The Gothic Line Page 28
No sooner had the Dragoons started down the side of Point 204 than snipers began harrying them from the front and their flanks. “Progress,” wrote the war diarist, “very slow due to inexperienced men, lack of officers and NCOS. Houses dotted all along the line of advance were each, in turn, an enemy post and had to be dealt with. Casualties soon began to mount, as did the number of POWs.”4
Lieutenant Moore was wounded minutes after he led ‘B’ Squadron across the start line. Individual sergeants assumed command of each troop and nobody exercised any overall control over the squadron itself, but the men kept pushing forward. Infantry and tanks struggled slowly downhill for about eight hundred yards into a saddle running between Point 204 and Point 253.
The tanks “sprayed every hedge and wheat stook with machine-gun fire—and reaped the heaviest toll of German paratroopers ever credited to the regiment.”5 One paratrooper, armed with only a rifle, popped out from behind a stack of wheat and squared off against an advancing Sherman. Standing in full view with his rifle shouldered as if he were on a shooting range, the German fired one shot after another that harmlessly pinged off the armour of the tank’s turret. The tankers chopped him down with a burst of .45-calibre machine-gun fire and then ground the corpse under their tracks.
McAvity, who had been directing the tankers from his vantage on Point 204, suddenly heard his voice collapse to a hoarse whisper that made issuing further orders impossible. He handed command to Major Lee Symmes.
Meanwhile, the attack had bogged down in the middle of the saddle when the infantry were driven to ground by heavy machine-gun fire from a stoutly built farmhouse. When Captain D.J. Burke attacked the house with several sections from ‘A’ Squadron with tanks backing him up, the Germans were quickly wiped out. Inside, the troopers found the rooms strewn with corpses of paratroopers and well stocked with machine guns and Faustpatrones.
The PLDG started a slow, bloody push up the eight-hundred-yard steep slope towards the summit of Point 253. Darling paused on the edge of a plowed field that covered the last two hundred yards leading up to the hillcrest to organize a final charge. He had only forty men. Burke’s section numbered only eight. Darling jogged over to Major Smith’s Sherman and asked him to deploy his squadron halfway across the field and to go there without infantry support. If the tanks met only light opposition along the way, Darling would put in his charge. The Shermans entered the field in an arrowhead formation and started wallowing through two-foot-deep furrows. Drivers dumped their transmissions into bull low and the Shermans lurched slowly through the crumbling clay while the gunners hammered any houses or clumps of vegetation that might hide enemy positions with 75-millimetre and machine-gun fire.
When the tanks reached the halfway point, Darling and his forty men charged out into the open field.6 Bullets whipped around them and some struck flesh. Fifty yards from the summit, only fifteen men still followed Darling. These went up the last, steeper stretch on hands and knees right into the face of the Germans. At the last minute, when it seemed this small group of attackers would surely all be killed, the paratroopers broke and fled. Darling staggered onto Point 253 at about 1600 hours. The PLDG had won its first infantry battle and Darling would receive a Distinguished Service Order for gallantry.7
When Strathcona Lieutenant W.J. Brown’s lead troop joined the Dragoons a few minutes later he pulled out a bottle of whiskey, offered a toast to the hard-won victory and passed the bottle down to Darling. After savouring the fiery liquor, Darling got to work establishing a defensive perimeter around the hilltop. With every passing minute, more infantrymen filtered in to boost the ranks. Some had been pinned down in small firefights with isolated pockets of paratroopers, while others had been unable to keep up. A few had hidden, cowering in fear until the fighting ended.
Corporal Gordon McGregor, the Kamloops logger, was in terrible shape. Over the past few days, he had marched twenty miles on the damaged tendon in his leg. He had arrived at Point 204 barely able to continue walking, only confirming the wisdom of his decision to request a transfer to the division’s assault engineers, who always moved by truck. Then had come the uphill attack and all the terror and pain that had entailed. During the advance, a piece of shrapnel had embedded itself in his forehead, but he yanked it out and kept limping up the hill.
The next day, McGregor learned his transfer had come through. “You want to go or you want to stay?” a major asked him. “I don’t want to stay,” McGregor replied. “I don’t like to walk.” As the assault engineers were at full strength, he was shunted off to a reinforcement depot and then assigned to a tank delivery squadron where his job was delivering replacement tanks to the front lines.8
Within an hour of Point 253’s capture, Darling had about one hundred men on the hill. He radioed brigade headquarters: “Objective captured,” and urgently requested ammunition, supporting arms, and most immediately water for his parched troops.
The PLDG paid a bloody price for this tiny bit of real estate—129 casualties, of whom thirty-five died, while the Strathconas counted six dead and twenty-four wounded.9 An estimated 120 Germans were believed dead and as many were taken prisoner.10 Within a couple of hours, one Perth Regiment company reinforced the hilltop and a Princess Louise Fusiliers platoon brought several Vickers medium machine guns to stiffen the defence.11 Shortly thereafter, four M10 Tank Destroyers arrived and the Strathconas withdrew to the reverse slope to reorganize, rearm, and refuel out of sight of the Germans who constantly shelled the summit.12
On hearing the details of the PLDG’s attack, Eighth Army commander General Oliver Leese shot off a congratulatory message to Darling. “My congratulations to you and all ranks of your battalion on your hard fighting at Tomba di Pesaro. The Regiment may be proud of its part in a great and hard-fought victory. With many thanks and best wishes to you all. Well done, Canada.”13
LEESE WAS MISINFORMED. Tomba di Pesaro still remained in German hands; a fact the Irish Regiment of Canada hoped to change with a night attack. Zero hour for the Irish was 1945 hours.14 That afternoon, the Irish and the 8th Princess Louise New Brunswick Hussars’ ‘C’ Squadron passed through the Cape Breton Highlander lines on Monte Marrone and three-quarters of a mile eastward to Il Casone. This was a large farm situated on a low ridge that arced gradually northeastward to meet the heights upon which Tomba di Pesaro stood.
Leading the way, the Hussars entered a small valley just short of Il Casone and were suddenly among a group of German infantry on the march. Surprise was complete for both sides, but the tankers recovered more quickly and raked the infantry with machine guns. After unsuccessfully trying to return fire with a few Faustpatrones, about seventy Germans surrendered and were quickly passed back to the Irish.15
During the climb up the rough, steep slope to Il Casone, several Shermans lost tracks, leaving the squadron with only ten serviceable tanks by the time it reached the farm buildings.16 Lieutenant Colonel Bobby Clark marched his infantry into the position shortly thereafter. From the large farmhouse’s upper storey, Clark, Hussars Major Cliff McEwan, and the company and troop officers gazed out at their objective. “It was another town of stone and mortar, brown and quiet on its hilltop, and mysterious because there was no way of knowing, after Montecchio’s lesson, what resistance lurked behind its walls.”17
Clark had an all too rare advantage during this gatecrashing battle—time to plan his attack. From their excellent vantage, Clark pointed out the routes each officer was to follow to the objective. It would be a two-pronged attack. Captain Bill Elder’s ‘B’ Company would drop into the valley fronting Tomba di Pesaro and ascend the slope to enter the village’s left-hand side. Meanwhile, ‘C’ Company, under Captain Bill Mitchell and riding atop five tanks, would follow the ridgeline leading to the town’s right flank and break in there. The remaining five tanks would force the Germans to keep their heads down with fire support from Il Casone. A short artillery bombardment supplemented by fire from the Irish mortar and anti-tank platoons would prece
de the attack at 1945 hours, with the anti-tank guns specifically targetting the village’s church steeple.18
Soft evening light lit Tomba di Pesaro gently as the first shells started to fall. To the Canadians watching from the farm, the picturesque nature of the scene was oddly disturbed by the plumes of black smoke and flashes of flame caused by the artillery, tank, and antitank fire. Soon the village was entirely obscured by a thickening haze of smoke that drifted along the ridgeline to completely obscure the battlefield. Then ‘C’ Company was told to board the five tanks commanded by Captain Lloyd Hill and, when they were all crouched on the back deck or lying against the turret, the Shermans rumbled forward. They headed for Tomba di Pesaro at top speed with the infantry clinging grimly to whatever handholds they could find. ‘B’ Company meanwhile bolted into the valley, swept across the narrow bottom-land, and then started sweating up the steep slope.
The Shermans rolled right through to the edge of the village without attracting any opposition. Captain Mitchell’s infantry company piled off the tanks and warily slipped in among the shell-battered buildings. On the opposite side of Tomba di Pesaro, Elder’s men did likewise. Although they tumbled a few Germans from the 1st Parachute Antitank Battalion, these immediately surrendered without a fight. By 2000 hours, Clark was informed the village was secure.19
The ecstatic infantry commander walked over to McEwan’s tank and handed the major a gallon jug of rum to share with the rest of ‘C’ Squadron’s tankers as a token of good old Irish appreciation. Next morning, when Clark marched the rest of the regiment into the village, he was greeted by a large, hastily created sign painted crudely on the whitewashed side of a building next to the main street entrance that declared: “Bobby Clarksville—In Bounds to All Canadian Troops.” This was a jibe at I Canadian Corps’s provost officers, renowned for constantly erecting signs designating every village out of bounds to Canadian troops within hours of their capture. A smaller sign nearby read: “Out of bounds to Provost.” Clark let the latter remain for a few hours before ordering it painted over.20 September 1 was a hallmark day for the Irish Regiment. Its war diarist wrote: “The First day of the month found the Irish Regiment completing the breakthrough of the Gothic Line.”21
Regimental pride aside, however, the breakthrough achieved by the Canadians on September 1 had been the work of many regiments. And on the Canadian right flank, 1st Canadian Infantry Division had been trying to drive even more deeply that day than had 5 CAD.
WITH THE PLDG protecting that division’s left flank from Point 253, Pozzo Alto and the low ridge behind clear of Germans, and his right flank secured by the Royal 22e Regiment, Major General Chris Vokes believed the time was right to unleash his flying column towards the Adriatic coast. Brigadier D. Dawnay, whose 21st Royal Tank Brigade provided the column’s armoured teeth, was equally anxious to win a deep penetration before day’s end. The objective was Monte Luro, about two miles to the north. Once the Canadians controlled that mountain, they would dominate a pivotal intersection of roads leading east towards the Adriatic and thereby deny the Germans the ability to easily reinforce or maintain any cohesive defence south of Cattolica. The Loyal Edmonton Regiment, supported by the 12th Royal Tank Regiment, was ordered to immediately seize Monte Luro.
Lieutenant Colonel Budge Bell-Irving sat down with his armoured regiment counterpart, Lieutenant Colonel H.H. Van Straubenzee, to hammer out a plan. Theirs was a tall order, particularly as the two officers would not reach their jump-off point on the ridge held by the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada until 1730 hours. It was impossible to predict how stiffly the Germans would defend the ground between the ridge and Monte Luro. And the mountain was believed to be strongly fortified and ideally suited for defence.
In the event, the drive to the foot of the mountain proceeded smoothly. ‘A’ and ‘C’ companies led the way by bounds, with men riding on the backs of tanks until German opposition was encountered. Twenty-three-year-old Captain John Dougan had just been given command of ‘C’ Company after serving several months as its second-in-command. When ‘A’ Company, which was leading, bumped into some Germans holding a house halfway to the base of the summit, the infantry piled off the Shermans and tackled the position with rapid fire. Dougan’s men then rolled up and dismounted to finish the mopping-up phase while ‘A’ Company reboarded its tanks and hurried on. The two companies repeated this procedure twice more before reaching the base of the mountain and were delayed only a few minutes at each stop.22
The infantry dismounted for the attack on the mountain and went up the slope with ‘C’ Company left and ‘A’ Company right. The tanks were right behind, and directly in front a creeping artillery barrage preceded the infantry. Everyone was riding high on adrenaline because of the pace at which the advance was progressing. Lieutenant Keith McGregor, one of Dougan’s platoon commanders, charged uphill so quickly that he and his men outran the barrage and were forced to desperately take cover when shells chased across their position. As the Edmontons burst onto the summit, several large blobs about twenty inches in diameter screamed over Dougan’s head to disappear far off in the valley to the south. It took several minutes for the puzzled officer to realize the Germans were firing at the mountain with huge Italian coastal guns positioned either at Rimini or Cattolica. Fortunately, their aim remained high. Standing on the summit, with the sun setting behind the mountains to the west so that the rugged coastal plain was cast in a gentle golden glow, Dougan could see the Adriatic beyond the coastal towns of Fano, Pesaro, and Cattolica. Nowhere north of Monte Luro was there any sign of German movement. To the young officer it seemed that 1st Canadian Infantry Division could go as far as it liked if it just kept moving as quickly as it had this day.23
The Edmontons took twelve prisoners on Monte Luro. Among them were six Germans who surrendered their Panzerturm without firing a shot from its powerful 75-millimetre gun.24 Had they offered a fight, the tanks grinding up the slope would have presented perfect targets. At the Hitler Line, a single Panzerturm had systematically knocked out thirteen North Irish Horse tanks in minutes.
With Monte Luro in Allied hands, Brigadier Dawnay was eager to sustain his flying column’s momentum. His immediate targets were the seaside resort of Cattolica and a number of other small villages lying south of the Conca River. Pieve, Gradara, and Fanano perched on spurs that stretched down from Monte Luro. In the flats before the Conca were San Giovanni in Marignano and Monte Albano. Dawnay ordered the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and ‘B’ Squadron of the 48th Royal Tank Regiment to conduct a night attack northeastward towards Point 119, which was quickly and successfully executed.25
THE SPEED AND FEROCITY of the Canadian attack had sent the Germans reeling. Desperately, German commanders attempted to re-establish some semblance of a linked defensive line with badly disorganized units. On the eastern flank, a large number of battalions of 1st Parachute Division were still pulling out of Pesaro as II Polish Corps fought its way into the city. Dawnay was in a position to effect an encirclement of these paratroopers if he could sever the highway that was their main line of retreat.26
Throughout I Canadian Corps, spirits were running high. One corps intelligence staff officer’s summary concluded: “In the Liri Valley Heidrich’s [1st Parachute] division were able to escape through the mountains, but this time, if we succeed in cutting him off, he will have to use rowboats.”27 Another declared the battle “all over but for the pursuit.”28
The advantage still lay with the Germans, however, because they controlled the coastal highway while Dawnay’s column must travel overland in order to cut both the road and railway in front of the retreating Germans. On the corps’s western flank, Hoffmeister’s 5 CAD was seriously depleted after the terrific battles fought to crack through the Gothic Line. Hoffmeister told Burns that 11th Canadian Infantry Brigade was exhausted and required thirty-six hours to reorganize, as did the Princess Louise Dragoon Guards.29 The 5th Canadian Armoured Brigade’s three regiments were in si
milar straits.
Not that Hoffmeister proposed standing still. While he had available formations, Hoffmeister remained in the game. And the major general had two fresh battalions from the 12th Canadian Infantry Brigade and the Shermans and armoured cars of his reconnaissance regiment—the Governor General’s Horse Guards. Hoffmeister ordered these two battalions to pass through Tomba di Pesaro, each with a squadron of the GGHG in support, and run hard and fast to the Conca River. The units would advance in two columns. As the left-hand column had farthest to travel, Hoffmeister assigned the Westminster (Motorized) Regiment that task. This regiment had proven its battle worth at the Melfa River in the Liri Valley. Originally attached to 5 CAB to provide the armoured brigade with inherent infantry that could match the tanks’ pace during a pursuit or break-out operation, the regiment was equipped with armoured personnel carriers and Bren carriers.
As for the right-hand column’s infantry element, nobody knew what it was capable of. This was the “No-Name Regiment,” still denoted as either the 89th/109th Battalion or 1st Canadian Light Anti-Aircraft Battalion while it waited confirmation from Canadian Military Headquarters of its name change to the Lanark and Renfrew Scottish Regiment. Would a battalion of former anti-aircraft gunners stiffened by a core of randomly assigned infantry veterans be capable of a rapid advance during battle? Hoffmeister had no choice but to find out the hard way.30
Both columns had the immediate objective of a ridge about one mile south of the Conca that overlooked the second objective of San Giovanni. The two columns would approach this village by different routes, merge there, then race northeastward on a road running from San Giovanni through Monte Albano to a junction with the coastal highway just before the Conca.31 In effect, Hoffmeister and Dawnay would be taking different routes towards the same final destination. Whoever got to San Giovanni first would press on to the coast and it mattered not who won this race as long as one reached the coast quickly. Having made the Germans run, Lieutenant General Burns was determined to keep them panicked and disorganized.