The Gothic Line Read online

  Arriving at the West Novas’ tactical headquarters to meet with both Brigadier Paul Bernatchez and Lieutenant Colonel Waterman, Van Doo commander Lieutenant Colonel Jean V. Allard observed that Waterman “was severely rattled.”5 Virtually ignoring the West Novas commander, Bernatchez and Allard decided that Waterman’s surviving soldiers must sit tight in their currently badly exposed positions until a well-laid plan for the regiment’s withdrawal through the Van Doos to the south bank of the Foglia could be implemented. Waterman, however, maintained that despite having lost their commanders, ‘D’ and ‘C’ companies remained “ready to advance again immediately.” Morale was high and, as the regimental war diarist noted, there were no cases of battle exhaustion reported.6

  Allard disagreed with this assessment of the readiness of the West Novas to renew the attack. He believed that Waterman was burned out and no longer fit to command. When he voiced his concerns to his old friend, former regimental commander, and now brigadier, Bernatchez agreed with Allard’s assessment.7

  Notified that the West Novas could not possibly continue the attack and the Van Doos were still getting prepared in the bridgehead, Major General Chris Vokes decided the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry would have to widen the breach in the Gothic Line. The Canadians must complete the breakthrough quickly or the Germans would get organized and stiffen their opposition. Vokes and 5th Canadian Armoured Division’s Major General Bert Hoffmeister were hampered by the fact that they were dealing with a tactical situation neither had previously faced. During the Liri Valley offensive, the two divisions had leapfrogged each other, one taking over the advance as its opposite number ran out of steam due to casualties and overall unit fatigue. Now the two divisions fought shoulder to shoulder on a very narrow front—little more than three miles in width. One divisional commander’s plans inevitably affected his counterpart. Fortunately, the two men had worked closely together in the past, respected each other’s judgement, and were good friends. Hoffmeister had served directly under Vokes when the latter had commanded the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, then the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade, and finally 1 CID. As Vokes had moved up the ladder, Hoffmeister had followed his footsteps into two earlier commands before getting his own division.

  The two divisional plans were also becoming increasingly confused by the battle’s rapid development. Both Vokes and Hoffmeister were trying to launch flying columns of armour and supporting infantry into the narrow breach that had been won the previous day. While Vokes’s column was still being cobbled together on the morning of August 31, Hoffmeister had formed his column almost the moment he had intuited the German lack of readiness to meet the Canadian offensive and was ready to go.

  When 11th Canadian Infantry Brigade failed to break through to Tomba di Pesaro, as Hoffmeister had planned, he calmly altered the scheme. With only the Perth Regiment inside the Gothic Line in any depth, he feared this narrowly opened gate was in the process of swinging shut. If that happened, a costly, time-consuming set-piece offensive would have to be forced on I Canadian Corps. Hoffmeister and 5th Canadian Armoured Brigade commander Brigadier Ian Cumberland decided that if they struck hard with a powerful armoured force they could knock the gate right off its hinges and steamroll through to Rimini. Consequently, at 0200 hours, orders were issued for the British Columbia Dragoons to cross the Foglia and link up with the Perth Regiment. The Dragoons and the Perths would then mutually attack Point 204. They would be supported in this effort by one troop of the 82nd Anti-Tank Battery and a section of the 5th Canadian Assault Troop. Right on the heels of this advancing force would follow the Lord Strathcona’s Horse Regiment, the Westminster (Motorized) Regiment, a second troop from the 82nd Anti-Tank Battery, and another section of the 5th Canadian Assault Troop.8

  The 82nd Anti-Tank Battery squadrons were equipped with M10 Tank Destroyers—a standard Sherman M4tank with its turret and main gun replaced by a high-velocity 17-pounder gun mounted in an open-top revolving turret. Assault troops were specialized teams that operated out of Stuart tanks, known as Honeys, from which the turret had been removed. Each Honey was loaded with one hundred pounds of various explosives, an array of minesweeping equipment, probing irons, and other mine-clearing devices. The crews were highly trained in conducting demolitions, constructing temporary bridges, blowing riverbanks, and in other ways overcoming obstacles that might delay or block tanks.9

  Lieutenant Colonel Fred Vokes was told his Dragoons must quickly get through to Point 204, the fingertip of the ridge that extended south from Tomba di Pesaro. That kind of order was just fine by Vokes. A permanent force officer in the Lord Strathcona’s Horse before the war, Vokes had a reputation as a hard-driving, brash, profane, and abrasive officer. Many a B.C. Dragoon blamed the heavy casualties in the Liri Valley, particularly at the Melfa River, on his leadership. Another matter that rubbed many Dragoons wrong was that, despite the ferocity of the fighting during these engagements, Vokes had failed to cite for possible decoration any officers or troopers who had fought heroically. Although the squadron commanders had submitted several such recommendations, none were sent upstairs from regimental headquarters for approval. Troopers muttered amongst themselves that Vokes intended to be the first medal-winning Dragoon and until that happy event materialized, the rest of the regiment could go hang.10 Even his older brother, Chris, thought Fred Vokes dangerously impetuous.11

  Although the current orders differed greatly from what his squadron commanders had expected, the lieutenant colonel failed to brief them on the new plan. So when the order came at 0545 hours for the tanks to roll, most of the tankers believed they moved not to battle but to an assembly point north of the Foglia River. The gun muzzles on the Shermans were still covered in canvas to prevent their being clogged by dust kicked up by the tracks of the tanks ahead—a standard cautionary procedure followed when a column was on the move behind friendly lines. The regiment moved in a long chain with ‘A’ Squadron in front, then ‘C’ Squadron, Vokes and his regimental headquarters section, and ‘B’ Squadron playing tail-end Charlie. ‘B’ Squadron commander Major David Kinloch “expected nothing more than a long, slow, boring move. We ground slowly along a road congested with all sorts of vehicles going both ways; but suddenly, just after first-light things began to change, and a sense of urgency began to develop,” he later wrote. “Our speed increased; vehicles were being moved to the side of the road, and Traffic Control was waving us through. It seemed that the message was, ‘Clear the road and let the B.C. Dragoons go by.’”12

  Kinloch was surprised to see the Governor General’s Horse Guards lined up on the verge as the Dragoons rumbled down the winding road leading towards the river. He had thought the reconnaissance regiment was already well up in the front lines. When the column momentarily lurched to a halt, Kinloch’s tank stopped directly opposite that of Guards’ commander Lieutenant Colonel A.K. Jordan. The GGHG commander walked over and handed a freshly harvested peach up to the major. “If I were you,” Jordan said, “I wouldn’t be going down into that valley with your muzzle covers on. I think they’ve had trouble there and you’re going into action immediately.”13

  That was the first Kinloch had heard about heading into a fight and he was unsure whether to credit Jordan’s opinion. Surely if they were going into immediate action, Vokes would have briefed the squadron commanders before the regiment started out or would have at least done so by radio during the move. Wireless traffic was increasing, but not in the form of signals from Vokes. Kinloch was getting sporadic signals from ‘A’ Squadron, which was pulling into the designated assembly area. It sounded as if they might be engaged there. At the back of the column, Kinloch could only keep grinding along. He was increasingly glad that during the short stop he had followed Jordan’s advice and ordered his troop commanders to strip the muzzle covers off the 75-millimetre main guns. If there was going to be a fight, Kinloch wanted to be ready.

  THE DRAGOONS WERE not the only Canadian tankers driving towards imminent ba
ttle. The 8th Princess Louise New Brunswick Hussars were heading in support of the Irish Regiment of Canada. The primary job for these two units was to take Point 120, the fortified promontory on I Canadian Corps’s extreme west flank from which the Cape Breton Highlanders had been so bloodily repelled the previous day. Capturing Point 120 would leave the German garrison, which had reoccupied Montecchio when the Highlanders had withdrawn, so isolated that it could be mopped up at leisure. The plan was for the Irish to start the attack from Point 111 with ‘C’ Squadron of the Hussars under Major Cliff McEwan in support.

  Although the Perth Regiment had captured Point 111, its hold was far from uncontested, so this was not as secure a jumping-off point for the attack as the Irish expected. Private Stan Scislowski’s section in No. 18 Platoon had set up for the night in an outpost about fifty yards down the steep forward slope. The sun-baked ground proved so hard the seven men could barely scrape out slit trenches. Private Jim Heaton and Scislowski were in one shallow trench, with Heaton manning his Bren gun and Scislowski serving as his loader. The Perths were still hacking at the ground to make their trenches when a party of men blundered past the section leader, Corporal Jimmy Eves, and Private Walt Thomas. Eves, unsure if the men were Canadian or German, had called out the night’s password and then repeated it when no countersign was returned. Suddenly the men in the passing party threw down their packs and raised their arms in surrender. One man, however, snapped a shot just past Eves’s head. Thomas grabbed Eves’s Thompson from the ground and blew the man’s stomach out with a long burst of .45-calibre rounds. The other four Germans, who had been carrying ammunition forward to the garrison they believed held Point 111, stood quietly through this exchange with their arms held high. The dead German was identified as the resupply party’s commander.

  At daybreak, Scislowski’s section had fallen back to a more secure position on the summit of Point 111. Heaton and Scislowski set up the Bren in a trench barely wide enough for the two men to lie down side by side and only two feet deep. They were both exhausted, giddy from lack of sleep. Fifteen minutes after the two men closed their eyes, a battery of 25-pounders across the river started pitching shells over the top of the hill. The rounds shrieked past no more than a few feet above the ground. “Goddamn it, Jim, they’re pretty damn close,” Scislowski mumbled to Heaton.

  “Yeah, they sure are, the bastards better raise their sights a notch or the next one’s gonna land right on top of us,” Heaton replied.14

  Just then a 25-pound high-explosive shell struck the corner of their trench, right above Scislowski’s head where he had piled his rifle, web pouches stuffed with Bren magazines, battle pack, and helmet. Perhaps because the shell had already passed them by, its blast and shrapnel were thrown forward. Scislowski’s rifle snapped in two like a twig, his pouches and pack were shredded, and the helmet vapourized. Knocked unconscious, Scislowski awoke lying in a fog of high-explosive smoke and almost vomited on its stench. His head rang as if someone had struck him with a wooden plank. Private Vern Gooding, a stretcher-bearer, helped him stand. He tried to thank Gooding, but could hear no words coming out of his mouth even though he was moving his lips. Gooding’s mouth was also working, but Scislowski heard only a ringing noise. He was nauseated, barely able to stay on his feet. Finally Scislowski understood that Gooding was asking if he could make it back to the field dressing station south of the Foglia. He nodded that he could and stumbled off the hill towards the river. On the way down, he passed a squadron of Hussars moving up towards Point 111.

  When he finally arrived at the dressing station, Scislowski witnessed a horrifying scene of war’s carnage. “Bandaged men were everywhere, some soaked with blood, others with their faces and bush-shirts or denim flecked or blotched red, heads swathed, uniforms ripped open at the sites of injuries, bandages and shell-dressings applied in several places on their shrapnel-ravaged bodies. I looked into the drawn faces of the wounded, eyes dulled with pain; some were half asleep under the soporific effect of the morphine they’d been injected with. The pale upturned faces of the gravely wounded had taken on a greyish, waxen quality, the appearance not unlike that of the dead I had seen so many times lying about on the battlefield. I knew as I turned my back and walked away, that some of the boys lying here wouldn’t make it through the day.

  “Most of the walking wounded congregated loosely around the dressing station appeared to be, like myself, little the worse for wear. I did notice on some, however, the familiar blank stare of men suffering from battle neuroses. . . . A few yards away lay the blanket-covered bodies of six of our boys who had succumbed to wounds.”15 Scislowski walked over to some Perths grouped near a low-slung building across the road from the dressing station. “They looked hopelessly beaten and shorn of pride,” probably battle-exhaustion cases. More men, looking as bad as those outside, sat around inside the building. Retreating outside, Scislowski bumped into the regimental padre, Crawford Smith. Scislowski told the padre what had happened to him on Point 111. The man listened patiently. Then, he said, “Stanley, the boys need you up on the hill. Don’t let them down. Please join them, won’t you?”16

  Scislowski knew what he had to do. He scrounged a rifle, a couple of ammunition bandoliers, some webbing with pouches, a bayonet, water bottle, and a helmet that fit badly and set off towards the hill, sucking on a Lifesaver the padre had given him. When he got back to the hill, Scislowski found only men from the Irish Regiment and these had no idea where the Perths had gone. After wandering about for thirty minutes, Scislowski stumbled upon ‘D’ Company on the east slope of a low hill. The other men in his section, including Heaton, had all been unharmed by the exploding shell. But the new position was under almost continuous mortar and artillery fire. Despite the dangers, Scislowski was relieved to be back with his comrades in arms.17

  THE IRISH REGIMENT and Hussars of ‘C’ Squadron started being machine-gunned and mortared from Point 120 and the ruins of Montecchio the moment they took Point 111 over from the Perths. One already undermanned company was caught in the open by a stonk of mortar bombs and suffered several casualties, reducing its strength to only fifty men. Major Cliff McEwan wheeled ‘C’ Squadron’s Shermans to face Point 120 and ordered it pounded by high-explosive shells. Soon the promontory was blanketed in a cloud of smoke and churned-up dust. When Lieutenant Colonel Bobby Clark arrived aboard a Bren carrier, the Irish commander and McEwan started planning their attack.18

  Meanwhile, with the Cape Breton Highlanders and the Perths still too beaten up to immediately return to battle, 11 CIB’s Brigadier Ian Johnston ordered the Hussars’s ‘A’ Squadron to advance without infantry support two miles northwestward from Point 111 to Monte Marrone. This was an unorthodox, always risky strategy. Johnston told Major P.M. “Frenchy” Blanchet that the Cape Bretoners would catch up to his tanks shortly.19

  Following a quick briefing by Blanchet, ‘A’ Squadron’s officers started climbing back into their Shermans. The soft pop of a distant German rifle was heard and a single round hit and mortally wounded Lieutenant S.B. Henderson.20

  The squadron took the officer’s loss in stride and moved out at 0835 hours with one troop under Lieutenant George Cahoon hanging back on Point 111 to provide covering fire. ‘A’ Squadron’s other three troops and command section travelled across a rough landscape of steep, naked slopes that so increased the risk of throwing a track that the crews concentrated more on avoiding this event than on detecting German positions. They were thirty minutes out when an antitank gun, mounted in a concrete emplacement concealed inside a haystack, fired. The first Hussar tank started to burn.

  Spotting the concealed gun position, the jaundice-plagued Blanchet ordered his driver to charge the Germans while his gunner brought them under fire. At the same time, he shouted into his radio mouthpiece for Battle Captain Doug Lewis, following right behind, to cover his advance. Back on Point 111, Cahoon had also spotted the enemy gun and his three tanks fired at the haystack, which burst into flames. Blanchet’s Sherma
n ground right over top of the burning position, only to find that Cahoon’s fire had already destroyed the gun and killed its crew.

  With this action over, Lewis looked back to the burning Sherman in time to see Sergeant Bill McIntee and his crew bailing out safely, only to come under fire from a nearby machine gun. One man was killed instantly and everyone but McIntee wounded. Then several German infantrymen ran out and started bayoneting the wounded. McIntee, who had run past his wounded men before the machine gun opened fire, spun around, and, armed only with his fists, rushed the Germans. They shot him down. Two of the crewmen were bayoneted to death. But the other, named McGrattan and nicknamed “Muscles,” wrestled the German trying to bayonet him to the ground and strangled him to death.

  Knowing his gunner would be unable to rotate the turret in time to prevent McGrattan being killed by the other murderous Germans, Lewis stood up in the turret and shot one in the head with his pistol. That prompted the rest, including the machine-gun crew, to abandon their weapons and surrender. But they received no mercy from the Canadians. Lewis’s gunner raked the Germans with the co-axial machine gun, killing them all.

  ‘A’ Squadron renewed its advance, soon losing another Sherman to an antitank gun firing from the northeast front of Tomba di Pesaro. When the tanks approached a small hill, designated Point 136, Blanchet called a halt so he could go ahead on foot and spy out whether the hill was defended. Staggering with weakness, the major no sooner dismounted than the Germans opened up with rifles, machine guns, and mortars in an attempt to kill the exposed officer. Blanchet clambered back inside his tank and called artillery down on the hill. The moment the shelling ended, ‘A’ Squadron charged Point 136. First onto the summit, Sergeant Billy Bell’s tank had its left-side suspension immediately torn away by a German 88-millimetre round. The tank was bowled off the hillcrest and rolled slowly end over end down the hill. Whenever the turret turned upright for a few seconds, one crewman bailed out of the hatch. All escaped unharmed.