The Gothic Line Page 4

  Vokes thought Burns—who had never held divisional or even brigade command—lacked the tactical perspective such battle experience would have provided. “As time goes on, he may better this tactical perspective but I doubt it, as he seems unwilling to accept advice from, or to give sound advice to, his subordinate commanders.” He concluded that he felt Burns “will never make a good corps commander.”

  Stuart looked to Vokes as if he had been kicked with a fork. “Generals Alexander and Leese have expressed a similar opinion,” Stuart said icily. “They have requested General Burns be replaced. I disagree with them and I disagree with your opinion. Will you give Burns your loyal support?”

  Unhesitatingly, Vokes answered that, “so long as I think he is performing in an adequate manner as corps commander,” he would support Burns.7 Vokes left certain that Burns’s command was assured, but the decision wrong-headed. He thought Burns should be replaced and, in the absence of a suitable Canadian officer, the replacement should be “an experienced British general in whom both Alexander and Leese reposed confidence.”8

  Also under protest, Hoffmeister, who at thirty-seven was the youngest Canadian general officer in Italy and one of the youngest in the Canadian army, similarly damned Burns’s abilities. Stuart’s written report to Crerar on July 21, however, gave an entirely different account of his meetings with these two officers. “Each [divisional commander]… was quite outspoken about the Corps Commander,” he wrote. “They respected his tremendous fairness in all his dealings with their Divisions. They respected his tactical knowledge and found no fault whatever in any tactical decision he had made during the last operation… They expressed themselves as being quite happy to go into the next operation under Burns and his present staff. They both hoped that I would speak to Burns regarding his manner and personality, and such was the only criticism I got from either.

  “My conversations with the two principal staff officers were productive of exactly the same results except that both were even more emphatic… regarding their complete confidence in the ability of the Corps Commander to make sound tactical and other decisions.”9

  When Stuart presented this sanitized version of his discussions to the corps commander, Burns promised solemnly that, “if given another chance, he would make a success of any operation entrusted to the Canadian Corps.” Stuart said he would propose to Leese and Alexander that Burns be allowed to prove himself in another operation. Should his performance at that time be found wanting, however, Stuart would “initiate action to have him replaced at once.”10

  En route to Lake Trasimeno, Stuart wrote: “As a result of meeting these officers and talking with them I was more convinced that there was nothing wrong with the Canadian Corps and that they would give an excellent account of themselves in any future operations. They were, I felt, a very happy family. There were excellent relations between Corps and Divisional staffs and the Corps staff itself was, I felt, a congenial and happy staff. In these circumstances, the alleged lack of confidence issue was a washout in so far as I was concerned.”11

  STUART REPORTED THAT his final meeting with Leese on July 14 “began in rather a stormy fashion.” Leese “lost his temper and accused me of criticizing many of the decisions he had made in respect to the Canadian Corps and even went so far as to suggest that I was trying to command the Eighth Army.” Stuart welcomed Leese’s loss of control, for it made it “easy to refute in turn every statement he had made. Also he was obviously rather ashamed of his outburst, which made the remainder of the conversation much more useful. I cannot say that he accepted the decision in good part, but he accepted it because he felt there was no alternative. We parted the same good friends that we have been for a number of years and I promised to return and see him if possible during, or immediately after, the next operation in which the Canadian Corps is engaged.”12

  Politeness aside, Leese was still fuming. No sooner was Stuart out the door than Leese fired off a letter to him summarizing Stuart’s purported findings from his visit to Canadian Corps headquarters and his proposals for the future. “I am therefore left with no alternative except to carry on with Burns, in whom I have no confidence,” he declared. “It is, of course, you and your Government alone who can appoint the Commander of a Canadian Corps, yet your decision cannot relieve me of the ultimate responsibility for the lives of Canadian troops serving with this Army… The decision to retain Burns makes my task as Army Commander more difficult. It makes my Army inflexible, since at any rate at first I shall not be able to employ Burns on any task which I consider beyond him. This is a further serious handicap, as through my lack of faith in their Commander, I may be prevented from employing my best troops on the most critical task. As I promised, everything in my power will be done so that the great prestige of Canadian troops may not be prejudiced.

  “While I will do my very best to train Burns, I must frankly say this with very little confidence.” Leese, ever the British gentleman, then closed: “I so much enjoyed having you to stay and do hope you will come to see us again whenever you can.”13 To his wife, Leese complained that Stuart “was not helpful about Burns. I shall, I am afraid, have to keep him, which will make this much more difficult as he is not up to standard & I do not believe in him.” He added that Stuart was “tiresome” and “very odd.” Leese thought Stuart had come to Italy with the intention “of forcing me to give Burns a second chance, rather like a second helping of suet pudding!”14

  AT BEST, Lieutenant General Tommy Burns was on probation. If I Canadian Corps fought its next battle well, Burns would keep his command. If it faltered, he would be dismissed. The psychological burden on Burns’s shoulders was, he wrote General Harry Crerar, “pretty shaking to me personally. . . . However, I look to the future to put the matter out of question.”15 Masking his inner anxieties, the dour lieutenant general betrayed no outward behavioural change. He continued to obsess over meticulous administrative details best left to subordinate staff officers and remained a stickler for the display of correct military form and protocol.

  Yet Burns was no fool. His assessment of the root causes of the corps’s failure in the pursuit phase that followed the breaching of the Hitler Line on May 24 was typically thorough. The prime requisite, he wrote, was speed. This called for “bold action—taking risks which in other circumstances might be reckless” in order to prevent the enemy from breaking off contact and having sufficient time to establish new defensive lines or to mount a counterattack. During the pursuit phase, 5th Canadian Armoured Division, particularly 11th Canadian Infantry Brigade, plodded forward while spending far too long building firm bases to meet counterattacks rather than plunging ahead to maintain contact with the Germans and deny them time to reorganize.16

  Burns was gravely concerned about 5 CAD’s inherent combat organization, which conformed to traditional Commonwealth doctrine regarding strength and unit composition. This meant that 5 CAD fielded two brigades—5th Canadian Armoured Brigade and 11th Canadian Infantry Brigade—supported by four artillery regiments, a motorized reconnaissance regiment (the Westminsters), engineering companies, and other miscellaneous specialized units. Neither tanks nor infantry could long survive on the modern battle-field without the support of the other, so the two brigades were equally balanced in size.

  There was, however, another organizational tenet fundamental to armoured divisions. Being a corps’s cavalry, they were supposed to dash through breaches opened by infantry divisions and cause chaos in the enemy’s rear. The armoured division’s raison d’être was to be extremely mobile and to deny the enemy opportunity to undertake an orderly withdrawal or to regroup. By cutting enemy units off from each other, overrunning artillery and headquarters units, and seizing bridge crossings, the division was to create general panic that reduced orderly withdrawal into rout.

  5th Canadian Armoured Brigade’s Shermans provided the division’s speed and hitting power, while the Westminster (Motorized) Regiment, with its Bren carrier- and armoured-personnel-carrie
r-borne infantry companies, could operate alongside the tanks. If necessary, the footsloggers of 11 CIB could ride atop the tanks in the manner the Soviet Army used to good effect in the open steppe country of the Eastern Front. Generally, though, 11 CIB’s role was to open holes for the tanks to drive through and then to mop up enemy units or strongpoints that the armoured brigade bypassed.

  While this composition of armoured divisions might have been sound during the North African campaign, the British quickly realized that it ill suited operations in Italy. The rugged hills, narrow valleys crisscrossed by endless series of rivers and irrigation canals, and dense foliage of olive orchards and vineyards made it virtually impossible for armoured divisions to function in accordance with standard operating doctrine. Tanks advancing without infantry protecting their flanks were routinely shot to pieces by hidden antitank guns or infantry armed with Faustpatrone antitank rocket launchers. Infantry perched precariously on tanks faced slaughter by enemy machine-gunners. When 5 CAD broke out from the Hitler Line, its armoured brigade was unable to charge forward on its own and the division was too weak in infantry regiments to quickly overcome determined German opposition.

  Burns had soon recognized the problem and rushed regiments from 1st Canadian Infantry Division forward to help. But these regiments were badly depleted by casualties suffered at the Hitler Line. When the battle was over, Burns knew that what 5 CAD really needed was more inherent infantry. On June 3, he advised Canadian Military Headquarters in London that 5 CAD needed two Canadian infantry brigades to work in succession with the armoured brigade, a reorganization that would mirror the constitution of British armoured divisions in Italy. In the British case, the 61st Infantry Brigade had been attached to the British 6th Armoured Division, while the 24th Independent Guards Brigade had joined the 6th South African Armoured Division.17

  General Oliver Leese and General Harold Alexander supported Burns’s suggestion. The Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, however, scuttled this plan. He insisted that any reinforcement units coming from Canada must serve in Western Europe.18

  Leese then suggested that Burns create a second infantry brigade out of units already in I Canadian Corps. The Westminster (Motorized) Regiment could serve as the brigade’s senior regiment and the Royal Canadian Dragoons—the corps’s reconnaissance regiment—could be unhorsed from their armoured cars to form another regiment. The light anti-aircraft regiment, little utilized now that the Luftwaffe had been largely chased from Italy’s skies, could be converted into the third regiment to form a complete brigade. Leese did not think it problematic that this plan actually only provided 5 CAD with two new regiments, since the Westminsters were already inherent to the division.19

  Burns sought a more radical reorganization that would also reunite all Canadian units in Italy under his command. On February 9, 1944, 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade had been removed from I Canadian Corps and attached to the British XIII Corps in response to criticism by Major General Chris Vokes that this brigade had poorly supported his division’s operations on the Ortona front. Burns now proposed that this brigade be returned to 1st Canadian Infantry Division. One of Vokes’s three infantry brigades would then be transferred to 5 CAD. This reorganization would transform 1 CID into an armoured division, while simultaneously giving 5 CAD the extra infantry brigade necessary to align it with Eighth Army’s new organizational model.

  Leese refused to release the Canadian tankers from XIII Corps. He considered 1 CAB “the most experienced armoured brigade in Italy and therefore in great demand.”20 Stonewalled by Leese, Burns had to abandon his plan and implement the alternative proposed by the Eighth Army commander.

  However, rather than dismounting the Royal Canadian Dragoons, Burns ordered 1 CID’s reconnaissance regiment, the 4th Princess Louise Dragoon Guards, unhorsed to serve in 5 CAD’s new infantry brigade alongside the Westminsters. The 89th and 109th Light Anti-Aircraft Batteries of the 1st Canadian Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment would provide the personnel for the third infantry regiment. With no infantry heritage to draw upon, the new unit provisionally retained its anti-aircraft regiment designation while taking on an infantry role. Burns, meanwhile, transferred the RCD from his direct control to Vokes, so that the divisional commander retained a reconnaissance regiment.21

  The new brigade—12th Canadian Infantry Brigade—was officially formed on July 13. Burns estimated that it added 79 officers and 1,269 other ranks to 5 CAD’s immediate fighting strength—less than a tenth of the division’s normal established strength of 750 officers and 14,219 other ranks. However, as the brigade’s personnel were all to serve as front-line combatants, the division’s fighting strength was increased by a full third.22

  Least affected by assignment to 12 CIB was the Westminster Regiment, which kept its motorized nature and simply shifted from independent status to being under brigade command. It was another matter for the Princess Louise Dragoon Guards. They not only lost their treasured armoured cars, but were also transferred from one division to another. Major General Chris Vokes was infuriated. He considered the Dragoons “a first-class, well-trained and experienced unit. I vehemently protested the removal of this unit from my command but received very short shrift.”23

  The regiment’s officers and other ranks were stunned by the news. Of the armoured cars, the regiment’s war diarist wrote: “Those were our homes for a long time, and no cavalryman ever felt sadder at losing a faithful and tried mount.”24 That very night the officers held a wake where “much vino was consumed in an effort to neutralize the pains of frustration, despair, and complete loss of morale.” A barrage of Very light signal flares, fired off in protest, soon lit the night. Tipsy officers were at a loss to control the demonstrating soldiers, but fortunately no casualties or damage resulted.25

  July 13 was dubbed “Black Thursday” by the PLDG. The next day, when Vokes attended a regimental farewell parade, a fresh grave stood in front of the mess. Painted on a cross were the words: “R.I.P., 4 Cdn Recce Regt. (4 P.L.D.G.) 13 Jul 44—STABBED IN THE BACK.”26 The PLDG officers invited their counterparts from other divisional regiments to a final cocktail party that evening. Again the men expressed their feelings by setting the sky red, white, and green with flares. And, recorded the war diarist, “our… celebration was augmented by the L.A.A. Regiment [1st Canadian Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment], whose barrage of Bofors ammunition considerably added to the display.”27

  Although the anti-aircraft regiment was already slated for disbanding, its men had served as gunners for four years. Now they were to fight as infantry, the most dangerous role on the battlefield and one for which they were untrained. Lacking a regimental name, they coined their own prophetic one—the Slaughterhouse Battalion.28

  On July 15, the two regiments joined 5 CAD at Ciaizzo, its base in the Volturno Valley. This was the last time the PLDG travelled in their armoured cars. Two days later, the vehicles were surrendered and they began infantry training. For twenty-three-year-old Sergeant Gordon McGregor, the transition from armour to infantry was particularly difficult. While working as a logger near Kamloops, B.C., McGregor had severed a tendon in his ankle with a chainsaw blade. The injury made it agonizing for McGregor to march more than about ten miles at a time. It was because of this injury that he had been transferred from the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada to the PLDG. Now he was back on foot and marching was proving as painful as ever.29

  BURNS KNEW THAT IF 12 CIB were to be melded into an effective fighting force it needed a veteran brigadier in command. He decided on 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade’s Brigadier Dan Spry. Noted for Boy Scout politeness and a gentlemanly manner, Spry had proven himself both concerned about the men under his command and an extremely capable fighting commander.

  Allan Calder, a Saskatoon Light Infantry brigadier, replaced Spry as commander of 1 CIB. Vokes didn’t know Calder and was concerned that the officer had no battlefield experience. However, he took an instant liking to Calder and decided that “alth
ough I might have to lend a helping hand during his first battle or two, it seemed… he had the makings of a good brigade commander.”30

  The Westminsters had a steady, proven hand in Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Corbould, while the Princess Louise Dragoons Guards were slated to lose Lieutenant Colonel Fred Dean Adams to promotion elsewhere. He was to be replaced by the regiment’s second-in-command, Major Bill Darling. As for the 1st Canadian Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, the veteran infantry commander Lieutenant Colonel W. Clement Dick took charge. Dick faced the difficult task of not only transforming the gunners into infantrymen, but also instilling a sense of esprit de corps unsupported by any links to traditional regimental pride.31

  Dick knew one thing for certain—this regimental name problem needed immediate addressing. He wanted a highland designation because the trappings of kilts, bagpipes, and other Scottish garb would provide an instant regimental identity. Lieutenant Colonel Ian Johnston, commander of the 48th Highlanders of Canada, endorsed the plan and suggested that the welfare organization of the 48th Highlanders back in Canada “could very well look after a second battalion overseas.” At a practical level, Spry noted in a July 20 letter, “shoulder titles and cap badges are available in this theatre” if the regiment became a 48th Highlander one. Dick liked the idea, but wanting a backup plan, he suggested the new unit might alternatively be designated the Lanark and Renfrew Scottish Regiment, after an unmobilized Ontario regiment.32