee Ortona.

Vokes issued his orders to Lieutenant Colonel Don Spry late that afternoon. The attack plan contained three phases. In the first phase, the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment, which had just completed a move from the coast to Casa Berardi, would attack through the 48th Highlanders' front line. Its objective was a bulging ridgeline one thousand yards to the north of the Tollo road. Bordering the southern flank of the Riccio River, the ridge followed a gradually rising course north to a position overlooking the road from Ortona to Tollo. Once the Hasty P's gained the edge of the ridge, the 48th Highlanders would kick off phase two by leapfrogging through the Hasty P's and capturing the ridge's highest point, which overlooked two hamlets, San Nicola and San Tomasso. Phase three would entail the Royal Canadian Regiment, which had just been bolstered by an
influx of reinforcements, striking northeastward off the high ground to cut the main road north of Ortona.
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Staff at Spry's brigade headquarters believed that even if only the first two phases of the offensive succeeded, the Germans must still surrender Ortona. Once 1 CIB was on the heights overlooking the two hamlets, all the roads north of Ortona would be subject to directed artillery fire, and would face the immediate threat of being severed by further Canadian offensive action. General Heidrich would then have two choices. He could commit his paratroopers to counterattacks against a strong defensive position in hopes of forcing the Canadians back to Casa Berardi or cut his losses by retreating from Ortona.
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The offensive would follow the well-established pattern that had enjoyed greatest success during Morning Glory. First, a massed preliminary artillery bombardment involving four field and three medium artillery regiments. Second, a combined armoured and infantry force advancing behind a creeping artillery barrage to the objective.

That was the plan, but even on the evening of December 22 doubts about its prospects of success were being expressed. Once again, rain was wreaking havoc on the Canadian tactical plans. Preliminary reconnaissance by 48th Highlander patrols that afternoon had revealed that the ground over which the tanks were expected to travel was extremely muddy. During the night the rain intensified, and by morning the ground was a boggy soup. This boded ill for the armour's ability not only to keep up with the advancing infantry but to reach the objective at all.
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Dismissing this gloomy prognosis, Spry ordered Hastings and Prince Edward commander Bert Kennedy, who had been promoted to lieutenant colonel on December 11, to proceed with the attack. Kennedy had only just returned to the battalion after being evacuated on December 15 with jaundice. He was weak, but as feisty as ever.

The Hasty P's had seen little significant fighting since December 15. Along with the 48th Highlanders, they were one of only two battalions in the division fielding close to normal strength in the rifle companies. They had also been able to get a little more rest than most of the other battalions. Still, even after the fighting on their front had cooled down, the Hasty P's had continued to lose men during patrol actions, and German artillery fire had inflicted an
almost daily toll in casualties. The worst casualties the battalion had suffered during their quiet duty had come on December 16. A platoon from each rifle company was withdrawn from the front lines and sent into San Vito Chietino by truck.
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Among the platoons was No. 12 from ‘B' Company. Once the men had bathed, changed, and picked up their Christmas parcels, they started reloading into the trucks. Suddenly a large shell struck near the No. 12 platoon's truck. One man was killed, several others wounded. The survivors got out of the truck, carrying the wounded toward the village square. Another shell caught the unlucky platoon.
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When the smoke cleared, four more men were dead, another twenty-three wounded.
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Only four men in No. 12 platoon were left unscathed.
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Hasty P's Quartermaster Sergeant Basil Smith was horrified to see so many of the men he thought of as “his” injured in what was supposed to be a safe rear area. “This is a damned tough break,” he wrote in his diary that night, “to come through the toughest battle which has been fought in Italy and then to get it here. It would seem there is no ‘SAFE' area in this corner of God's footstool.”
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On the morning of December 22, just how dangerous the entire area could be had again been impressed on the Hasty P's. The battalion had started mounting up in trucks for the move from San Leonardo to Casa Berardi. By 0830 hours, most of the men were on board. Some of the battalion headquarters staff, Smith wrote, were “just standing around awaiting the order. Without even a warning whistle, a shell landed fairly in the midst of the group clustered around our RAP [Regimental Aid Post] truck. . . . One moment they were chatting in a casual, carefree manner and one split second later, all three were gone.”
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Dead were Medical Officer Dr. Charlie Krakauer, medical sergeant Charlie Reid, and medical orderly Clayton Young. The three men were torn into unidentifiable fragments.
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Grimly the survivors gathered up the body parts, buried them in one grave, and drove toward their next battle.

The Hasty P's moved into the attack at 0930 hours on December 23. ‘A' Company led, with ‘C' Company following close behind. In support was ‘A' Squadron of the 11th Canadian Armoured Regiment (Ontario Tanks). Because of the mud, the tanks were confined to a
narrow track running at a right angle from the road from Cider Crossroads to Villa Grande, toward the infantry battalion's objective. Sappers from the Royal Canadian Engineers, working with metal detection equipment, walked ahead of the tanks to clear the track of Teller antitank mines.

Even without the mud, the terrain over which the Hasty P's attacked was hopeless tank country. It was almost exclusively vineyards, which formed ideal antitank obstacles. In this area, the wire used to train the vines was strung between thin concrete posts rather than the lighter wooden stakes that the Canadians had encountered closer to the Moro River. When a tank pushed through the rows of vines, the wire rolled into tangles held taut by the concrete posts. Tank tracks fouled or were even torn loose by the wire. Meanwhile, the paratroopers enjoyed ideal cover in which to set up gun positions and ambush the tanks with remotely triggered mines. The mud was increased by the centuries-old cultivating practice of deeply tilling the soil between the vine rows. In soil of such loose consistency, the slightest bit of rain rendered the land a quagmire. By following the tracks, the tankers hoped to work their way to a position where they could then bushwhack just a short distance through the vineyards to reach the infantry positions.
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Despite these problems, tanks and infantry made good progress from the start line toward the objective one thousand yards away. Moving closely behind the creeping artillery barrage, the infantry suffered very light casualties, coming up on the base of the low hill at 1030 hours. At this point, the artillery had to lift to allow the Canadians to seize the high ground without being caught in their own artillery bombardment.