The Battle
The battles for Orsogna were among the most difficult of the Italian campaign. The New Zealand Div., made up of two infantry and one armored brigade, was too weak in riflemen to overcome the German defences. A stalemate developed. The New Zealand official historian suggested that "the Germans were willing to sell ground, but only at a price the New Zealanders were not willing to pay." After losing 1,200 men, including more than one-third of the division’s infantry, there was little choice but to stop. It was now up to the Canadians.
The 1st Canadian Div. was well rested and up to strength. The new divisional commander–Chris Vokes, who had replaced Guy Simonds in November–was no stranger. Vokes was a loud, profane, energetic brigade commander who had received much credit for the outstanding performance of 2nd Cdn. Infantry Brigade in Sicily. Vokes critics, and there are many, point out that the brigade turned in a consistently superior performance no matter who was at headquarters. In 1942 Montgomery had singled out the brigade for praise, adding that the "Seaforths (Seaforth Highlanders of Canada) have the best officers, PPCLI (Princess Patricia’s Cdn. Light Infantry) have the best non-commissioned officers, Edmontons (Loyal Edmonton Regiment) have the best men." Could Vokes do as well with a division?
Vokes approached his first divisional battle with enthusiasm. The rain had let up and the Moro River, the first obstacle, could be forded at any point on the two-mile front. The junction of coastal highway 16 and the Ortona-Orsogna road was just seven miles away; he hoped to be there in 72 hours. Vokes ordered 2nd Bde., now commanded by Brigadier Bert Hoffmeister, to make the main effort against San Leonardo and Villa Rogatti. Meanwhile, 1st Bde. would try to draw the enemy to the coastal highway. Both attacks went in on the night of Dec. 5-6 without any artillery support, to achieve surprise. By nightfall the next day, the Seaforths and PPCLI had been forced back by a series of well organized counter-attacks. Only one battalion, from the Hastings and Prince Edward Regt., was still across the river. The diversion now became the key to unlocking the German defences.
"Soaking wet, in a morass of mud, against an enemy fighting harder than he has fought before, the Canadians attack, attack and attack ... the hillsides and farmlands and orchards are a ghastly brew of fire ...listen to the echo of those shells!" - Matthew Halton.
Corps commander Lieutenant-General Charles Allfrey sent the 21st Indian Bde. to take over the Canadians’ left flank and secure Villa Rogatti, allowing Vokes to concentrate his forces. The Desert Air Force, including Royal Cdn. Air Force Squadron 417 commanded by Bert Houle, joined in the preparations. On the afternoon of Dec. 8, the Royal Canadian Regt. launched a wide right hook out of the Hastings bridgehead. The newly arrived German paratroopers had just started their own attack on the Hasty Ps, and the two forces clashed furiously. While this battle raged, the 48th Highlanders quickly moved to the edge of San Leonardo and established a firm base for a morning attack on the village.
The next day was one of the hardest of the campaign, as the enemy put in repeated counter-attacks all across the front. The Calgary Regt., supporting the Seaforths’ main thrust, lost 27 of its 51 tanks in providing the kind of close support that can mean life or death to the infantry. In the streets of San Leonardo, Major E.A.C. Amy’s squadron, reduced to just four tanks, knocked out the last German armor at ranges of less than 100 yards. Amy reported that one Seaforth soldier ran up to a tank, patted it on the side and said: "You big cast-iron son of a bitch, I could kiss you."
The Indian troops, attacking 1,000 yards to the east, ran into the same kind of demonic fury. They carved out a small bridgehead and fended off counter-attacks as engineers from the 69 Field Company Bengal Sappers built the "impossible bridge." When it proved impossible to assemble a Bailey bridge from the south side, the sappers "manhandled their equipment to the enemy bank and built their bridge backwards." With San Leonardo lost, the enemy withdrew to the Ortona-Orsogna road where the defenders occupied a low ridge overlooking a ravine known to Canadians as The Gully. For the next eight days the Canadians beat their heads against this position in a series of single battalion attacks that resulted in close to 1,000 casualties. These attacks failed largely because the artillery was unable to meet the demands placed upon it.
"It wasn't hell. It was the courtyard of hell. It was a maelstrom of noise and hot, splitting steel...the rattling of machine guns never stops ... wounded men refuse to leave, and the men don't want to be relieved after seven days and seven nights... the battlefield is still an appalling thing to see, in its mud, ruin, dead, and its blight and desolation." - Matthew Halton.
Field artillery regiments, with their 25-pounder guns and medium regiments employing 4.5-inch guns, fired more than 3,000 tons of shells at the enemy–but much of it was in vain. Brig. Bruce Matthews, the division’s commander, Royal Artillery, had cautioned Vokes about the inaccuracy of the survey that was the basis of Italian topographical maps. If a feature was 500 metres distant from the position on the map, unobserved fire was of limited value. Even when fire could be corrected, winds from the Adriatic and drastic temperature changes played havoc with fire plans.
The stalemate was finally broken not by fire and movement but by manoeuvre. A track leading around the German right flank was used to send the Royal 22nd Regt. and a squadron of Ontario Regt. tanks to seize Casa Berardi. The achievement of the small band of Van Doos, under Captain Paul Triquet, and the four surviving tanks, commanded by Major H.A. Smith, is one of the most famous episodes in Canadian military history. Triquet’s leadership, epitomized by his battle-cry "Ils ne passeront pas", earned him the Victoria Cross.
With Casa Berardi as a base the rest of the ridge could be attacked systematically. The corps commander met with Vokes and urged him to organize a major attack. The repulse of the New Zealanders and the 8th Indian Div.’s slow progress meant that all 8th Army hopes for a breakthrough to Pescara were invested in the Canadians. Gen. Allfrey had a heart-to-heart talk with Vokes and "warned him he was tiring out his division and producing nothing because of lack of co-ordination." Allfrey insisted it was the Royal Artillery commander’s responsibility to develop and control the fire plan. Vokes accepted the advice and allowed Matthews to create fire plans for two large-scale attacks out of the Van Doo position. The 48th Highlanders, striking to the northeast, got accurate fire support and quickly reached their objective. The barrage leading the RCRs to the main German pivot position at Cider crossroads was wildly inaccurate, however, with shells falling short and wide. Matthews ordered the guns to fire 400 metres forward, leaving the RCRs to face what one officer called a "death trap." By the next morning, the gunners had made the necessary changes and two RCR reserve companies took the crossroads in a quick, decisive thrust.
"With the fall of Ortona, the battle of the Moro river is over, and there is a new name to add to the list of great deeds of the war...neither in this war nor in any other has there been anything more bitter and intense. The Canadians beat two of the finest German divisions that ever marched in a long fury of fire and death ending in the appalling week of Ortona." - Matthew Halton.
The German paratroopers had lost control of the Ortona road, but their orders "to fight for every house and tree" remained in force. Montgomery was now employing two corps with elements of four divisions on a 12-mile front. He hoped the 8th Indian Div. would make the main effort through Villa Grande, outflanking Ortona, but it took five December days of bitter fighting to claim the village on Dec. 27. By then, Hoffmeister’s 2nd Bde. was committed to a pitched battle in the streets of Ortona.
University of British Columbia historian Shaun Brown has provided a most valuable study of Ortona in a book he has written about the Loyal Edmonton Regt. at war. Brown’s father, the late Major-General George Brown, was a company commander at Ortona, and the author’s interviews with Brown, Lieutenant-Colonel Jim Stone and other veterans of the Loyal Eddies give special insight into what became one of the most famous battles of the Italian campaign.
At dawn on Dec. 21, two understrength companies and a half-squadron of Three Rivers Regt. tanks moved cautiously up the main street towards the first of three large public squares. By mid-afternoon the advance had slowed to a halt, and Hoffmeister sent a company of Seaforths to help. The next morning it was apparent the German resistance had stiffened and Hoffmeister committed the balance of the Seaforths, assigning each battalion to half the town.
The Canadians now fought for Ortona house by house, often fighting from the top floor down. They used a "mouse-holing" technique–blasting through walls, lobbing grenades through the gaps and then using more grenades to move down the stairs. Here the Canadians wrote the book on street-fighting. After the war, former Seaforths commander Colonel S.W. Thomson recalled that the standard training film for British and Commonwealth forces, Fighting In Built-up Areas, was based on interviews with Seaforth and Edmonton veterans.
War correspondents anxious to cover the last phase of a month-long campaign arrived in Ortona and quickly revised their initial optimistic reports. Ortona became "little Stalingrad" as radio journalist Matthew Halton and reporter Ralph Allen wrote feature stories on the battle. Christopher Buckley, a British correspondent whose beautifully written 1945 book The Road To Rome should be reprinted, insisted "a painter of genius, Goya perhaps" was needed to record the poignant images of Ortona. In one "half-darkened room," he wrote, "there were five or six Canadian soldiers, there were old women and there were innumerable children. The children clambered over the Canadian soldiers and clutched them convulsively every time one of our anti- tank guns fired down the street…. Soon each of us had a squirming, terrified child in our arms."
The rifle companies had begun the operation at little better than half-strength, so the arrival of reinforcements was particularly welcome. The Edmontons got a draft of 75 men from the Cape Breton Highlanders on Christmas Eve, "tremendously good soldiers" who fitted in right away. The end was now in sight; Kesselring insisted that "we do not want to defend Ortona decisively" and authorized a withdrawal. With 90 per cent of Ortona in Canadian hands and 1st Bde. threatening to cut off any retreat, there was little choice.
Ortona was a victory for all of the Canadian troops–and all Canadians. Ordinary men, leaving civilian life behind because they were needed, had forged regimental extended families and small cohesive sub-units that fought with skill and determination. Looking back, Maj.-Gen. Brown spoke of mutual confidence between officers and men "built on the rock of accomplishment."
Did you know?
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Fighting was so savage and prolonged that some troops called Ortona "Little Stalingrad" after the Soviet city that battled German troops for 200 days, at a cost of over a million lives.
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The "houseclearing" tactics developed by troops in Ortona became a manual for urban warfare. "Mouseholes" were blown through walls to travel from room to room and building to building.
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Fighting continued over Christmas, but the Germans withdrew three days later.
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The people of Ortona also suffered terribly. Many stayed in homes and public buildings, hiding in cellars until the battle died down.
Timeline
December 1943
After a successful breakthrough at the Moro, the 1st Canadian Division prepares for an assault on the port town of Ortona on Italy’s East coast. Ortona is a key command centre for the German Army and is very heavily defended.
20 Dec: 2 Canadian Infantry Brigade forces through German defences to take up positions on the outskirts of Ortona. The advance is made possible with the support of 1 Canadian Armour Brigade and a heavy artillery barrage covering the advancing Canadians’ flanks with smoke screen.
21 Dec: The Loyal Edmonton Regiment (the “Loyal Eddies”), along with the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, supported by armour begin the bloody advance into the town of Ortona to dislodge the occupying German defenders.
22 Dec: Canadian commanders divide Ortona into sectors and assign each fighting battalion a sector to clear of enemies. In a move to reduce pressure on the Canadians in Ortona, 1 Canadian Infantry Brigade moves into position northwest of Ortona to cut of key German supply routes.
23/24 Dec: Canadian reinforcements begin to arrive at Ortona to relieve exhausted troops and shore up units still embroiled in the bitterly slow and brutal advance into the town.
24 Dec: Two days into the advance on Ortona, Canadian soldiers are fighting a yard-by-yard battle to take the town. The Loyal Eddies and the Seaforths fight vicious house-to-house battles, and even room-to-room battles against the occupying German garrison forces.
25 Dec: Christmas Day brings no relief for Canadian soldiers in their efforts to take Ortona. Soldiers are rotated back to a Church to enjoy a hot Christmas meal where possible, though many are shot down by German forces in the attempt. Some commanders order their men to hold their positions rather than risk getting killed over trying to make it to Christmas Dinner.
26 Dec: The slow and perilous advance by Canadian forces begins to pay off as Canadian commanders in the field begin to report to their superiors that two-thirds of the battered town are now under Canadian control. However the battle continues to wage with the German forces making the Canadians fight for every yard gained in Ortona.
27 Dec: With the Canadian advance seemingly unstoppable, the German forces begin their withdrawal from Ortona.
28 Dec: Canadian forces take full control of Ortona. Canadian casualties for the month of December 1943 near 2400 men, effectively taking the 1st Canadian Division out of the war for a short period in order to rest its wounds. The Battle for Ortona has been won by the Canadians.
