The Gothic Line Read online

  Later, an officer advancing under the protection of a white flag called to the Canadians: “Surrender you English gentlemen—you are surrounded and will only die.”

  When sniper Private “Slim” Sanford barked back, “We ain’t English. We ain’t Gentlemen—and be Goddamned if we’ll surrender,” the fierce fight immediately resumed.51 Lazier was counting on reinforcements, but Lieutenant Colonel Don Cameron had none to send. All the other companies were either committed or still reorganizing. Cameron ordered ‘B’ Company to abandon its hard-won gains and withdraw four hundred yards from the village, so he could soak the village and surrounding heights with artillery bombardments in preparation for a renewed dawn attack. Lazier led his men out of the village at nightfall. ‘B’ Company had suffered twenty-three casualties and lost four men missing. They brought twenty-five prisoners with them. Twenty-two men from the other companies had also been killed or wounded and another two were missing. Despite the heavy casualties, only six men had been killed.52

  ON SEPTEMBER 4, the 48th Highlanders of Canada had been expected to rush through the gap opened by the other two regiments of 1 CIB with such verve and dash that the Canadians would, as set out in Calder’s written order, be in “Rimini by noon!” This expectation was being turned to dust.53 Instead, the Highlanders had marched towards battle on the left-hand side of the pinned-down Hasty P’s and formed up behind Lieutenant Colonel Don Cameron’s tactical headquarters, located inside a squat, stone hovel next to a crossroads overlooking Santa Maria di Scacciano.

  From here, they watched the Hasty P’s hard-fought battle develop through the early afternoon. There was a generally friendly rivalry between these two Ontario regiments, with the Highlanders calling the Hasty P’s Plough Jockeys because most hailed from the farms and small towns of southern Ontario. The Hasty P’s in response declared the Highlanders the Glamour Boys, largely young men from Toronto who were more at ease on sidewalks or in bars than fighting in the Italian hills and vineyards. This day, however, the Highlanders held their city tongues as a steady stream of wounded stumbled back to the nearby Regimental Aid Post.

  At 1500 hours, Highlanders’ commander Lieutenant Colonel Don Mackenzie called an O Group of ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies in the dubious comfort and safety of Cameron’s HQ. Arriving just as a stonk of German shells fell outside, ‘D’ Company’s Captain L.G. Smith ducked frantically through the hut door for cover and saw Cameron grinning at him from across the room. “Shut the door, Smittie,” the lieutenant colonel said, as if the thin, rough lumber might provide true protection from the shrapnel bouncing off the walls outside.54

  A second salvo erupted outside, violently rattling the building and causing dust to pour from the walls and ceilings, just as the men inside heard the fall of footsteps approaching the closed door. Major Jim Counsell, who commanded the regiment’s support company, whispered, “Ed Rawlings.” As one, the men inside raced to the door only to find ‘C’ Company’s commanding major lying in the dirt with blood pouring from a terrible wound. His runner, Private Willie Roberts, was dead. Although rushed to the Highlanders’ RAP, Rawlings died a few minutes later. The major had joined the regiment in the fall of 1943 and was a veteran of its hardest fought battles.55

  When Captain Pat Bates came up from the rear to assume command of ‘C’ Company, Mackenzie got down to business. The regiment’s job was a tough one, he said, involving outflanking Santa Maria di Scacciano by advancing up a long sloping rise to a ridge. The intervening ground was thickly vegetated with vineyards, olive groves, and orchards; all cut by many narrow ditches and gullies. Dense hedges marked the boundaries of each farm from its neighbours. The entire line of advance was subject to enemy observation from both ridge and village. ‘D’ Company would lead, with ‘B’ Squadron of the 48th Royal Tank Regiment in support.

  ‘D’ Company jumped off at about 1630 hours, but was stopped cold by heavy machine-gun fire from a maze of positions one thousand yards short of the objective. Self-propelled guns firing from well-covered hides prevented the British tanks from clearing out the machine gunners. Captain Smith radioed Mackenzie, calling for a troop of M10 Tank Destroyers. Fifteen minutes after appearing on the scene, the M10s’ heavy guns quelled the German SPGs.

  At 1800 hours Mackenzie appeared at Smith’s tactical headquarters and urged him to get moving, but the captain argued that the attack could not succeed without the cover of darkness. Mackenzie relented but told Smith to make sure he got the job done. With the tanks withdrawing for the night, the infantry would attack alone. If the attack succeeded, the armour would return at first light.

  ‘D’ Company attacked on the heels of a short artillery concentration just before moonrise and by 0300 hours held a scatter of buildings on the ridge. ‘C’ Company, with the British tanks in tow, moved up behind Smith’s position at dawn.56 On the western flank, Coriano Ridge hulked darkly over the Highlanders and any further advance would face flanking fire from this daunting feature. Nobody thought anymore about being in Rimini by noon or, for that matter, anytime soon.

  [ 22 ]

  It Was Useless

  SEPTEMBER 4 proved a day of blood-soaked frustration for 5th Canadian Armoured Division. Major General Bert Hoffmeister was determined to break through to the Marano River, but before the river stood Coriano Ridge and its namesake village. Coriano was a cluster of stone buildings grouped around a central square in which stood the inevitable steepled church. Leading the division’s drive towards the village would be the 8th Princess Louise New Brunswick Hussars and the Westminster Regiment.

  The tanks moved at 0600 hours with the reconnaissance troop and ‘B’ Squadron out front, followed by ‘A’ Squadron, then the regimental headquarters section, and finally ‘C’ Squadron. The Westminsters were right behind the tanks in their armoured cars and Bren carriers. Hoffmeister planned to strike the Germans with a blitzkrieg, whereby an entirely motorized force would punch through any roadblocks and bypass stubborn strongpoints, leaving them to be cleaned up by the 1st Canadian Light Anti-Aircraft Battalion following on foot.

  But this was Italy rather than Poland or the open country of northern France, and although the upper valley of the headwaters of Besanigo River was unusually wide and open, it was also overlooked by Coriano Ridge from both ahead and the left flank. Still, things progressed well for the first thirty minutes. Captain Bob McLeod, who had taken over command of No. 1 Troop when Lieutenant Wally Manley was wounded in the jaw, followed close behind the reconnaissance Honeys. The captain was just beginning to think it might be a drive in the country when an antitank gun opened up. McLeod frantically ducked his Sherman into a ditch, while ahead Corporal H.S. Fleming’s tank exploded into flames. Trooper Duke Doucette was “blown to bits.” Fleming was blinded, but managed to bail out. Another trooper named McCallum was wounded and tumbled from the tank with his clothes burning. Trooper Charlie Harvey, the tank’s other survivor, managed to smother the fire and then guided Fleming and McCallum to the rear.1

  About one hundred yards back of McLeod’s position, ‘B’ Squadron’s Major Howard Keirstead swung his tank down a slope with Sergeant Keith Fisher’s tank right behind him in an attempt to evade the antitank guns that seemed to be firing from all around. The two Shermans sideswiped each other, bounced apart, and then careened down the slope. Several shells ricocheted off their sides as the two tanks skidded into the dry Besanigo streambed. Once in the stream, major and sergeant realized they had made a terrible mistake. Their tanks were sandwiched just ten feet apart, unable to turn sideways in the narrow streambed, and facing an insurmountably steep slope directly ahead. The slope behind was also far too steep to reverse up. They were stuck. Keirstead swivelled his turret to the left to cover that route of approach with his guns and Fisher did the same to cover the right approach.

  The streambed and its banks were clogged with long grass, bamboo stands, and tangles of trees that offered perfect infantry cover. In fact, the streambed vegetation was so dense the tankers in one She
rman could barely see the other. No sooner had Keirstead and Fisher assessed the situation than several paratroopers crept up and fired on the tanks with Faustpatrones that failed to penetrate the armour. The Shermans ripped back with machine guns and several of the infantrymen fell dead.

  Fisher’s crew was pleading with the sergeant to let them abandon the tank before a Faustpatrone killed them all, but he replied they were safer in the tank than outside. It was only a matter of time before the regiment pushed the attack beyond the streambed and effected a rescue. Fisher still had radio contact with the squadron and was able to monitor the ebb and flow of the battle raging above the trapped tanks.

  Although still mobile, the rest of the squadron was also in a bad way. Lieutenant McLeod and Sergeant Tom Robertson of No. 1 Troop were pinned well ahead and hoping to make a break for it back to the rest of the squadron. Heavy antitank fire from Coriano Ridge meanwhile was preventing the squadron from moving towards either pinned-down element. Knowing that before he could regroup the regiment ‘B’ Squadron had to be withdrawn, Lieutenant Colonel George Robinson ordered the recently promoted Major Lloyd Hill to bring up ‘A’ Squadron and extricate the embattled squadron.2

  ‘A’ Squadron clanked into the field of fire in which ‘B’ Squadron had been caught and within seconds Lieutenant J.H. Lackie’s tank was knocked out.3 Sergeant Billy Bell’s Sherman crashed nose-first into a deep pit over which the Germans had placed a thin board covered with earth. It was the second tank Bell had lost in three days. He and his crew dodged from one ditch to another getting back to the assembly point where the regiment’s second-in-command, Major G.R.H. Ross, gathered them in. The major knew the five tankers were exhausted from their latest mishap and three previous days spent with virtually no sleep. But there was a desperate shortage of crews and a perfectly operable Sherman back at rear echelon. You can have a rest, Ross told Bell, or you can take over that tank and go back into action. Bell looked at his men, who met each other’s eyes in turn, and then everyone grinned and the five men went to collect the Sherman.4

  RECOGNIZING THAT his tanks alone could never take Coriano Ridge, Robinson asked for the Westminsters’ help at 1000 hours.5Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Corbould immediately sent Major Ian Douglas up to appraise the front. Thirty minutes later, he returned and suggested sending a single ‘C’ Company rifle platoon aboard three of the scout platoon’s Bren carriers “hell bent for election” to seize a house in front of McLeod’s No. 1 Troop, in order to take the pressure off the trapped tankers.6 Then, when it got dark, the rest of ‘C’ Company could pass by and clear Coriano village. Lieutenant Tommy Forman’s platoon boarded three carriers commanded by scout platoon Sergeant Ron Hurley.

  The Bren carriers rolled at top speed past a German sign reading: “No vehicles of any type past this point” and headed along the narrow, flat top of a twelve-foot-high embankment belonging to an old railroad bed that was completely exposed to Coriano Ridge for its entire 1,200-yard length.7 Fifty yards out, a German shell overturned the lead carrier. Everyone was thrown clear but suffered varying injuries. Private “Knobby” Clark’s Lee Enfield had been fixed to a pintle-mount in front of his controls and when the carrier overturned the rifle’s barrel was bent back like a cartoon image towards the stock. More shaken than injured, Clark stormed back to the start line with the ridiculous-looking rifle and shook it in Douglas’s face. “What kind of asshole sent us to do this?” he screamed.8 Clark was quickly evacuated. Hearing later of the man’s behaviour, twenty-year-old Hurley thought it “pathetic” and typical of someone battle exhausted. Both the regiment’s youngest sergeant and one of its youngest soldiers, Hurley believed war was about taking risks and never showing fear.9

  He tried to maintain that resolve as his carrier took the lead. Perched on the seat beside him was the rifle platoon commander, Lieutenant Forman. All around the little vehicle exploding shells were tearing great chunks out of the embankment. Hurley’s driver, Private Jim Goddard, swerved wildly from side to side to dodge smoking craters and present a difficult target. In the carrier’s open cargo compartment, Forman’s men clung grimly to any available handhold to keep from being thrown overboard. Suddenly Goddard made a skidding turn to avoid an exploding round and the carrier plunged off the embankment. It crashed with a great shriek of metal into the bottom of a ravine, landing upended. Hurley hit the surprisingly soft ground flat on his stomach and then the carrier’s .50-calibre machine gun smashed down on the small of his back. The blow almost paralyzed him and blood poured out of a cut on his head. Sprawled all around the sergeant were men suffering broken shoulders, legs, or internal injuries. Amazingly, everyone was alive.

  The few men who could walk helped the more badly injured to reach the shelter of a nearby stone hut, where an ancient Italian couple dressed in peasant black was huddled. Shortly after the least injured of the soldiers left for help, Hurley heard “all this singing and these Germans marched down the road, singing at the top of their lungs, as if on parade.” Outside, a dog started barking. “Jesus Christ,” Hurley hissed, “somebody shut him up or they’ll come to check.” A Native Canadian soldier ducked outside, located the animal behind the hut, cut its tether, and watched it run off. The Germans marched past without so much as a glance towards the hut.10

  About an hour later, Hurley realized his paralysis was gone and that he could walk slowly, if painfully. Using a ditch for cover, Hurley and the Native soldier conducted a short reconnaissance and found near the hut a half-starved horse. The horse stood head down, with blood leaking from several shrapnel wounds to pool at its feet. Tears filling his eyes, the soldier told Hurley, “I’m going to shoot it.”

  “No, you’re not,” Hurley said. “It’s tough, but there’s nothing we can do.”11

  Soon after going back inside the hut, the soldier slipped out alone and Hurley knew he went to quietly put the horse out of its misery. He returned shortly with a German helmet under his arm brimming with fresh eggs. Following meekly behind was the helmet’s owner, a blond, terrifled German barely in his teens. “Christ, he’s younger than we are,” Hurley muttered. The Native soldier had found him hidden in a haystack.

  The old woman’s eyes lit up at the sight of the eggs and she was soon whipping up omelettes on the stove and pulling wine and bread from a locker for accompaniment. Taking a seat on a bench facing a rough wooden table, Hurley gestured for the German to join him. The woman shook her head and said, “No Tedeschi,” as the German started sitting down. Then more loudly: “No Tedeschi. No Tedeschi.” Hurley pointed the muzzle of his Thompson at her and replied evenly, “Si, Tedeschi. Si.” When the woman set an omelette before the German, she spit on it. Once the meal was finished, the Canadians could only await either the arrival of stretcher-bearers or Germans. With his limited ability to move and the severity of the injuries from which the others suffered, Hurley knew none of them could escape the ravine unaided. But they had their guns and ammunition and Hurley was determined that if the Germans found them there would be a fight before anyone surrendered. Late that night, a rescue party arrived and everyone was safely evacuated.12

  Meanwhile, the remaining Westminsters had continued trying to reach Coriano, with ‘C’ Company managing to reach the banks of the Besanigo River on foot before being stopped by heavy German artillery and mortar fire. Thinking this a promising gain, Corbould sent ‘A’ and ‘B’ companies to broaden the foothold. ‘B’ Company started forming up behind the crest of a small hill and ‘A’ Company on a tree-sheltered road. Both companies were ready to move, the regimental war diarist wrote, when “shells came like all hell turned loose. For what seemed an eternity, Jerry pounded shell after shell upon the forming-up place. Casualties were light but nearly all fatal.”13

  Shoving off anyway at 1300 hours, the two companies came up alongside ‘C’ Company an hour later despite being relentlessly battered by artillery and mortar fire. But even with three companies in line, the advance could not be renewed in the face of the German opposition
. At 1800 hours, elements of the Irish Regiment of Canada started filtering in to relieve the exhausted Westminsters, who were increasingly showing the effects of having been continuously on the move for nearly six days. In the early hours of September 5, they began withdrawing by platoon sections. As each group of men arrived in the rear area, they “just lay down and collectively went to sleep.”14

  While 5 CAD’s main attack force had been trying to reach Coriano by crossing Besanigo River, the Governor General’s Horse Guards ‘A’ Squadron had been trying to cover its left flank by staying up on the crest of the valley’s southern ridge. The terrain was typically confused and No. 4 Troop, which was in the vanguard, strayed off course and headed almost due west rather than northeastward, with the result that the squadron’s tanks were exposed on a downward slope to the German guns and observers on Coriano Ridge. Several 88-millimetres in front of Coriano village opened fire and pinned the squadron down. With one tank knocked out after another like ducks in a shooting gallery, ‘A’ Squadron was soon down to only three Shermans and those of its headquarters section. At 1130 hours, Lieutenant Colonel A.K. Jordan reported the dire situation to Major General Bert Hoffmeister and he ordered the squadron withdrawn.

  That proved easier said than done. The slightest movement of one of ‘A’ Squadron’s surviving tanks attracted immediate 88-millimetre fire and the squadron commander advised Jordan that the German gunners were so close they seemed to be firing over open sights. Finally, he asked for a fifteen-minute artillery concentration on the suspected antitank gun positions to cover the squadron’s retreat. The artillery fire enabled the surviving tanks to regain the ridge crest and the entire regiment, which had been following the leading squadron, slinked back to its starting point at Monte Gallera. Jordan informed his weary officers that “the show was off” and he expected an order to stand down in the morning for a badly needed rest period.15