Ortona: Canada's Epic World War II Battle
Mark Zuehlke
Language: English
Pages: 464
ISBN: 1550545574
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In one blood-soaked, furious week of fighting, from December 20 to December 27, 1943, the 1st Canadian Infantry Division took the town of Ortona, Italy, from elite German paratroopers ordered to hold the medieval port town at all costs. Infantrymen serving in the Loyal Edmonton Regiment and the Seaforth Highlanders, supported by tankers of the Three Rivers Regiment, moved from house to house in hand-to-hand combat amid heavy shelling and wrested the town from the grip of the fierce German defenders. Getting into Ortona had been a battle of its own. Ortona, the pearl of the Adriatic, stands on a promontory impregnable from three sides, with seacliffs on the north and east, and a deep ravine on the west. The Canadian infantrymen, drawn from virtually every corner of Canada, attacked from the south under the command of Major-General Chris Vokes, fighting across narrow gullies, mud-choked vineyards and olive groves, into the narrow streets of Ortona itself. When the vicious battle was over, 2605 Canadians were dead or wounded. But the town that had become known as "Little Stalingrad" was now in Allied hands.
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of ‘C’ and ‘D’ companies and No. 4 Platoon (the Bren Carrier platoon) acting as straight infantry.7 Hodson’s small group crossed the start line, expecting a virtual walk in the park after the easy time the lead companies had enjoyed. For 200 yards it was just that, but suddenly an intense barrage of well-directed German artillery caught both No. 4 Platoon in the lead and the battalion HQ section at the rear. Three men were killed, several others wounded. No. 4 Platoon started taking concentrated
were lying on blankets stretched out on the floor. The place was chock-full of wounded soldiers, many in critical condition. Hoffmeister was deeply disturbed to see that nobody had taken the time to even clean up the wounded men. “They still had the original blood from their wounds on their faces and their hands,” he said later. Hoffmeister knew the male orderlies were doing the best they could for the men, but they were too few and were needed to perform basic first aid or to help out in the
from here to Piazza San Francesco on the southwest side of the town. Three large buildings dominated that square: the San Francesco cathedral, and the town’s school and hospital. Following a northwestern line from Piazza Plebiscita was Via Roma, which hooked into the coast highway to Pescara. Running almost directly north from the square was Via Tripoli, which angled to the left after about a quarter mile and met the coast highway. At that point, it was bordered on one side by an escarpment
opened the way for the Canadians to start breaking out from 1 CIB’s position to cut the coast highway and encircle the paratroopers inside Ortona.12 Unsure what the Germans were planning, Hoffmeister could only draft plans to either end the battle in a renewed offensive borne by the PPCLI, or to repulse a counterattack with the same battalion. He went into Ortona to carry out his daily visits to the two battalion headquarters there, and spoke with an obviously exhausted Lieutenant Colonel Syd
Canadians see the battle as spanning a time frame of December 5 to January 4. In the Italian mind, the battle lasted until the Allies left Ortona in the late spring of 1944. Not until the Allies were far enough north that the town and countryside were no longer subject to artillery fire or aerial bombardment did the battle end for them. Then there are the civilians killed even later by exploding shells and mines. Have they been counted? Antonio D’Intino buried several close friends and relatives
