Not All of Us Were Brave

0oOT ALL OF US WERE BRAVE

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NOT ALL OF Us WERE BRAVE Stanley Scislowski Perth Regiment

11th Infantry Brigade, 5th Canadian Armoured Division Foreword by Gavin K. Watt

DUNDURN PRESS TORONTO • OXFORD

Copyright © Stanley Scislowski 1997 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press Limited. Permission to photocopy should be requested from the Canadian Reprography Collective. Editor: Derek Weiler Designer: Scott Reid Printer: Transcontinental Printing Inc. Front cover photograph: A ghost-like image of an unidentified Canadian section moving up the line somewhere in Italy. (Scislowski collection)

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Scislowski, Stanley, 1923Not all of us were brave ISBN 1-55002-298-9 1. Scislowski, Stanley, 1923- . 2. World War, 1939-1945-Campaigns-Italy. 3. World War, 1939-1945 - Personal narratives, Canadian. 4. Canada. Canadian Army. Canadian Infantry Brigade, 11th - Biography. I. Title. D763.I813S35 1997

940.54'215

C97-931821-1

1 2 3 4 5 DW 01 00 99 98 97 ^^ »8o TH.CANA,MCou^777rL<sH, HEARTS K>R H A s!N a ,«71 ™™'A

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Book Publishing Industry Development Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credit in subsequent editions. Printed and bound in Canada.

Printed on recycled paper.

Dundurn Press 8 Market Street Suite 200 Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5E 1M6

Dundurn Press 73 Lime Walk Headington, Oxford England OX3 7AD

Dundurn Press 250 Sonwil Drive Buffalo, NY U.S.A. 14225

CONTENTS

Foreword by Gavin K. Watt

7

Introduction

11

Maps

13

Chapter 1 From the Holding Unit to the Perths

27

Chapter 2 From Timberwolfto our Battle Baptism

61

Chapter 3 The Winter Front

133

Chapter 4 In the Mountains at Cassino

165

Chapter 5 The Liri Valley Push

179

Chapter 6 Spearhead in the Gothic Line

225

Chapter 7 Into the Po Plains

275

Chapter 8 Assault Across the Lamone River

303

Chapter 9 The Battle of the Fosso Munio

325

Chapter 10 The Push to the Bonifica Canal

341

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FOREWORD

I

had the pleasure of meeting Stan Scislowski four years ago at a training weekend for the re-created Perth Regiment at CFB Borden. We had corresponded for quite some time and when the weekend approached, I invited him to come to meet the "new" Perths. Luckily, it was the same day as the D-Day Dodgers Reunion in Orillia, so Stan was close by and able to drop in. We were on the rifle ranges when Stan appeared with one of his buddies in tow. From the moment we "new" Perths met with Stan, heard his cheerful laugh and listened to his stories, we simply fell in love with the guy. Stan is a wonderful raconteur. There is always a touch of humour in his tales, no matter how sad or bloody they might be. He is totally unpretentious — an open book, and especially proud of his Perths and what they have accomplished! At the time, our organization was busily building two platoons. I had already recommended to my guys that we should take on the identity of Stan's old 18 Platoon. The guys simply acquiesced, since no one had a better idea and I was wearing the stripes. After they met Stan, and understood where my inspiration had come from, they enthusiastically embraced the idea. Jerry Jenkinson, an extremely knowledgeable military collector and member of our museum, introduced me to Stan. Jerry had a sample of one of Stan's battle accounts in his extensive collection and he sent me a

photocopy along with Stan's address. That is how our correspondence started. Stan had written other Perth battle accounts and had even selfpublished booklets about veterans' visits to Europe — two to Italy, another to France and Belgium. He sent them to me and I devoured them. I kept after him to complete more and more of his experiences. To be perfectly candid, like many history buffs and reenactors, my first interest was to absorb as much as I could find out about the regiment that we had been given permission to recreate. I simply wanted to soak up the lore. But, not too long after the chapters began to build up, I became very excited. It was clear that a book was emerging. Over the next couple of years, the accounts rolled in. I was absolutely positive that here was a book that Canadians needed. A book written, not by an historian, nor an officer or politician, or decorated hero, but by an ordinary Private soldier. One of the many who slogged up and down hills, paddled or waded the rivers and canals, who was scared, cold and hungry and fought the very best troops the Germans had available. Very fortunately, Kirk Howard of Dundurn Press agreed! Stan's is a first-person account, not one prepared by some impersonal third party. It's about a healthy, athletic and enthusiastic young man who, with great expectations, faces the horrors of repeated, grinding combat and physical and mental exhaustion and who discovers that he isn't likely to win any awards for valour. Stan's a guy who admits his failings, his fears, his petty prejudices and anger and who completely captures your heart with his skill at telling tales of wild, crazy and sometimes macabre adventures. And, here's a soldier who stuck it out no matter how scared he was; who kept his pride intact throughout; who did a job for his buddies, his platoon, his company, his regiment — all of whom had become his surrogate family and shared his life overseas. After being evacuated, the utter loneliness of separation from his friends pushes him over the edge into nervous exhaustion. Another element of interest in this book is its venue and its primary characters. As soon as the Allies landed in Normandy, Italy became a forgotten theatre. Canadian newspapers ignored that there were thousands of their countrymen fighting and dying in Italy; all the news was of France, then Belgium, then Holland and then Germany. Of course, fifty-three years later, stories of Italy scarcely reach Canadian consciousness. Worse, the Perth Regiment was struck-off-strength from the Reserve Army in 1965, a scant twenty years after the regiment contributed significantly to victory in Europe. Even the city of Stratford, which was once so proud of its county regiment has quite forgotten its existence, Therefore it is wonderful to have a new account of Italy and the old Perth Regiment that brings both into prominence again. 8

Foreword

Something that is striking about Stan's book is his remarkable memory for places, personalities and events and even the small details. He is the first to admit that no memory is perfect, but he's tested his stories against officially-sanctioned books, regimental histories, war diaries and his fellow vets and he's honed each of his accounts to where he's personally satisfied that the true essence is there. But, he stresses that not every story will be "bang on". After all, he was just one little cog in the massive wheel called the 1st Canadian Corps and his ability to see beyond his slit trench over the next hummock was understandably limited. It's Stan's persistence at working his stories, getting advice from other veterans, searching through hundreds of reference texts, comparing the Regimental War Diary to his memories — all of these activities have resulted in a fine work of history that is very much alive. Stan has provided a fine testimonial to this so-called cD-Day Dodgers' who fought so thanklessly in "sunny" Italy. Thanks go to a few Museum of Applied Military History members: First to Allan Joyner (Lieutenant, 18 PI, d Coy, Perth R. project), an eager historian and researcher, who has devoted hours of his time to searching through the National Archives Photography Section for images of 5th Armoured Division units. Thanks to Al's sharp eyes, the wonderful photos of llth Infantry Brigade in the Arielli action held in the collections of the Imperial War Museum in London have at last seen the light of day. Four are seen in the photo section of this book. To Brian Cox (a founding member of our Perth project), who many years ago when he was working for a publisher that had abandoned the idea of producing an illustrated history of the Canadian Armed Forces, had the foresight to save a great number of National Archives' photo prints from the trash. Several of these appear in the photo section. To Robert Romain (a Fallschirmjager of our Lkg Norden project) who spent an afternoon poring over his large collection of reference books to identify details on the uniforms of the three German paratroopers in the photo section. Bob's father fought in the IV Princess Louise Dragoon Guards alongside the Perths in many of the Italian actions. Gavin K. Watt, President Museum of Applied Military History King City, 1997.

Foreword

9

Canadian Army Units Frequently Mentioned in the Text 5th Armoured Division 3rd Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment (The Governor General's Horse Guards) 5th Armoured Brigade 2nd Armoured Regiment (Lord Strathcona's Horse Royal Canadians) 5th Armoured Regiment (8th Princess Louise's (New Brunswick) Hussars) 9th Armoured Regiment (The British Columbia Regiment) 11th Infantry Brigade 11th Independent Machine Gun Company (Princess Louise Fusiliers) The Perth Regiment The Cape Breton Highlanders The Irish Regiment of Canada 12th Infantry Brigade 12th Independent Machine Gun Company (Princess Louise Fusiliers) 4th Princess Louise Dragoon Guards The Lanark and Renfrew Scottish The Westminster Regiment (Motor) 1st Infantry Division The Saskatoon Light Infantry (M.G.) 1st Infantry Brigade The Royal Canadian Regiment The Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment 48th Highlanders of Canada 2nd Infantry Brigade Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada The Loyal Edmonton Regiment 3rd Infantry Brigade Royal 22e Regiment The Carleton and York Regiment The West Nova Scotia Regiment 1st Armoured Brigade 11th Armoured Regiment (The Ontario Regiment) 12th Armoured Regiment (Three Rivers Regiment) 14th Armoured Regiment (The Calgary Regiment)

INTRODUCTION

S

ince the publishing of this book comes fifty-three years after the events described herein, it's only natural that ex-comrade friends of mine who were also there will, no doubt, not entirely agree with everything I've written. I can only say on my behalf that this account is as accurate as memory (and letters to my family, written shortly after the fact) will allow. My apologies to those who find details which in their opinion are not quite accurate. I've considered this, and rather than not bring to light these particular passages simply because someone here and there might not wholly agree with them, I went ahead and left everything as I saw it. You could talk to five men who were in a certain battle and invariably you would hear five different versions of what happened. I remember one regimental reunion held five years or so after the war, when memories were still relatively fresh; I listened to my buddies rehashing the battles over beer. I recall conversations indicating that we were nearly wiped out here and there, and I remember thinking, "If we were nearly wiped out so many times, how is it that there are close to five hundred of us left to attend this reunion?" Everyone sees a battle in a different way and from a different perspective, depending on the ferocity of what is going on around them. No one's memory is foolproof. If every piece of war writing demanded absolute proof in every battle description, then no books would be published. In this respect, then, I ask readers to look at the overall picture I've tried to present here, and to overlook what they may believe wasn't

exactly so. I saw it my way, and this story has to be told my way. rather than hold back the battle accounts of a lowly infantryman like myself, I've gone ahead and written them anyway, for what they're worth. Had I depended on the regimental war diary for information, I'd have come up empty-handed. There wasn't a single entry I could use. To say I was dismayed is to put it in the mildest term. It is a crime that the Perth regiment's war diary was so poorly written. No historian or author could hope to write an accurate, interesting and definitive account of a regiment's actions in war without a properly and extensively written daily account. One does not sit in the comparative safety of a Battalion Headquarters and expect to know all that is going on at the sharp edge of battle. It is in that tiny piece of real estate surrounding the individual with weapon in hand and fear in heart that the real story is born. It's that story I've tried to tell here. I can only hope that this personal narrative will provide interesting reading for those who shared the same kinds of experiences, taking the bad along with the good, the sad with the glad, the serious with the hilarious — for all these were a part of our lives during the war. I dedicate this narrative therefore to those who walked the long corridor of fear and death by my side, and to all those who marched and fought in the ranks of the Perths. Walk with me page by page and you'll realize that your own story is not so much different than mine. They were unforgettable days, to be sure. Stan Scislowski

12

Not All of Us Were Brave

MAPS

1. The Attack Towards the Arielli — 17 January 1944 After this first action, the Perths moved to positions in front of Orsogna, about 8 miles to the southwest. (Sketch map 5 drawn by Capt. CCJ Bond, Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War, Volume II, The Canadians in Italy 1943-1945 [3 vols., Ottawa: 1966]) 2. The Italian Front — 1 IMay 1944 In March the Perths were withdrawn form the Orsogna area. After a period of training, they transferred to the west side of Italy and were committed to defensive positions northwest of Cassino. This map shows 1st Canadian Corps in 8th Army Reserve, just prior to the massive attacks on the Adolf Hitler line. (Map 12 drawn by Capt. CCJ Bond,o Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War, Volume II, The Canadians in Italy 1943-1945 [3 vols., Ottawa: 1966]) 3. The Breakout from the Hitler line — 24-28 May 1944 The Perths exploited across the Melfa and attacked Ceprano. (Map 14 drawn by Capt. CCJ Bond, Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War, Volume II, The Canadians in Italy 1943-1945 [3 vols., Ottawa: 1966])

4. Ceprano to Frosinone — 29-31 May 1944 The Perths took Pofi and Arnara. (Detail from Map 15 drawn by Capt. CCJ Bond, Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War, Volume II, The Canadians in Italy 1943-1945 [3 vols., Ottawa: 1966]) 5. Through the Gothic line — 31 August 1944 This map shows the Perth attacks of August 30 on points 111 and 147 followed by the dash to point 204 by the British Columbia Dragoons the next day. Late on August 31, the Perths, supported by tanks of Lord Strathcona's Horse, occupied point 204 and held it against determined counter-attacks during the night of August 3 I/September 1. (Map by S/SGT E.H. Ellward and MAJ C.C.J. Bond, Sinews of Steel; The History of the British Columbia Dragoons [Kelowna: The Whizzbang Assoc., 1965]) 6. The Gothic line and the Rimini line — 26 August-22 September 1944 This map show both German defensive lines, Coriano Ridge and the leave centre of Urbino. (Map by MWO R.W. Cole and W. Constable, The Gunners of Canada, Vol. II, 1919-1967 [Toronto/Montreal: RCA Assoc, 1972]) 7. The Battle of the Rivers — September 1944-January 1945 This map show the Fiumicino, Savio, Lamone, and Senio rivers and the location of the Fosso Munio. (Map by MWO R.W. Cole and W. Constable, The Gunners of Canada, Vol. II, 1919-1967 [Toronto/Montreal: RCA Assoc., 1972]) 8. Actions at Coriano Ridge — 13 September 1944 This map show the Perths, Capes and Irish crossing the Besanigo river and assaulting the Coriano feature. (Detail from Map 20 drawn by Capt. C.C.J. Bond, Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War, Volume II, The Canadians in Italy 1943-1945 [3 vols., Ottawa: 1966]) 9. The Crossing of the Savio — 21-28 October 1944 (Map 22 drawn by Capt. C.C.J. Bond, Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War, Volume II, The Canadians in Italy 1943-1945 [3 vols., Ottawa: 1966])

14

Maps

lO.The Lamone river, Borgo De Villanova and the Fosso Munio 10-21 December 1944 This map illustrates a tangle of regimental actions -— the Perths assaulted across the Lamone river and captured Borgo De Villanova. Six days later, they attacked across the Fosso Munio and closed up to the Senio river. (Detail from map 25 drawn by Capt. C.C.J. Bond, Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War, Volume II, The Canadians in Italy 1943-1945 [3 vols., Ottawa: 1966]) 11.Clearing to the Valli Di Comacchio — 2-6 January 1945 This map illustrates the crossing of the CanaleBonifica and action south of Lake Comacchio. The Perths were in position due west of San Alberto when stan was injured and evacuated on the night of January 13, the same night they were relieved by the Italians. This was the last Perth action in Italy. (Detail from map 25 drawn by Capt. C.C.J. Bond, Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War, Volume II, The Canadians in Italy 1943-1945 [3 vols., Ottawa: 1966])

Maps

15

1

16

Maps

p

5

20

Maps

6

Maps

21

7

22

Maps

CHAPTER 1

FROM THE HOLDING UNIT TO THE PERTHS

M

y hometown is Windsor, Ontario, home base of the Essex Scottish Regiment. So then, the reader might ask, "How come you ended up with a Stratford based unit?" Well, here's the story: If you were a draftee like I was, arriving overseas in 1943 you'd more than likely spent a couple of months in a holding unit in Aldershot Military District, which takes in a fairly large chunk of Hampshire County, England. After more training — actually a repetition of what you had in an advanced infantry training camp in Canada — you'd then be assigned to an infantry battalion of your choice. But for various reasons things didn't always work out that way — as I soon found out, much to my sorrow. You might just as well end up in any one of the other forty or so Canadian infantry battalions overseas. Chances were better, though, that you'd be assigned to a regiment from the military district in which you were sworn in. In my case, when draft day arrived I had a choice of either going to the Essex Scottish, the Highland Light Infantry of Canada, the Royal Canadian Regiment or the Perths. I'll tell you the sad story, or at least I thought it was sad at the time, of how I ended up with the Perths, and it certainly wasn't my first choice! In fact it wasn't my choice at all. More than five hundred men of No. 3 CIRU (Canadian Infantry Reinforcement Unit) formed up on the grey, overcast Wednesday morning of August 4, 1943, waiting to find out to which unit each of us would be assigned. It was a day we'd all been eagerly awaiting ever since we set foot in

Aldershot. The two training companies quartered in Salamanca and Badajoz Barracks were made up mostly of men from Windsor and District and neighbouring Kent County, so it was only natural that they should want to end up in the ranks of the Windsor-based Essex Scottish Regiment, and I was one of those. The major in charge of the drafting procedure, assisted by the RSM (regimental sergeant-major) instructed us to form up on the marker representing a certain regiment, when that regiment's name was called out. Simple enough. So, when the RSM barked out, "Fall out on the Essex Scottish marker!" the stampede was underway. More than three quarters of the parade broke ranks and went thundering across the square. From my position in the company formation I couldn't help but be well back, and though I could run faster than most of the fellows I couldn't get through the solid wall of khaki barring my way. By the time I jostled and shouldered my way to where I was able to form up, I found myself well down from the marker. But I didn't think it would matter—we'd all be going to the Essex. Not so. Then the RSM and the major counted files. And what do you know but they stopped counting about twenty files from where I stood. All those to the right of where the count ended had to go back to our original formation, now depleted considerably. I was one of the unlucky ones. It would be no Essex Scottish Regiment for me. I was devastated. All my hopes and dreams came crashing down. What a letdown! I wasn't the only one deeply disappointed. There had to be at least a couple hundred other guys like myself with long, hangdog expressions on their faces, every one of us crying the blues, moaning over the fact that we'd end up in a regiment not of our choosing. "How could they do this to us?" was the general feeling throughout as we waited for the next regiment name to be called out. Second choice for most of the remainder seemed to be the Highland Light Infantry. So when the next "Fall out!" came, this time for the HLI, it was another mad scramble. Again the sprint. Again no luck. The regiment from Gait didn't need anywhere near as many replacements as the Essex. Once again the count stopped a few files down the line from where I hopefully stood. I got the chop. Two regiments left to choose from. Which one would it be for me? Since the RCR (Royal Canadian Regiment) was one of Canada's premier regiments, and since the name had that ring of glory to it, how could I not want to march and fight in its ranks? As for the Perths, the name meant nothing at all to me except the fact that I had done some shooting on the rifle range in the basement of their Armoury in Stratford. 28

Not All of Us Were Brave

"Fall in for the RCRs!" came the stentorian shout of the RSM. And once again I didn't make it. Where else was there to go but the Perths? To say I was despondent was to put it in the mildest of terms. I was devastated. And so my name was recorded on the Perth Regiment draft sheet along with about a dozen and a half others who, by the looks on their faces, were about as unhappy as I was. I might mention here one incident that happened to me as a trainee at No. 3 CIRU before I go on, in which I tried to look like a hero to the 150 other guys in the training company. This happened on the grenade range just outside Aldershot. After going flawlessly through the prescribed way of throwing the No. 36 segmented grenades, a popular and very effective weapon used in World War I, Sergeant-Major Randerson, in command of the range and a weapons expert of some note, gave us a brief instruction on the newest brainwave known as the No. 74 "sticky bomb," a weapon designed to knock out tanks. When he was through he called for three volunteers to go with him and a sergeant to the beat-up old hull of a World War I tank about three hundred yards away. I promptly stepped forward along with two other glory-seekers, and the three of us, along with the Randerson and the sergeant, struck off across the barren field to see what this newfangled anti-tank weapon could do. On reaching the blasted remains of the hull of what appeared to be a vintage-1918 tank, Randerson gave another brief demonstration on the handling and application of the bomb. One thing he stressed was to give it a good whack against the hull, not merely attach it. Then he pointed out two slit-trenches about ten yards away, telling us to take cover there. Both trenches were large enough to hold three men — one was for him and his assistant, the other for us "show-offs." "Okay, you got that straight then?" the unsmiling, no-nonsense company sergeant-major asked. "Who'll be the first?" I wanted to be first, but lost out to one of the others. The lad, a picture of confidence, let fly the hemispheres, then slammed the bomb against the hull with a solid crack. We were off like a shot out of hell for the trench. We'd also been warned to open our mouths wide and stick our fingers in our ears so that the blast wouldn't rupture our eardrums. Then, BANG! What a hell of a blast! Unbelievable! It blew a sizeable hunk of metal off the hull, sending it flying through the air right over our trench in the most frightening, godawful scream. Right then and there I wanted no part of what I had volunteered to do. But there was no way I could back out of it now unless I wanted to make myself look like a big chicken in front of the entire company. My turn came next, not by choice but simply because Randerson From the Holding Unit to the Perths

29

handed me a bomb and said, "Now, soldier, do your stuff." I stood there for a moment almost mesmerized, staring at the bomb in my hand. When I returned to reality I nervously flicked off the protective hemispheres, revealing the softball-sized glass flask filled with nitroglycerine, covered with a stockinette material and coated with a thick layer of honeycoloured adhesive. As I was about to slam it against the hull, the sticky globe somehow got stuck to my right trouser leg. In rising panic I pulled it free and then applied it to the hull, but not with a smash as I was supposed to, but with what was more of a love-tap. Back in the trench, with my mouth open so wide it hurt, my fingers jammed tight in my ears I waited for the awesome blast. Five seconds went by — no explosion. Ten seconds — no explosion. Fifteen — still no explosion. What the hell went wrong, I wondered? Instead of one earth-shattering blast, there was another kind of explosion, that of Randerson running off at the mouth like no selfrespecting senior NCO ought to behave. Man, was he ever mad! I peeked over the edge of the trench and saw a deep-flushed face, fulminating in fury as he strode up to the hull where I'd applied the bomb so weakly. I crawled out, a little slower than the other two, and nervously approached the hull, expecting all of us to get blown sky-high any second. Randerson lit into me with a verbal tirade that ripped me apart from asshole to breakfast. And all I could do was stand there and take it and feel myself getting smaller by the minute. Why hadn't the bomb gone off? The only thing I could think of that might have caused the misfire was that in the momentary panic of pulling the sticky bomb off my trousers and then getting ready to apply it to the hull, I must have relaxed my hold on the handle enough to allow the safety lever to lower the striker, so that it didn't strike the fuze with enough force to set it off. Anyway, this brave individual who sought to impress his comrades in the art of battle had been rudely knocked off his imaginary pedestal. In fact, I was so ashamed of my lousy performance and humbled by Randerson's heated oratory that I felt utterly worthless. My self-esteem took a dizzying plunge, and that night when I climbed into my wooden cot in Badajoz Barracks, I tossed and turned and wrestled with my conscience until well past midnight before I finally drifted off to sleep. But before I nodded off I swore to myself that never again would I try to prove I was something I was not. Shortly after breakfast the four drafts began departing Aldershot. It was tough having to say so long to friends I'd made in Basic Training at McLagan Barracks in Stratford, in Ipperwash, and now here at No. 3 CIRU. What lucky guys they were, those that landed in the ranks of the Essex Scottish, and even those that went to the HLI and the RCR. I felt like that 30

Not All of Us Were Brave

little weasely fellow in the "Li'l Abner" comic strip, Joe Btfsplk — the hardluck guy with the wide-brimmed hat pulled down over his eyes who went around with a perpetual black cloud over his head, lightning shooting out of it. Everything went wrong for him, as it was now going wrong with me. The tiny Perth draft was the last to leave, climbing aboard the trucks about mid afternoon for the short ride to Farnborough Station, where we caught the Southern Railway train for Waterloo Station. There we transferred to a train that would deliver us to an out-of-the way station about ten miles from Hunstanton-on-the-Wash, where the Perths were located. On hand to receive us was a lowly corporal, an indifferent one at that. I thought we'd be accorded some kind of formal welcome into the regimental family, with the second in command or the RSM to greet us, but all we got in the way of a reception was one disinterested Corporal and three equally indifferent drivers. The Windsor Hotel, taken over by the British Army long before for billeting purposes, was to have been our quarters, but as it turned out, beds for only ten men were available. So eight of us made the short trek down the street with our burdensome load of full kit and two kit-bags each to take over billets above a small radio repair shop. Quite a few Perths were walking about on the streets, and I couldn't help but notice that not one of them so much as gave a glance towards the newcomers. "What a deadbeat outfit," I mumbled to myself as I struggled with my two kit bags and packs up the narrow stairs. It really wasn't all that bad of a place, just two small eight-by-eight rooms, with a toilet and a washbasin down the hall. We at least enjoyed a measure of privacy. Otherwise, sleeping accommodations weren't any different than in Aldershot, since we still had to put up with steel-slatted, uncomfortable wooden bunk beds, with the guy on the bottom bunk just six inches off the floor. The unlucky one who got the bottom bunk had to be blessed with the agility and flexibility of a gymnast to climb into bed and to roll out of it in the morning. And he also found out that it was a lot chillier near the floor than it was in the upper bunk. Our first meal in the regimental mess was definitely not something to write home about unless to describe how bloody awful it was. We arrived just as the companies had finished their evening meal and most of them had gone back to their quarters. The cooks, "God bless their unfriendly souls," were nice enough, though somewhat disgruntled to have to serve the latecomers what was left of the slop. And slop it was. Even worse than what we'd been served on the troopship Andes. It was so bad I wouldn't have fed it to a starving dog. The pork and beans were cold and tasted terrible. The bacon was almost all fat, and what little lean there was was stringy and indigestible. The broiled potatoes tasted like they'd been stored a little too From the Holding Unit to the Perths

31

long in a basement or root cellar. I actually gagged trying to eat the stuff, and finally had to give up. It was a wonder the men who sat down here before us hadn't rioted. Famished though I was, I walked over to the swill cans by the exit door and dumped the works. Even the tea was lousy. All four of the garbage-can sized receptacles were full of the slop. The only redeeming feature of this inedible meal was that the Norfolk County pigs would be having a dandy feast next day. They wouldn't be quite as fussy as I was. I looked around hoping to see the orderly officer of the day to let him know how bad the food was, but he was nowhere to be seen. Then I thought it mightn't be a wise move on my part, being a newcomer, to start complaining the minute I joined the regimental family. It just might be asking for trouble later on down the line. Before retiring for the night, I learned that the Perths were in the 11th Infantry Brigade of the 5th Armoured Division, and that The Irish Regiment of Canada and the Cape Breton Highlanders were the other two units in the Brigade, with the Westminster Regiment as the motorized component. It was the first time I'd ever heard of these regiments. Nor had I been aware there were such regiments as the Lord Strathcona Horse, the British Columbia Dragoons and the New Brunswick Hussars, which made up the 5th Armoured Brigade in the division. A whole new and exciting military world was opening up for me as my first day in the Perths came to a very subdued close. Hunstanton is situated on the northeast shoulder of Norfolk County where the North Sea enters the bay or inlet known as The Wash. This was East Anglia, targeted by the Luftwaffe in their daily strafing and low-level bombing raids. These were known as "Tip and Run Raids," the planes sweeping in at wavetop level, machine-gunning as they hit landfall and then climbing abruptly as they dropped their 250 pound bombs indiscriminately. There was no military purpose to these raids. The civilian population, homes, churches, and cinemas bore the brunt of these sneak attacks. In effect, they were nothing more than nuisance raids. So here we were, front-row centre, and I was fair "chafing at the bit" for one of the enemy planes to show up so I could get a few potshots at the bastards. In the two weeks we spent at Hunstanton, on only a couple of nights did an enemy plane fly over, but it was so high up that chances of getting a bead on it were nil. In fact I never was able to pinpoint one up in that starlit sky. It was the first time I heard that peculiar unsynchronized beat of German engines. After that, there was never any mistaking whose plane it was. One night on sentry duty at Battalion Headquarters (BHQ), I heard the approach of an enemy plane from the east droning high in the sky above the town. Back and forth it went in that vrum-vrum, vrum-vrum, 32

Not All of Us Were Brave

vrum-vrum beat that became so familiar to everyone. After circling in the inky darkness for about ten minutes it flew off towards Boston on the other side of The Wash, where a trio of searchlight beams fingered the sky trying to locate the intruder. Then the sound of its engines died away as the plane turned eastward back to the continent. Fortunately for us and the town's citizens it had only been a reconnaissance plane. The Wash is famous for its tides. From the earliest times the irresistible sea has waged a constant eroding attack against the coast, undermining the chalk cliffs and washing away huge sections of arable land. But the hardy farmers of coastal Norfolk were not to be denied their right to farm the land, and in their determination, they fought the sea with everything in their power. Their concerted efforts eventually slowed down the erosion of their priceless land, but throughout the centuries the battle has been a neverending one, and though lessened in intensity, the fight still goes on. Standing on the wet sand of The Wash when the tide is out, you can see at once what centuries of sea action have done to the cliffs. The everlasting pounding of the waves at high tide has crumbled the face of layered chalk into great mounds of rubble. We transients knew nothing of this serious problem confronting the good people of Norfolk, as they strove to save their land and livelihood from the sea's relentless pounding. Unaware of the geophysical history of Norfolk County, all we were concerned about was what the Daily Syllabus and Part II Orders had in store for us, and what pleasures and comforts might come our way in the evenings or on the weekend. Very few, if any, took the time to look into the town's or the region's history. Hunstanton had been a popular seaside resort in peacetime when throngs of people came from all over England for a weekend or a summer's vacation. The hotels, restaurants and stores did a land-office business. Then the war came, followed by Dunkirk, and suddenly the town was empty except for its own citizens. Only when army units began to be stationed here did the town slowly come alive again, but it wasn't a merry-making crowd that walked about on the streets, or promenaded along the seafront, or lolled about on the great spread of greensward sloping gently down to the promenade. The khaki-clad newcomers, although they could be boisterous and fun-loving at times, were a far cry from the colourful and happy crowds that had populated the town before the war. With the pleasure seekers long since gone, successive waves of army units came, stayed for a time, and went on to other destinations. And now, with the fortunes of war turning slowly in our favour, it was llth Brigade enjoying the scene and the little amenities the town offered. Like other units, they From the Holding Unit to the Perths

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would leave their mark, insignificant as it might be, in the collective memory of the friendly citizens of Hunstanton. What wonderful times they were, to go idly strolling about, without a care in the world, along the waterfront, lolling about on the greensward, or watching with interest as townsfolk plucked periwinkles out of the sand and ate them. They dug them out of the shell by inserting a pin, extracted them and popped them into their mouths. How they could do it was beyond me. And then there were the pleasant hours spent sitting on the greensward ogling all the pretty girls strolling along the waterfront, and watching the tides come in at night. Like everyone else, I was forever on the lookout for some pretty and accommodating young lady to spend the evenings with. But this was easier said than done. Competition was simply too stiff, what with something like five thousand like-minded specimens of virile young Canadian manhood stationed in and around the town. Any attractive young lady worth being seen with had already been latched onto, leaving the overwhelming rest of us unfulfilled and having to find some other less exciting and pleasurable means to fill out our free time. My first night in Hunstanton was of the shorter variety. Reveille came at 0400 hours instead of the usual 0600. Someone came busting into our cozy little rooms over the radio repair shop hollering "Wakey! Wakey! Wakey! Everybody up! Hey, hey, hey! Let's get cracking! Nip, nip, nip!" It took a minute or two of rubbing the sleep out of our eyes to wonder what the hell was going on. "Who's that yappy sonofabitch waking us up at this ungodly hour? Keerist! it's only four o'clock! Bugger off you bastard!" From every bunk the comments rang out. Someone had to be playing a game on us. But it was only too true. A corporal entered our domicile in a more civilized manner and explained to us in a quieter, more measured and civilized tone, "Okay, fellas, let's get hustling now. This is no joke. Fall in outside for roll call in fifteen minutes." With sleep still heavy in our eyes we dressed in a hurry and trooped slowly and reluctantly out to the street where we were confronted by a crowd milling about. "What the heck's going on?" I wondered. Shouting NCOs gradually brought us out of chaos and we fell into some semblance of paradesquare order. I still didn't know what the heck was coming off until word got around that we were going on an exercise and that as reinforcements we were being parcelled out to the three rifle companies. I ended up in 9 Platoon, "Able" Company, with Corporal Bob Turnbull as my section leader. Much later on in Italy, Bob was 18 Platoon Sergeant for a short time until he was transferred to another company and much later on, at the Gothic Line in Italy, he was severely wounded. (A good man — I hated to see him go.) 34

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For the present, the regiment was organized on a three-rifle company basis, having gone through several changes since mobilization, from threeto four-company pattern and back to three. For SNAFFLE, as the upcoming exercise was code-named, it would carry out its role with a three riflecompany pattern, but on returning it would go through its final transformation to a four rifle-company organization in which it would remain throughout the balance of the war. Exercise Snaffle Every exercise, scheme and major operation was given a code-name, such as BATTLE, VIKING, SPARTAN, TORCH, OVERLORD, etc. These made sense and were at once strong and appropriate. On the other hand, there were names given to exercises and schemes that made no sense at all, like MOUSE, NIGHTIE, DITTO, MOPSY and FLOPSY. SNAFFLE fell in this latter category of uninspiring, silly code-names. This exercise, by the time it was finished, would have been more aptly named SNAFU, the acronym for SITUATION NORMAL ALL FUCKED UP. It turned out to be an example of troop movement brought to the height of confusion and ineptitude. Nothing went right. From beginning to end it was nothing but a complete bollocks. Our column of vehicles got underway with a ten-minute ride and then we stopped. Ten minutes went by as we waited — for what, we hadn't a clue. It was a hint of things to come. We got rolling again, with the wheels on our three-ton Dodge humming for another five minutes, then slowed, then stopped again. We sat for another ten or fifteen minutes wondering what the big hold-up was. Moved for less than a mile — stop. From here on in, for the better part of the next two hours it was nothing but roll, brake, roll, accelerate, brake, pull over to the side of the road, park for a longer spell, back on the road again, five minutes freewheeling, stop for a pee break, climb back up to your seat, breathe blue exhaust fumes for ten more minutes and then get on our way again, but not for long. The same routine over and over again. Maddening! Sergeants shouting, corporals shouting, officers waving arms. MPs directing traffic and arguing with officers. It was a schamozzle! No matter which way we looked at it, the scheme, only hours old, was already a monumental screwup. Nothing made sense. Nobody seemed to have a clue as to where we were, what our objective was to be, and how we were supposed to go about achieving it. This was the first of many occasions in which the infantry were mishandled "en route," not knowing what the hell was going on. What a way to fight a war! From the Holding Unit to the Perths

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Actually, from what I learned some years after the war when I read Lieutenant-Colonel Nicholson's book With the Canadians in Italy, 5th Armoured Division's role in SNAFFLE was a straightforward one. Its objective was to seize a fictional chromium mine defended by the 1st Polish Armoured Division. It resulted in one hell of a fiasco, a poorly run show in every way. There were times when the Perths and the Westminster convoys got tangled up on the same narrow road, one going one way, one the other. The air was not only blue with exhaust fumes, but also with every choice expression in the Canadians' lexicon of swear words. Everyone above the rank of sergeant was hurrying about every which way shouting orders but getting nowhere. Somehow, though I'll never know how, the units were untangled, sorted out and sent on their respective ways. Although we were an armoured division, and our enemy likewise, I can't recall having seen tanks, ours or theirs, at any time throughout the scheme. All I ever saw was Bren carriers and a few armoured cars. In fact, Able Company didn't get to see a single Polish infantryman. And even if we had, I wondered how we would have been able to tell them apart from our own boys? We all wore basically the same battledress and the same style of helmets. Up to this point, everything I could see told me the whole show was devolving into one big dandy "balls-up" affair. As it was, we never did run into the Poles. What a waste of effort, fuel, and time! No one, from division commander all the way down to private, seemed to know what the hell was going on for the whole time we were chasing all over the countryside looking for an enemy. It was a classic case of the blind leading the blind. We'd gone the whole day without a bite to eat and when the ration truck finally caught up to us in the wild scrubland somewhere out in the Norfolk boondocks it was the only time we exhibited any enthusiasm. We were famished, and literally tore open the wooden box of compo rations in our eagerness to get at the contents. The box contained enough food to feed a platoon for one full day. I don't remember all the items, but I'll never forget the canned bacon: crap! That's about the best way I can describe it. It most certainly wasn't the quality product that has made Canadian bacon famous all over the world. All it was was a solid glob of fat wrapped up tight and packed in a can. Of course there was bully-beef (the canned Fray Bentos Argentine variety), cans of meat-and-vegetable stew, steak-and-kidney pudding, packets of a tea-sugar-powdered milk mixture, a jar of marmalade so bitter it puckered the mouth, and a couple of loaves of bread. Although these rations could sustain us for a day, by no stretch of the imagination could it be said that we licked our chops before and after consuming the stuff. In fact I ate just enough to tide me over till 36

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breakfast — such as it turned out to be. I lost four pounds over the three days of our helter skelter "know not what we do" exercise. Late in the afternoon of the third day the exercise mercifully came to an end. There was no mistaking our relief that it was over and done with and that we were on our way back to billets in Hunstanton. It was a time for celebration, so, the "piss-cutters," the "don't give a hoot for nothing" guys in the battalion (the Perths had quite a few) decided to use up their ample supply of thunderflashes. As the Perth convoy rolled slowly through King's Lynn in the gathering darkness of evening, they lit them and tossed them at the feet of the strollers on the sidewalks of High Street scaring the bejeezus out of them. It's a wonder these powerful dynamite-size fire crackers didn't injure someone. It was inevitable that within an hour after the regiment's arrival in Hunstanton Lieutenant-Colonel Lind should get a phone call from the authorities in King's Lynn reporting the despicable incident. Since the culprits were unknown and no one owned up to the evil deed, nor would witnesses come forward to identify the guilty parties, the CO had no recourse but to write a letter of apology to the mayor of the town, assuring him that the dastardly culprits would be found out and severely dealt with. However, the CO had more important things on his mind, like getting the regiment in shape to fight a skilled enemy, than finding pranksters. The guilty persons were not found, and the incident was soon forgotten. Dog Company Resurrected With the redesignation of the Perths from "motor" to straight "infantry," it was necessary to reorganize a fourth rifle company. This came about the day after we returned from SNAFFLE — August 14,1943. Most of Dog Company's strength was made up of personnel who had been posted to the regiment from holding units over the past two months, with the balance coming from the existing three rifle companies, the so-called originals. The general feeling, or so it seemed at the time, amongst these originals was bitterness at having been thrust against their will into the ranks of the "Johnny-come-lately" draftees. For some unwarranted reason they looked upon us as though we were "zombies," that scorned classification of homeservice-only lowlife known officially as "Reserves." It didn't take them long, however, to realize we weren't as "green as grass" as they thought we were, and were in fact as good at soldiering as they were. By the time we were on our way to Italy we were all pretty close to being one big happy family. Now I'll attempt here to detail more or less the command structure of the company at its reformation. Taking over command was an inordinately From the Holding Unit to the Perths

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young (21) captain, William (Sammy) Ridge of Millbrook, Ontario. We never called him by his proper Christian name, only as Sammy. Why Sammy? Well, according to the man himself, he'd been quite a power hitter on his local baseball team, and what could be more natural than for his teammates to start calling him Samson and then Sammy. And so the nickname stuck. Ridge led the company all through the Italian campaign and then through Holland with distinction and with firm and fair discipline. He wasn't the kind to waste lives through foolhardy ventures for the sake of quick promotion. And he wasn't the kind to go looking for medals at other people's expense. He did what had to be done, and we did what was expected of us in a manner that showed the kind of leadership we had. This reflected on us in the growing respect shown by our senior companies. What more could we have asked? Nos. 16, 17 and 18 Platoons were commanded respectively by Lieutenants Frank Switzer of Wallaceburg, Bill Hider of Drumbo (near Woodstock), and Laurent Menard from some small town outside Ottawa. The latter stayed with us until shortly after we arrived in Altamura, when he went to the newly formed Scout Platoon. In the short time we had Menard as a Platoon Commander we established a good relationship with him and considered him to be a sound and trustworthy leader. Our Company Sergeant-Major was Don Habkirk of Teeswater, Ontario, while the Platoon Sergeants were stocky Ab Scammel (No. 16), scholarly looking Don Mcllwain (No. 17), and big and burly Pete McRorie (No. 18). Pete was an OHL hockey star and NHL prospect until he joined the army. He was one hell of a respected senior NCO in the short time he was with us, and I'm sure we would have liked to go into action with him. When Pete moved over to another company, his replacement, Jack Leghorn out of London, gave us no cause for encouragement when we first laid eyes on him. Jack lacked the stature and the solid, soldierly look of McRorie. His less-than-athletic physical appearance, and that long, thin, pale face of his most certainly did not instill in us the confidence a man needs in his Platoon Sergeant on the battlefield. He looked more suited to sitting behind a desk at Canadian Military Headquarters than commanding an infantry platoon. However, he sure fooled us. And now down to the lower echelons of company command, the section leaders and lance corporals who make up the central nervous system of any platoon. Without good section leaders, no platoon can hope do an effective job in an attack or on defence. In No. 7 section there was Corporal Bob Adair from Windsor, a handsome Clark Gable type formerly with the Essex Scottish. Eight section was handled by Corporal Reg Gore of Ottawa, a tall, good-looking broth of a lad who had all the 38

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attributes of a Coldstream guardsman about him. Nine section leader was Corporal George Haynes, one of the Stratford originals. George was with us until a week before we departed Camp Barton Stacey. Replacing him was Lance-Corporal Bill Johnson, a butcher's apprentice who worked at Loblaws in London. Now we get down to the lance corporals: Harman (Chick) Cawley, a Hogtowner in HQ Section, bulky Mel Brown also out of Toronto in 7 Section, Bill Brant (not his real name) from Gait as 8 Section lance-jack, and George Pollock of 9 Section. Even in training, no body of troops remains constant. Men come and go on a regular basis for various reasons. Some get sick and go to hospital for short or extended periods depending on the severity of the illness. Others are sent on courses or are transferred to other companies, or occasionally transferred to other regiments. A few end up "in the digger" (detention barracks). These habitual troublemakers, and those who can't or won't conform to regimental discipline, or who show little or no enthusiasm towards training are usually shipped out to reinforcement units for reassignment. New people come in to take their places. Later on, when the regiment is committed to battle or even simply holding down static positions, the changes in personnel come much more frequently, especially after a particularly hard piece of fighting. They arrive in greater numbers depending on the casualty rate. For all the movement of personnel in and out, the regimental character on the whole remains much as it was in the beginning. Enough of the old boys are always around to maintain that intangible quality that characterizes the performance and spirit of the regiment. It's sort of like a heritage carried through family generations; in this case, it was the regimental family. It's impossible for me to give an accurate character study of every man that made up the original No. 18 Platoon, and to recall in what section he soldiered. I, for one, started out in 9 Section, but in Italy ended up in 8 Section where I stayed throughout the campaign. As with all the people you come into contact with in your lifetime, some stand out in the memory clearly, while with others you have to strain the memory cells to resurrect their name, their general appearance and how it was you got to know them. Still others have faded from the memory for no apparent reason you can think of. In the case of 18 Platoon I'll do my best to describe them and hope I come close to what kind of persons they were. Some I've looked on with admiration and respect, some more so than others. Some were just nice guys to be around, nothing out of the ordinary about them. A very few with qualities of character only a mother could put up with, I never did get to admire, though I did my very best to do so. Some were quite amusing From the Holding Unit to the Perths

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characters, while others made no special waves, but I remembered them just the same. All in all, collectively they were as good a bunch as you would find in any other regiment. The first of the original No. 18 Platoon that comes to mind is a blocky, heavy-shouldered French-Canadian from Ottawa. This rough-hewn but likeable character was Edgar Desjardins. When I first laid eyes on him I saw at once a striking resemblance to the famous French wrestler of those days, Maurice Tillet, also known as the French Angel, from whom Desjardins naturally got the nickname "Angel." As he used to say in that Quebec accent, "Don't call me H'Edgar, call me H'Angel." Although Angel didn't appear to be blessed with an overabundance of academic intellect, he certainly was no dummy when it came to soldiering. His stamina and strength were close to legendary. If there was anything Angel loved more, outside of his family and the odd wayward girl, it had to be his Bren gun. He pampered it like one would a new car, forever wiping it down with oil till it gleamed like polished ebony. The Bren weighed twenty-six pounds, which doesn't seem like a heck of a lot, but when carried on the shoulder on a twenty-mile route march over hill and dale and along hard and hot asphalt roads, it could get to feel more like a ton, especially when the carrier had to break into a run. Angel handled his beloved Bren like it was a pea-shooter. Then there was Jimmy Hanagan with his pencil-thin moustache and his Hollywood good looks. When I first met the guy I didn't know how to take him. I mistook him for being a little "queer." His hand movements and his facial expressions when speaking were somewhat effeminate, suggesting he might prefer the company of men rather than women. Even when I got to know him better I still wasn't quite sure what his preference might be. Though I liked the guy, I was always wary of him. What made me think otherwise was his success rate at scoring with the ladies. After a while in Italy I came to the conclusion Jim was straight after all, not only as a man, but as a friend. Bill Robotham came from the cheese country around Ingersoll and was a bit of a character in his own right in the country hick sort of way. Bill's ongoing problem, especially after our arrival in Italy, was his feet. He could never seem to keep them warm enough for his liking. He was forever moaning about how cold they were. To look at him you'd hardly think he was the lover-boy type. Bill was gaunt, sallow, sad-eyed, spare of frame, not athletically coordinated, and had a voice with a trace of a whine to it; you wouldn't think Bill could ever latch on to a girl and have a torrid relationship going. We underestimated him. He did far better than most of us. And as for his soldiering abilities, you wouldn't expect him to "win the 40

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stick" on inspections. But the lack of parade-square smartness didn't prevent him from being steady on the battlefield. Bill was as steady as they come in our first battle near Ortona, and he was one of the better people I've known in the army. Mel Brown, one of several Toronto boys in the platoon, was close to six feet tall, and a little on the heavy side. Let's just say his body type looked to be a little out of place in a fast-moving infantry platoon. Mel was partial to jazz music. Whenever the conversation got around to famous personalities in the world of jazz, like Gene Krupa, Glen Miller, Harry James, Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman, Mel's eyes would light up and he'd get carried away impressing us with his vast knowledge of the subject. He was a walking encyclopedia when it came to popular music. I remember Mel getting parcels from home and invariably a couple of Downbeat magazines. Mel would leaf through these magazines even before he'd start reading his letters. He had a good singing voice, along with others in the platoon, namely "Chick" Cawley, Reg Gore, and Bill "Johnny" Johnson. This talented group of singers often entertained us in the evenings with their renditions of old favourites, harmonized to the accompaniment of a harmonica played by Art Gallant. The one we liked best by far was that nostalgia-evoking Stephen Foster melody, "In the Evening by the Moonlight." It damn near brought tears to my eyes every time they sang it. Tony Wanner, a pleasant-faced, good-looking lad from Estevan, Saskatchewan, was a quiet, unassuming type. There wasn't a thing about him that you couldn't like. On inspection parades or when he was on a weekend pass to London he was a regular fashion plate. No matter how I might labour in pressing and taking care of my uniform, polishing my boots, blancoing my web, setting the angle of my wedge cap, I could never approach the preciseness of Wanner's appearance. The guy should have been a model for recruiting posters. Nothing was ever out of place. To look at him, you'd find it hard to believe that within that five-foot, seven-inch immaculate framework beat a fighting heart. The man was totally unflappable in almost any situation in battle. I know. I was never far from where Tony was at any time. Cec Vanderbeck was one of the four in our platoon from Essex County. Jim Renaud, Cec and I had been together since we were sworn into the army. In fact Cec was the first guy I had gotten to know and buddy around with. We usually stood side by side in the ranks and would always go downtown together in Stratford in the evenings to the show and after to Diana's Sweet Shop Restaurant for a hamburger and coffee. Sometimes we'd go to the "Y" for a swim or just hang around the main intersection corner to watch the people go by. There was only one thing I From the Holding Unit to the Perths

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didn't like about Cec, and that was to have to march behind him. He had a peculiar hesitation that made it tough to keep step. Other than that Cec was a good fellow. Jim Renaud was from Amherstburg, downriver from Windsor, and although he had to be at least fifteen years older than me I found him to be an amiable companion. I loved to listen to Jim's stories about his younger days roughing it in northern Ontario bush country, hunting, trapping and fishing. A hulking, slope-shouldered sort of man without much formal education, Jim nonetheless was a kind of person I could relate to, age difference be damned. I always felt comfortable in his presence. Ken Topping was a solidly built young man whose home base was Lambeth, next to London. Ken had all the essentials of a fullback, but whether he ever played the game I don't know. I only know he was one tough customer. His only weakness seemed to be the girlfriend he left behind. No one in this man's army could have written as many letters to a girlfriend as did Ken. Likewise, he received more letters from his love on any given mail-call day than I would in a month from family and friends. Gord Forbes, out of St. Thomas, was a big handsome galoot of a kid with not a mean bone in his body. But it wasn't advisable to take advantage of his easygoing ways. No one fooled around with Gord for long before he knew what Gord was capable of in a physical sense. He was only sixteen when he lied about his age to get into the army. What made it easy for him was his size. He wasn't built like a weightlifter, just lean and tall. Really, a gawky kid. I saw soon enough how deceptively tough this guy was when he and his buddy Ken Topping were horsing around one day, playfully grappling with each other. Gord picked Ken up and swung him around and upturned him with so little effort I couldn't believe it. Surer than hell, Gord was a lot stronger than he looked. He was my kind of guy, but I never really got to know him that well until we did our eight-week stretch of static front duty on the winter front inland from Ortona. As for George Simeays, from Canada's fertile truck-garden farmland around Kingsville, Ontario, where the best tomatoes on the whole continent are grown, he had to be in a class of his own. How he ever made it past the medical board with an A-l category I'll never know. Organically I guess he was as healthy as the rest of us. It was his architecture that was seriously flawed. Skinny legs, skinny arms, hardly any chest at all — you had to question how in bloody hell the army ever took him in. And it was an even greater mystery how he was able to go through the physically punishing route marches, especially the obstacle and assault courses. You would swear he was held together by safety pins and tape. So it was only natural for someone to hang the sobriquet "Safety-Pins" to his name. He 42

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had a posture that defied all the laws of gravity and comfort. His appearance on parade was enough to make even the hardest RSM break down in despair. He had a perpetual slouch, whether standing at attention or at ease. But for all these negative aspects of his physical self, George had one quality about him that amazed me no end: he never seemed to get excited or nervous when the sergeant came around bellowing for us to get on parade. He had one speed, slow-and-easy. He reminded me of that lovable comic Negro character in the '30s movies, Steppin Fetchit. Walter Thomas grew up in Verdun, in la belle province, Quebec. Later, in Italy, he became my closest friend, probably because we were so much alike in everything we did and did not do. We didn't smoke. We didn't drink. We didn't swear much, at least not till later on in the campaign in Italy. What we did do, however, were things that very few others would dare do, or had the good sense not to do. We were always doing some outrageously stupid thing that could have killed us and perhaps a few others around us. "Tomeau" (pronounced "Tumoh," with the accent on the last syllable) as we always called him, didn't rate high with me when I first met him. One thing that didn't sit well with me was his tendency to be pushy, especially in the mess queues. My first impression of this kid was that he was nothing but a spoiled brat. It wasn't until I moved over into his section that I gradually got to know and understand him better, and realized he wasn't all that bad a brat after all, and in fact he was so much like me I had to like him, or hate myself. Although neither of us drank anything stronger than "jungle-juice" (a bland lemonade served at canteens) or smoked, we both loved to eat. Rarely did anyone ever beat us to the head of the meal queue. Most times he was first, but on occasion I was speedier of foot. If there were seconds you could be sure we were there. It seems we never could get enough. It was no wonder the others called us "Guts and Gators" and "Mess-tins". I got hooked up with Bob Wheatley, a round-faced burly lad from Toronto, shortly after we arrived in Italy. They made me his No. 2 man on the Bren, so we shared a pup tent. I was right beside Bob on Hill 204 when two grenades landed in our midst. Four of us suffered minor wounds, while Bob got hit in the stomach by a large fragment and died a day later in No. 1 General Hospital in Jesi. John Trickey came out of Ville LaSalle, a suburb of Montreal. For a guy who prided himself on having been in the ranks of one of the prestigious Dragoon or Hussar Regiment before the war (when they still rode horses), he sure didn't look the part. He reminded me more of that ungainly fictional character Don Quixote on his bony, swayback nag Rosinante. Trickey had that gaunt, hollow-cheeked, sharp-featured look of From the Holding Unit to the Perths

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John Carradine, the actor whose role almost always was that of a dark and sinister man in western movies. Trickey looked forever to be badly in need of a shave. If he ever wore black trousers, a black full-length coat, and a tall silk hat, he'd be the reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln — but it was impossible for any of us to imagine him as a gallant and dashingly handsome Dragoon. For all of his shortcomings, though, I found him to be an agreeable fellow. Al Demasson somehow ended up with the Perths after finding his way out of Hazel Dell, Saskatchewan. Al was one of the older types, the kind all of us young squirts tended to call "Pop." He was a quiet, soft-spoken man who we all looked up to. Unfortunately I never got to know Al as much as I probably should have. He was another one of those who didn't fit into the mold of what I thought an infantryman should be: young, tough and wiry, with a "don't give a damn" attitude. Although he might not have been a killing machine on the battlefield or have come close to us younger bucks in physical performance, he never dropped out of route marches and did everything expected of him in the field. Another Hogtowner was Bill Rainey. Unlike most of the fellows who hailed from the big city, he maintained a low profile, never bragged about how good it was to live in Toronto, never looked down his nose at us guys who came from the smaller urban centres. I'd say he had the highest IQ of anybody in the company. There were times when I tried to impress the boys with my vocabulary and my knowledge of literature, only to have Bill correct me. Had it been anyone else to pick holes in what I said I'd have been highly offended and ready to go a couple of rounds, but with Rainey, I never felt as though he was putting me down. There were three Maritimers in the platoon: Joe and Art Gallant, and Gerry Curran. The Gallants weren't related except possibly several generations down the line, Joe came from Prince Edward Island, while Art was from Fredericton, New Brunswick. I had one run-in with Joe in Altamura while playing volleyball. He made some remarks that I didn't like so I gave him a quick chop, but it didn't land where it should have, so no damage was done. After that brief altercation or misunderstanding Joe and I got along a lot better than we had before. If I'm not mistaken, Joe was the oldest in the company, and to my way of thinking should have been on staff at a reinforcement centre or rear echelon unit, not hard-slogging it in an infantry platoon with nineteen and twenty-year old bucks like the rest of us. It was ironic that Joe was the first man in the company to die in action. Art Gallant was a short-assed bantam rooster of a Frenchman who talked a lot tougher than he really was. I got the wrong impression of him at first because of his raucous, deprecating way of talking, but as I slowly 44

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got to know him, I realized he was nowhere near as mean and surly as he made himself look out to be. I'm convinced now that it was just a tough shell he wrapped around his ego, covering up certain inherent insecurities (I think we all had them). More than a few times I felt like tangling assholes with him, that's how much he irritated me. But I never did get to test him or myself. Although Art's performance in our debacle at the Riccio River was as good as any of the rest of the fellows, his nerves started giving way on him a month into our winter static front tour of duty. If he hadn't gotten the job of company shoemaker, he more than likely would not have gone too far down the line. Gerry Curran, slightly jut-jawed, hailed from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. I didn't think too highly of him at first because of his chronic complaining. Nothing ever seemed to go right for him. It took half the campaign before I got used to his constant moaning and bitching over this, that and everything else. His complaining was like a tiny sharp-edged stone getting inside my boot — irritating as all hell. I finally got to know what made Gerry tick, and to my surprise, found I was no better than him. I had done my share of bitching too, like almost everyone else. When I inherited the loathsome PIAT gun, Gerry carried the bombs and was my loader. From that moment on, his beefing never bothered me. In my eyes, he was now okay. Jimmy Eves was, without a doubt, one of the very best personalities I'd had the good fortune to meet in the army. From when I first laid eyes on him at Hunstanton I knew here was a guy I wanted as a friend. He had a quality of goodness about him that I instantly recognized. And he never let me or any of the others in the platoon down. He was a friend to all of us. A tall, gawky farmer from Stella on Amherst Island, Jimmy was as easygoing a fellow as you'd ever want to meet. You just couldn't help like the guy. He never had anything mean to say about anyone. Though somewhat of a hayseed in his approach to things in general, Jimmy made you feel welcome in his presence, and you felt good when he was in your company, whether having tea at the Sally Ann or having a brew with him at the pub, or sitting on your bed in the hut just talking about home. That's what I liked about him more than anything else. I remember one night in Hunstanton a week or so after Dog Company had been organized, and I was standing on guard outside the Battalion Orderly Room just around the corner from our living quarters (after SNAFFLE, I along with the seven others living over the radio repair shop moved to these new billets) when Jimmy came staggering down the street after a long evening at the wet canteen. He was "three sheets to the wind" — blind, stinking, falling-down drunk. I watched him lurching and From the Holding Unit to the Perths

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staggering across the street towards me. Somehow he was able to make it to his quarters, and in the inky darkness fumbled and stumbled his way along the line of bunk beds looking for his own, waking almost everybody in the hut while he was at it. By this time his bladder needed emptying, but he couldn't find the toilet. No longer able to withstand the pressure in his bladder, he gave up the fight and took a leak where he stood, which happened to be up against the wall by Tom Flanagan's bed. Tom's boots were there and Jimmy filled one of them good and proper. Somehow, after that, Jimmy found his own bed, flopped into it and passed out. In the morning at reveille, while most of the fellows were beginning to stir under their blankets, Tom, an early riser, after completing his morning toilet, started dressing. Everything was as it should be at this point. And then Tom went to put his boots on. He let out an anguished howl like he'd been gored by a bull. By the smell of the wetness he knew it wasn't water, but plain, stinking piss. Now, Tom went into a towering rage. "I'll kill the dirty sonofabitch who did this if I find out who the bastard is!" Tom stormed as he walked up and down the hut, his face livid with rage, his eyes aflame, his thin lips above his jut jaw quivering. Two bunks over, Jimmy Eves, looking somewhat the worse for wear, heard the hullabaloo in all innocence. Tom was in a murder-minded mood. Fortunately for the peace and well-being of the platoon, and more so Jimmy's hide, Tom never did find out who the low-born culprit was. After a little while Jimmy vaguely remembered what had happened in the darkness of the hut that night, but wasn't about to own up to it. And so it goes. Harry E. Hanley (not his real name) came from somewhere out of the northern Ontario bush country. What else would initials like his suggest for a nickname but "High Explosive" Hanley. A highly nervous fellow under fire, Hanley often let his imagination get the best of him, especially on night watches. If a guy was unlucky enough to be stuck with him in a slittrench post out in front of the company perimeter (and I was far too often that guy), Hanley's nervousness was enough to make even the most fearless man shake in his boots. I had a feeling that somewhere down the line, probably sooner than later, the guy was going to crack. It finally happened in the Liri Valley. He shot himself intentionally in the foot. Courtmartialled on a self-inflicted wound charge, he got eight months field punishment. After doing his time, he came back to the company right after we came out of the line in the second week of the new year, 1945. Since I went to the hospital with my gimpy knee I never did find out how he handled himself when the regiment fought its way through northern Holland to the end of hostilities. Billy Gilbert, a fair-haired, stocky lad looked to be in his late twenties 46

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or perhaps even early thirties. His hometown was Petrolia, next door to Sarnia. Although I rarely ever saw Gilbert smile, his usually expressionless face belied the subtle sense of humour beneath that glum exterior. Bill liked to "tie one on" every now and then, but I'd never seen him "stone drunk." There's little else I can say about him except that he did his job, like the rest of us, to the best of his abilities and the limit of his courage. Then there was Tom Flanagan. He was another one of the oldies in the platoon. I swore he was at least fifty. He was one of those that got drunk every chance he could, and there were plenty of opportunities in the land of vino. Every house, it seemed, had a barrel of wine. I don't think I spoke two words to Tommy all the time he was with us, and that was well into Italy. It wasn't because I didn't get along with him or disliked him. It was just that there was nothing about him that would draw me to him as a buddy. He was a lot older, and he knew practically nothing about literature, science, history and all those other things I could talk to someone about. We had nothing in common. As for Bill Brant (not his true name) he was the kind of lance-jack not too many thought highly of. What it was about him that made him so unappreciated, so little respected, I could never put my finger on. There was just something in the way he carried himself, the way he looked at you, the way he spoke, that didn't sit just right with you. Since so many of us, going all the way back to Basic Training, held the same opinion of him, we couldn't all be wrong. The guy was an out-and-out phony, and that estimation proved true up in the mountains at Cassino, when he buggered off from his post. Others who made up the original 18 Platoon were Vern Dunseith, "the St. Mary's flash," Eugene Charron, A.E. Smith, S.A. Corbett, R.B. Lang, Harry Martin and Jim Tribble. The other half-dozen or so I have long since forgotten. In the early evening of August 18, the regiment marched off to the train station near the seashore to the accompaniment of the pipes and drums of the Cape Breton Highlanders. The sidewalks were jammed with people out to bid the regiment farewell. As much as I hated to leave Hunstanton I looked forward to what lay ahead in my journey to battle. From the way the war was progressing everything pointed to big things ahead for us, with the likelihood of action not that far in the future. Camp Barton Stacey A thick pea-souper of a fog greeted us as we stepped down onto the boardwalk of Whitchurch Station at the waking hour of six the next From the Holding Unit to the Perths

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morning. The swirling vapour was so thick we had trouble finding our vehicles parked on the station property. Shortly thereafter, with the fog thinned out considerably, we turned into the grounds of Camp Barton Stacey, and I knew right from the beginning I was going to like the place. It was a neatly arranged camp of wooden barracks huts, called "spider huts," set behind permanent brick buildings housing the mess, a NAAFI canteen, ablutions, latrines and a large vehicle maintenance shed. The parade square was a huge affair, as large as Camp Ipperwash's but paved in asphalt (or as the English call it, macadam). On the north side of the square were the permanent buildings, the largest one housing the mess hall and the NAAFI canteen. To the east was a large vehicle shed or workshop. The camp Garrison theatre, the size of an airplane hangar, was close to the camp entrance, while nestling under the trees at the southeast corner of the camp was the Sally Ann hut. Behind the buildings on the east were the drab, dark-stained wooden huts. Camp Barton Stacey wasn't just one camp, but a complex of several abutting each other, large enough to hold the entire 5th Armoured Division. The wood-frame huts were comfortable enough in the warmer weather of the summer months, but I could just imagine what they'd be like in the damp cold of an English winter. With no insulation and only a small coal stove in the centre of the hut to provide heat it had to be a bugger here on cold nights. Thank God we were gone before winter set in. It happened in Farley Mowat's regiment, the Hasty Pees, as that great writer described in his book The Regiment, and it happened to us at Camp Barton Stacey: a hilarious episode of parade-square bashing on a windy day. A brisk west wind blew in wild gusts across the square while two companies were hard at it drilling. Everything went fine for a little while as we responded to commands shouted by Sergeant McRorie with precision and smartness. We looked good enough, I thought, to raise the eyebrows of a Guards Regiment RSM. Even the usually dour face of our own RSM, Tommy Soper, would have broken out in a restrained smile. But then things began to unravel. With the wind ruffling our tunics and trousers, 18 Platoon marched in column of route straight towards Sergeant McRorie standing at the edge of the square a few yards off from the NAAFI canteen. As the platoon approached to within ten yards of him he shouted, "Platoon will move to the rear in column of route" — pause — "abouuuut" — pause — "turn!" We came to a perfectly synchronized halt, did our proper marktime step as we made the turn in unison, and then stepped off, left leg and right arm out, and marched off in as pretty a picture of coordination as any precision squad could execute. Behind us we could hear McRorie barking away, "eft—ite—eft—ite!" Sharp as tacks we were. 48

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But the moment of truth came. We were halfway across the square, moving in a direct line towards the Sally Ann canteen when we heard a command at the very moment a strong gust of wind blew past our ears. The last three or four files heard the command — "About turn!" — and right on cue they came to a halt, mark-timed one step and turned about and made off in the opposite direction towards McRorie. The middle four files, not quite sure what the command was, hesitated, made a sharp left turn, and marched off in that direction. Meanwhile, the three lead files, in which I was the middleman in the second file, heard not a damn thing, so we kept on at 110 paces per minute straight towards the Sally Ann hut looming large to our front. We knew something was wrong but discipline told us not to look around. Finally, when we were about to march straight into the wall of the Sally Ann hut we had to turn around to see what was what. There, much to our chagrin, we beheld the disembodied platoon going off in three directions. Far across the square Sergeant McRorie looked to be coming apart in rage and frustration. It was a Laurel and Hardy comedy. In sorry semblance of what was supposed to be military precision, two-thirds of 18 Platoon got itself together and marched with unsuppressed mirth back towards their red-faced sergeant expecting to be verbally chewed out. But Pete, being a fair and understanding sort, had gotten over his momentary frustration, and in fact was about ready to burst out laughing himself as we drew up to him and came to a smart halt. He knew he could blame no one but the wind for the comedy of errors and simply broke us off, and that was that. Since the camp was only four miles away from Andover, the nearest sizable habitation where a jaded soldier might look for some fun and other forms of soldierly interest, mainly the fairer sex, a good many of us spent both Saturday and Sunday afternoons in this pleasant little Hampshire village. Sometimes we ventured farther afield to Winchester, a much larger town, and with more to see and do. Weekday evenings, however, were spent in camp: we were often somewhat weary, depending on how much physical effort we expended during the long training day, and also "broke." We also had letters to write, reading to catch up on, and the euchre and crib players had their seemingly endless games to play. And of course there were the canteens to visit and the Garrison theatre, where a new movie was shown every second day. So there was no reason for anyone to be bored. Barrack life on an average evening at Barton Stacey could actually be quite enjoyable. As for canteens, there were four very close by — two Sally Ann canteens and two NAAFI canteens, one of each being in the adjoining From the Holding Unit to the Perths

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Recce Regiment camp. The one I preferred was the Sally Ann — only a hop, skip and jump from our hut — not only because it was closest, but also because of a certain countermaid whose charms had me enthralled, as she probably enthralled everyone else. The queues in front of her place at the counter were invariably three times longer than any of the other four. This girl I fell in love with was strikingly attractive, although not in the Hollywood criteria of beauty. Her complexion was flawless, and her sparkling blue eyes, whenever they locked on mine, made my heart skip a couple of beats and my knees turn to jelly. Though her pearly white teeth were very slightly forward, like those of the Hollywood actress June Allison, they actually enhanced her good looks, especially when those beautiful lips of hers had that ready smile for you as she took your order. She was the girl of all my fantasies. How could I ever forget her? Field Training Begins Battle drill was now all the rage in the Canadian Army. We practiced it first on the square, over and over again till we were damn well sick of it. And when we had it down pat on the square we started going through the routine on the heathland outside camp. As basically simple as the drill was we could never seem to satisfy our officers. Though the precepts of the drill were straightforward tactics of left flanker or right flanker, with one section or platoon giving covering fire while the other two went into the attack, it was not always easy to follow through when we found ourselves trying to work our way through a clump of stinging nettle or woody underbrush. All in all, we were getting pretty well fed up with battle drill. I recall using it only once in all our engagements in Italy. Our first scheme out of Barton Stacey was an inter-company affair between Charlie and Dog companies. It began with the threat of bad weather, and by the time we reached our jump-off point, the rain began in earnest. After the initial downpour it abated into a mere drizzle that kept up all day and well into the evening. The site of the exercise was the desolate moors a few miles north of Bournemouth. It wasn't easy to maintain enthusiasm as we traipsed over half the county through wet grass and soggy turf, trying to make contact with Charlie Company. We pushed our way through at least a dozen rain-soaked thickets, trudged through the mud of rain-slicked hillocks, and splashed through miles of half-swampy wasteland searching for the make-believe enemy. By nightfall we were not only physically whipped, we were soaked to our dragging asses. And then, when we expected to bed down for the night under the spreading branches of a nearby pine grove, much to our dismay and 50

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disgust we had to go out into the rainy darkness for more mucking about. It was two more hours of misery, looking for and not finding the enemy. We ended up bedding down on a windswept nub of sodden ground using groundsheets under and gas-capes over us to keep out the cold and the rain. But no matter which way I draped the gas-cape around me, the rain and the cold found every damn opening. Sleep was near impossible. Somebody in this man's army was forever figuring out new ways for us to get hurt. This time it was a simulated parachute jump — from the back of a moving truck. The truck was only going a little over five miles an hour, but that was about five miles an hour faster than our legs could handle. Most came down on their feet, but the momentum pitched more than a few of us forward onto our faces. Although the injuries amounted to only scraped palms, bruised knees and elbows, and the odd cut, the powers-that-be stopped the practice forthwith. Exercise Harlequin By mid-September of 1943 the Canadian Army had approached a state of battle-readiness, indicating it would soon be going on operations somewhere — if not the invasion, then possibly Italy, to join up with our 1st Division fighting its way up the Italian boot. The consensus of opinion, however, seemed to point more towards a landing in France on the Channel coast. With the intensification of the Allied bombing campaign, the Russian juggernaut steadily pushing the Wehrmacht back after the giant battle of Kursk, the decisive British-American victory in North Africa and the subsequent seizure of Sicily, followed a little over a month later by the invasion of Italy, it was obvious that the tide of war had turned sharply in our favour. Now the final blow to end it all would have to be delivered somewhere on the long coast of France, and all indications were that the mighty forces of freedom were gathering for the fateful strike. How soon that day would come, no one except those in the highest pinnacles of command could say. We in the ranks, though, could feel it coming. The care arid handling of the great force of men and machines moving towards the ports of embarkation for invasion had to be addressed or chaos would result. So was born EXERCISE HARLEQUIN, designed to train the upper echelons of command in the movement of the forces slated to be amongst the first to land. This electrifying news came to us on the morning of September 11, when "O" groups were called in all company lines. The Company Commanders gathered their men around them in their respective company lines and went into detail describing the role 5th Armoured Division would play in the invasion. We were classified as From the Holding Unit to the Perths

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"build-up troops," which meant that we would not land until the beach and sufficient perimeter was secured to deploy an armoured division for the drive inland. It sounded easy, so matter-of-fact. Then, when we were issued with live ammunition and emergency rations we were convinced this was the real thing — "Invasion Day," not just another exercise. We were broken off and instructed to turn in our kit bags for storage and to clean up our huts in preparation for the move to the port of embarkation. From what I could see, there wasn't a man in the whole regiment who wasn't beside himself with excitement about the prospects of imminent action. How naive we were! We were raring to go, giving no thought whatsoever to what might very well be a horrible fate — death or mutilation. Youth will do it every time. Before boarding TCVs (troop-carrying vehicles — these particular ones were buslike, with no windows but an opening the full length of the compartment) we were given strict orders not to open our emergency rations except by permission of an officer. Disobeying meant field punishment, so most of us did as we were told. There were two emergency ration tins. One was the size of a sardine can and contained a hard, sickeningly sweet chocolate saturated with vitamins, while the other was a twenty-four-hour ration of several items packed in a sealed tin the size of our large mess tin. Some guys were either extra hungry or just simply couldn't resist opening and consuming the contents of either one or both tins. How severely they were dealt with, I never did find out. We stopped for the night at a staging camp on the outskirts of Southampton where we were billeted eight men to a bell-tent, and then tried in vain to get some sleep as a storm raged for a good part of the night. The storm swept in from the west just before midnight, and according to newspaper accounts the next day, it was one of the severest in living memory. It came through with close to hurricane force, bringing a deluge so intense and prolonged that we were all in fear of being swept away, tents and all. Lightning flashed and thunder cracked and rumbled without let-up for hours. With tent-poles acting as lightning rods, it was a wonder that not one of the tents had been struck. What a night! Morning, however, dawned bright and clear, with a freshness in the air that was truly invigorating. After a most unappetizing breakfast in the transit camp, a breakfast of pasty porridge, scrambled eggs (dehydrated variety), soggy, half-burnt toast and weak tea, we were glad to climb aboard our Bedford TCVs to be on our way again. Most certainly we never expected to spend a whole day cooling our heels. As bright and sunny as the day was, we were allowed several times to de-bus and stretch our legs on the wide spread of lawns along the seafront boulevard — but we were 52

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impatient as hell to get the ball rolling. At this point we were still convinced the invasion was on and that we'd soon be aboard landing craft that would take us across the Channel. How little we knew about the vast complexities of conducting an invasion; we were only practicing. It wasn't until the long shadows of evening crept across the greenswards that the convoy got underway for the final leg of our stopand-go journey which brought us up to the very gates of the dock area. "It won't be long now." So we all thought as we sat in the trucks singing every dirty limerick and bawdy ballad we could think of, and there were many. We were in high spirits, there was no getting away from it. But, after sitting for more than a half-hour waiting outside the gates of the dock area, doubts about our going across to France came up as we watched a steady stream of trucks loaded with troops going by in the opposite direction. And our doubts came to reality when we saw they were our boys. We now knew the deeply disappointing truth. The invasion was off. We were on our way back to camp. What a letdown! Exercise Ditto Instead of going back to Camp Barton Stacey as we thought we would, we halted for the night on the edge of a wooded area in a grassy meadow a few miles south of our former camp. Here we'd sleep under starry skies. Though the night was somewhat chilly, I managed to have a good sleep and looked forward to whatever the day held for us. I was in especially good frame of mind, even after the disappointment of not having gone on an invasion I had so psyched myself up for. On looking back at the war, now so many years long past, I'd have to say that in the communication aspect of the game our army had things pretty well down-pat. Army knew exactly what was going on in Corps. Corps had its fingers on the pulses of the divisions. The men running the divisions pulled the strings of brigade operations. And lastly, brigades watched closely and directed every move by their battalions. All fine and dandy! But when it came down to informing the men in the ranks what was going on, it seems the wires of communication were "out" — or had never been strung up. We knew or were told bugger-all. In the two major and the two minor exercises I'd thus far been on I'd seen just how bad or how lax things were when it came to putting the men in the bigger picture. The men in the ranks should have been given all the pertinent details of the operation: what the objective would be, what enemy unit they were expected to run up against, the numerical strength of the enemy, the weapons the enemy would likely be using, the support they would get in From the Holding Unit to the Perths

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the attack, the timing, and any other information needed to ensure success. But it hardly ever worked out that way. Whether it was a scheme, a large exercise, or an actual battle, we almost invariably had to do the job, proverbially speaking, as blind as bats. Up to this point, with EXERCISE DITTO about to get underway, everything seemed to be hinging on rumour. In fact, we first heard about the coming exercise from Corporal Reggie Gore, who got the lowdown from a friend of his in Headquarters Company who got it straight from a good source in Brigade, who in turn got it from a buddy up at Division, that 5th Armoured was taking on 2nd Div in a pursuit role. This was only one of the several rumours that went through the ranks. Route of pursuit? A straight-from-the horse's mouth source said we'd be on our way through London. Another said south to Brighton. A third had us striking due west to Reading. As it turned out, none of these proved right. Our path of advance took us in a general west by northwest direction through Berkshire. Such was the credibility of the intelligence we had to depend on. The exercise began in the usual manner, a stop-and-go affair in which the stops were of longer duration than the go's. Still no one came 'round to let us know exactly what was happening and what we were supposed to do. Fortunately the weather was ideal for scheming. But there was little in the way of excitement to snap us out of the ennui that was setting in. It wasn't until we were well up into the rolling Berkshire countryside outside Hungerford that we warmed up to the job at hand. One of the companies had bumped into a unit from 2nd Division, the signal for us to break from our vehicles and deploy in the red-cabbage fields by the side of the road. After an advance of some several hundred yards Dog Company found itself looking down from high ground on the town of Hungerford less than a mile away. To the left of Hungerford a quarter mile down the road we could see the slate roofs of the houses in Chilton Foliat, which we were told was defended by an enemy company. Although we saw no sign of activity in the hamlet, an attack on it was scheduled for 1700 hours, after the CBH and the Irish crossed the river, cut through Hungerford and established a bridgehead. Dog Company advanced along a sunken laneway, crossed the High Street bridge in Hungerford at a lope under the indifferent gaze of shoppers and late-afternoon strollers. On the far side, we swung left for the advance on Chilton Foliat a little less than a quarter mile away. Here we ran into scattered small-arms fire from enemy positioned at a bend in the river where a stand of willow trees offered concealment. C Company took care of this threat however, capturing six of the enemy and driving off a number of others who made their escape on the far side of the hamlet. Meanwhile Dog 54

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Company went up the meandering road unimpeded and occupied the tiny settlement, where we set up a defense perimeter around the village. As darkness fell, it was obvious we'd be going without food, and having gone without since breakfast, we were indeed a hungry bunch of Perths. Food, so we were informed, would not be up until sometime next morning. How soon — nobody seemed to know. With this unwelcome news came a warning that on no account were we to leave our posts to visit the canteen in the village, on pain of field punishment. If the warning hadn't come we probably wouldn't have known there was a canteen in town. But now that I knew, there was no way I'd let the opportunity go by without taking a shot at making a purchase. God knows how hungry I was! And so, with hunger overriding fear of punishment. I was determined to take a chance on going to that canteen to quieten the rumblings of an empty stomach. Visions of rock cakes and apple tarts, my favourite pastries, fair danced in my head. The canteen, as a trio of Yanks going past our Bren position informed us, was just a few doors down the street. That did it. I was going come hell or high water. Warning or no warning, I had to go. I was desperately hungry, ready to face the consequences if caught. I was on the Bren-gun post with Bob Wheatley when I said to him, "How about me taking a crack at getting something to eat from the canteen as soon as it gets dark?" Bob replied, "It's okay by me, but remember, it's your ass, not mine." And with this encouraging send-off I stole away as soon as it got dark enough. I made two sorties into the narrow street where the buildings came right up to the road's edge, but each time I had to scurry back when the sound of people approaching told me it might be a regimental provost patrol, checking to make sure no one went to the canteen. In fact it was only a couple of Yanks; I could tell by their southern accents. On my third try, I furtively hugged the buildings so as not to bump into anyone. I arrived at the canteen door, and like a thief in the night, waited to see what was what. Twice the door opened and customers departed, and in that brief time I had a chance to see who might be inside. I saw several officers and a couple of sergeants sitting at a table enjoying their tea and cakes, and identified them as Perths. "Hell," I thought to myself, "If they can visit the canteen, why can't I?" And with that I boldly opened the door and stepped inside, paused for a second to see where the counter was, and strode up to it like I belonged. I ordered three rock cakes and a tea and carried the goodies to a nearby table and commenced to hungrily devour them. All this time neither the Perth sergeants or the officers paid any attention to me. After I'd had my fill I went back to the counter and bought a dozen and a half assorted cakes and a few tarts for the boys in the platoon. From the Holding Unit to the Perths

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To say I was greeted by the fellows in 18 Platoon like a homecoming hero is to put it in the mildest terms. They were so overjoyed, they made mention of putting my name in for promotion or decoration, or both (said with tongue in cheek, of course). I suppose I should have been eligible for a decoration if the army bestowed them for the kind of heroism I displayed. All kidding aside, I acknowledged their hearty appreciation but as for their plans for writing up a citation, I said, "Like hell! Gripes, you wanna get me into trouble?" They weren't even listening; they were busy scarfing down the pastries. It peeved me, though, that no one came forward to recompense me for my considerable expenditure. While Wheatley and I stood watch at the Bren, we heard from one of the boys that there was an apple orchard on the far side of the hamlet. This got me going again. Now, I just had to have myself some apples to finish off what was proving to be a fulfilling evening. So, as soon as our relief took over, Bob and I made tracks for the orchard, intending to fill our tunics with the juicy fruit. The orchard was enclosed in a walled-in garden, and as we passed through the gate we heard the rustle of activity in the branches of the nearest trees. We knew it wouldn't be the owner working at night, so it had to be our own boys doing the picking. We also knew that if anyone was caught stealing apples or any other fruit or vegetable from a farmer's property, that person would face a civil charge which could amount to a month's pay, if not more, if convicted. This, however, didn't sway us from our self-appointed task. First we'd have some fun — we'd throw a good scare into the nocturnal apple-pickers. We made a noisy approach so they'd think it was the irate farmer coming at them with a rock-salt loaded shotgun. As expected, bodies suddenly dropped out of the trees — not two, not three, but six apple-picking thieves hit the ground running, dropping much of their loot as they fled. All Bob and I had to do now was pick them off the ground, chuckling at the dastardly deed we'd just pulled on our boys. We carried enough apples back to feed the whole platoon. With the possibility of spending a long night on an empty stomach no longer a problem, the only things troubling me were thoughts of having to sleep in a cold, clammy hole in the ground. I definitely didn't relish the thought. Neither did any of the others. Mid-September nights in England have been known to get pretty damn cold, especially when one has to sleep outside on the ground. Dampness increases the discomfort multifold. Not fifty feet away, however, was a brick farm building I'd already scouted when we first came on the scene. I'd made note of the mound of hay inside, with intention of purloining a swatch of it to line my slit-trench. The building appeared to be a milking shed rather than a stable, but why was there a pile of hay inside? I'd soon find out. 56

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When it was time to bed down for the night I passed a suggestion 'round the section that we should see if we could get into the building and sleep in the hay instead of outside where the cold was already getting to be damned unbearable. They agreed, and much to our intense joy we found the barn unlocked and made straight for the hay. Again, we weren't supposed to be doing these things, but how else were we to know a little warmth on a cold, clammy night? No way were we about to give up comfort just because of some silly army regulations. After all, as we suspected, the guys with the pips and crowns on their shoulders wouldn't be spending the night outdoors. They most likely had found themselves warm and comfortable billets in Hungerford. It wasn't long before we were snuggled in the hay, with me finding a spot on top to avoid the cold drafts wafting along the floor. Bliss lasted only a short while, however. Someone lower down kept pulling out tufts of hay and I could feel myself gradually sinking. After some more vigorous pulling from below, I felt something cold, hard and angular pressing into my lower back. I probed around, and my fingers wrapped themselves around the cold steel of some sort of wheel. Then, after further theft of hay, my back was draped over a two-foot diameter cogwheel of some piece of farm machinery. What had promised to be a night of warmth and comfort didn't exactly pan out that way. I ended up trying to sleep on a thin pile of hay on the cement floor. The culprit was none other than Angel Desjardins, the big galoot who, from his position lower down in the stack, kept pulling at the hay above to cover himself with. The night that I thought would pass in reasonable comfort, turned out to be something quite a bit less. The Episode of the Swan I never knew swans could fly. I'd always thought they were too big and not aerodynamically constructed for flight, that they were just graceful, ornamental birds adding a touch of elegance to lavish, landscaped Ducal estates. I learned the next morning, however, that they could indeed fly. Three of them, flying in dense fog over our positions, flew straight into power-line wires. One of them hit a wire, broke its neck and fell dead, practically at our feet. Instead of feeling sorry for the big and beautiful bird we rejoiced at the prospects of the delicious meal that soon would be ours, providing we could persuade one of the good housewives of Chilton Foliat to roast it for us. If everything worked right for us and we didn't have to move on we'd have ourselves one dandy meal right here in the barnyard. But there was a better than even chance we'd have to take to the road before the bird was ready to serve. From the Holding Unit to the Perths

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Jim Renaud set to work plucking and preparing the bird for the roasting pan. While Jim was busy at the job, a three-car convoy wheeled out from Hungerford on its way towards Chilton Foliat. We didn't pay any special attention to the motorcade until it was almost upon us, and then we noticed the pennants attached to the front fenders. Someone said, "Oh-oh, high-priced help, I think we're in trouble," and hardly had the words left his lips when the cars stopped close by. "We've had it!" I whispered to Cec Vanderbeck out of the corner of my mouth. "Sure as hell they're going to accuse us of wantonly killing a protected species." We thought there might be a brigadier or two in the cars, but when the unmistakable stern visage of none other than the Army Commander, General Andy McNaughton himself, poked his head out the window, our mouths dropped open and our eyes opened as wide as half-crowns. In a quiet, non-accusing tone of voice he asked us how we got the swan, and Renaud, unflustered by the high rank of the man he was addressing, replied, "It hit the wires, sir." And that's all, which happened to be the truth. A trace of a smile crossed McNaughton's face, as with mild admonition he advised, "Don't let the game warden see what you're doing," and with that, away the three staff cars sped. It's a good bet that the exalted one and his staff had a few chuckles as they proceeded on to their destination. As for ourselves, you could almost hear a collective sigh of relief. Those of us that could be spared from manning positions immediately went out on the scrounge for all the necessary items used in roasting fowl and preparing the dressing. This was going to be Thanksgiving feast regardless that this holiday was still at least a month away. After knocking on a few doors, we came away with loaves of bread, salt, pepper, seasoning and margarine, and to top things off, the lady of the house in whose yard we were playing at war offered to roast the swan at no cost. Shortly after Jim plucked the bird and delivered it into the hands of the lady of the house for roasting, we had to pick up and move on again. Hurried arrangements were made that someone would be sent back to pick it up later that day, and off we went in our vehicles to carry on the chase, confident in the belief that a grand supper would be waiting for us come evening. But it was not to be. In the Canadian Army we had our share of scoundrels, the kind of guys who'd steal from a church poor-box, and it was this type of thieving character that absconded with our banquet. When Corporal Blackie Rowe, Dog Company DR, went back early that evening to retrieve the prize, the lady told him someone had already picked it up. When we heard what had happened, we were devastated. We seethed with rage and frustration, and every guy in 18 Platoon swore bloody vengeance on the guy who stole our bird, if we ever found out who the sonofabitch was. But we never did. 58

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Monday morning came with heavy overcast skies, almost as dark as our mood. Great masses of rain-laden, grayish-black clouds scudded overhead so low they brushed against the low hills as they swept by. Although the rain came down for most of the day, it wasn't a drenching rain, just steady enough to bring a halt to the day's activities. That day had to be the longest and most dispiriting day most of us had thus far spent in the army. With nothing to read and nothing to do but sit there on the edge of our shallow slit-trench ground sheets and gas capes draped around our shoulders, we looked more like a bunch of bedraggled hens in a rain-swept barnyard. All night long the rain pattered on our gas capes making sleep next to impossible. When morning mercifully came and greeted us with a cloudless sky and a promise of fairer weather, you could feel the heavy cloak of despair fall away. By this time we had gotten over the deep disappointment of losing our swan dinner and were raring to get on with the exercise and get it over with. Shortly after eight in the morning, after a short ride in moderate fog, our vehicles braked suddenly and we piled out and quickly formed up in arrowhead formation to the left of the road. The enemy was in position atop the fog-hidden hilltop. At the bottom of the hill where we quickly formed up for the assault, the fog had thickened to such a degree we couldn't see more than three feet ahead of us. I could just barely make out the figures of the men on both sides of me. Although it flicked through my mind: "How in hell are we going to know when to start moving up when we can barely see each other?" Then before we knew it, there we were smack in the middle of a whole company of Frenchmen, the Fusiliers Mont-Royal. If it had been the real thing, it sure would have turned into one hell of a donnybrook, a hand-to-hand "stick him in the guts, kick him in the nuts" World War I kind of fight. Thank God it wasn't! No shots were fired and we made no physical contact. The makebelieve enemy looked up at us with blank expressions. What now? Field umpires who went up the hill with us answered our unspoken questions by declaring the exercise over. According to them we'd taken the hilltop from the enemy in a splendid display of infantry tactics. Splendid? He had to be kidding! We didn't even know what the hell we were doing as we went up that fog-bound hill. What impressed itself more on my mind than anything else about the exercise was the indifferent, possibly even somewhat hostile attitude of the boys from Montreal. Because of this coolness, none of our boys made any gesture of buddying-up with the dour-faced Mont-Royalers. There was no intermingling, no cigarettes passed around, no idle chit-chat, no camaraderie — nothing. They sat glumly a few yards away. We sat or From the Holding Unit to the Perths

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sprawled about on the grass minding our own business where we sat or stood about. I felt uncomfortable. Here we were, two Canadian infantry battalions sitting close together and instead of acting like countrymen you'd have sworn we were enemies. Later on, in Italy, there were times when I'd see more repartee and respect between ourselves and the Germans we captured than what I had witnessed on that grassy hill in Berkshire. I was glad to be on our way down hill to our vehicles; here, unfriendliness was thicker than the fog swirling about the hill. With the scheme having ended, we were on our way south to once again another unknown destination, stopping for a night bivouac in an oak wood outside Midhurst at the northern fringe of the South Downs. In the morning, our convoy got rolling again, emerging shortly after onto the Channel coast road at Worthing. As the convoy made its usual stop-and-go crawl along the coast road I half expected, as I looked out at the shimmering waters of the English Channel, to see a Messerschmitt 110 or Junkers 88 swooping in at wave-top level to give us a strafing. From my seat at the tailgate I had a good field of fire to get a couple of shots off at them from my trusty, but woefully inadequate Lee-Enfield. Then I woke up to the fact that I had no live ammo in the clip. There wasn't a live round in the convoy. We were helpless. Fortunately the Luftwaffe was absent in the skies over England that day, and we arrived unscathed an hour later in Eastbourne where we assumed we'd be spending the winter guarding the coast. Two weeks later, however, came the electrifying news that 5th Armoured Division would be on its way very shortly to something far more exciting — operations against the enemy. Where? We could only guess.

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CHAPTER 2 FROM TlMBERWOLF

TO OUR BATTLE BAPTISM

T

wenty minutes before midnight on October 25,1943, while the good citizens of Eastbourne, along with all the military personnel quartered in the seaside resort town, were sound asleep, the Perth Regiment was out on the streets in full pack, getting ready to march off to the train station for the rail journey to Liverpool. Only two days earlier, each company in turn had heard the good news that the 5th Armoured Division was about to embark on a major operation to some unnamed battleground. To a man, as they listened to their new Battalion CO, Lieutenant-Colonel William S. Rutherford (formerly of the Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry Highland Regiment from Eastern Ontario), they were surprised and unabashedly excited over hearing the momentous news. The more surprising word, however, was that all units of the division were to turn in their wheeled and tracked vehicles to Ordnance immediately. The division was slated to be on its way to Northern Ireland, where it was to be re-issued with American equipment, and where, after a brief training period, it would embark on a major operation alongside the Yanks. Where that operation was to take place, and when, remained a secret. This exciting good news, however, was tempered with the not-sogood when we heard from RSM Tommy Soper that he wouldn't be going along with his regiment. He was on his way back to Canada because of age. Although everyone in the ranks, including the junior officers, was afraid of the old warhorse, especially on battalion inspection parades, all

respected the stone-faced, icy-eyed disciplinarian for what he meant to the Regiment. He was a tough one, there was no getting away from it, but everyone from colonel right on down to buck private would be quick to agree that as the regiment's RSM, the Perths couldn't have wanted a better man. Soper left on the Perths a mark of steadiness that was to sustain the county regiment in the grave and uncertain hours of battle, a mark that would carry it on to victory in every battle it fought once the young men in its ranks served their apprenticeship in their bloody and heartbreaking battle baptism near Ortona. Shortly after midnight, encumbered not only with full pack but with all the other accoutrements a soldier takes with him on such moves, — large pack, small pack, haversack, webbing with Bren pouches, including two bulging kit bags — we marched off through the blacked-out streets of the slumbering city. As this was supposed to be a top-secret move, we'd been forewarned to march as quietly as possible so as not to alert enemy agents possibly in the area. If we had to say something, we'd have to do it in whispers. And above all, smoking was prohibited. How many spies were peering out at us from behind blackout blinds noting our move and radioing the information to Germany, we could only guess. Instead of a march by a ghost battalion, the secret move of overburdened Perths quickly degenerated into what sounded more like a stampede of wild elephants. Even the deepest sleeper four blocks away couldn't have failed to hear the ungodly din. We were a rabble in arms, no less. The rail journey was a tedious all-night affair, with sleep just about out of the question, what with packs and kit-bags occupying most of what little space was available. By the time the sun rose above the chimney-pots to the east it was a pretty bleary-eyed mass of soldiers that staggered off the train at the Liverpool dockside. For once, however, it could be rightly said that the army wasted no time. We marched directly to the gangplank and in an hour or two the entire regiment was on board the S.S. John Ericcson, an American troopship that in peacetime had sailed the ocean routes as the Swedish-American Lines, Kungsholm. Thus far everything supported the idea that we were indeed on our way to Northern Ireland. No one questioned this unusual turn of events, although we couldn't help but wonder why it was all happening this way. At this point we had no way of knowing that this Irish trip was only a coverup for our actual destination. Whether it fooled the Germans, it is impossible to say. Berthed next to the Ericcson was a white-painted hospital ship that brought the first large group of repatriated prisoners of war back to 62

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England. They were freed as part of an exchange agreement between Britain and Germany involving prisoners who were blind, armless, legless, or suffering from some incurable disease, and were considered unfit for further military service. While waiting our turn at dockside to go up the gangplank with our heavy baggage, we looked over at the neighbouring hospital ship and saw a good many of the British returnees, most of them veterans of Dunkirk, being carried ashore on stretchers. Along with a group of high-ranking dignitaries, doctors, nurses and ambulance drivers on hand, was a brass band to give the repats an appropriate "welcome home" greeting. As the first man slowly made his way down the incline to shore with the help of a cane the band struck up the rousing tune, "The Campbells Are Coming." It was plain to see how happy these haggard but smiling soldiers were to be back home. Some were minus an arm or a leg, making their way slowly down to the dock on crutches. A few were blind and were led down the gangplank by nurses and orderlies. What price war? What price glory? Their war had ended. Ours was just beginning. Watching them file slowly down the gangplank I couldn't help but wonder what the future held for me. Would I be going home one day minus a leg or an arm, or maybe even end up a basket case, with no limbs at all? Would I be deaf or blind, or suffer the torments of severe shellshock and spend the rest of my days in a psycho ward? I mulled the grim possibilities over for no more than a moment or two, and then shut my mind to them. Morbid thoughts were something I never dwelled on for long. Whatever would be would be, and I let it go at that. The John Ericcson wasn't a giant liner in the class of the Queens and the Normandie. It displaced only twenty thousand tons, compared to the mammoth eighty thousand tons of the big three. A two-masted, twin-screw ship with five decks and a top speed of eighteen knots, the Ericcson had done yeoman service throughout the latter half of the war ferrying mainly American troops across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. As I was soon to find out, much to my delight, this ship was a much better ship to travel on than the Andes ,which had brought me to England in May of 1943. For one thing, instead of having to sleep on the hard, cold steel floor as I did on the Andes, or in hammocks as the earlier arrivals on that ship did, on the Ericcson we slept on canvas supported by springs attached to a tubular steel framework. There were three bunks to a framework. This was so much kinder on the back and somewhat easier to fall asleep on than on hammocks. Of course, that depended on how high the seas ran. The second pleasant surprise was the quality and quantity of food served. We were beside ourselves with joy on our first trip to the dining room to see the kind of food they were serving, good old North American From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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style chow. It was far and away more palatable than the Limey rations of smoked herring and pasty porridge and God knows what other crap we were forced to eat on board the Andes. We looked on with mouths open as we watched the cafeteria servers dole out a generous quantity of steaming spaghetti and meat balls, topped off with tangy sauce, into our mess-tins, while in the other tin we accepted a generous helping of fruit cocktail, and in our porcelain tin mugs, coffee as only the Yanks knew how to brew it. And what do you know but that after the meal we were given a bottle of Coca-Cola. More surprises at breakfast. In England we were usually greeted with a plate of tasteless scrambled eggs, dehydrated variety, bacon that was almost indigestible, or soya links that were almost devoid of taste. Some said they used sawdust to give them bulk. The scrambled eggs and bacon the Yanks served was the real stuff. With hash browns on the side, two slices of buttered toast, and a small glass of orange juice, followed by the taste of aromatic coffee, how could we not help but feel we'd arrived in heaven? Every meal became a new experience. We even had guessing games going as to what we might expect at the next meal. Steak, pork chops, roast beef — we guessed it, they served it. And as for the vegetable side dishes we had everything but the much despised Brussels sprouts. And what better way to top off the surprises than to be joyfully confronted with a big scoop of vanilla or chocolate ice cream? It was like we never left home. I always said, you can't beat the Yanks for treating people right. The ship hauled up anchor in mid-afternoon of October 27, 1943, and following in the wake of another trooper, slipped into place in a convoy in the Irish sea. When joined by ships steaming out from Gourock and Glasgow, the convoy totalled twenty-four ships, comprising nine troop transports plus general cargo ships, one tanker, and destroyer escorts. After two days steaming into rough Atlantic seas we realized that Ireland wasn't likely to be our destination. Where to then? This question was on everybody's mind. And the guessing game started. Some good possibilities were North Africa, Sicily, or Italy. With our 1st Infantry Division now part of the famous 8th Army in Italy it seemed likely that 5th Armoured would soon join them. One wild rumour, however, had us on our way to Burma by way of the Cape of Good Hope. (God forbid!) The most preposterous rumour of all was the one that had us going in on an invasion of Norway alongside the Yanks. Even those of us who were the type to jump on any and every rumour couldn't bite on this one. The convoy ploughed ahead through the choppy Atlantic on a bearing that took us well away from the U-Boat-infested and aircraftpatrolled waters of the Bay of Biscay. By the fourth day, the windy weather 64

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changed for the better as the convoy steamed south into warmer climes, enabling the queasy passengers to shed their greatcoats and eventually even tunics and walk about the decks in undershirts. The gray mass of clouds had finally broken up, and with the breakup came the warm sunshine bathing the decks in all its glory. The last day of October greeted us with a promise of more fine weather. The ocean was as calm as a down home fishing hole. Hardly a ripple disturbed the glassy surface except for the ruffled water pushed aside by the ship's prow. Where the open decks only a day before had been sparsely populated, now they were awash with halfnaked bodies lolling about on blankets soaking up the sunshine. It was next to impossible to walk on the fore and aft decks without stepping on a sunbather's outstretched legs. Space, in fact, was so much at a premium that several scuffles and arguments broke out over who owned the rights to a certain eighteen square feet of deck space. Shortly after noon on November 4 land was sighted on the horizon off the port bow. There's nothing quite so exciting for a landlubber like myself, and probably for every other landlubber in that convoy than to sight land after a long week of having to put up with an unsettled stomach, knowing all the while that U-boats were out there somewhere under the surface ready to send a torpedo into our ship. The sight of land riveted us to the railings for all of that afternoon, our eyes fixed on it, trying to guess what it might be, whether an island or the Iberian Peninsula, or perhaps even Africa. As the hours passed, the dark mass took on the shape of a great, black rock rising from out of the sea. There was no mistaking what the big black rock indicated; it was the familiar Prudential Life Insurance symbol, the Rock of Gibraltar. From that moment on no one wanted to give up their place at the rail. If it hadn't been for the great meals we were served nightly I'm pretty sure most of us would have gladly forsaken supper that night just so that we could feast our eyes on that gargantuan rock jutting out of the sea. We were entering the Straits of Gibraltar and thence the Mediterranean sea. The sunset was of such startling beauty that most of the passengers on our ship and probably on every other troopship in the convoy stayed out on deck to marvel at it. To our left rose the towering black mass of the famous Rock. To our right, the twinkling lights of Tangier on the Spanish Moroccan coast beckoned to us with a promise of safety and peace. Lights! Incomparably beautiful, twinkling lights! Who would have thought when we were back in Canada that we would one day stand almost transfixed at the sight of street lights, of lights in the windows, of lights everywhere as we were now doing? Although I hadn't seen streetlights turned on at night for over six months, most of the others in the regiment hadn't seen them in From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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over two years. To these fellows it had to be something even more special. But for all the excitement of seeing city lights and that great mass of rock on our left, these couldn't come close to matching the beauty of that sunset. The sun, like an immense orange ball, seemed to float on the sea at the far end of a shimmering golden carpet stretching from the ship's stern all the way to the horizon. Those of us who were on deck standing by the rail taking in the enthralling beauty of that sunset, were mesmerized throughout the time it took for the sun to slowly sink and disappear, leaving a golden reddish glow in the western sky. You could pretty well say that when the ships reached their destinations and the men had a chance to write their first letters home, every one of them mentioned something about the spectacularly beautiful sunset they had been witness to as the convoy passed through the Strait. The next morning we were issued two booklets, one of which was supposed to give us some idea what to expect in North Africa in the way of geography, customs, religion, with things not to do, a few useful phrases in Arabic, and the health problems that we'd be confronted with. The other was a booklet on how to respond to interrogation if captured. When these booklets were passed around we assumed then that our destination would be either Tunis or Algiers. Later that same day, however, an announcement came over the PA system informing us that the ship would be docking in Naples. This choice bit of news brought on a resounding cheer in every compartment. Electrifying news, to be sure! With landfall close at hand, we knew battle could not be that far off. We were about as excited over the prospects rapidly shaping up as kids over the word that the circus was coming to town. How naive we were! How blind to what battle would really be like! If we had only known that once we had our taste of it we wouldn't be so hungry for a second helping. But like all young soldier volunteers ever since the human species first organized into armies, we looked upon battle only as the supreme adventure, not as an event of misery, mutilation and death, and of neverending fear. Torpedo Attack in the Mediterranean At 6:10 p.m. on the evening of November 6, convoy KMF-25 arrived at a point about twenty miles off the African coast at Philippeville when it came under attack by a squadron of German torpedo bombers. We'd just finished our sitting of the evening meal and were lounging around on our bunks when the air-raid buzzer sounded. It took the third round of the "four-buzz" warning before it hit home what was going on outside — the convoy was under air attack. There was a momentary hush in the 66

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compartment, and not a soul moved. No one seemed to know what to make of it or what to do. And then every man in that compartment reacted and made a frenzied dash for the stairs. We were all of the same mind: "Get the hell up on deck and get there as quick as possible. Just don't get trampled in the rush." No one cared to be trapped down in the ship's belly should a torpedo slam into us. It didn't take the wisdom of Newton to know that we wouldn't have one chance in bloody hell of surviving if that happened. Three hundred frantic Perths rushed for the stairs, but were stopped in their tracks at the top. No one got past the officers stationed there to keep all troops off the open decks. How they got there that quickly after the alarm sounded was something I never could quite figure out. The officers, Captain Ridge and Lieutenant Hider, had one hell of a time trying to calm down and convince the milling and fearstruck throng to go back to their bunks. They told us we'd be a lot safer in our compartment than out on the open decks. What a crock of crap! And they expected us to believe this bullshit! But what could we do? The fact that they managed to convince three hundred highly nervous and agitated men verging on mutiny was nothing short of astounding. We all went back to our bunks reluctantly, muttering oaths and damning the officers for their stupidity in making us go back. As far as we were concerned, they condemned us to a watery grave. Sitting on or standing by our bunks listening to the hammering of guns outside didn't make things any easier for us. If there was anybody in that compartment that hadn't prayed in earnest before, like myself, for one, they prayed now. It was the most helpless feeling I'd ever experienced, and as it turned out, the only time I felt this way throughout the campaign. I might have been a hell of a lot more scared in battle, but I never did experience the kind of helplessness as I did on the Ericcson waiting for a torpedo to hit, sending the ship, crew and passengers to the bottom of the Mediterranean. At the time, the order to remain in our compartment appeared to be a classic case of officers imposing their iron will on the ranks, no matter how brainless their actions might seem, just to show us who was boss. But, as we learned the next morning, they'd done the right thing. It wasn't, however, their brilliant idea; the ship's skipper saw the danger to troops swarming about on the open decks, with ack-ack guns on every ship in the convoy firing every which way, and most of it almost horizontal at the enemy planes sweeping in at torpedo-launching height. Overshoots by the ships' guns on both side of the Ericcson splattered and ricocheted off the ship's upperworks and spanged off ventilators, hatches and other deck paraphernalia. There was no doubt about it, but that a fair number of the From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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curious passengers hungering to witness the spectacle of a torpedo-bomber attack on the convoy would more than likely have been seriously hurt or killed had they been allowed on deck. The only ones out on the open decks were the ship's Yankee Coast Guard ack-ack gunners and a few Bren-gun groups assigned firing positions at the rails. In the course of the short action three of the Jerry planes were shot down, one narrowly missing the Ericcsons stern as it plunged into the sea. As soon as we realized the attack was over, another mad dash for the stairs ensued. Everybody was anxious to see what had happened to the convoy, but again we were turned back. The officers were adamant. No one was allowed on the open decks for the balance of the night. So we had to settle for the odd fragment of information that filtered down to us, only enough to tell us that a couple of ships had been hit and were sinking, and that two or three of the attackers had been shot down. Other than that, we didn't find out much else until three months later when the first reinforcements came to the regiment after our Riccio River fiasco. They told us all about their flirt with disaster, and the fact that when they landed in Italy a couple of days after we walked down the gangplank in the wartorn harbour at Naples, all they had was the clothes they wore. All else had gone down with the ship. It wasn't until 1956 when The Official History of the Canadian Corps in Italy was published, that the complete story came out. According to the official army historian, Lieutenant-Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson, three enemy planes were shot down, and three ships in the convoy were torpedoed. The S.S. Santa Elena, an American troopship carrying more than eighteen hundred Canadians, including the staff of 14 General Hospital and all its equipment, took a torpedo amidships, as well as a bomb on the deck near the stern. Although the boat was without power and had a decided list, all personnel maintained a calm demeanour as they made their way to the boat stations in preparation for abandoning ship. One hundred and twenty-one Nursing Sisters climbed into their respective boats without panic or problem and were lowered to a sea that fortunately was calm except for moderate swells. Most of the Latin American waiters, stewards and other crewmen proved to be quite useless as boatmen, forcing the nurses themselves to take to the oars to row away from the slowly sinking ship. Meanwhile, the S.S. Monterey, with its passenger list comprising at least two thirds of the llth Infantry Brigade plus reinforcements and a number of sub-units hove to, to pick up survivors. Shortly after the lifeboats got away, the Elena righted itself, and a destroyer came alongside to take off the balance of her troops. This attempt proved extremely difficult due to the swell, so liferafts were lowered and the 68

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troops went down the ship's side on scramble nets. Meanwhile, as the Monterey was taking up the lifeboat and raft-loads of survivors, an alarm bell rang, warning of a U-boat's arrival in the vicinity forcing the captain to speed off to Philippeville. Due to heavy swells closer in to the North African coast, he was unable to dock at that port, and was then ordered to turn about and make course for Naples, arriving in that battered port two days later. The remainder of the Santa Elena's troops and crew were picked up by circling U.S. destroyers. Considering the short but sharp ferocity of the attack and the fact that not a single Canadian was lost in the sinking, it was nothing short of a miracle that saved an important segment of the soon-to-be formed 1st Canadian Corps from being lost on that clear, moonlit, early November night in 1943. With the Santa Elena stabilizing itself and still afloat twenty-four hours after the attack, she was taken in tow and brought back to Philippeville, only to sink just outside the harbour. With the loss of all its hospital equipment including the staff's personal gear, 14 General Hospital was in no way, shape or form ready to go into business until at least a month later when it set up operations at Caserta, seventeen miles north of Naples. Also sunk in the attack was the Dutch cargo ship the Marnix van St. Aldegonde which carried no Canadians. The third ship sunk was the U.S. destroyer Beatty, hit by a glider-bomb while on the outer screen of the convoy. A couple of hours after the attack, the convoy split up, one group bound for Augusta and Palermo in Sicily with the bulk of the Army and Corps troops, while our ship the John Ericcson, carrying the Perths, some Irish Regiment of Canada personnel, and sundry other smaller noninfantry units steamed on to Naples, docking two days later amidst the incredible wreckage of the harbour. The morning after our first confrontation with the enemy, with the likelihood that another such attack might be directed against the convoy, someone in command aboard ship came up with the bright idea of increasing the ship's firepower by utilizing every available Bren-gun group on board. With at least fifty Brens in the regiment, plus another thirty in the other units and sub-units on board, enemy planes would have to fly through a veritable wall of small-arms fire to get at the ships. They were disposed as such: On each deck there were eight Brens, three per side, at fore and aft and amidships. The watches were set up into "four hours on and eight off." Since Cec Vanderbeck and I were one of the Bren-gun groups, we looked forward to the role assigned to us in the event of another air attack. To be up on deck and shooting back at the enemy was far and From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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away preferable to waiting with helpless resignation down in the compartment below the waterline waiting for a torpedo to hit. Shortly after breakfast on November 7 the brisk wind that had been blowing since sunup picked up velocity, and by noon had turned into a howling gale, whipping the sea into monstrous swells. By mid-afternoon its velocity increased to near-hurricane force. No one dared to walk about on the open, spray-swept deck for fear of being blown or washed overboard. The only people so exposed were the ship's Yank ack-ack crews and the Bren-gun groups at their stations. The mountainous waves slowed the few ships now remaining in the convoy to no more than four knots, just enough to make headway through the high seas. The huge waves were powerful enough to shake a ship to pieces had they maintained normal speed. The four to eight shift Vanderbeck and I were assigned to on the upper deck was the one in which enemy planes would most likely launch an attack. This made it all the more exciting for us, although it hardly seemed likely the Luftwaffe would be so foolhardy as to send their planes out in such high winds and rain squalls. With our Bren resting on the wide, wood rail, we strained our eyes peering into the fast darkening waste of storm-roiled sea for the approach of enemy planes. The spray from the heaving seas lashed at our faces. But we didn't mind this at all. We were too keyed up for imminent action to be bothered by trifling physical discomforts. We were ready as we ever could be and in the right frame of mind for action, actually hoping the Jerry planes would indeed show up. In one instant the ship would be riding high on the crest of a monster wave, in the next she'd be at the bottom of a deep trough with Cec and I looking up at the seething, boiling mass of water high above us. What an awe-inspiring and frightening display of the vast power of the seas. The wind howled, screamed, moaned and sang an ungodly melody through the ship's upperworks. As terrifying as it was, I strangely felt a certain exhilarated feeling deep inside me. Although seasickness ran rampant through the ship, Vanderbeck and I somehow remained free of the malady, although at times intermittent waves of nausea came over us. It could only have been the fact that we had other more important things on our mind that saved us from the agony of seasickness, a classical proof of the "mind over matter" theory. We were too intent on keeping our eyes peeled for the approach of enemy planes and had no time to dwell on the possibility of upchucking our dinner to the fishes. The first hour, without a doubt, was the toughest. We were a bit green around the gills fighting off the nausea, but as the tension of the job and the anticipation of action mounted, we soon got over our discomfort. It was strange that I should experience both fear and something 70

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bordering on exhilaration at the same time. Although a ripple of fear was always present, I actually found myself wishing enemy planes would come so that I could get a few good bursts at them, envisioning that I might even, with a lucky burst, bring one of the attackers down. What a supreme thrill that would be. I had to take this outlook. What else could I do? I certainly didn't care to consider even for a moment the possibility that the ship might be hit by a torpedo or a bomb, and that there was a possibility she'd go down with all hands. No, I wouldn't in any way let myself slip into thinking on the negative side. So for the next three hours as we stood at our post on the upper deck waiting and hoping for action, we felt as ready as we'd ever be for whatever might happen. We were too preoccupied to be bothered by such a thing as seasickness. Not so poor old Frank Switzer, the officer in command of the Bren gunners on that deck and shift. His was altogether a sadder story. The poor guy suffered the tortures of the damned, running every few minutes to the rail to heave his guts. After the first hour, with nothing left to throw up, he heaved anyway. Here was a man that looked about ready to die. And at times when we watched him convulsing at the rail, I'm sure he must have actually wished he was dead. As it turned out, much to our disappointment, the anticipated attack failed to materialize. We were glad, however, that our shift was over and we could go inside out of the weather to dry ourselves off and relax after being on our feet in one spot for four straight hours. Not long after coming off shift, the wind died down rapidly, and by midnight the mountainous waves had levelled off. Inside another hour or so the sea returned to near normal swells. Sleep, now would come a lot easier. Or so I thought. It didn't take me long to realize how thick the air in the compartment was, what with the odour of three hundred unwashed bodies, the passing of gas from so many bowels, and the sour smell of vomit. Since sleep was impossible for me in that fetid atmosphere I took a blanket and my haversack to use as a pillow and went out onto the open deck where I spent the remainder of the night sleeping under a lifeboat, disturbed only occasionally by the distant rumble of naval gunfire — or maybe it was a thunderstorm somewhere far beyond the western horizon over Spain. It was the most restful night's sleep I'd had since we steamed away from the dock at Liverpool. The Italian coastline came into sight shortly after breakfast on November 8. By mid-afternoon the convoy, now made up only of the John EriccsoHy the Thurston and a couple of cargo ships escorted by three destroyers, slipped slowly past the fabled Isle of Capri into the crescent of the Bay of Naples where we got our first view of volcanic Mount Vesuvius, a thin plume of smoke issuing from its lofty cone. Two hours later our ship From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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glided almost imperceptibly to its berth past the superstructures and hulls of several sunken ships protruding from the sea. They'd been scuttled by the Germans as they pulled their Divisions back from the 5th Army beachhead at Salerno to set up defensive positions along the line of the Volturno River some twenty miles to the north of Naples. The extent of their demolitions of ships and installations in the dockyards called for a monumental harbour reclamation effort, for which task the American Port Engineer Battalion was more than adequate. The view of Naples harbour was a jarring one. The place was an unbelievable shambles of war damage, most of it the work of the Germans themselves, to deny or delay its use by the Allies. The city had been liberated by Mark Clark's combined forces of British and American divisions making up the 5th Army, only one month earlier, almost to the day. That the port facilities had been resurrected in such a short time, to the extent that ships were now able to dock, was an achievement of magnificent proportions. It was common knowledge, at least to the Canadians, that the Yanks were not known to be dilly-dallyers when it came to big engineering projects. They went at it with great gusto and organization, putting everything at their disposal into the job at hand and got it done. And now they had done it here at Naples in record time. It's almost certain that no other army could have brought the port into service as quickly and as efficiently as the Americans. The John Ericcson was the first troopship to dock in Naples after it was liberated. While we were still a little way out from the dock, a swarm of rowboats manned by gaunt Neapolitans came out to welcome us in, although their real intention was to beg for food. All were of one voice crying out "Mangiare! Mangiare!" and begging the troops at the rails to throw them something to eat. At breakfast that morning we'd been issued with two hard-boiled eggs and two ham sandwiches to tide us over till messing arrangements could be made ashore. Although we felt genuinely sorry for these impoverished, starving people, most of us were loath to throw our rations to them, knowing there might not be food available for some time to come after we arrived at our destination wherever that might be. However, some kinder but less far-seeing souls did throw their eggs and sandwiches. And as to be expected, the soft-hearted ones were later mentally kicking themselves for having been so kind and generous and stupid. Once we were sorted out in the heavily damaged dockyard we marched off in a long, strung-out single file column through Naples' downtown streets, many of the buildings now nothing but huge mounds of rubble. Devastation was everywhere. What not long before had been impressive government and office buildings, architectural triumphs of 72

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concrete, marble and steel, now lay in depressing heaps of pulverized masonry. All along the way we were confronted by hollow-cheeked, holloweyed old men and women dressed in tatters, their hands outstretched begging for "mangiare", the first Italian word I think most of us learned. The other was "figa-fig," the slang word for sexual intercourse. Also here and there along the line of march we couldn't help but notice the younger and prettier women desperately trying to maintain some semblance of their once alluring selves. It's conceivable that any one of them right then and there would gladly have sold body and soul for a loaf of bread, a can of bully-beef, or a couple of cigarettes. And then there were the children, scads of them, pale and scrawny, dressed in rags, darting in and out of the column pleading with plaintively thin voices for whatever we could give them in food. It was almost enough to make even the hardest man cry. How I pitied them, yet I couldn't bring myself to give away the two eggs and the ham sandwiches tucked away in my mess-tins. Two miles down the road we came to an even more heavily bombedout area, reeking with the stink of raw sewage seeping out of a demolished sewer system. Once out of what had been the downtown section of the city, we passed through what was obviously the slum or poorer district. It was unsettling to see the extent of ruin, and citizens reduced to the life of the lowest creatures in filth and degradation, beyond anything that our young minds could comprehend. As we marched past open doorways our noses were assailed by some ungodly stinks. The malodorous air wafting out from these doorways was enough to make even the least sensitive stomachs rebel. They were so bad, we had to hold our breath as we hurried by. They were strange smells: a combination of stale body odour, mildew, barnyard and outhouse and god knows what else. It was nauseating in the extreme. And as if that wasn't a depressing enough introduction to the country, we had to watch very carefully where we planted our feet for fear of stepping in piles of human waste all .along the route. Since the sewer system was in ruins, where could these people deposit their body wastes but out in the rubble or on the street itself. Modesty was one of the first virtues sacrificed by the population of Naples. We slept under the stars that first night, due to our pup tents having not been brought ashore from the ship as yet. With only our gas-capes and ground sheets to sleep on, and no blankets to snuggle under, and the night coming on cold and clammy, it was ten hours of sheer misery. We did nothing but shiver and shake throughout. Although we no longer had to fight off the effects of the pitch and roll of the ship, we couldn't help wondering which was worse, the pitch and the roll or the penetrating damp cold. The cold penetrated clear through to the marrow of my bones. From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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Without a doubt, that first night under starry but cold Italian skies wasn't one any of us would look back on with fondness. Afragola Vineyards Campsite Afragola, four miles north of Naples, was a squalid village of one-storied stucco buildings built right up to the road's edge, as are almost all homes in villages, towns and hamlets throughout Italy. The "casas," as we soon came to know them, were only marginally less offensive to the nose than those that had us near gagging on our march through Naples. Here it was nothing to see chickens, goats and other barnyard animals and fowl wandering in and out through open doors freely without so much as a rebuke or an effort to shoo them away. This barnyard sort of existence astounded us no end. We simply weren't accustomed to seeing these things back home. Later on in the campaign, after having observed over and over this custom of Italian farmers and villagers allowing barnyard animals and fowl free movement in and out of their households, we took no further notice or made comments about it. I remember once even having seen hens roosting on the backs of bedsteads. I guess it was just a case of our getting used to the somewhat primitive ways of the people who lived outside the city limits. Whether it had been this way before the war, we had no way of knowing. Our pup tents were set up amidst the high trellises of a vine-yard just outside the village of Afragola straddling Highway 6 which ran past our encampment on its way to Caserta fifteen miles up the road. In the days of antiquity, when the Caesars ruled the separate kingdoms with mailed fists and mighty legions, it was known as the Appian Way. Forty-five miles to the north the mountain town of Cassino at the gateway to the Liri Valley nestles at the base of Montecassino — on the crest of which sits the imposing fortress-like Benedictine Monastery. In the early days of November 1943, Cassino was just another village of the many defended ones that General Mark Clark's composite 5th Army of British and American divisions and a French Expeditionary Corps had to fight their way through or bypass on their way to liberating Rome. At the time no one in the caravans of command had given much thought to the collection of buildings at the base of Montecassino with the great monastery on its crest. Before the winter had run its course, though, Cassino would be known far and wide, not only to the American, British, Indian, and New Zealand infantrymen who fought there, but also to the enemy and the world in general. It was at Cassino that the retreating German Army planted its feet firmly and resisted every effort at driving them out of their strongpoints in 74

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the Gustav Line, a formidable defense line they built all the way across the peninsula from the mouth of the Garigliano River on the Tyrrhenian Sea to Ortona on the Adriatic. The morning of November 9 dawned bright and clear, and in a small way pleasant, but also just cold enough to give hint that winters in Italy would not be all sunshine and warmth. For the present, though, it wasn't the cold that concerned us. It was the absence of food in our stomachs. We were at the point of being desperately hungry, and the way things looked there wasn't going to be any breakfast to ease the hunger pangs. Nor would there be any lunch. And by supper time all we would get to eat was two slices of bread for each man. Those of us who'd had the good sense to hold on to the rations of two eggs and a couple of ham sandwiches given to us on the Ericcson, we ate shortly after our arrival at Afragola instead of giving them away to the beggars along our march route. And so we were nowhere near as hungry as the good Samaritans were. But, we were hungry enough to the point that we were ready to eat just about anything that came our way. In fact I heard one of the hungrier ones say, "God damn it! I'm so hungry I'd eat the asshole out of a skunk!" And I never doubted that he would. I was getting to believe I would, too. If it hadn't been for the hawkers that came around our camp that first full day ashore selling oranges, figs and walnuts we would have gone to sleep that night with empty stomachs. Even when skimpy rations did arrive two days later, we had to supplement them with a steady diet of fruit and nuts. The one good thing about this type of diet besides the intake of plenty of vitamin C, was its beneficial effect on the digestive system. Bowels functioned better than they had functioned in a long time. Constipation was a problem the M.O. didn't have to contend with, at least for our short stay at Afragola. In fact, you might say we were "as loose as a goose." Once the tents arrived on the second day and were set up in orderly lines in the vineyard, things began to look up. Outside of the two or three days of food shortage the only problem from here on in until we arrived in Altamura a week and a half later was the complete absence of anything to do. No one, it seemed, had given thought to setting up a Daily Syllabus, not only to get ourselves limbered up after two weeks without physical activity, but also to break the monotony of idleness. We went on no route marches, went without PT, did no drill, played no sports, did absolutely bugger-all. It was a wonder that half the regiment hadn't gone AWOL just for something to do. There was little else for us but to write letters, stand by the side of the road watching military traffic go by or observe with interest and humour the hucksters making deals with our people. About all they had to sell were apples, oranges, lemons, and walnuts. And then, of course there were the From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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local ladies selling the charm of their bodies to whoever was willing to take a chance against VD. One particular raven-tressed lady with a body that'd make a minister lay down his good book, did a lively business in the tall grass across the road from our company lines. It was quite something to watch the customers work their deal with the pimp on the street and then make their way into the tall grass, passing satisfied customers on their way out—one right after the other, "Wham! wham! Grazie signorina!" Field hygiene is the responsibility of the Pioneer platoon. If there's any kind of major latrine construction to be done, these boys were the ones to do it. At Afragola our Pioneers came up with a masterpiece — an eightholer box-type, four holes back to back, set over an eight by six by six feet deep pit. All well and good, but what they forgot, or by design failed to do, was to put a burlap screen around it. With hawkers and curious onlookers of all ages, both male and female, walking along the road running past our encampment able to see our toilet arrangement we naturally expected the Pioneers to understand the need for privacy. It was obvious that preservation of our modesty wasn't uppermost in their minds, with the result that we sat there out in the open exposed to the gaze of all and sundry passing by on the road. A good many of the fellows, as I noticed, didn't seem to be bothered by this public display of their genitals and posteriors, but not me. Going to the toilet was a very private thing, and for this reason I only used it when I could no longer delay holding back what had to be done. We Meet Brigadier George Kitching On the fourth day of our arrival in the country the newly-appointed llth Infantry Brigade commander, Gen. George Kitching, paid the regiment a short visit to welcome us to the theatre and to give us the usual pep talk. Taking a page out of Montgomery's book, Kitching stood on the hood of his jeep, whereupon on command, as rehearsed, we broke ranks and charged towards him with mock enthusiasm like we couldn't wait to hear what he had to say. We gathered 'round his jeep in the same way the British troops did in North Africa whenever Monty came to speak to them. To me and to most of the others in the company it was just so much bullshit. We'd seen it all so many times in newsreels and it didn't impress us one bit. The British might go for that kind of stuff, but not the Canadians. The brigadier, however made an immediate impression on us with his English Lord-style moustache and his impeccable military bearing. He was all soldier from head to polished boots, everything I considered a highranking officer should be. Whether he'd be as good at directing us in battle 76

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remained to be seen. As it turned out, Kitching was in command of the 11th Brigade only up to the end of February, when he departed the theatre to take command of 4th Armoured Division in preparation for the coming invasion of France. He introduced himself, and during the course of his brief address he kept twisting the end of his finely groomed moustache. An impressive figure in every way.. As for his speech, there was little in the way of substance to it; it was more or less along the line of the rah-rah talk a high school football coach gives his team in the locker room before kickoff. In other words, he expected us to do as good a job against the Germans as our senior brothers in 1st Division had been doing since the landing in Sicily. After the address, we gave him the prescribed three "Hip-hip hoorays!" with the usual "tiger" thrown in. After the brigadier rode away with his escort, Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford announced to the gathering what he must have thought would be received by the company as earthshaking news. He informed us that our new brigadier had, in his infinite kindness, donated ten quid towards the purchase of apples for the regiment. It didn't take a math whiz to calculate that there'd be about one apple per man. Big deal! But at least he tried. For most of the first four days, about all we had to eat was hardtack and a slice of bread, washed down with weak tea. The "Great White Father," also known as Captain Frank Walker, the regimental quartermaster, did well enough to cadge what little bread we did get by locating a British bakery unit and talked them into working overtime to bake some for us. This being hardly enough, we had to supplement our diet by eating nuts and fruit we bought from the peddlers hanging around the fringes of our company lines. Someone had obviously overlooked the fact that we had to eat, and failed to arrange for rations to be supplied until our own stores arrived. When the rations did finally come on the fourth day, the cooks turned out a bully-beef dinner that was fit for a king. It was the first, the last, and the only time I can think of that we actually enjoyed a bully-beef dinner. The fall season in Italy, according to the encyclopedias, is usually cold and rainy. We got the first inkling of this one morning when we woke to a heavy rain beating against our pup tents. This was no ordinary rain. It rained all day and into the night and then into the next day. In fact it rained off and on for six straight days, turning our vineyard campsite into a combination miniature lake and a quagmire of liquid mud. Eventually we were faced with the threat of being flooded out of our tents, so we had to get to work to do something about it. In no time at all everyone was out in the pouring rain draped in rubberized groundsheets and oilcloth gasFrom Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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capes, hard at work digging drainage channels around their tents to channel the water around and away. At first it looked to be a losing battle, but after an hour of feverish activity with the entrenching tools we somehow got things under control and saved ourselves from a night of unqualified sheer misery. Webbed feet would have been a welcome asset in that water-logged vineyard. Travel between tents and to the latrine became a serious problem. The only sensible thing for us to do was to stay in our tents until we had to absolutely go, whether to answer a call of nature or go to the company kitchen for our rations. In both cases it was a hazardous trip. In these travels there were deep spots we had to watch out for, and the muddiest stretches of the vineyard we had to skirt on tip-toes. In the hours between these trips to the kitchen and the latrine we slept a good part of the time, or tried in a most uncomfortable fashion, to write letters. But then one can only sleep so much and write only so many letters before boredom sets in with a vengeance. All the idle time on our hands was enough to drive a man nuts. On the fourth night we had a grandstand view of an air raid. Several German planes, possibly three or four, flew over Naples Harbour on a hunt for bombing targets. We assumed they were after the shipping that had begun to flow in and out of the harbour. A storm of ack-ack fire from shore batteries and from guns aboard the ships rose into the night sky looking like so many strings of illuminated beads. The long streams of tracers climbing into the night sky made for a fantastic sight. In spite of all the noise of anti-aircraft guns firing, we could hear the familiar unsynchronized beat of the planes' engines as they droned in wide circles high above the port in search of a likely target. With at least a dozen ships at either dockside or waiting out in the approaches they had an excellent target to unload their bombs on. Whether they hit any, we had no way of knowing. Everyone was out of their tents watching the fireworks, but try as we did to pick out the intruders, it simply couldn't be done. Even when we focused our ears and eyes on a specific segment of sky we still couldn't pick them out. There was only that thrum-thrum, thrum-thrum somewhere above that interlacing fire. It was hard to believe that anything could survive with the amount of machine-gun, Bofor, and Oerlikon fire being thrown up at the planes. It was all so fascinating, so exciting! And then we realized it could be dangerous for us to stand there as spectators. One of the ack-ack shells that failed to go off in the air came down not fifty yards away from us and exploded. But then, come to think of it, it wouldn't have been any safer retreating to our pup-tents. 78

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What could thin canvas do to protect us from shrapnel or an unexploded anti-aircraft shell on its way down from 10,000 feet? This needed no answer. As the days dragged by and with time hanging heavy on our hands, with Naples and Afragola out of bounds and the waterlogged fields all around us in no condition for athletic pursuits or any other form of activity except wading, about all there was for us to do outside of sleeping and writing scads of letters, was to stand by the side of the road watching military traffic drive by. Almost every convoy carried Yank infantry on their way up to the front, which at the time was somewhere around the Volturno River, a little over twenty-five miles to the north. On some days when the wind was right we could hear the ominous rumble of artillery fire. As each truck went by I couldn't help notice how the G.I.s sat glumly in their places, not horsing around or laughing and singing or shouting rude comments to the roadside gawkers — as is usually the case with troops in transit. They sat there instead with vacant faces, their minds somewhere far away. How was I to know that not too many weeks away we likewise would reach a point where we'd no longer be moved to a spirit of singing or carrying on in boisterous manner when on our way up to the front? After all, what was there to be joyful about when there was a likelihood that you might not be coming back from this trip? We Receive Our Transport November 17 marked a steady parade of wheezing, sputtering, coughing, grinding, sad relics of what had once been sturdy and efficient trucks clattered into our vineyard campsite. What a sorry sight it was to see these refugees from a scrap yard. That such poor excuses for war transport came into our hands was a military crime, the con job of all con jobs pulled on the llth Brigade by the Infantry Brigade of the famous Desert Rats 7th Armoured Division. This division, veteran of the big tank battles against Rommel's Afrika Korps, was on its way back to the U.K. to prepare for the big game, the invasion, and its infantry battalions were supposed to turn all their vehicles over to the newly-arrived Canadians. However, what one could describe as a form of nepotism entered the picture. The 7th Armoured had made a lot of friends over the past two years with other units in the 8th Army, and since it was only natural that friends help each other, that's exactly what the Desert Rats did. They went to bat for their buddies. They exchanged their newest and more mechanically reliable vehicles for the worn-out wrecks of other units who were remaining behind, only days before they were to hand them over to us. From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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An Afternoon in Pompeii A highlight of the short stay at Afragola was a tour of the ruins of ancient Pompeii at the foot of Mount Vesuvius. The volcano, when it erupted in AD 79, threw up such an enormous volume of ash that it buried the town under fifteen feet of the suffocating stuff, killing thousands. Having read about it so many times in history lessons and having seen the event portrayed in the movie The Last Days of Pompeii, it was only natural that I should look forward to seeing the real thing and from close up. And besides, it was a welcome change just to get away from camp and to be doing something for a change. Greeting us at the entrance to Pompeii's ruins were a couple of shiftyeyed, weasely-looking guides who spoke English with a Bronx accent. Actually, they turned out to be good guides and spiced their comments here and there with humorous descriptions of what had transpired here before and after the volcano erupted. According to their description of what it was like in that first century, the city had to have been one great den of iniquity. All-night partying was the "in" thing in this ancient city of sin, with the rich and randy boys and girls flocking in from all over the region for long nights of unrestrained debauchery. The guides showed us what had once served as the great banquet halls, with attached vomiting rooms, where, after a celebrant had gorged himself at the festive table he could unburden his protesting stomach of its half-digested contents and go back for more of the same. I shook my head, unable to comprehend what made these people tick. Unless a person has been a serious student of ancient Roman history, encompassing the destruction of Pompeii and its neighbouring town of Herculaneum, it isn't easy to maintain interest in a jumble of resurrected ruins. Once you've seen one street of excavated buildings you've more or less seen them all. But then the guides led us to what had been the "red light" district of those days where a carving of a phallus in a stepping-stone at an intersection pointed the way to the houses of ill repute dominating the street. One house especially caught everyone's interest. Outside the house was a six-foot high post on top of which was a shuttered box about the size of a roadside fire alarm. When the shutters were thrown open it revealed a painting of a man with two enormous penises — as the guide said, one for day and the other for night. This brought on a resounding chorus of laughs. We were then ushered into the brothel where the walls were covered with erotic frescoes. It was only natural that after being titillated by all the erotic scenes, more than a few of the boys, when we arrived back in camp, hurried out to seek physical release in the arms of prostitutes. 80

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Two days later we climbed aboard the sand-coloured four-by-two Dodge three-tonners, glad to get away from Afragola, and hoping for better accommodations at wherever our destination would be. The long road journey across the rugged hills and desolate, scrub-covered ravines of the southern Appenines to Altamura was not a pleasant or scenic drive, but rather a jolting, jarring, tiring and halting one with very little for us to be enthralled about. The dark, lowering autumn sky didn't help to perk our spirits up. The first leg of our journey took us through Salerno, although we didn't come anywhere near the beaches where the landings had taken place in September and which I wanted to catch a glimpse of. At this point we hadn't yet been informed as to what our destination would be. Eight hours later our labouring trucks lumbered to a halt in what had to be the most desolate region in all of Italy, a rock-bound countryside two miles south of Altamura in the province of Puglia in the deep southeast of the peninsula. Here is where we spent the next two months in as barren and indescribably rocky and unforgiving region as that of the Australian outback. Training at Altamura We were not only bone-weary, we were totally pissed off, bored to numbness and as hungry as bears fresh from hibernation when we alighted from our rickety transport. One sidewise glance at the landscape was all we needed for our morale to drop like a lead weight right down to our toes. There was nothing out there around us but rocks, rocks, and still more rocks, interspersed here and there by the scraggliest of bushes, clumps of weeds and other unidentified vegetation. It was about as inhospitable a landscape as anyone ever wished he had never come to. The only saving grace of the entire depressing scene was the olive grove amongst whose gnarled trees we pitched our tents. About the only good thing about the site was that we wouldn't have to worry about being flooded out when the rains came, because the campsite was on elevated ground. Otherwise there was very little if anything to recommend it as a place for man or beast to live. Regardless, it was to be our home for a spell and we'd just have to accept it and make the best of it. As it turned out, it wasn't all that bad once we got used to roughing it in the wilderness. After our tents went up and the kitchen was back in business, we began looking at the situation in a more positive light. And then when we immersed ourselves in the daily training syllabus we didn't think twice about the location. It took us about a week, after which we found ourselves actually enjoying a fair measure of contentment in our pup-tent accommodations. After a long day's training From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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session out amongst the rocks, hillocks and ravines it was with good feeling we marched back to our humble homes under the spreading branches of the olive trees. Like the old saying goes, "Home is where you hang your hat." In this case, our home was where we hung our helmets. Altamura was an old town, dating as far back as the eleventh century. It lies in the province of Puglia in southeast Italy, and although the region around it is largely a rocky wasteland, little more than a few miles away to the east, stretching from north to south lies the narrow coastal plain known as the Murge, intensely farmed and near treeless. To the west of our olivegrove campsite was a two-mile-wide spread of billiard-table flatland, ploughed and harrowed and ready for spring planting, while to the north and south the landscape degenerated into a jumble of rocks, monster boulders and rocky out-crops. It was about as daunting a setting for infantry training as the army could have selected. While the Perths were out in the boondocks living the life of lizards amongst the rocks, one of our sister units in the brigade, the Irish Regiment of Canada, thought themselves fabulously lucky when they were assigned billets in Altamura. They moved into an impressive-looking twostory structure built during Mussolini's regime in the mid-thirties and formerly used as government offices. The building overlooked the town square, and at first the Irish thought they had it "made" — with no rain to contend with, they figured to be as warm as toast. Or so they thought. Our reaction, when we learned what the Irish had been presented with in the way of accommodation, was one of dark resentment. We felt that the boys with the fancy hats worn on the wrong side of their heads, with their "big city" Toronto connection, were as usual being catered to and given favoured treatment, while the "country cousin" regiment of plainsounding name (The Perth Regiment) would have to make out as best they could, away out in the boondocks. However, it didn't take us or the Irish long to realize who, in fact, did get the better of the deal. While we enjoyed relatively good health, with the result that our sick parades were sparsely attended, the Irish ran into an epidemic of medical problems, everything from muscular aches and pains to colds, pleurisy, flu and intestinal disturbances. This breakdown in health came from living in drafty, unheated buildings, sleeping on cold, hard terrazzo floors in rooms that were infested not only with lice but dozens of other forms of insect life, all seeking the warmth and blood sustenance of a human body. When we were told about what the Irish were going through we no longer felt quite so overlooked. Our other brigade partner, The Cape Breton Highlanders, had taken over what only a short time before had served as a concentration camp for 82

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Allied POWs. The camp was located on the northern fringe of the town, with facilities not much better than what the Irish had to put up with. In fact, their sick parades were almost as long. All in all then, our windbuffeted, rain-pelted olive-grove site plunked down in the middle of nowhere was not such a bad thing after all. Our pup tents were reasonably warm except on the coldest nights when the two occupants had to sleep pressed tight up against each other spoon fashion for the mutual warmth of each other's body. Surprisingly, the heat from a burning candle was often sufficient to take the sharp edge off the cold. Sleeping on the ground was nowhere near as bad as we thought it would be, especially for those of us who had the foresight to pick up whatever grass, twigs or rush we could gather in the wilderness close by the camp, to use as crude mattresses. The only pests, if you could call them such, were the chameleons that sometimes disrupted sleep by crawling over our bodies. They didn't bite or cause any other problems, and their diet was strictly insects, so they were beneficial rather than a problem. "Necessity is the mother of invention", so the saying goes. In our case, it was more innovation than invention. One of our more imaginative and enterprising types, not content with the way things were with his pup tent, decided to do something. He talked one of his friends in the transport section into hauling a load of sandstone blocks he'd found just off the road in an area where we'd been doing field training. These beige-coloured blocks, a little larger than regular basement building blocks, were the remains of what appeared to be an abandoned archeological dig. Our construction genius stacked them three deep in a rectangle the size of the pup tent, left an opening at one end for a doorway and pitched his tent on top, using a groundsheet to seal the entrance from the bottom of the tent down to the ground. Simple. Now, he and his partner would no longer have to crawl into their tent like the rest of us had to do. It had that little extra touch. Not much, but still a lot better than what the rest of us had. Not to be outdone, inside of a week, after getting permission from Captain Ridge to use the company 1500 CWT for hauling the blocks, half the company had erected themselves similar accommodations. Besides adding a touch of comfort, it gave us something to do in our spare time, and that was important in contributing towards a general feeling of well-being. An area about two miles south of the camp was an ideal place for platoon-size field tactical training using live ammo. For miles around to the south the region was nothing but rocky ravines where it was unlikely any natives of the region would have cause to wander about. And so, to give the platoon exercises a touch of realism, we were issued with live ammunition, which we fired off with an abandon bordering on recklessness. It was a From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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miracle no one was killed or wounded, what with bullets ricocheting off the rocks and zinging in every direction. One day while we were scurrying amongst the rocks and boulders in a make-believe attack on an enemy strongpoint, a shepherd with his flock of sheep hove into view from behind a ridge on the far side of a ravine. Although no one wished to hurt the man or his flock, the sadists amongst us, with glints in their eyes and crooked smiles on their lips were overwhelmed with the sadistic desire to scare the daylights out of the "paisan." Not for one second did he suspect that a bunch of maniacs were hidden behind the rocks across the ravine, with rifles leveled in his direction. What a dandy opportunity it was for us to break the monotony of firing away at inanimate rocks. All at once we opened up in a fusillade. For about three seconds, with bullets snapping and zinging off the rocks around his sandaled feet, the poor, terrified shepherd froze in his tracks, not knowing whether to shit, fart, whistle or chew meat. He took a snap look across the intervening space wondering what the heck was going on and where the shots were coming from. And then in a black blur of motion he took off, dropping his shepherd's crook as he skipped across the rockstrewn ground like an Olympic hurdler, leaving his sheep trailing far behind, falling all over each other in a loud chorus of "baaaaas" as they sped after him. The spectacle had us literally rolling on the ground busting our guts laughing. Anything for a little fun. On one bright but chilly afternoon 18 Platoon marched off down the gravel road to a spot about a mile and a half from camp for an hour or so of field-firing. Why we were positioned only twenty-five yards off the side of the road to fire at a pile of stones we never did bother to question. The only precaution taken to ensure that no military or civilian traffic entered the danger area was to post a sentry at the far end of the road. He had been put there to halt all traffic, wheeled or ambulatory that might happen to be heading south. Private John Trickey got the job. And to be on the safe side, he disappeared over the brow far enough to make sure no wayward round would come anywhere near him. Everything went smoothly as we fired off our prescribed number of rounds, after which the signal went over the field telephone to him saying we were all through with firing and that he could rejoin us. Seconds later he appeared over the brow and started off down the road to rejoin the platoon, striding in that stiffly put-on way of his, as though he was on a parade-square drill. And then a half dozen rifles barked as one. It was no conspiracy. The six of us just happened to get the fiendish idea at the same time, with intention of giving him a good scare like we'd earlier scared the living daylights out of the shepherd boy. Tracers ricocheted off the pile of 84

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stones we'd been using as a target not twenty-five yards off the side of the road, a couple of rounds winging past him a little too close for comfort. Trickey dropped like he'd been shot, and for a moment or two we were afraid someone's ricocheting bullet had indeed plugged him. But Trickey was up in a flash and fell all over himself scrambling to safety back up the road from where he had come from to disappear over the brow, no doubt wondering if his platoon mates had gone stark, raving mad, or that somebody just had it in for him. I'd never known Trickey to be quick with his reflexes or nimble on his feet, but he sure fooled me on this occasion. The man had wings on his feet. Meanwhile back at the firing line we laughed ourselves hoarse and belly sore. As for the former ceremonial Grenadier Guardsman who claimed to ride so tall in the saddle in parades down the Cote des Neiges in Montreal before the war, he didn't think it was at all that funny. He never did find out who the culprits were, and even if he had, it wouldn't have done him any good anyway, because no one was afraid of him. Another time we allowed ourselves to be carried away in our field firing was on one of our unpopular battle-drill outings. We were itching to bang away at something other than just a pile of rocks, but this time there wasn't a shepherd in sight, nor a sentry to scare half to death. Just as we were about to give up looking for a likely target, off to our right front about two hundred yards away I spied a shepherd's field-stone hut complete with a rush-thatched roof. My eyes lit up with anticipation. What a target! I couldn't resist the temptation, so I let go a tracer round at it. Right after the bullet hit home a thin wisp of smoke curled upwards, but then went out. This got the others in the platoon going and in a matter of ten seconds a dozen and a half rifles were blazing away, pumping tracers into it, and soon the tinder-dry thatch was burning full flame. We marched back to camp in a much better frame of mind than what we'd shown on marching out. Again, anything to spice up the day. With so little to do in our off hours, it was only natural that those who had an unquenchable taste for the drink that cheers, should go traipsing about the countryside on the hunt for vino. And they had no trouble finding it. The farmers were only too glad to make a few extra lire, or to take in trade some item of army-issue clothing or cigarettes. The latter being the preferred goods. Those of us who were not inclined to wallow in drink had to find other ways to pass the time. Outside of writing letters and doing a few necessary chores like darning socks, cleaning and blancoing web, washing clothing, and taking care of our weapons, we were lost for recreation. The only reading material that came into our hands was an occasional 8th Army Crusader newspaper. The Maple Leaf editorial staff From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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was still in the process of being organized, with the premier issue not slated to come off the press until mid January. As for mail from home, none had yet reached us. So outside of writing letters and playing cards (those who had them), the only diversion came when we spent an evening in Altamura, But this was nothing to get excited about. Although the one cinema in town showed Hollywood movies, the sound track was in Italian, with English dialogue in caption below. It wasn't easy to get interested in the movie listening to Errol Flynn and Maureen O'Hara whispering sweet nothings to each other in a foreign language. There was only one canteen in town, operated by the Knights of Columbus, where we could buy good old English rock cakes, along with a narrow selection of dry and crumbly Italian pastries and, of course, tea. That was about it. Again, there were those whose only intention was to get themselves "pie-eyed" drunk. This type, the minute they hit town, made a beeline for the nearest vino parlour, which they had no trouble finding. The most popular place in town, without a doubt, though, had to be the local whorehouse, known as "the casino." I found this out when on one occasion I was on night patrol to maintain the curfew imposed on Altamura's citizens. Patrolling the dark .streets with cold winds whipping along was a thoroughly uncomfortable duty, so someone in the section talked Corporal Whitey Haskell of 16 Platoon into going to the casino to get in out of the cold. Whitey, being something of a carouser, agreed, and so we hot-footed it to where we could get warmed up. When we arrived there was this long line-up of guys, something like maybe a hundred or more from the Irish, CBH, Perths and sundry other units waiting in nervous and somewhat agitated anticipation to have their turn at a roll in the hay. What flabbergasted me was that there were only five girls — five of the most unappealing women I'd ever laid my innocent eyes on at home or abroad. They were plain ugly. A guy'd have to close his eyes to make love to them, and yet here they were servicing the sexual needs of what amounted to a brigade plus supporting units. When I saw what the girls looked like, I couldn't help but say to myself, "A guy's got to be out of his mind to crawl into bed with something like that! I've seen better-looking camels!" My first evening in town, outside of night patrol duty was about as tame an affair as any could be for a non-drinker and non-seeker of fleshy delights. I took in a night at the cinema where I somehow managed to sit most of the way through a long, drawn-out, no-action movie listening to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Ginger Rogers speaking in Italian. As the end of the movie drew near I skipped out to the foyer ready to make a run for the canteen as soon as the audience stood up for "God Save the King." I wanted to make sure I was going to be at the head of the queue. To do it I needed a head start. 86

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The canteen was located just off a corner of the town piazza a little over a block away from the cinema. Under normal circumstances, even at night, it shouldn't have presented a problem to get there. But on this particular night things weren't quite as normal as they usually would be. Let me relate: As soon as George's picture appeared on the screen at the end of the movie and everyone stood up to sing the National Anthem I took off lickety-split out the door. Once outside however, I stopped dead in my tracks. It was as though I'd been struck blind. It was so dark I couldn't see my hand at the tip of my nose. After waiting a minute or so for the pupils to dilate enough, I took off again down the blacker than black canyon of the narrow street in the general direction of where I knew the piazza to be. When I heard the thundering pound of two hundred steel-studded boots behind me I stepped on the gas. With my night vision improved, I burst into the clear at the sunken piazza, scampered down the five steps, feeling good because I knew I was going to beat them all to the canteen. Unknown to me, however, and everybody else was the presence of a wire strung across the square at head height. Someone had set up a booby trap, and I suspect it had to be the work of one of the local Fascists, of whom there were supposed to be quite a few in town. Lucky for me I was only five-six, because the wire just caught me at the top of the forehead, knocking only my wedge-cap off. As I bent down to retrieve it I heard the hungry horde turn the corner and start down the piazza steps sounding like a teeming herd of buffalo stampeding across the prairie. I took off, but not without a chuckle, knowing the guys behind me were in for an upsetting surprise. And that's exactly what happened as they ran into the wire. They went down in waves, piling up in heaps in a chorus of angry shouts and cries of pain. It was a good five minutes or more after I sat down to enjoy my tea and rock cakes that the cut, the bruised, the bleeding and the limping straggled into the canteen. More than a few also came in with acutely sore Adam's apples. Most had lost their wedge caps or tarns, and if they were lucky enough to pick one up in the dark, it was invariably someone else's. I sat there by the door watching them stagger in trying hard to keep from smiling or showing amusement at their misfortune because I knew just how they must have felt and were in no mood to see someone enjoying themselves over what had happened to them. There was murder in their eyes, and it was surprising no one, either singly or as a group bothered to take out vengeance on the Altamurans whose homes overlooked the piazza. After all, it could be assumed the perpetrator of the dastardly deed had to reside somewhere close by.

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An Afternoon in Bari and the Air-raid on the Harbour All those in the Perths and in every other unit in the 1st Corps who for one reason or another were in Bari on the evening of December 2, 1943, will never forget the bombing raid that hit the town and its harbour. It was an event that became one of the biggest "hushed-up" stories of the war. On this day it was Charlie and Dog Companies' turn to be treated to a day off from training with an afternoon visit to Bari. Morale, always a problem in armies when troops have very little to do in the way of recreation at the end of a long training day, became just such a problem with the Perths camped out in the rocky wasteland below Altamura. There was no place where they could play ball or do much of anything. No concert party came around to entertain them. There were no books, magazines or newspapers, nor were there any chairs or tables at which one could sit at to write letters or notes such as I sought to do for some future literary effort. There was absolutely nothing in the way of amenities to make a soldier's life bearable. Like I had said earlier, some fellows were determined to get drunk every chance that came along. And for a little more often than was good for them, they accomplished their purpose. Incidents of drunkenness increased as the weeks passed by till it reached a crisis point when one of our Indian lads from Cape Croker, high on anisette (a type of liquor), went berserk and opened up with a Bren. Lucky for us his aim was high and the bursts whizzed harmlessly over the tops of our pup tents, but they were close enough to scare bloody hell out of all of us. Someone finally wrestled the gun out of his hands, and he was put under close arrest and taken away, never to return. What his fate was I had no way of knowing. Not long after the incident, Colonel Rutherford very wisely saw the need for some diversion for his regiment, and decided to give each company a chance to spend an afternoon in the big city of Bari, just a little over thirty miles away. They could kick up their heels, see a movie, get drunk, get laid, stroll along the undamaged downtown streets, do whatever pleased them so long as they could unwind. The good Lord knows they needed it! And Bari was the ideal place for them to do these things. And so in mid-morning of December 2, 240 men of Charlie and Dog Companies climbed aboard sixteen Dodge three-tonne trucks for the roundabout trip to Bari. Naturally it was with unbounded enthusiasm that we settled ourselves into our seats, and before the trucks had even hit the road we were singing away with great enthusiasm all the raunchy and downright filthy songs and limericks we knew. The route taking us to Bari was by way of Andria to Barletta on the 88

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Adriatic coast and thence down to Bari. What a happy and boisterous group we were! Even the "hard to get along with" types were in good frame of mind and joined in the singing. Barletta, as we could plainly see on both sides of the road, had taken one hell of a pummeling from our bombers. A good half of the downtown buildings were either rubble heaps or so heavily damaged they stood gaunt and empty — windows gone, doors gone, walls ready to topple over with just the push of the hand. It was Naples all over again. Giant heaps of brick, mortar, stone and plaster were sad testimony to the violence that had passed through the town. In every block, cow plasters, sheep dung and human waste decorated the gutters and even the sidewalks every few feet. Beggars by the score clamoured in one voice with outstretched arms for food. "Mangiare! Biscotte!" was a plaintive refrain we heard all too often in those first few weeks in the country. Although we felt sorry for them, there was nothing we could do to help, since we brought no food along with us. We felt genuinely sorry, especially for the women, far too many of them in the black tattered dresses of widowhood. Many of the younger ones, we assumed, had lost their husbands in the war, most likely having given their lives for Mussolini in North Africa. The men were an equally sorry-looking lot, what with their dark, hollow-cheeks and unshaven faces, their baggy remnants of trousers that hadn't seen soap and water in weeks or even months. The children, on the other hand, although also in rags and with dusty, matted hair, were, far more cheerful and animated than their elders, but even they showed signs of malnutrition in their skinny legs and drawn faces. All in all, the ride through Barletta was not a cheerful one, but we soon shucked the image from our minds once we hit the open road. As we sped along the tree-lined highway we were greeted by the sight of what had to be the estates of either rich and ruthless land barons, corrupt politicians, or the Mafiosa. How these managed to remain undamaged by the war passing by their front door was a bit of a mystery to us. Outside San Spirito we passed by a huge airfield with rows of fourengined B-24 Liberator bombers parked on the grass just off the runway. The hangars were in poor shape, full of shrapnel holes in the sheet-metal siding, and with sizable panels of the corrugated sheet roof missing. Closer by the road were scattered the junked remains of four Italian SavoiaMarchetti bombers which I assumed had once gone on raids over Malta early in the war. A few miles farther down the road we arrived at Bari, a city of some three hundred thousand souls. Bari had, by the good fortunes of war, escaped major damage from bombing or battle in the streets. It was spared because our High Command wanted the city and its splendid harbour From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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intact. They had planned that it should be the main unloading port for convoys bringing supplies to the 8th Army. Along with the harbour, the city had many fine buildings that could accommodate all the various formation headquarters and would provide most suitable billets for the thousands of troops needed to service the port and the supply depots. As a result, the people of Bari were spared the death and destruction that had visited most other cities, and the population enjoyed a life drastically different and closer to normal than most of their compatriots elsewhere. We were amazed and more than just pleased to find the downtown shopping district unscathed and remarkably clean by contrast with what we had thus far observed everywhere else. The stores carried a wide variety of consumer goods, which was surprising since in our comparatively brief acquaintance with the economic conditions in the country, severely disrupted by the war, we thought the situation here would be little different than what we had seen in Naples. The biggest hardship, and the one having the greatest impact on the urban populations was the shortage of food. But in Bari we found the restaurants open and doing a booming business, most of the diners being service personnel from the dozen and more nations having troops quartered in or visiting the city. How ludicrous it was that there was still food plentiful enough around to keep restaurants open when down the road only a few miles, people were starving. Although the only traffic on the streets was of the military type, sidewalks were jam-packed store-front to curb with strollers and windowshoppers about evenly divided between Allied servicemen and local people. I passed by one bake shop with its window display chock-full of cookies, cakes and bread, which drew the rapt attention of almost every soldier, sailor or airman passing by, many of whom couldn't resist stepping inside to buy the delicious treats. Bari, the new city, not the old one of narrow, twisting streets, was an attractive mix of grandly designed buildings, in close harmony with the old, wide, tree-lined boulevards and downtown streets with their clean, well-maintained stores and restaurants. But most who visited Bari will, you can be sure, always remember the mouth-watering aroma of spaghetti dinners, veal parmigiane, scallopini, and minestrone soup wafting out to the sidewalk from restaurants all along the streets. And then there were the ice-cream parlours that I never expected to see over here, especially in wartime. The ice cream, although not as delicious as ours back home, turned out to be that special surprise to the palate few of us expected or will ever forget. Almost everything about the city, including the people, made a deep impression on all who visited it. It was indeed refreshing and a real "pick me up" to come here to a place largely untouched by the events of 90

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war. Bari was a return to some semblance of order and normalcy after the depressing close-up view of Naples, Casoria, Afragola, Gravina, Andria, Barletta, Molfetta and a hundred other sad villages and towns in between. Those who cared not for the dens of iniquity or the dubious delights of the wine cellars, hiked on over to the Santa Margherita Theatre after a couple of hours of walking up and down the avenues of the downtown district taking in all the sights and sounds and smells of the city. The theatre was built right over the water, and the movie, as I recall, was The Strawberry Blonde, starring Rita Hayworth, with dialogue in English. With the movie over at 5:30, almost all of the two companies had already gathered at the trucks lined up along the waterfront boulevard, ready to load up and be on our way back to camp. Move-off was scheduled for 6:00, but there was some delay due to the problem of rounding up the inevitable few drunks. By some stroke of luck the drunks and near-drunks were rounded up in quick time and the convoy was on its way. As it made its way along the now dark streets, none of its passengers were aware of the fact that a squadron of JU-88s was winging its way south just above the wavetops down the length of the Adriatic, on its way to bomb the vast accumulation of shipping in the harbour. As our convoy turned inland to follow a more direct route back to camp, German bombers were only minutes away from arriving over the harbour. We had just reached the city outskirts when a blinding flash of light and a stunning explosion off the roadside threw us all to the floor. "What in the hell was that!" someone blurted out. Then came another explosion and another, by which time we realized they weren't bombs. It was the one and only anti-aircraft battery in the city opening fire on the intruders. Seconds later we heard the planes, and there was no mistaking whose they were. The unsynchronized beat of the engines was a dead giveaway. The lead planes dropped a string of chandelier flares that lit up the city behind us in a ghostly, flickering light, the flares seeming to hang in the sky, taking forever to float to ground. Streams of tracers converged on them as gunners aboard the ships and on the ground tried desperately to shoot them out of the sky. And then came the deep "whump" of bombs. We breathed a collective sigh of relief in knowing that if it had taken us just fifteen minutes more to round up the drunks we'd have been caught smack in the middle of the raid. "Wow! That was close!" you could almost hear everybody whisper. Although driving in the dark with only narrow slits in the head-light covers was no easy job, our drivers nonetheless poured on the coals, as much as safety would allow, to get away from the city and out into the security of the open countryside beyond. They certainly didn't have to be From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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reminded of the possibility an errant bomb could blow us all to kingdom come. The farther we got away from the city, the easier we breathed. A few miles outside the city limits the lead truck in the convoy struck an English despatch rider (DR), who suffered a broken leg. The entire convoy pulled over, and without much ado he was placed on a stretcher and put aboard the tail-end truck in the convoy, which was the one I was riding in. Captain Ridge then instructed our driver to take the injured man back into the city to the nearest hospital, which happened to be on the waterfront right close by where all the damage had been done. Fine and dandy. We passengers expected to be transferred to other trucks for the balance of the journey back to camp, but were ordered instead to remain where we were. Our moans of anguish and protest, however, did nothing to change Sammy's mind. And so with glum faces and muttered oaths we sat there on both sides of the stretcher with the injured DR as the truck turned around and headed back into the city and the holocaust. Inwardly, I know, we were all cursing him for putting us in this predicament. In fact I think we actually hated the poor lad. Whoever our driver was, he did a masterful job of threading his way through the city, now lit up from the glow of burning ships in the harbour. Although we couldn't have been travelling more than fifteen miles an hour, we made reasonably good time until we reached the waterfront, where we ran into a screaming and wailing mob of hysterical humanity streaming away from the flame-lit harbour area. It was heart-wrenching to hear the cries of children calling for their mothers, and their mothers crying out as piteously for their children, separated from each other in the stampede of terrified people. We'd seen such scenes in newsreels and were moved, but here we were seeing and hearing it live, all around us. It affected us deeply. It was our introduction to the greater tragedy of war, seeing how the innocent had to suffer the indignities, the pain and the horror that war inflicts on them. By the time the last group of frantic Bari citizens had gone by we emerged from the built-up area and were moving slowly along the wide waterfront boulevard, where we could see the extent of the damage to the ships in the harbour. Everywhere, out on the water and to our right along the jetties, ships were on fire. Some had only small patches of fire here and there on deck, others were almost totally engulfed in leaping flames. It was a spectacle that couldn't fail to sear itself into our memories. On some ships close in-shore we could see heavy damage done to the superstructures, with masts and stacks hanging over the side, while others showed gaping holes in their hulls caused by exploding cargoes, the plates peeled back like the skin on a banana. Farther along the waterfront we rode 92

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past a ship lying close inshore, burning fiercely from stem to stern, its side plates cherry-red from the blast-furnace heat of the burning cargo deep inside its hold. We felt the heat on our cheeks as our driver accelerated to get by. He was taking no chances, fearing that it might blow at any second. If it had, it's not likely we'd be around to know what happened. We dropped the injured DR off at 98th British General Hospital overlooking the harbour where we watched a steady stream of casualties making their way up the hospital driveway. Most suffered burns or minor injuries and walked in unaided. Some staggered in supporting each other, their clothes in tatters, dirty and oil-smeared, blood stains on their faces, their hair matted with a mix of blood and oil. On the faces of each was the wild, frightened look of someone at the outermost edge of sanity. Close behind them came stretcher-bearers carrying those suffering graver wounds, some of the injured crying out in deep pain, the occasional one screaming from unbearable agony. Others lay numbly or impassively on their stretcher. Here we were observing a scene that might have been taken out of a page of Dante's Inferno; the heart-wrenching cries of the grievously hurt, bedraggled and besmeared walking wounded, some looking more dead than alive; the burning ships out in the harbour; the flames and stifling smoke; the stink of burning oil and wood; the cacophony of voices, English, Italian and God knows what else; voices of authority, angry voices, soft voices of reassurance; all this we observed, smelled and heard, a nightmare that was only too real. Now we knew what it must have been like for the people of London, of Coventry, of Liverpool, of Southampton, and of all the little towns and villages throughout the lower half of the island when the Luftwaffe jettisoned nightly loads of bombs and incendiaries in the Blitz. We looked on with detached interest, framed in pity and helplessness, all that was going on around us, anxious to get away from the stricken harbour area. We'd seen enough to last us a lifetime. As we sat there looking out from the rear of our tarpaulin-covered truck, little did we know that we were not much more than fifteen minutes away from the second act of the disaster. Our passage both out of the area and the city was unobstructed, as the crowd of fleeing citizens had long since dispersed and disappeared into the inner city where they knew they'd be safer. Now we could relax a bit knowing we were on the move, although not fast enough for us. If it had've been possible for us to urge the driver on to greater speed, we'd have done so. Any move, however slow, was better than no move at all. I had a distinct feeling something terrible was about to happen as I looked out across the harbour and saw all those ships burning. One of those ships, I knew, had to From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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blow up, and very soon. Ten minutes later we reached the approximate spot at the outskirts where we'd been turned around and sent back with the injured DR, when the iridescent, flickering sky over the city flared up with the intense brightness of a prolonged lightning flash. "Holy Jeez! Something just blew!" I exclaimed. Hardly had the words left my lips when a mighty roar sounded, like a hundred thunderstorms rolled into one. "Oh, my God! The world's coming to an end!" The thought hit me as I threw myself on the floor along with everybody else. It was about as useless a move as any of us could ever make. How could we be any safer on the floor of the truck than sitting? No sooner had we hit the deck than the pressure wave came, a hurricane compacted into two frightful seconds. The rush of air was so powerful it felt like someone trying to pull our tunics off our backs. We got up and as we looked out towards the city we knew that one of the ships had gone sky-high, "By the 'Tarrrrd thunderin' jayzuz, that was some bang!" came the typical Maritime response from the Dartmouth kid, Gerry Curran. What we didn't know was that a ship, the S.S. John Harvey., carrying over a hundred tons of mustard gas bombs had disintegrated in a titanic blast. Fifteen minutes, no more, separated us from those who died that night and those who expired over the next two weeks from the horrible effects of mustard gas poisoning. The Hill Climb Competition We were fast rounding out into the splendid specimens of Canadian manhood we had always believed ourselves to be back in those last couple of weeks in England. It was understandable though that we should lose some muscle tone on the fourteen-day voyage to Italy. The two weeks aboard the John Ericcson, in which we did bugger-all but walk the decks, undid to some degree what had taken us months to achieve. In effect, we had become civilian soft again. But after arriving in the rocky wasteland outside Altamura it was "go, go, go, go and go again." No rest for the wicked. But it wasn't all that easy to get back into the swing of things. For the first three or four days we huffed and we puffed till our bodies ached from shoulder blades all the way down to the arches. But it didn't take us long to shape up and feel like our old tough selves again. After three weeks of daily route marches, road runs and platoon schemes that took us up and over and across rock-strewn hillsides and down equally rocky ravines, our leg muscles toughened up and became limber again and our respiratory capacity increased to the point where we could go full tilt for hours at an end and not be totally exhausted. The CO was well aware of the rapid improvement in our physical conditioning and 94

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came up with the bright idea of a hill-climb competition to make things a little more interesting. Since most of the men in Dog Company were in the 19-21 age group, we had good reason to believe we were in better physical shape than the fellows in the other companies with their larger proportion of men in their late twenties and into their thirties. We were confident we'd whip the asses off the old fogeys. The question might be asked here, "Why was the average age of Dog Company personnel younger than those in the other companies?" Outside of transfers of a few Perth originals into the company when it reformed to four rifle company status at Hunstanton in August of 1943, Dog Company was made up of draftees called to service when our age category came up. The call-up age had been lowered to 19 in August of 1942, just days after the ill-fated Dieppe Raid, so Dog Company was the so-called "baby company" in the regiment. The hill selected for the test wasn't much higher than three hundred feet. What made it a real challenge was its forty-five-degree slope, covered with boulders and loose rock. The line of departure was a gravelled road about two hundred yards back from the base of the hill. From here the competitors had to cross a ploughed field. That wouldn't have been half so tough to traverse had we not had to do it in full fighting gear carrying our weapons. The Bren-gunners were allowed to switch their Brens for rifles. One company at a time had a go at it, each timed from the moment the starter fired the pistol to when the last man arrived at the top. The lower elapsed time determined the winner, no matter whether one company had a man up first overall or not. Dog Company was the last to go. At the crack of the pistol, away we went. I spurted into an early lead. Halfway across, I was already a good ten yards ahead of the field. I also had plenty of energy yet to burn and could taste victory. But not ten paces after I'd passed the halfway mark I felt my legs tiring. And then it was as though I'd run into a brick wall. My breath came in laboured gasps, my thigh muscles felt ready to give out on me. I was weakening fast and about to drop in my tracks. I sickened at the sight of two fellows from 17 Platoon looking strong, striding past me. What made it hard to take was the fact these two were fellows I was sure I could beat hands down in any sport. They weren't the weak sister type, but neither were they athletes, and I knew I could run circles around them. And then, when a couple more went by, I gritted my teeth, sucked in deep breaths trying to get more oxygen into my lungs and muscles, swore at myself for the stupidity of having gone too fast too soon. It'd taken a lot out of me and I was paying for it now. I despaired over the possibility I might not even make it to the base of the From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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hill, let alone climb it. But then I got my second wind and began picking up ground on the guys who had passed me. It was remarkable how quick my recovery came. I started up the slope at a more deliberate pace, not trying to pass anybody, just to put that one foot down and follow with the other and so on. One step at a time, that's all I needed. I soon caught up to the ones who'd gone by me. As I went by I could feel myself getting stronger and I felt I could go up a hill twice as high. In no time at all, it seemed, I reached the top. Although disappointed to see I wasn't the first man up as I thought I'd be, I didn't feel too bad about it, knowing I was still good enough to whip all but two. Only Captain Ridge and one of the boys from 17 Platoon got to the top ahead of me. I flopped down winded and rubber-legged, but in a matter of only a couple of minutes I was up on my feet and ready to go again at any other hill they might want me to climb. I watched, with some air of superiority as the tail-end of the company staggered the last few feet to the top and then flaked out. We were informed later that day that Dog Company was the overall winner, while the fastest time honours went to Captain Bob Cole of Charlie Company. Which brings me to mention something a sergeant once told me about how physical fitness is measured in the infantry. This sergeant, whose name I can't recall (nor can I remember whether it was at Camp Ipperwash or at Aldershot where he passed on this gem of army wisdom) stated that physical fitness isn't measured by how fast a man can run, or how high he can jump, or how much he can lift, it's measured by how quickly he can recover from any unusually great physical demand on his body and be in a condition ready to fight. I never forgot this sage piece of advice. And now, here on a rocky hill outside Altamura, it all came back to me what he'd said, and I could confirm it as a truism. Although I was whipped, winded, drag-assed tuckered out, I made full recovery after resting only a couple minutes. I felt fit and raring to go, feeling no ill after-effects, while most of the others were still flat on their backs all over the hill in the throes of extreme weariness, and it was ten or fifteen minutes before most of them were on their feet. Even then, they took their sweet time going down the hill, while I literally flew down. Exercise Twin Tits By the third week of December the regiment was considered to be ready for a full-scale Brigade Field Exercise. This one, although not officially given a code-name, was called EXERCISE TWIN TITS. I always wondered, after the war, by what stroke of imagination or genius odd code names were 96

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selected. Outside of SPARTAN, which had a good ring to it, there were silly names like MOPSY, FLOPSY, DITTO and SNAFFLE — which must have driven the German Intelligence people bonkers. TWIN TITS, though, didn't appear on any official document or Daily Syllabus sheets. It was just a figment of some Perth officer's wild imagination. Odd as it may have been, it did have a certain logic to its selection in that the focal point or the objective of the regiment was the seizure of a pair of round-topped hills of equal height suggesting a pair of well-formed mammary glands. The exercise got underway on December 18 when Service Corps TCVs dropped us off on a winding stretch of gravelled road in a wild region of low-wooded hills, dry riverbeds, and wide stretches of scrubland a few miles outside Gravina, about twelve miles west of Altamura. From this point the regiment struck off across the rugged terrain in a forced march that was to last all that afternoon and most of the night. By first light we were to be in position at the base of one of these two prominences held by an imaginary enemy. We went up in assault at 0530 hours and shortly after, the exercise was declared over. Outside the tactics employed, the forced march itself was a test of how far along we were in physical condition since arriving in the country. And it was a tough one. The route took us across some of the ruggedest terrain in all of that part of Italy, a route march that made all others we'd gone on since we joined the army pale into insignificance. For the better part of the afternoon and well into evening we trekked through bramble and high grass, clawed our way through brush and woody thickets, stumbled across ploughed fields and along dried-up, stony riverbeds. And when we ran out of riverbeds we found ourselves scrambling up grassy embankments and down into scrub and weed-choked ravines where ruts and potholes and roots caught at our feet, making progress painfully slow. With only five minute breaks each hour, by the time we halted for a longer rest we were completely worn out and were thankful when we were told we could bed down and have a couple hours sleep. As well as being exhausted, we were also hungry, not having had a bite to eat since breakfast. Although now we had a chance to dig into the two bully-beef sandwiches Tommy Wilson, our company cook had prepared for us, they weren't anywhere near enough to replace the calories we burned up on the march. At midnight we were on the move again, with at least five hours march yet to go. If we thought the going had been tough on the first half of the march, we were soon to find out that we had up till now, taken only a leisurely stroll through the park. Marching in daylight is so much easier than any night march. In daylight a man can see where he's going and rarely, if ever will he run up the backside of the man ahead, tread on his From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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heels, stumble on a rock, or make a misstep. A night march, on the other hand, almost without fail, ends up being a test of one's patience and endurance—mainly patience. The night resounds with the vehement shouts of men swearing at each other over being tripped up or run into. Such was the case on this particular night. We were so vocal, that if it had gone like this at the front, the enemy would have heard us approaching from ten miles away. After two hours of fighting our way through a scrubland wilderness, we found ourselves slogging along another bone-dry riverbed. Fortunately for us the stones in this one weren't quite as large as the rocks we'd been tripping and stumbling over earlier. After about two hours of groping our way through the darkness, the column entered a deep cleft in a mountainside, a cleft so deep and so narrow we could just barely make out the starlit sky above us. Through this cleft ran a trickle of water bubbling over a base of rounded stones. After three more hours of groping and stumbling and cursing our way through the subterranean passage, we were pretty well worn out. Legs felt more like plasticene than muscle and bone, while ankles throbbed from the punishment of stepping on the smooth stones of the watercourse. Shoulders ached under the irritation and pressure of webbing, while the inside of our thighs were rubbed raw by the coarse, woollen khaki of our trousers. And as the hours dragged on, we kept going and going and going till I thought we'd never stop. I couldn't see us being in any condition for any simulated assault of a hilltop, come daybreak. It wasn't until the first gray light of dawn showed in the eastern sky that we emerged from the cleft's restricting confines. What a relief it was when we arrived at the base of "Twin Tits"! After a short breather, Captain Ridge raised his arm and waved us up the slope for a grand assault. What an anti-climax it turned out to be! On reaching the top, much to our chagrin and surprise we found not an enemy soul in sight. "Where in hell is everybody?" What a letdown! EXERCISE TWIN TITS was just another SNAFU! The only thing we got out of the exercise as far as I could see, was conditioning, which we didn't feel we needed. As for tactics, we learned bugger-all. In fact I don't think any of our companies had an inkling what each other was doing, or where everyone was. A complete bollox! That's about what 'Twin Tits' turned out to be. We weren't all that disappointed, though. We were glad it was all over with, and looking forward to being on our way back to camp to get ready for the Christmas celebration, only two days away. Most of us in Dog Company were "Johnnies-come lately" to the army, drafted to the Perths out of holding units. And since most had arrived in 98

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England in May of C43, this was to be our first Christmas overseas. As for Able, Baker, Charlie, Support and HQ Companies, whose manpower largely came at mobilization in Stratford in the first weeks of the war, or who joined within a year or shortly thereafter, this would be their third Christmas away from home. We were supposed to have rendezvoused with our TCVs some time around noon, but it seems that someone's map-reading wasn't up to snuff and the convoy ended up "away to hell and gone" in the opposite direction. After the man in charge led the convoy on a wild goose chase for an hour or so, and then realizing they'd been traveling in the wrong direction, he turned the convoy around and went shooting back the way they had come. Two hours later they made it to where they were supposed to have gone in the first place. By the time we made our way down off the hill it was dark, and with the darkness came one ding-dong of an electric storm. It was directly overhead, the lightning flashing one right after the other, turning the night into high noon. The thunder was deafening, like the repeated volleys of a battleship squadron's sixteen-inch naval rifles all going off at the same time, loud enough to wake up the dead. The thunderclaps, reverberating off the sounding board of the nearby mountains and hillsides, melded into one continuous overwhelming roar of sound, followed by the rain that came down in the proverbial buckets. As we cut across country on our way to the trucks, the rain cascaded off our helmets and dripped off our faces like we'd just emerged from a swim. Draped in our gas-capes and groundsheets we slithered and clomped our way across fields that were quickly turned into mushy turf. Had it not been for the thick grass, we'd have found ourselves wading and wallowing through mud up to our ankles. With the steady crack of lightning it was a wonder no one had been struck. Most certainly the necessary ingredients were all there for such a tragedy to occur. One hundred and fifty men carrying lightning rods in the form of rifles, Brens, and radio antennas, and wearing steel-helmets, with waterlogged soil under their feet, made for ideal conditions towards a build-up of electricity in the rain-saturated clouds to discharge and seek ground through our bodies. Yet we came out of it unharmed. Christmas — Italy 1943 The quickest "pick-me-up" any soldier could ask for, greeted us shortly after breakfast the following morning. Mail and parcels from home had finally caught up to us. We were like so many kids on Christmas morning opening up their gifts from Santa. What timing! It was indeed one happy camp on the windswept hill in the barrens south of Altamura! What a From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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feeling it was to stand by the postal jeep and hear your own name called, not once, not twice, not three times, but over and over again. For a few luckier ones it was as many as a dozen or even more times. First came the letter — stacks of them. The man who walked back to his tent with less than eight was a rare case. After the letters, came the parcels. When the last parcel had been handed out, the delighted crowd hurried away, each man to his own tent, his arms full of the good things from home. It was bonanza time! Not a soul went hungry that day, nor for days afterwards. Cookies, cakes, chocolate bars galore, gum, candy, canned fruit, and jam were dipped into after every meal. And to supplement our monotonous diet of bullybeef and the English variety of meat and vegetables, we opened cans of either Spam, Spork, Klik and Kam and whatever other brand of canned meat we happened to receive. But, without a doubt, what proved to be one of the most popular of all items to find in our parcels were the packets of Lipton's instant chicken noodle soup. After a long, cold, and hard day of roughing it in training, there was nothing better to warm not only the body but the very cockles of the heart than a steaming mess-tin full of aromatic and delicious chicken soup. From that time on I'm sure, loved ones back home in Canada were forever being reminded in letters to make sure they sent along a few packets of soup whenever they made up a parcel. They were light to carry, took practically no room in the packs, and took only five minutes to prepare. Without a doubt, they were the most coveted item one could look forward to. Christmas Eve was time for thoughts of home, thoughts tinged in melancholy, of longing to be back in the family circle sitting at the Christmas festive table, opening up presents, listening to and singing Christmas carols. To be halfway around the world at this most special time of the year in a land alien to us, and in wartime yet, wasn't something to celebrate. But we had to make the best of it. And so we did, thanks to the organizers who went out of their way to make this occasion as enjoyable as possible, a festive day in which to take our minds off home, even if only for an hour or two. The organizers, whoever they were, deserved a medal or plaque for what they put together to make this Christmas Day as thoroughly enjoyable as it proved to be Large marquee tents, almost the size of circus side-show tents were set up in Dog Company lines where Padre Crawford Smith held a brief Christmas service before the festivities began. It was one of the more moving services I'd attended, made more so perhaps by the circumstance. We sang carols, and though our voices may not have been of choir quality, everyone joined in, especially in singing everyone's favourite, "Silent 100

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Night." We sang it with a depth of feeling that we could not nearly have approached had we sung it at home amongst family and friends. And then, to bring this segment of the Christmas celebration to a close we sang the one song that brought us, at least in memory, to past Christmases back home, "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas." By the time we were finished I don't think there was a dry eye in the crowd. Five long rows of folding tables were set up in the tent, each one decorated with little symbols of the Holy Day. As for the Christmas dinner, Tommy Wilson, our company cook, along with all the other company cooks and kitchen crews worked their butts off to prepare a feast that the hungry diners unanimously proclaimed fit for the gods. Roast turkey, creamed mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, carrots, peas, beet slices and plenty of bread made up our Christmas dinner menu, just like home. And to top off the festive table, each man was given a quart bottle of Molson's beer. Along with the beer, of course, there was more than an ample supply of vino on hand. And so, a drinking and rollicking good time was had by all. After the tables were cleared, it was time for the entertainment, a show quite unlike any Christmas concert I'd ever attended. In a sense, it bordered on the sacrilegious. The first act was a burlesque skit, most certainly not appropriate for Christmas, in which a big, randy lumberjack, in this case none other than Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford himself, rode into town to get himself laid. And who would his ravishing partner be but none other than the best female impersonator in the whole damn Canadian Army, Corporal Hugh Patrick of our Education Section. What a knockout! Face painted up in powder, bright-red lipstick, rouged cheeks, dolled up with a stylish blonde wig and the latest fashion in women's apparel, the corporal was absolutely stunning. Right out of Hollywood! As for the skit, it really wasn't all that much in the way of professional burlesque, or acting ability, but it sure did bring on the laughs. It was rumoured that after the show, several of the randier types hung around the tent hoping to make a date with the lady of the show. Next came a chorus line "a la the Gayety Burlesque" in Detroit. Lieutenants Laurent Rochon, Bill Hider (long, lean and lanky, with hairy legs), and curly, towheaded Frank Switzer —the three of them decked out in short skirts with all the frills and overdone make-up, swept across the stage kicking up their heels like "Can Can" girls at the Folies Bergere. Howls of laughter greeted them, along with the usual rude comments, the only time a private could unload on officers and not be put on charge. Then came Lieutenant-Corporal Freddy Stoneham, the pug faced one-time carnival barker and side-show performer with his famous razorblade swallowing act. But before Stoney got into his act he made the off-hand From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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comment that since the army wasn't giving him enough to eat he had to resort to eating razorblades and lightbulbs. He then commenced to show the boisterous audience he wasn't kidding. Taking a Gillette blade between his teeth he snapped it in a quick move and proceeded to chew on the two halves, opening his mouth to the audience every so often to show that the pieces were indeed there, and then swallowed them one at a time, washing them down with liberal draughts of gasoline. Rousing applause! Stoney then followed with his "barn burner." He took six blades and went through the same routine, his mouth now full of the lacerating pieces of tempered steel. It took him a while to get them down without having an instant simultaneous tonsillectomy and removal of the vocal cords and esophagus. He topped it off by gorging himself on a light bulb and washing the whole lot down with high-test gas. "Stoney the wonder" closed his performance with a sword-swallowing and fire-eating act. We gave him a standing ovation! From this point on, however, the Christmas party rapidly degenerated into a drinking orgy and by late afternoon half the regiment was blind, stinko drunk, staggering all over the place in ones, twos, threes or else sprawled out on the ground totally out of it. Had there been a training syllabus laid on for the next day it never would have gotten off the ground. Not more than a half dozen men in each platoon were in a healthy enough state to fall-in on parade, not even on a sick-parade. The others were out cold or suffering the granddaddy of all hangovers. When they did crawl out from their pup-tents later in the day, their eyes like two pee-holes in the snow, they were little more than zombies as they moved woodenly about their company lines. We Move Up to the Front On January 10 Dog Company gathered around Captain Ridge to hear the good word that we'd been waiting to hear since we came to these shores — news that we were on our way up to the front and imminent action. The procedure was the same in all company lines as company commanders spelled out the details to their men on where they were going and what they were going to do when they got there. They were going up against the best troops in the German Army, the famed 1st Parachute Division. With that announcement there was probably not a man in the entire regiment who wasn't excited over the prospect of action. With all the range-firing we'd gone through since we joined this man's army, the shooting at rock-piles and shepherds' huts, it was to be expected that we'd want to see how good we were at the game of war with live targets to shoot. 102

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Bravado had nothing to do with the way we felt. What it really boiled down to was that we were ignorant, not in the sense of crass stupidity, just the ignorance that comes with youth seeking adventure and perhaps fame. We had somehow been led to believe, perhaps through the movies, books on war, and our own government propaganda that battle was the ultimate adventure, the most glorious and heroic undertaking a man could take on. I don't think there were many that looked to the fact that men die, often in droves, and in the most brutal and gruesome ways. And very few of us dwelled on the possibility of our own death in battle. As the day for this ultimate adventure drew near I remember often looking around at the faces of the fellows in 18 Platoon, wondering which one of them wouldn't be coming back. "Would it be Cawley or Topping who'd be the first to go? Or maybe Thomas or Reggie Gore, or Handford?" Yeah, any one of them might be the ones to get it, but not me. No, not me. I was indestructible. I think most of us took this kind of outlook. We had to. If we hadn't, it's for damn sure they'd taken us away to a psycho ward even before we got anywhere near to the front. Without a doubt, most of us were both naive and in some ways foolishly brave in the way we looked at things. So, it was only natural as we listened to Captain Sammy Ridge briefing us on the coming move and what to expect when it came time to go into action, that we should be excited at the prospects. Sammy didn't go too deeply into what would transpire for us in the days ahead, he only touched on the fighting capabilities of the paratroopers, the same smock-garbed enemy that had given our 1st Division such a hard time in Ortona through Christmas week. The 1st Parachute Division of General Richard Heidrich, who was numbered among the best Division Commanders in a German Army well-stocked in elite divisions and first-rate generals, was to be our opponents, but this didn't faze us. These were the same men whose outstanding exploit was in seizing the massive and what was believed then to be impregnable Fort Eben Emael on the Albert Canal in Belgium at the beginning of the war. The seizure of this fort paved the way for the German Panzer juggernaut to roll through Belgium and France in a spectacular advance that brought France to her knees in just twenty-nine days and pushed the British Expeditionary Force all the way back to Dunkirk. It was also this same outfit that parachuted into Crete where they initially took a hard knock from the New Zealanders before taking that strategic island. And it was the 1st Parachute Division that fought the British to a standstill at the Primosole Bridge in Sicily, and the same crowd that battled it out for a week in a "toe-to-toe, no-holds-barred" melee with our 2nd Brigade in the battle for Ortona only three weeks earlier. We knew it wouldn't be a From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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"walkover" for us against these boys. Like Sammy said, "These guys you're going up against are fanatics and their greatest wish is to die for their Fuhrer." Sammy then went on to say, "And it's your duty to see that their wishes come true." He couldn't have said it any better. We responded with a rousing cheer. The next morning, January 11, we took our pup tents down, cleaned up the area, got our kits in order, and packed away in our second kit bag (for long-term storage) all unneeded personal items. In the first kit bag we stowed away extra clothing and items we expected to use from time to time. These were to be kept at BHQ where they'd be available to us whenever we came out of the lines for short periods. Two bandoliers of rifle ammunition were issued to each man, along with four magazines for the Brens. We cleaned boxes of No. 36 grenades, using gasoline to dissolve the heavy coating of wax or grease they came packed in. And after they were cleaned and tested for free movement of the striker pin we armed them with five-second fuzes. But the one major job that had to be taken care of was the disposal of all training ammunition. What a waste of taxpayers' money! We were ordered to bury thousands of .303 and .45 calibre Thompson rounds, boxes upon boxes of two-inch mortar bombs, a slew of No. 69 plastic grenades, phosphorus grenades, Hawkins anti-vehicle grenades, all perfectly usable and of course potentially lethal, as far as I could see. But, because they were designated as training ammo we had to leave all this behind. A work detail spent a good part of the morning digging a giant eight foot square by six foot deep pit to bury the stuff in, and, to make sure no nosey "Itie" Fascist sympathizers were around to see what we were burying, sentries were sent out to various points some distance beyond the company lines to shoo the curious away. What difference there was between this ammo and the ammo we were to take north with us, I was at a loss to see. No one explained to us the rationale behind it. "Bury it," was the order, and bury it we did. This bothered me no end. I couldn't see where the No. 36 grenades we were about to cover with four feet of dirt couldn't be used to kill the enemy or put him out of action as effectively as the new issue? A lot of questions ran through my mind. Wouldn't the .303s fired out of a Lee-Enfield or spit out of a Bren smash into a paratrooper's brain with the same velocity as the .303 ball ammunition we were taking up to the front? Would the stuff in the phosphorus grenades not cling to and burn flesh in the same horrific way as the ammo we were to take north with us? Would the two-inch mortar bombs not fly true to their target as would our new issue? No amount of explanation by even the highest brass would convince me and 104

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most of the others that burying all this ammo was not waste. All this stuff was good enough to practice with, so why shouldn't it be good enough for the real thing? And so we buried enough ammunition to feed a small revolution. Burial details in all company lines throughout the Brigade, worked like Trojans all morning digging, handling and stacking the war materiel in the deep pits, and then covering them with three to four feet of soil. What a waste! What pure criminal waste! Late that afternoon, two fellows from Dog Company, with time hanging heavy on their hands waiting for the move to get underway, decided to go on a hunt for eggs. What prompted this, no doubt, was the couple of bottles of vino they'd polished off over the course of the last couple of hours. The two made a beeline for a farmyard they'd come across earlier on one of their training outings. They knew there were chickens there and were determined to come away with a few eggs to add a little something extra to their daily rations. They wasted no time getting into the hen-house, whereupon every hen and rooster in the coop let out a loud chorus of cackles and squawks. The alerted, outraged farmer came barreling out the door with a shotgun and let go with both barrels at the two poachers. Both men were hit, with Johnson, a roly-poly St. Thomas native, suffering the more serious wounds. Besides being peppered all over his upper body with lead shot, young Johnson was also hit in one eye, which later required removal. A grievous price to pay for a couple of eggs. It didn't take long for word of the incident to spread through the regiment, and as to be expected, several men were bent on exacting coldblooded revenge on the farmer. Just a few minutes after they heard what happened, three of the more vengeance-minded buddies were on their way to the farm with murder in their eyes, but when they arrived at the farmhouse they found a guard detail already on the premises to protect the farmer and his family, and were turned forcefully away. The guard detail remained on the scene until the regiment was well up the highway on its way to the front. The convoy got rolling early in the evening of January 11 with everyone in an exuberant mood singing with great verve every raunchy limerick and bawdy ballad that could come to dirty minds. But by the time the convoy reached San Severo a hundred miles up the road, the boisterous singing slackened off and slowly died away. For one thing, the temperature fell rapidly not too long after the convoy had passed through Gravina and was on its way towards the Foggia plains, and no one was in the mood for singing when shivering from the cold. By midnight the mercury had dipped to well below freezing, somewhere into the low twenties. Although we were fully-dressed for the cold, with long-Johns, battle-dress, cardigans, From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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greatcoats and balaclavas, woollen gloves, and two pairs of heavy wool socks, and were huddled up against each other for the mutual warmth of each other's body, we still shivered. As we got nearer to the front we saw with increasing frequency the signs of the fighting that had passed this way not long before. Across the stubbled fields lay piled the ruins of what only a short time before had been some poor farm family's home. A mile up the road we passed more ruins, these houses, though not altogether rubble heaps, were uninhabitable. Either portions of the roofs were gone, or a wall was down, or the interior so blasted one had to conclude that people, perhaps whole families had died in them. Farther along, at another farmhouse, we could see the sad remains of a bedroom, open to the weather, with a religious icon askew on the wall above the bed. Most houses along the route, however, although showing signs of the violence that had passed through here, were much less damaged. Several had their stuccoed walls pitted and scored by shrapnel. On some, the only wound was a broken shutter hanging by a single hinge, and on another, about all we could see of damage was a few slats missing out of the shutters. Most farmhouses had at least several red clay tiles missing from the roof, and on yet another, a filigreed portion of the eaves dangled precariously over a doorway. And then we came upon our first war graves, two with simple white Christian crosses planted above them, two with German Maltese crosses, friend and foe buried side by side. Past a sharp bend in the road we come upon a knocked-out Sherman tank lying at a sharp angle in the drainage ditch alongside the road, a neat, round hole bored by an AP round in its frontal armour. The driver and codriver, perhaps even the entire crew, might very well have died in a blinding instant. Maybe they screamed their way into eternity in the consuming flames that trapped them. Next we passed a Jeep pushed off the road, an obvious casualty from the blast of a Teller mine planted in the road, the front end minus a wheel and the axle twisted and bent. What remained of the hood was crumpled up like an old newspaper used to mop up a wet spot on the floor. All these sobering sights told us in glaring detail that war wasn't all fun and games as we tended to think it was. The convoy swung toward the coast a few miles beyond the northern edge of the great spur of mountainous land mass known as the Gargano Peninsula jutting well out into the Adriatic. We were now leaving the Foggia Plains, six hundred square miles of flat country that our people were busy converting into a monster Allied air base destined to be jampacked soon with bomber and fighter aircraft. Only a few weeks after this flat countryside, ideal for airfields, was wrested from the Germans, there came a steady influx of B-24 Liberator heavy bombers, B-25 Mitchell 106

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medium bombers, and fighter squadrons. In short order, the heavies and the mediums were flying on daily bombing missions over Austria, Northern Italy and the Romanian oilfields around Ploesti, escorted by Lightnings and Thunderbolts of the U.S. 15th Fighter Command. Somehow, even with the cold penetrating right down into the marrow of our bones, we managed to drift off to sleep as the convoy rolled northwards through the long night. Morning greeted us in frost so thick it looked as though it had snowed, transforming what had been a harsh landscape wounded by the war's passage into something of a winter picture-postcard scene. After a short pee-break, we passed through Termoli on the coast, where on October 3 a British Marine Commando unit came in from the sea and surprised the German garrison, enabling an infantry brigade to cross the fast-flowing Biferno River. The Three Rivers Tank Regiment of 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade entered the picture at this point and immediately became embroiled in a "knock-em-down-drag-emout" battle with Mark III tanks of the 16th Panzer Division. The battle swirled about with hot intensity in and around the olive orchards just outside the city. From the positions of the knocked-out tanks we could see where the combatants had fought it out at almost point-blank range. A few feet away, by the roadside were the graves of the tank crews, Canadian and German separated only by a few feet of frost-covered ground. The muted sounds of artillery that we heard as we were nearing Termoli grew louder till we soon found ourselves passing a battery of 5.5 Mediums emplaced in the fields a few yards off the side of the road. Every time one barked it made me jump and my teeth vibrate. It was deafening. And then farther on up the road a mile or so, we were into the gun lines of a twenty-five-pounder field regiment whose guns were adding their own sharper bark to the general din. We were now for all intents and purposes at the front, though not yet at the sharp end. Over the next two months we would not know what it was like to relax and draw in a few easy breaths. We off-loaded in a soggy field below San Vito. With the growling crunch of mortars going off not too far away we needed no urging by the officers or NCOs to dig in. It was the first time we put spade to turf with so much verve and energy, a sharp turnabout in attitude towards this otherwise neglected side of our training syllabus. The location of the front line was confusing. It ran in a southwesterly direction from its eastern anchor a half mile north of Ortona, down through the ravines and river valleys to Guardiagrele at the foot of the snow-capped Monte Maiella eighteen miles inland. From our staging area below San Vito, looking due west, which I thought was the back area of the front, we could see our ground support Hurricanes hard at it in bombing and strafing missions From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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against enemy positions, as black puffs of ack-ack blossomed in the sky all around them. With Germans to the north and to the west of us, we could therefore expect mortars or shellfire to come at us from two directions. Although, as we soon learned, you never hear the mortars until they're on top of you, it didn't matter from what direction they came, you had no chance to dive for cover anyway. But you always had your ears perked for the whispering rush and whistle of the incoming 75s and 88s. And with the two directions to focus your ears on, this made it difficult to determine how close they'd come and where they'd fall. If one was headed in your direction you had only enough time to make a snap decision on whether to take cover or remain standing. If you thought the shell was a little way off to the side or on its way overhead, there was no need for you to waste the energy throwing yourself on the ground. As the days and weeks went by we got to be somewhat expert at gauging just where a shell would strike. But there was one occasion two months down the line on the Crecchio front, when even though I knew the shell was coming my way, I simply froze. Not from fear so much, but simply because where I squatted by a haystack heeding a call of nature, the ground all around me was dotted with piles of human waste. In my moment's hesitation and reluctance to land in the stuff, the shell whistled in and smacked down with an awful wallop not more than ten feet from where I stood. It was a dud! Had it not been a dud, I wouldn't be here today writing this account. In fact they'd have had a real job finding enough of me to bury. January 12 greeted us with sunshine, but also with a sharp nip of frost in the air to remind us it was the dead of winter. Our aircraft were up bright and early pounding away at the enemy positions around Orsogna below the snow-capped Monte Maiella. Though we'd only been up in the danger area for less than a day, the novelty of watching our planes in action had, after a while no longer grabbed our attention, which was focused more on our increasing the depth of our slit-trenches. This sudden interest in digging was brought on when a cluster of mortar-bombs banged in a little closer than expected. With the high water-table in the area we could dig down only a little over a foot. Any deeper and water seeped in. We had to limit the depth to about a foot and that's all. Even so, the floor of the trench was too soggy to lie on, forcing us to stay above ground hoping to hell we wouldn't have to use them. Knowing we'd be here for the night and that I'd have to sleep under such uncomfortable conditions whether above ground or in the trench I decided to do some scrounging around the nearby farmhouses in hopes of finding some boards to use as a floor. I was lucky and came back to the trench with a couple of cupboard doors and 108

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some bulrush to use as a mattress. Except for the all-pervasive cold and the occasional crump of a mortar I managed to spend a fairly restful and fright-free night. While on the march through Ortona on the final leg of our move to the front we passed through the Loyal Edmontons, some of whom were standing in doorways idly watching us go by. It was on this occasion that somewhere along that long slender column of Perths some cocky character made disparaging remarks to the onlookers — jokingly of course, not something to get all worked up over, but it sure did rankle Yokes' boys. What the jibe was, no one could accurately say, only that it was something along the line of, "Okay you red patch bastards, you can get your lily-white asses to hell out of here , because you're looking at real soldiers now. We'll show you what the hell fightin's all about!" Word of these unkind remarks went the rounds of all the units of 1st Division, and it didn't sit well with them. In fact they were pretty damned upset over these upstarts who claimed they were going to show them up. After our "baptism of fire" went awry, just sixteen hours after it began, we were relieved by 3rd Brigade. The 5th Armoured, namely in this case the llth Infantry Brigade, instantly became the butt of insults, rude comments, jokes and whatnot. It took us a long time to live down our title of "The Mighty Maroon Machine," always spoken with derision rather than admiration. Not until we showed the "red patchers" what we were really made of with our spectacular performance in the Gothic Line, did the snide remarks stop coming our way. January 12,1944 With our training days behind us, the time had come to put into practice everything we learned in the lecture rooms and in the field. Now we were about to find out once and for all whether we were every bit as good as we thought we were or something much less. We arrived at the front north of Ortona, just off the Torre Mucchia spur, where we took over reserve positions from the Carleton & York Regiment. The Cape Breton Highlanders were in position, holding the line directly to our front, while the Irish were inland about a mile, overlooking the left fork of the Riccio River down-stream from where we were to launch our attack four days hence. Our role for the present was as the reserve battalion, three hundred yards behind the Cape Bretons. The takeover went off smoothly, with the Maritimers wasting no time in getting away. The front was fairly quiet except for the intermittent crump of mortars landing in amongst the Capes' positions. We settled From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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down into our own positions with quiet efficiency, when to our ears came the high speed drawn-out brrrrp of a Jerry machine-gun. This was our introduction to the famed MG 42, whose incredible rate of fire was almost twice that of the Bren. The burst drew an instantaneous response from a Bren: its characteristic slow and deliberate tac-tac-tac-tac, which sounded so pathetic and ineffective compared to the German weapon. Every time the MG 42 opened up, you'd swear someone was tearing a long strip off a tarpaulin or a window-blind, they were that fast. However, they weren't as accurate as the Bren, and the Jerries depended more on the hose-pipe method than aimed fire. The Perths settled into farmhouses scattered all through the area just off the T-junction of the coast road, a hop, skip and jump north of the headland known as Torre Mucchio or Point 59. A gravelled secondary road, down which the regiment would march into its first battle, ran past the farmhouse Dog Company HQ had taken over. The centreline of our attack would be along this road. Ten minutes after we had relieved the Carleton & Yorks, Bob Wheatley and I, along with other Bren-gun groups, were detailed to spend the balance of the afternoon and the night in weapon posts set up at likely points where enemy patrols might infiltrate through the Capes and reach as far back as Ortona. Bob and I inherited a slit-trench half full of water. We tried digging our own but didn't get more than a foot down before it too started to fill. So there was nothing for us to do but spread our groundsheets out and establish our position above ground and pray the Jerries wouldn't get any foolish idea about greeting our arrival with a mortar "stonk." If they did, we'd either have to dunk ourselves in the icy water or tough it out above ground and hope we'd live through it. Since orders were for us to remain there all night, I went nosing around the area on the hunt for something more comfortable to lie on than soggy ground and found myself a rush-filled palliasse. Although it was fairly comfortable, its drawback was that it was two feet thick, which meant that we were well up in the air and feeling decidedly insecure. Just as I expected and feared might happen, a Jerry mortar-crew extended us a warm welcome by lobbing a clutch of bombs our way. We were lucky Jerry's aim was off a bit. The bombs meant for us landed a trifle long, crashing harmlessly into a wooded gulley directly behind us less than a hundred yards away. I couldn't believe the ear-splitting bangs they made. All of a sudden I realized the mistake I'd made in getting into the infantry. Instinct told us to roll off our palliasse and into the trench, but on seeing that cold, uninviting water, we thought better of it. We just couldn't get ourselves to doing it. Our only recourse then was to lie there 110

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on that towering palliasse and hope to hell Jerry wouldn't raise the angle of their tubes by a couple turns of the screw. What a helpless feeling it was to be so exposed and to listen to those bombs crashing in that echo chamber of a ravine! When the bombs plunged out of the blue sky, every muscle in my body began twitching and jumping. Try as I did to stop shaking, I shook even more. I thought it might be an epileptic seizure, but it wasn't. Bob Wheatley had to be as shit-scared as I was, yet why wasn't he shaking? "What's the matter with you, what are you shaking for Stan?" Bob mumbled to me between the echoing blasts. "Darned if I know." I replied. "I can't stop it." I was scared, but I didn't think I was that scared that I should lose all control of my muscles. They were really jumping! What the heck was it that made me go like this? I had no way of knowing at the time. The twitching and shaking didn't calm down until the mortar-bombs stopped coming over. Where I should have been left with a case of nervous exhaustion or shell-shock, it didn't happen. Once the danger was over, I was back to normal. No nervous tics, no muscles quivering, no nothing. It was as if nothing so frightening had just happened. Much later on in the campaign when mulling over this momentary loss of muscle control, I came to the conclusion that it was only my adrenal gland kicking into high gear, sending a powerful jolt of the "fight or flee" hormone through my system — far more adrenaline than my body could burn up by just lying there. Perhaps if I had made a run for cover I'd have been okay. But since I didn't, my muscles had to do something to use up the excess adrenaline, so they jumped and they twitched and they quivered. At least that's my theory — as good as any. Not everyone's adrenal gland works at the same rate, as I learned from books after the war. With some people like myself, the adrenal gland reacts quickly and more often, and with greater output than others. I knew this because of the fistfights I got into before and after I entered the service. There was many an occasion later on in the campaign when I was in far more danger and a hell of a lot more scared and yet I never experienced so much as a single twitch. If there's anything besides a good woman, good food, and good wine that's likely to grab an infantryman's interest and fancy it has to be the hunt for loot — any kind of loot, military or otherwise. The very next morning one of the more enterprising guys in Company H.Q., while poking around the house, detected a hollow sound under his boots in the wood floor of the lean-to outside the house. Pulling a couple of boards loose, he found a huge wine vat underneath, full of wheat. Instinct told him there had to be more than just wheat in that vat, and his suspicions proved to be right. From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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Digging into the grain the inquisitive one began to haul out all kinds of clothing, bolts of material, lingerie, in fact almost everything in the way of dry goods found in department stores. In no time at all, word of the discovery travelled through the three platoons, and inside of minutes the place was swarming with people digging into the treasure. Bob Wheatley and I only found out about it when we noticed all these civilians walking about the company lines "dressed to the nines" like they were strolling on the avenue. We couldn't believe our eyes until we recognized that the strollers weren't civilians but our own fellows . When we heard about all the good stuff just waiting for our grubby hands, we abandoned our position for a few minutes to get into the "digs" ourselves. And what a looting spree it was! Everybody was into the act, officers included. And, in the next two days the regimental post office was inundated with parcels of all sizes, shapes and weights made out to addresses in Canada. Someone came around the next day telling us that the goods cached in the vat were the "lock, stock and barrel" of a dry-goods shop in Ortona. Why they were hidden there was obvious. When the fighting drew near the town, the proprietor, seeking to protect his investment from being lost by fire and other destructive means, as well as to keep it from the loot-hungry Canadians, decided to bury it in wheatfilled vats under the floor-boards of his lean-to. He underestimated, however, the Canadians' uncanny knack for sniffing out treasure, no matter how and where it might be hidden. The sad part of this motherlode discovery was that some of the senders of the parcels didn't live long enough to read the acknowledging letters from home. They died in battle just four days later. The Battle of the Riccio River Sunday, January 16: Another bright, sunny day, but with a nippy breeze blowing in off the Adriatic. We certainly didn't expect to be attending a church parade here at the front, but that's exactly what happened. When weheard we were having one, we thought someone had gone out of his mind. If it was dangerous for more than three people to get together in the open, then what will it be like when a whole company gets out there in a wide open field less than a half mile from the enemy, singing "Abide With Me" and "What a Friend We Have in Jesus"? An open invitation to disaster, that's what it would amount to. We never did try to find out whose idiotic idea it was. It might have been the padre's, but we just couldn't see him as the kind of man who would put his congregation in such a dangerous situation. More than likely, we felt it was CO's brainwave. It had to be by far 112

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the stupidest order of the many stupid orders I'd had to obey since I took on the uniform. Downright criminal it was! Could not the guilty party see that all it would take would be a couple of mortar bombs landing smack dab in the middle of the gathering and half the company would be blown all to ratshit? Even the least brightest in the company saw the insanity in it. We might have been new to the front with a lot yet to learn, but we weren't that dumb that we couldn't see the danger we were going to be put into. Calling for a church parade in the front lines? A hundred and fifty men, elbow to elbow out in the clear, within sniper shot of the enemy lines, singing hymns and listening to a sermon? God Almighty! Although we tried to be a good and devout congregation, it was tough to be moved by the padre's sermon and all the hymn singing when our ears were cocked for the rustle of an incoming shell or the last second flutter of a mortar bomb on its downward flight. Our hearts weren't in it. And so it was with a deep sigh of relief that we welcomed the end of the service, one of the shortest on record, and hustled back to the relative safety of our posts. Safe and sound back in our company lines, we gathered around Captain Ridge to hear him brief us on our first attack, scheduled for daybreak the next morning. We literally hung on his every word, knowing there'd be no more pretending. From here on in everything would be for real. Instead of rocks to shoot at, we'd have live targets. Likewise, of course, and there was no getting away from it, we'd also be live targets for the other side. But we weren't even thinking of this. Excitement and anticipation over the prospects of battle dominated our thoughts. In my mind, at least, there was no room for such things as fear and doubts. With every new item of information he passed on to us, the excitement grew till I thought I was going to bust, but I couldn't deny the fact that I also felt my first twinge of nervousness. It was more or less the same kind of nervousness that used to come over me before every football game I played back in my high school days. But this was no football game. There was a hell of a lot more at stake here, however, than winning or losing a game. A man could get himself killed in this particular kind of game. I shook the thought out of my mind and waited to hear what more the Company Commander had to say. At this point Sammy did his best to reassure us that everything would work out just fine for the regiment. The enemy wasn't expected to put up much opposition because of the heavy volume of artillery fire we'd be getting in support of our attack. He also mentioned that there weren't much more than two platoons facing us, and even though they were the tough paratroopers we'd been hearing so much about, we should From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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be able to practically walk right through them after the artillery finished lambasting them. The plan of attack called for the Perths to take centre stage, while the Cape Breton Highlanders were to put in a diversionary two-company attack on the coastal flank. The Irish Regiment of Canada, as the reserve battalion on our left flank, wouldn't have much to do except create a lot of battle noises with small-arms fire to get the enemy to thinking an attack would be coming in from that direction. This was supposed to draw attention from where the attack was actually going in. Able Company, under command of Captain Frank Kennedy, and Charlie Company, with Major Bob MacDougall in command, were selected to lead the attack, leaving the start-line the moment the artillery barrage shut down. The artillery was to commence firing at 0530 hours. Opposition of any sort wasn't expected until the lead companies reached the valley of the Riccio River. But even here the planners were confident the enemy would most likely not be in any condition to put up strong resistance. The drenching artillery fire would see to that. If there were any of the enemy still alive after that, they likely wouldn't put up much of a fight. Or so the planners believed. So this then was what we were left with, a feeling that our battle baptism would be an easy introduction into the art of war. It all sounded so easy —not a thing to worry about. Our first battle would be history by noon, with the Perth companies firmly on the final objective on the lip of the valley of the Arielli River. After that would come Pescara. Nine field regiments of twenty-five-pounders and five 5.5 Medium regiments would open the days proceedings with a barrage that was touted to be equal in volume to that fired at El Alamein. Besides the artillery support, a squadron of heavy bombers were to blanket the enemy positions with five hundred-pound bombs. All in all, our first operation was made to look like it was going to be a pushover, not much more than an exercise with live ammunition and live targets. We went to sleep that night thinking about what we'd have to face early the next morning. Though our battle baptism briefing gave us the feeling there'd be nothing to it, that everything would go right for us, sleep didn't come merely with the closing of the eyes. Nor did it come quickly for anyone else, so I presumed. Too many thoughts, both positive and negative, ebbed and flowed through the semi-consciousness of my mind all night long. Visions of heroic acts dominated most of my thoughts. I saw myself as a one-man-army charging into the heart of the enemy positions, bludgeoning and bayoneting my way through a swarm of defenders. I also saw myself standing before the King at Buckingham Palace as he pinned 114

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the coveted Victoria Cross on my tunic. What exhilarating thoughts they were. How was I to know that it wasn't going to be anything at all like the scenes that passed through my mind as I tried to drift off to sleep? How was I to imagine that the battle would not go the way the planners painted it to go, that instead it would turn out to be the grimmest, most heartbreaking, most spirit-draining day in my life and everyone else's who was there for the baptism? In retrospect, it was far better that I hadn't foreseen what we were about to experience. In a matter of only a few hours I'd find out, to my deep dismay and disappointment and escalating self-doubt, that instead of being the Hollywood hero type I'd been imagining myself to be, I was no better and no different than anyone else — just another frightened and disillusioned kid wishing to hell he'd never joined the infantry. Along with the reverie of a heroic performance on my part, other more sobering thoughts kept me half awake I kept thinking of home, of my mother, my brothers and sisters, the teachers who'd been writing to me and sending me parcels, and I even wondered what the guys in my neighbourhood gang would be thinking about if they could only see me now. I tried not to dwell on these thoughts, nor on the possibility that I might not live out the day, or that I might lose a leg, an arm, or even get my nuts shot off. Somehow, I managed to cast such morbid and self-pitying thoughts out of my mind and eventually dropped off to sleep, a sleep that was much too brief. At 0400 hours someone nudged me awake. Time to get ready for the big day. We had a job to do. In that final hour before battle, I had an acute attack of incontinence. And so did everyone else. Bladders and bowels worked overtime. Every five minutes, or so it seemed, we had to empty them, which meant there was a steady procession of men hurrying off to the latrine. We learned for the first time the powerful diuretic and laxative effect pre-battle nerves can have on a man. No prescription or off-the-shelf medication can come anywhere near to being as effective. In the space of an hour, every one of us had to have gone frontside and backside at least three or four times. As I was going through the necessary adjustments to my packs, making sure the bolt action in my rifle worked smoothly, checked to see that the magazine was filled, saw that the two No. 36 grenades were fuzed, I happened to look up and noticed Joe Gallant sitting by the snow fence staring into space. He didn't look at all well to me, nor had he since we arrived at the front four days before. And I think I knew what was bothering him. Joe was afraid of what lay ahead. For the past several days he'd been doing his damnedest to get out of the coming battle. He claimed all his teeth were hurting him—that he should see the dentist. But the MO From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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wasn't convinced. When he was turned down, Joe let me and a few of the others in 18 Platoon know what was on his mind: that he'd be dead before noon.. He was in a terrible mental state, and sank into a deep depression from which no amount of encouragement could snap him out. We could only guess that Joe had a premonition that he was going to die. In these last few minutes before we fell out on the road to march off to the forming-up point (FUP), Joe as much as told me he was as good as dead. "Aw, come off that, Joe! Quit your worrying. You're going to be okay," I said, trying to snap him out of his fatalistic outlook. But Joe knew something I didn't know. Within the next two hours he would be dead. Joe was the oldest man in the company, the type known in every regiment as "Pop." He had to be in his late thirties at least, if not his forties. In my opinion, Joe should never have been in the infantry. He'd have served his country far more effectively in some non-combat role as a cook's helper in Brigade or Division, or on guard duty at Corps HQ. I'd seen a lot of younger and more robust infantry prospects than Joe slinging clothes and tending the washers in the mobile laundry who should have been taking Joe's place. While Dog Company was getting itself ready for the big "do." Charlie Company went by down the road past our HQ farmhouse on the way to the FUP I stood off to the side of the road watching the men go by, and although it was dark I could see their expressionless faces and wondered what might be going through their minds. I shouldn't have wondered, because it wasn't more than minutes later that I was on that same road moving up, thinking the same things. No one was in the mood to be joking or talking at a time like this. This was serious business, not a time for comedy or kidding. At 0500 hours CSM Don Habkirk went around the platoons shouting and nudging people awake. "Dog Company fall out! Okay, everybody up and out on the road, come on, nip, nip, nip!" After Charlie Company went by, we filed out onto the road, quickly formed up into platoons, and were on our way in in staggered sections for the short march to the FUP to wait for our artillery to open up. Tension built up to an unbearable pitch as we hunkered down in the roadside ditches to await the big barrage. And then, sharp at half past five the gray light of approaching dawn flashed into brightness as if someone had just flipped a light switch. Fifteen regiments of Canadian and British artillery opened up in a stupendous crescendo of gunfire. The heavy hammers of war were going to work on the enemy positions on the high ground across the valley of the Riccio River, pouring a torrent of steel and high-explosives on the enemy positions. The early morning darkness raged with the thunder of 116

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guns in the ravines and gulleys around Ortona and San Vito, banging away full vent. In the undiminishing crash of gunfire, the fast lightening sky filled with the whispering rush and whistle of hundreds of shells on their way to the target. At the arrival point on the ridge the twenty-fivepounders, 5.5s and 7.2s crashed in an obliterating hell-dance of fire and drum roll of explosions. What was happening around us was both fascinating and frightening. It stunned the senses. Who could not be afraid at a moment like this? For a full fifteen minutes the bombardment blanketed the enemy positions all along the valley lip. And then as suddenly as the artillery had been turned on, it was turned off, and an unnatural stillness descended on the battlefield, a stillness almost as unnerving as the din that made our ears ache and turned our stomachs into knots. Somewhere up ahead in the approaching dawn, Major Robert MacDougall waved his Charlie Company forward. All went well in the beginning and the company made good time, but when the lead platoon under Lieutenant Bob Chamberlain started down the slope into the Riccio River valley, just above where the slender thread of trickling water split into two branches, it came under heavy machine-gun and rifle fire as it forded the narrow Riccio stream. Instinctively, though peppered all the way with long bursts of MG fire, the platoon put its many months of battle-drill training to good use and went up the far slope killing three of the enemy in an MG 42 post that had been firing on them. They pushed on and seized the platoon's objective on the high ground overlooking the valley, reaching it at 0730 hours right on the button. However, only nine men of the thirty-two that started out were still on their feet. For his leadership and his courage in this action Chamberlain was later decorated with the Military Cross. The main body of MacDougall's company came under heavy mortar and MG fire converging on the road at the near fork of the Riccio. Seeing his men cut down all around him, the major, with Lieutenant Laurent Rochon and six others, made a brave but hopeless rush on a large white house halfway up the slope, the source of most of the fire lancing into the hapless platoon. As fearless and determined as these men were, they never made it. The entire group, with Major MacDougall in the lead, brandishing his Enfield Mk. II revolver, was gunned down in its tracks before going twenty yards. MacDougall, Rochon and two men were killed outright, and four were wounded and eventually taken prisoner. The attack died at this point. It was impossible for anyone to move through the killing ground without meeting a like fate. On Charlie Company's immediate right, Captain Jack Kennedy's Able Company had run up against heavy machine-gun fire as well, and had no From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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better luck trying to work their men up the slope. The two lead platoons came under extremely heavy mortar and machine-gun fire as they started down the slope to cross the valley floor. Seeing that no progress was possible against the two, and possibly more enemy posts firing down on them, Captain Kennedy directed Lieutenant Alfred Clements to take his platoon in a right-flanking move to eliminate the threat. This tactic, however, achieved nothing except the death of Clements along with five of his men. They were caught in the hail of bullets from two other weapon posts firing at them from enfilade as they tried to cross the valley. While this was going on, a Charlie Company PIAT (Projector Infantry Anti-Tank) team wormed its way up the slope and got to within range of a house from which an MG poured a steady stream of steel-jacketed rounds. The man behind the weapon had their number and was inflicting grievous damage. With almost every burst the bullets found flesh and bone. Somehow though, the PIAT team got through the beaten zone and sent a couple of bombs into the position forcing the crew to stumble out and throw their arms up in surrender. But success was short-lived. Another crew took over the weapon and continued flailing away at the hapless Charlie Company caught pinned down in the valley. A troop of Three Rivers tanks rumbled up in an attempt to silence the enemy post, but failed to move far enough forward. The battle-proven paratroopers were in no way intimidated at the sight of the tanks and kept pumping small-arms fire at the assaulting platoons, to which they then added a mortar bomb stonk on the largely unprotected Perths. At about this time (0700 hours), Dog Company in Battalion reserve, under command of Sammy Ridge, got word over the company radio set to enter the battle on Charlie Company's left, with hopes of freeing Charlie for the final rush. As the two lead companies had been able to do little or nothing in the face of the heavy opposition, the focal point of the attack shifted to the far left of the regiment's axis of advance. The CO now gave the word for Dog Company to cross the slender ribbon of water so wrongfully classified as a river, at a point where the slope was shallower and fight their way into and through the enemy positions along the lip of the valley. Within minutes after the artillery shut down, Dog Company came under heavy mortar fire at the FUP and suffered casualties, although only one man, Joe Gallant, was killed. He had foreseen his doom. A large fragment from a mortar bomb bursting close behind him tore into the back of his head, killing him instantly. Strapped to Joe's back was the company's No. 19 radio set, rendered unusable by shrapnel. CSM Don Habkirk had also been wounded by the same bomb. 118

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We had just got moving out of the cover of the ditch when mortar bombs smacked down all around us with tremendous crashes. We were caught out in the open, with no place to hide. Chunks of half-frozen turf pelted my face as I lay hugging the ground. Here we were only minutes into the battle and already I thought I was going to die! From my face-down position at the edge of a stand of tall pines, I raised my head to look around to see if there was a shell-hole or any dip or depression I could crawl into. But there was nothing anywhere in sight. The few shallow craters nearby were already occupied. No room for another body. Nothing! Not a damn thing was out there! All I could see were the bright flashes and black eruptions of mortar bombs. I hadn't given a thought to praying, but I thought I'd better start now, even though I didn't know how to address God. The only time I'd ever spoken to Him was the day before when we were standing out in the open at the church service, and it wasn't much of a prayer. I just begged Him to get our asses out of there and quick. I'd always believed that God didn't take sides in war, regardless of what our leaders and clergy tried to make us believe. I had a mind of my own and convinced myself that God didn't choose who was to die, or who was to live. I knew that there had to be a lot of German boys opposite us who prayed to the same God, and their mothers worried and prayed as our mothers and loved ones did. So whose prayers would He answer, ours or theirs? Every bomb that went off nearby shook the ground beneath me. I was so terrified now, I forgot what I was babbling about as I uttered my crude prayer. I kept raising my head to see where I might find a safer place to ride this thing out. And then, not five yards away from me on my left I spotted tank-tracks—only about three inches deep but better than nothing, I thought. Between two more mortar blasts I crawled over to the track. Like I said, three inches underground is better than no inches. The tracks were about a yard wide, obviously that of either a Tiger or a Panther tank. The Sherman's tracks were about half as wide. Then I came face to face with a guy whose face showed an even greater fear than mine. This lad in my platoon was well-put-together, tough as nails, and although he wasn't the bully-type, he wasn't shy about throwing his weight around when he felt the need to. But the mortars had done something to take the fight out of him. His eyes were the size of two half-dollar coins, his lower lip flapped like a flag in a March gale. He couldn't talk. I couldn't help but burst out laughing. Maybe it was because I suddenly realized I wasn't the only one almost out of his mind in fear. And then, as suddenly as it began, the mortaring stopped. Sammy Ridge appeared out of nowhere and wasted no time in getting us on the From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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move. To a man, we were not only glad to get moving, we were actually anxious to be on our way. To come to grips with the enemy was something we could handle with reasonable composure. To lie there on the ground waiting for a shell to blast you into small pieces was a mind-shattering experience. Any kind of a move, forward, backward, sideways, it didn't matter, as long as we were getting out of here we were all for it. Swinging off sharply to the left, we entered a dip in the terrain, and used it to our advantage in approaching the valley of the Riccio River, where Charlie and Able Companies were locked in a losing battle with the enemy. We made good time, hidden as we were from view of the enemy. Meanwhile, behind us on the higher ground we'd just vacated, two of our tanks rolled up and opened up with their co-ax machine-guns, the streams of tracer-fire burning the air over our heads and converging on a target somewhere out of our line of vision. It was heartening to see the support we were getting after having been pinned down and not being in a position to hit back at the enemy. About a hundred yards farther along the shallow gulley we came upon the bodies of two Seaforth Highlanders lying face down, their arms stretched out in front of them, their rifles just beyond their reach. Every man in the company, I'm sure, paused to look down at them in morbid fascination before hurrying on. They weren't mangled or twisted in any way, but beside one lay an upturned helmet with the red, pulpy remains of the man's brain pooled inside. I had to assume a sniper had gunned them both down. I saw no entry marks of shrapnel anywhere on their Battledress to suggest a mortar or a shell burst. The sight etched itself on my memory to the extent that I had a tough time shaking the gruesome image out of my mind. It bothered me for the balance of that long, terrible, heartbreaking day. Halfway to the valley of the Riccio (about three hundred yards away) 18 Platoon swung off sharply to the right, emerging from cover to take up positions in the ruins, or rather the remains of a farmhouse and its outbuildings. Not so much as a wall stood. Three rubble heaps were all that suggested a farmhouse and outbuildings had occupied this piece of real estate. The larger heap, I identified as having been the house because of the pots and pans lying about amidst the debris. Also, there was a whiteenameled steel bedpost sticking out of the pile of rubble. Reaching the ruins was easy enough. Getting out was the real problem. It didn't take us long to realize we were as good as trapped. Three MG 42s opened up on us the moment we reached the rubble, followed within seconds by a sharp mortar stonk. Luckily for us there were a number of well-dug slit-trenches close by, and we dove for this cover. 120

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Sprays of 7.92 mm rounds ricocheted off the rubble sending pieces of wood and masonry flying in every direction. For the next fifteen minutes, the enemy threw everything at us but the kitchen sink. All I could do was stay deep and hope and pray one of the bombs didn't come straight down into my trench. When the heavy stuff stopped tearing up the rubble and the terrain around us I poked my head up to take a quick scan around to see what was going on. My eyes took in the far side of the Riccio valley but I couldn't pick out the enemy weapons that were firing on us. The smokeless powder the Jerries used made it near impossible to pinpoint their location. On my third peek over the rim of my trench I caught a movement in an upstairs window of a large house across the valley, but before I could stand up and bring my rifle to bear and take a bead on him, the Jerry beat me to the punch and let go a long burst which tore up the turf along the rim of my trench, cascading dirt and stones onto my helmet. I dropped like a rock to the bottom of my trench and sat there wondering how we were going to press the attack when there looked to be no chance in hell of us doing much about it unless, of course, we wanted to commit suicide. I began wondering if any of the guys in my platoon got hit in that first flurry of MG fire. I got to thinking maybe I was the only guy still alive— how could I know? Were they all sitting at the bottom of trenches like I was? Or had they managed to get back out of line of fire, leaving me here all alone? If that was so, then I knew I'd just have to wait it out and make a break for it as soon as it got dark. During a lull in the MG fire and a slackening in the rate of mortar fire I heard someone hollering, but couldn't make out who it was and what it was all about. At first I thought it was someone calling out for a stretcherbearer, but I detected a tone of calm authority in the voice. "Who in the hell's stupid enough to be out there in the open? The sonofabitch'll get himself knocked off if he doesn't smarten up." With care I stood up to see who it was. First I put my helmet on the muzzle of my rifle and lifted it above the lip of the trench. When no shot drilled it, I took a chance and stuck my head out to have a quick look around. That's when I saw Gord Forbes, Jimmy Eves and George Simeays hot-footing it for the protection of the gully. And not ten yards behind them sprinted Ken Topping, Walt Thomas, Bob Wheatley, Cec Vanderbeck and Bill Robotham practically falling all over each other in the flight to safety, with bullets chewing the ground at their feet and snapping past their ears. How the Jerry gunners failed to plink any of them will forever remain a mystery to me. Was it a miracle? Was it divine intervention? Or was it simply that the MG 42 wasn't the magic weapon everyone touted it to be? Had the Jerries used Brens, it's From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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not likely the boys would have made it. I watched them as they ran, admiring their guts for getting out of cover to run the gauntlet. I was thinking, "They've got a hell of a lot more guts than I've got!" I got to thinking and planning on when and how I'd have to do the same. I could wait for darkness, when it would be a lot safer, or I could go right now. The latter choice would, however, require a show of guts on my part. I hesitated for at least five minutes trying to screw up courage, and then without really being conscious of what I was doing, I was up and out and picking the old feet up and laying them down, tearing off across the open ground like a scatback in a football game, dodging tackles, weaving this way and that. Only this scatback wasn't eluding tackles, but hundreds of steel-jacked 7.92 mm rounds snapping and cracking all around. I knew that if I threw myself on the ground I'd get stitched up from asshole to breakfast in nothing flat. And then to speed me on my way even faster, a mortar bomb plunged out of the gray sky and exploded with an earsplitting crash not twenty yards to my left. With the stink of the HE (high explosive) burning in my nose I pelted right on as fast as my furiously pumping legs could carry me. That seventy-five yards seemed more like three hundred. With my lungs on fire I hurtled into the cover of the embankment just as one last burst from the enemy MG slashed into the ground where my feet had been one split second before. In doing so, I damn near bowled over three of my buddies, who were watching my desperate flight as I had watched theirs. As soon as I hit the protection of the embankment I flopped on the ground on my back gasping for air, my heart pumping away at breakneck speed like a runaway engine. I don't think it was because of the energy expended that I was near done in. Blind fear had to be a good part responsible. And then after my respiratory and heart rate returned to near normal, I realized what I'd just gone through and felt proud of myself. It wasn't that I had done anything exceptionally brave like knocking out an enemy MG nest or anything like that, but in a small way I'd conquered the fear that had been growing by the hour. Here I was only nine hours under fire and I had already felt myself beginning to cave in. As breathless and shaken up as I was, I could still think, and in thinking I began asking myself what it was that had drove me to taking such a risk in making that run. But then I knew right off what it was that propelled me. It was unwillingness to let the others in my platoon show me up. If they could make it, then damn it, so could I. It was quite clear to all of us that our glorious attack wasn't going at all well, otherwise we should have been on our objective by this time. (3 p.m.) The first hints of impending failure came at the FUP when I saw all 122

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those casualties streaming back through us; most of them were walking wounded, but some were draped across the sturdy shoulders of others not so badly hurt. And then when the mortar bombs started raining down on us, we knew we were in for a rough time. Something had indeed gone wrong. The tremendous pounding the Germans had absorbed from our artillery hadn't destroyed their capacity to fight back. Hardly had the echo of the last shell's arrival on their positions faded when they came up out of their deep dug-outs, and popped up out of their slit-trenches with guns blazing. They were soldiers— the very best. It was hard to believe how many hours had gone by since our guns opened up at 5:30 that morning. Here it was, past three in the afternoon — nine hours had gone by and we'd done nothing yet worth bragging about. Most of those long hours had been spent either hugging the half-frozen ground, or ducking down in a slit-trench while all hell was going on around us. At this stage of the day's action we had time to dwell on what had happened thus far. One thing for certain, morale was also taking a beating. It was about as low as it could go. One quick look around at the faces of the guys around me and I could see how low it was. No one did much talking. No one felt like talking. Here we were, not even a full day into the battle and already it felt like we'd been fighting forever. One question kept going over and over in my mind; I'm lucky to be alive this far, but how long will it last? I could see no way out of this war for me. Somewhere down the line I had to die. Tonight, tomorrow, next week, next month, it didn't matter, the death blanket would one day be wrapped around me. It was no wonder, what with these morbid thoughts crowding in on me that my morale should suffer. After plumbing the depths of despair and wallowing in demoralizing self-pity I finally grabbed hold of myself: "To hell with it! Moping and worrying and feeling sorry for myself isn't going to do me one damn bit of good. If I die, I die." Fatalistic? You would think so. But then that's the way it had to be. What other way was there to look at it? What other way could I keep my mind intact? Whatever was to be, was to be. There was no way I could change things so I might as well just hope for the best and be done with it. I realized then that my zest for battle had evaporated. From this day on my goal would not be medals for bravery, but simply survival. From beyond the embankment came the steady rattle of small arms, mostly the enemy's. It was easy to identify them. Brens could only push out a maximum 540 rounds per minute, while the MG 34 delivered eight to nine hundred, 42 could spit out twelve hundred. Someone somewhere on the battlefield came up with the term "rubber gun" for the Jerry MGs —not From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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an apt name, but nonetheless that's what we came to know them until the more descriptive term "cheese-cutter" took over. By whatever name we called it, the Jerry machine-gun was a weapon to be feared. At 0330, while we were cooling our heels and catching our breath behind the embankment, Lieutenant Don Handford came running up all flushed in the face and out of breath, giving us the latest word, which we weren't one bit enthusiastic about hearing. Orders were for Dog Company to get moving ten minutes after our artillery opened up for another fifteenminute go at working over the enemy positions across the valley. That meant we'd be making a run for the valley even while the shelling was going on. The whole thing would start at 1600 hours sharp. We had every reason to be deeply apprehensive, especially after all that we'd seen and been through up till now. Only nine hours of hell, but enough to give us all a lifetime of grim memory, should we live so long. What else could we do now but tighten our belts, grit our teeth and hope to bloody hell there wouldn't be any Jerries left alive after our artillery shut down. In the briefing of the previous day we'd been told not to expect much in the way of opposition because there wasn't any more than a couple of platoons holding the line, and what few there might be still standing after our guns got through with them, would be so bomb-wacky they'd be in no condition to give us trouble. How simple and easy our Intelligence people made things look! They gave us the impression it was going to be a cakewalk, a walkover, a tea-party. How wrong they were, we were soon to find out. Sharp on the stroke of 1600 hours the heavy orchestra behind us burst loose in a symphony of cannonading that came pretty close to equalling that which had opened the battle early that morning. The twenty-five pounder batteries banged away nonstop till the sky between us and the charcoal-gray low-hanging clouds hummed and throbbed to the heavy surge of shells on their way to the Jerry lines. This time, we were directly under the flight paths of the shells at the point in the trajectory where they were on their downward journey. It was ten minutes of listening with awe and fearful doubts as they whirred over our heads and plunged into the target area with a drumbeat roll. And then we were on our way for what we thought would be the decisive thrust that would end the agony our regiment was going through. Frank Switzer's 16 Platoon took the lead, followed by 17 under Bill Hider, with Don Handford's 18 bringing up the rear. The sky above us was a crowded highway of shells all going in one direction, some so low on their downward journey that we feared one of them would come down on top of us. For all the infernal racket of guns 124

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behind us, the whir and whistle of the shells speeding by overhead, the bass-drum beat of the hundreds of shells crashing in the valley, the machine-guns, both ours and theirs clattering at a furious rate, the rifle fire snapping past our ears and mortars crumping on the open ground just off to our right, Dog company ran resolutely on towards the valley of decision. Although we were all as "green as grass" when it came to combat and our nerves rubbed raw from prolonged exposure to instant death, not a single man hung back. We ran along a well-worn path at the edge of a chewed-up olive grove, pockmarked everywhere with craters. We dodged, we hurdled and sidestepped around tree-limbs lying in our way. It was strange how thoughts of the Somme could flit across my mind as I hurried by with my eyes focused on the back of the man ahead. As we plunged on closer to the valley, the din from tons upon tons of high explosive going off grew louder at every step. Sharp pops kept going off close to my ears, the work of individual riflemen or perhaps even a sniper trying to pick us off. I expected the next stride, or the one after that, would be my last. To my right I caught a glimpse of a small group of our Charlie Company boys stumbling back from the slaughterhouse of the valley, two of them with wounded draped over their shoulders. Then suddenly, there before my eyes was the wide sweep of the Riccio River valley: the far slope was a boiling mass of shell bursts, the valley thick with smoke and reeking of the stink of HE. I hesitated, my mouth agape as a line of machine-gun bullets kicked up the dirt past my boots, so close I felt the vibrations through the double soles of my boots. I tried to spot where the firing had come from and then started downward, sidestepping in the wake of my section. A second burst ripped into the slope less than three feet from me. I hit the ground head first and rolled all the way to the bottom where I came to a jolting halt against Gord Forbes' backside. I thought the whole section had been killed, but then Gord Forbes snapped out at me sharply, to get my goddamned boot out of the crack of his ass and I knew they were still with it. The Jerry who'd been firing at our little group must have thought he'd nailed us all, and switched his aim to other targets. He had plenty to choose from. For me and the others at the bottom of the slope, to move was to die, so we laid there and played dead. We were pinned down, literally glued to the ground. Along with the fear of being ripped apart by the machine-guns on the high ground across the valley, we were afraid to move through the steel curtain of shells banging in and around the Riccio not thirty yards away. From where I lay on the slope just a few feet off the valley floor I could see the rush-filled Riccio, surprised that it From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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was nothing but a narrow ribbon of sluggish water no more than four feet wide. Intermingled with the explosions of our twenty-five-pounders came another ominous sound. Mortar bombs. Enemy mortar crews in position somewhere beyond the beaten zone of our shellfire opened up with their own barrage, pummeling the crossing site. The killing began when 16 Platoon splashed through the shallow Riccio, running straight into Jerry mortaring. Caught in the killing-ground, the lead section was all but destroyed in a matter of seconds. Down went Corporal Tom Littlejohn, Privates Sinclair Ludwig, Allan Cartland, Bill Faircloth, and Howard Woodcock. All were killed outright except for one man who lived for about an hour and then expired. We could hear him crying out in the agony of his mortal wound, crying out for help that was not to come. It tore me apart inside to lie there frozen to the ground and hear that plaintive, painwracked cry, knowing the man would soon die if help didn't get to him. A dozen others behind the wiped-out section lay writhing in pain from wounds, with the only hope for the wounded to save themselves was to crawl into the shallow craters speckling the valley in abundance. The attack died at this point. No one could see any hope for the main body of Dog Company to work its way up the slope and into the enemy positions. While 16 Platoon and a good part of 17 Platoon had been rendered ineffective through heavy casualties caused by the right-on-target mortarfire, No. 7 section of 18 Platoon had somehow burst into the clear through the curtain of bomb bursts and managed to work its way partly up the slope, before being driven to the ground by heavy machine-gun fire coming at them from the ridge crest directly ahead and from enfilade on both flanks. Although pinned-down on the naked slope, with only the shallow craters punched into the soil by the twenty-five pounder shells for protection, they were still able to lay in some rifle and Bren fire on the line of buildings and weapon posts on the high ground above, though not nearly enough to put them out of action. However, by their very persistence, they forced the enemy to keep their heads down long enough and often enough to allow some of the wounded, those who could walk or crawl, to make their way out of the killing zone. One enemy post that had been most troublesome was put out of business by the well-aimed shots from a Bren in the hands of Angel (call me H'Edgar) Desjardins of No. 7 section. When Angel spotted where the gun was firing from, he lifted his Bren to the hip and poured a whole mag into the position in three ten-shot bursts. But when his No. 2 man on the Bren, Billy Gilbert replaced the empty with a full mag, the gun jammed. Without batting an eye, Angel went into the proper procedure of dismantling the gun, removing the 126

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piston group, wiping it and all other parts down and re-assembling it as he had so many times in tests and on ranges. While Angel was busy doing what had to be done, Gilbert kept pecking away with his rifle at the enemy post to keep their heads down. And when the big Frenchman from Ottawa had the Bren back together, he laid his sights on the enemy posts and drove them back into cover of a house directly to their front. Three or four of the enemy were seen to be hit as they tried to make a run for the house. A stone's throw to Angel's left, Private W.K. Paul of 17 Platoon got into a shooting match with a couple of Jerries in an upstairs window of one of the larger two-storey houses at the top of the rise. Caught out in the open with bullets snapping in the air all around him and cutting up the turf around his feet, he had no recourse but to let go with his Bren, firing from the hip. Fire from another MG position failed to drive away this man, who I had never thought would have had the guts to stand there in the open and take on the enemy the way he did. This wouldn't be the only time in the campaign I'd misjudge a man's courage or lack of it. Catching in the blink of an eye where this new threat was coming from, Paul raised his Bren and, firing from a standing position, knocked out the threat with a couple of bursts. As a body plummeted head-first out the window, Paul, followed it all the way to the ground with the mag's remaining rounds. These were only the two instances that I know of where Dog Company platoons were able to exchange fire with the well dug-in and protected defenders. Unfortunately it wasn't anywhere near enough to allow the survivors — pinned down on the far side of the stream — to rise and move forward in a last ditch attempt to go in with bayonets and grenades. Dog Company could go no further. They stayed there on the bullet-raked slope, only a scant fifty yards away from the objective. So close and yet so far. Had the reserve battalion, the Irish Regiment been committed at this point, it's quite likely llth Brigade would have come out of the battle with a victory instead of the disheartening setback it turned out to be. It's always easier, however, to fight a battle after the fact. Section 8 was clumped together at the bottom of the east slope; even if we had gotten up to the others, I doubt we'd have changed things much for the better. As I lay there with face pressed tight against the ground, my heart racing like a runaway engine, twinges of guilt came over me. As the shadows of early evening crept across the valley, all firing slackened off and then came to a halt altogether. Our battle baptism had come to an end. I lifted my head from my face-down position close up against Forbes' backside to have a look around to see what was what. That's when I saw short-assed Art Gallant off to our left not fifty yards away staggering back from the Riccio supporting Sergeant Leghorn. Jack From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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was in bad shape. His left arm hung limply down, attached to his shoulder by a few strands of skin and lacerated muscle. A mortar fragment had slammed high up into Jack's left arm and all but severed it. Only Art's quick work in slapping a shell-dressing over the gaping wound prevented Jack from bleeding to death. Since no small-arms fire was coming our way, our pinned-down section rose and went over to join them, taking the chance that the MGs wouldn't open up again. And strange it should be that they didn't. Since visibility was still good enough for the enemy to see us, they could have easily cut us down. But they didn't and I'm alive today to write about it. I like to think that not all of the enemy were the evil people we'd been conditioned to believe, that there were some decent types amongst them. I have to believe it was these types that held their fire and let us get away. Maybe they felt we'd had more than enough for one day. We were all in a state of shock over the events of the day, knowing that besides losing the battle, we'd also lost a hell of a lot of our buddies. The battle ended with nothing to show for the heavy expenditure of shells, and more so, the more grievous expenditure of human resources, young men in the prime of life whom we'd sorely miss. Jack could thank Art Gallant for saving his life. Art's quick response in tying a shell-dressing on the wound and applying a tourniquet to staunch the flow of blood even while mortar bombs were falling thick and fast all around him, had done the trick. Yet what did Jack do but run off at the mouth, giving poor Art proper shit all the while Art was doing his damnedest to patch him up. Art took Jack's rantings, but only for a short while. Being no slouch himself when it came to spieling off strings of uncomplimentary remarks and expressions, Art let Jack have it right back and with both barrels. And that's the way it was when we came up to them. Both were going at each other verbally tooth and nail, coming close even to spitting at each other. At the lip of the valley we were joined by a Support Company mortarman, Henry Wickie. On his shoulder he toted a three-inch mortar tube and on his face was a look of complete bewilderment. It seems that in the course of the day's final events Henry had somehow become separated from the other half of the mortar team, the man carrying the baseplate. What happened to his partner, he had no way of knowing. After wandering around in a desperate attempt to re-connect with his man, dodging fire of every kind, he ran into our little group of forlorn stragglers and decided to stick with us instead of traipsing all over hell and gone trying to find his partner. A few yards back from the lip of the near side of the valley we came upon an abandoned and badly knocked-about farmhouse where we picked 128

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up a door that had been blown off its hinges to use as a stretcher. With Jack fast weakening from loss of blood, it was imperative that we get him to medical help as quickly as possible or there was a good chance we'd lose him. But where in hell would we find this help? We hadn't a clue. The only sensible thing then to do was to strike off to our right, where we could expect to eventually run into one of the 1st Division units holding the fort just back from the valley rim. It didn't take us long to find out how tough a job it was, carrying a wounded man out on a door. There were times when we had to fight off an over-powering compulsion to dump Jack, for all the verbal abuse he was giving us. Our fingers were numb and our arms felt like they were being torn out of their shoulder-sockets, and Jack's mouth was steadily chewing us out every foot of the way. For all our sympathy and concern about whether we'd get him to the medical people in time or not, we finally had to tell him: "Shut up! For crissakes! we're doing the best we can!" Actually, it wasn't like Leghorn to act the way he did. He was one of the more respected senior NCOs any of us had yet served under. An intelligent, agreeable, and easy-going platoon sergeant, Jack was just too nice a guy for us to be sore at, but then a guy can only take so much crap before he starts giving it back. His cantankerous behaviour I have to blame on the fact that he was upset and frustrated on having been knocked out of the war in his very first action, and the only way he could react to it was to vent his wrath on somebody. Although it was pitch-black by the time we reached the Hasty Pees (holed up in a tight group of substantial houses just back from the lip of the valley), we were able to run into them because of the flares the PloughJockeys (a nickname for the Hastings & Prince Edward Regiment) were firing into the night sky every few minutes. What a relief it was, both in the physical sense and patience-wise to turn Jack over to the care of the Hasties' stretcher-bearers. We bid him "so long and best of luck, we'll see you in Canada." We were more than glad when the Hasties let us stay the night, since we were totally spent. But as it so happened, we got little or no sleep because all night long Jerry mortar bombs crashed with stunning regularity just outside the walls of the casa. We'd heard enough mortar blasts over the past sixteen hours to last us for a lifetime, and although each one during the long day was like the crack of thunder right over our heads, in comparison to those landing all around this cluster of houses, they were little more than shotgun blasts. These were like the crack of doom; the sounds bouncing off the walls were intensified ten times, making our ears throb and ring like cathedral bells. I found a cozy spot under a set of stairs and though I felt a trifle more secure, there were times when I expected the From Timberwolf to Our Battle Baptism

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walls and roof of the house to come crumbling down on top of us. Sleep came only in short snatches. Shortly after daybreak we struck off across country in the direction of Ortona whose rooftops we could see as we made our way across farmland almost lunar in aspect. This was the second time the desolate farm-land reminded me of the battlefields I had seen in picture books of World War I. After somewhat of a meandering trek towards the coast road, we came out onto it just outside the northern limit of the town, and to our astonishment and welcome surprise saw not more than a hop—skip—and jump away down the road the remnants of Dog Company climbing into trucks. Our spirits took a giant leap. The company had not been wiped out after all. Likewise they thought we were goners. In fact Captain Ridge came up to me and said, "Damn it, Stan! I swear I saw you face-up in the Riccio, a big red hole in the side of your head." Humbled as we were over what we had just gone through, we were all, nonetheless, in remarkably good frame of mind. Instead of trying to forget what had happened to us over the past twenty-four hours we talked it out, talked about all the things our eyes had seen and how scared we all were. We talked about old Joe Gallant (no relation to Art Gallant) and how he got it, and about Jack Leghorn, and Ludwig and all the others we'd left behind in the valley of the Riccio. We were so busy telling each other about what each had seen and how close we all came to getting knocked off that we didn't have time (or didn't care) to look out at the passing scenery — if you could call the ruins of Ortona scenery. Half an hour later we off-loaded in the same soggy field below San Vito that we departed from six days before to march up to the front and our first action. Inside an hour after we arrived, one of the officers in Battalion HQ held a roll call. With glum expressions we listened to the names called out in alphabetical order; many were not around to reply "Here sir!" Later on that week that we learned just how heavy a toll the Perths had suffered. Forty-seven had made the supreme sacrifice, sixty-two had been wounded, and twenty-seven were taken prisoner, most of them wounded. It had been rough baptism of fire no one had expected, an ass-kicking that we'd have to face up to and live down over the months ahead, especially when we had to listen all too often to the insulting remarks dished out by the lads of 1st Division. The roll call had only just begun when a jeep rolled up with MajorGeneral Chris Yokes, OC 1st Division, sitting in the passenger's seat. Eleventh Brigade had gone into its first action under Yokes' temporary command. He gave us a short address, with backhanded praise for our 130

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efforts, but in the same breath let us know in no uncertain terms there was no excuse for being pinned down. In a way he might have been right, but in another he was off his mark. Simply put: dead men accomplish nothing. And that's exactly what would have happened had our pinneddown Bren-gunners and riflemen tried to fight their way through the hail of automatic weapon fire thrown at them. To stand was to die. With what he had said Yokes didn't endear himself to us. With just a few ill-chosen words, the man who we had all looked up to ever since the Canadians landed in Italy had made himself heartily disliked throughout llth Brigade, especially in the ranks of the Perths. In fact, hardly had the words left his lips when someone directly behind me said loud enough for the bewhiskered general to hear, "Give me a fuckin' Bren and I'll show you, you bastard, what it's like to be pinned down!" The general's face turned several shades of pink, and with that expression of contempt ringing in his ears, he tapped his driver on the shoulder and they rode away, back to the caravan of God Almighty.

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CHAPTER 3

THE WINTER FRONT

B

y the second week of January the rainy season had pretty well blown itself out, leaving behind a legacy of mud, morass, and misery for troops of both sides, forced to maintain vigilance at their outdoor posts. But in the waning days of the month the sun broke through the dark cloud mass, and although it appeared for only short periods, it added a little spot of comfort and made life at the front a trifle more bearable. The periods of kind weather, however, were much too brief a respite from the daily harshness of the static warfare we were now engaged in, warfare not filled with crashing battle noises and the staccato burst of machine gun fire, but in its own way a different kind of hell. Although the winters in Italy are nowhere near as bitter as winters in Canada, the winter of 1944 was one of the coldest on record. Had we spent our tenure of duty out of the weather, in the relative comfort of houses or other buildings, it wouldn't have been half so hard on us. However, living in dugouts scooped out of shallow embankments was not something we were used to, and must have adversely affected our morale, which was still not fully recovered from our setback on the Riccio. It was an animal sort of existence. Those who couldn't adapt ended up with mental breakdowns. The rest of us hung on, and before the campaign ended for us we could handle just about any misery that would come our way. The 5th Armoured Division, mainly the llth Infantry Brigade, was now saddled with the title of "The Mighty Maroon Machine" by the rank

and file and even officers of 1st Division. And never was this title uttered with anything other than a derogatory meaning. More than a few good fistfights broke out over the matter. As we straggled back through Ortona with nothing to show for our efforts but a hell of a lot of casualties, we began to hear all kinds of negative comments. It was tough to take, damn tough. Especially since we knew we had done as much as anyone could expect a green unit to do under the circumstances. Not two weeks later the Hasty Pees, or it might have been the 48th Highlanders, tried almost in the same spot to do what we had, and got their own asses kicked good and proper without getting as far forward as we did. Every unit, even the best of them, can run into trouble at some time or another and have everything go wrong in a battle. Even the elite have their bad days. So go the fortunes of war. Two days after the Riccio valley affair the regiment climbed aboard trucks of 5th Division Transport Company for the sixteen-mile journey inland to the left flank of the Corps boundary at Orsogna (nestled almost in the shadow of snow-capped Monte Maiella). With the heavy threat of rain, the shock of our setback on January 17, and the loss of so many of our men, it was no wonder the mood all through the regiment dipped to its lowest point. This was noticeable in the absence of the usual banter — no joking, no singing of ribald lyrics, and no reciting of the always popular but outrageously dirty limericks. And of course, the depressing countryside added to the general feeling of hopelessness. Acres upon acres of waterlogged fields, cratered vineyards, olive groves and orchards blasted by bombs and shells — all these combined in a panorama that could only be described as spirit-sapping. We had not been prepared for this. Every farmhouse, every outbuilding, every stable, every hamlet or group of dwellings along the way had suffered grievous damage under the hot rake of war. The knowledge that we would be spending days, weeks, perhaps even months somewhere in this tortured, godforsaken land was enough to humble and break even the strongest willed man, and it eventually did break some. The steady rain that fell in November and December and the first week of January had reduced the farmlands of the Abruzzi region to vast fields of semi-liquid mud in which no army could hope to operate with any degree of efficiency. The roads were not much better. Travel by foot or vehicle was difficult in the extreme. Since the latter days of November the secondary roads inland from Ortona had taken a terrible beating under a constant stream of truck and tank traffic and soon became rutted gumbos that neither redoubtable jeeps nor four-wheel drive trucks could navigate with any guarantee of reaching their destination. Using one 134

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vehicle to haul another out of the mud most often resulted in both vehicles being mired to the axles in the slop. On or about the time we were rolling inland, Montgomery and his staff came to the realization that further offensive operations had to be ruled out. It was obvious to them that little gain could be expected under the deteriorated condition of the roads and the fields, where attacking formations would have to deploy and maneuver. Also, the close country itself, with its succession of strongly defended river lines and ridges simply did not lend itself to bold and sweeping maneuvers of large bodies of troops. With outflanking tactics out of the question, any major assaults by 8th Army battalions would have to be "head on" bludgeon-type affairs reminiscent of the battlefields of World War I. Montgomery well knew that these tactics too often resulted in unconscionably heavy casualties, which he was wisely not willing to sacrifice. The Canadian 1st Infantry Division had been involved in just such fighting since their November assault on the Moro River defenses, so it was with no regret that our senior brothers of the Red Patch Division accepted the news that they'd be doing little or no fighting for the balance of the winter. On this note, the Adriatic front settled down into a static front type of warfare. Although the troops, especially the infantry, welcomed with great relief the respite from battle, they soon learned that static warfare had its own set of miseries and terror. War takes many evil pathways; some are much less violent, yet along them men still die and suffer. As we rolled on slowly in stop-and-go fashion through the battleravaged countryside, we couldn't help but comment on the absence of human activity, nor did we see any cattle or other barnyard animals. Several times we saw Canadian soldiers going about some self-appointed errand along the road, or standing in doorways in tiny hamlets. They looked our way with that indifferent look of men weary beyond words, of men who had seen too much of death. The thought came to me, as it must have come to others, "Where in bloody hell is everyone, are they all dead, or what?" We couldn't hope or even care much to know why no civilians were to be seen anywhere, and we confined ourselves to gazing onto the mindnumbing bleakness of the sodden farmlands. Dull-eyed and with hopelessness weighing heavy on us, we looked out at the wasted countryside from the back of our canvas-covered transports. Not even later into the campaign — when we were at the Po plains, slogging away under similar conditions of rain and terrain — did I feel so empty of the stuff that was supposed to make me the soldier I had been trained to be. It's strange though, how seemingly insignificant things, can swing a person's mood one way or the other. In my case the pendulum of morale The Winter Front

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took a slight upswing the moment we came to a halt to de-bus. That was all it took to snap me out of the oppressive feeling of doom that had taken hold in the first mile of the journey. The heavy blanket of despair fell away the instant my feet hit the ground (or I should say, mud). I was anxious to get to wherever we had to go; anything would be better than sitting gloomily in the truck. As long as I was doing something I felt worlds better. Sitting like a zombie watching the depressing scenery of weather and warravaged farmland was not my idea of how to get through a day. To get to our assigned positions we had to cross a quarter-mile of soggy vineyards, through soil that built up on our boots into lumps the size of soccer balls. Every ten paces or so we had to stop and pull the lumps off, piece by sticky piece, before we could proceed. For this reason, it took us about forty-five minutes instead of fifteen to reach the farmhouse positions we were taking over from the Ghurkas. The Ghurkas had to have heard us coming from a long way off because they were already formed up in platoons and ready to move out as soon as we showed up. They were veterans and weren't about to dilly-dally around in idle conversation with us, knowing the Germans might at any moment send over mortars — a parting gesture to the Ghurkas and a welcome to us. They didn't even take the time to show us around the positions, to point out slit-trenches or various features and danger areas. It was just "Hello, Johnny! Goodbye, Johnny!" and that was it. Indian troops, when speaking to us, almost always called us "Johnny." In a matter of minutes these tough little men from Nepal were gone, disappearing down the trail into the black night, leaving us to whatever fate might have in store for us. The countryside around our positions was coarse country, slashed with gullies and wide ravines, some overgrown with saplings and woody underbrush. The ground in most of these low-lying areas was soft, and in some places even marshy. (Our patrols found this out soon enough.) These clefts ran in a general southeasterly direction, with Orsogna dominating the high ground at the western extremity of what was known as Brecciarolo Ridge. Five hundred yards to the east of this spur rose another ridge, Pascuccio Ridge, and beyond this several hundred yards was a rugged feature with the tongue-twisting name of Sfasciata Ridge. These three pieces of high ground were now the Regiment's responsibility. At daybreak of our first day in the lines we saw at once how vulnerable we were in the event of an enemy attack, from whichever direction the Germans chose to launch it. We were especially concerned over the various avenues of approach their patrols could take to penetrate or infiltrate our lines. It took a little over a day to become familiar with the 136

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area, to know that the numerous ravines and gullies gave enemy patrols unsurpassed cover in a 180-degree arc. Also, the wide, saucerlike valley extending to our left all the way up to the lower slopes of Monte Maiella, four miles away, gave the enemy plenty of room to use large bodies of troops supported by tanks in an outflanking thrust, should they be bold enough to attempt such an undertaking. And it didn't require the credentials of a Rommel or Montgomery to see that the road running along the rim of this valley was the most likely route for any "straight from the shoulder" punch the Germans might deliver, if they could muster enough armour. Eighteen Platoon set up shop alongside this road, in farmhouses and in slit trenches around them. There was little else to stop the Germans if they came. At first glance we had to admit that our situation didn't look too easy to defend. In fact I was pretty sure we'd have little chance of beating any determined attack from this piece of ground. Since there was nothing I or anybody else could do, we had to accept things as they were. We just hoped to hell we wouldn't be tested. With 18 Platoon's weapons covering the road and the valley on the left, 16 and 17 Platoons were disposed slightly to the rear, echeloned in a general northeasterly direction covering the ravines and low-lying areas to their front. Straight down the road from 18 Platoon, a little less than a mile away, loomed the grey buildings of Orsogna, overlooking the road and the valleys like some medieval fortress. Across the front of the town, from west to east, ran what appeared to be an ancient Roman aqueduct. One glance at the town and we knew that any attack we launched would most likely have to be down that road, straight into the teeth of the enemy defenses, and more than likely it would end up in us taking one hell of a shitkicking. It didn't take much in the way of imagination to see an MG 42 in every window of those fortress-like buildings, ready to lace the living shit out of us. We knew the enemy had plenty of time to build up rock-solid defenses since the New Zealanders pushed them back into Orsogna. And we also knew the troops across from us were no slouches when it came to defense. We could only hope that the jokers upstairs knew all this, too, and would do some serious thinking before sending us in in the dead of winter. About three miles behind us, sitting astride another piece of high ground was the village of Lanciano. The farmers and other displaced people in the district were shipped here to wait out the northward movement of the front line before getting back to some semblance of normalcy in their disrupted lives. Running between Lanciano and Castelfrentano, two miles to the west, was the stretch of twisting road the New Zealanders had aptly named "the mad mile." This two-mile stretch of road had to be the most dangerous in all of that part of Italy. It took a The Winter Front

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pretty brave individual to make the dash between these two villages. The Germans watched all activity on this road like hawks, and any kind of vehicle on it, even a dispatch rider, almost without fail would run the gauntlet of 88 fire. From our vantage point on Brecciarolo Ridge we watched this happen almost every day. Puffs of black smoke from the 88s blossomed ahead, behind, and to both sides of the road, keeping pace with the vehicle till it disappeared out of harm's way in the labyrinth of the village streets. The drivers of those vehicles had no way of knowing it, but they had our fervent prayers accompanying them on their short but perilous journey. It was quite a spectacle. 16 Platoon under Lieutenant Till, and Lieutenant Bill Rider's 17 Platoon, took over farmhouse positions alongside a deeply rutted wagon track a stone's throw away from Don Handford's 18 Platoon. Baker and Charlie Companies were disposed in a scattering of farmhouses on neighbouring Pascuccio Ridge, while Able and HQ were holed up a quarter-mile away on San Felice Ridge, directly behind Dog Company. Less than a thousand yards separated 18 Platoon from the enemy. Since the Ghurkas didn't hang around long enough to point out areas we'd have to watch closely, or even to show us where the slit-trenches and weapon posts were located, we had to fend for ourselves and practically stumble upon them. We were fortunate though, that the enemy battalion across from us happened to be one of the less aggressive on the front and didn't send over a raiding party or we'd have been in some kind of trouble. The regiment was left in a shaky state of readiness (or more accurately stated, unreadiness); in those first few hours, I doubt that any of the companies knew where the others had gone. A c"balls-up" if there ever was one; we were lucky nothing came of it. By the following day, however, everything was straightened out and now we could do something if the Jerries should get the notion to test us. We had no way of knowing it, but the 2nd New Zealand Division had come within a hair of taking Orsogna back in early December. One battalion supported by tanks got as far as the very edge of the town in their thrust down the Brecciarolo Ridge, but were stopped there by the fanatical resistance of the Panzer Grenadiers, supported by tanks of the 26th Panzer Division. The Jerries slammed the door in the faces of the Kiwis, after which the lead battalion pulled back a thousand yards to the positions we now occupied. Here the front stagnated till late May. After the Liri Valley offensive got well underway, the Germans were forced to pull all the way back to beyond Pescara, which was supposed to have been our goal in the aborted attack of January 17. When 18 Platoon took over occupancy of a farmhouse alongside the 138

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ridge road, we were surprised to find three old people still living in it. One was an old man with a handlebar moustache who looked for all the world like a legendary woodsman right out of a Grimm's fairy tale. The other two, equally aged, were women, one who we presumed was the old boy's wife, and the other a sister of one or the other. (We never did find out which was which.) For several days the two women seemed to be afraid of us, so they stayed out of sight in their back bedroom, emerging only briefly to heat some item of food. But the old boy must have convinced them we weren't the evil monsters they imagined us to be, and little by little they lost their fear. And then when we gave them little gifts of soap and tins of bully-beef and chocolate bars they really warmed up to us and did all kinds of chores to repay us for our kindnesses. I felt sorry for the old ladies especially, since I visualized my own mother going through what they were forced to endure. The grizzled but muscular old gentleman took to us right off and did all the gathering and chopping of wood for the fireplace. He didn't seem to be afraid of walking out in the open even though he knew a shell or mortar could fall out of the sky at any moment and he'd be dead. He spoke a smattering of English in the broad New York dialect of Italian immigrants, having lived there for some years before returning to the land of his birth. We were getting to appreciate having the old people around when, well into our second week, a British officer and two Napoleonhatted Carabiniere arrived to escort the old ones back to Lanciano. An army edict had come down stating that all civilians were to be removed from the front lines and taken to a refugee centre in Lanciano. And now came a moment of pathos as the old people, tears streaking their lined faces, began gathering up their most priceless possessions and whatever articles of clothing and bedding they could carry. While the old boy carried two heavy suitcases, the women carried on their heads large bundles of clothing wrapped up in bed-sheets. Before they went on their way, however, the man spoke to the Carabiniere — "Uno momente" — and hurried over to the chicken coop. He brought out the lone hen that we had coveted with evil design, and handed it to Angel Desjardins in a way that would suggest a presentation of some trophy or other. With shoulders hung over and tears in his eyes he then bid us "Arrivederci!" and turned about and fell in with the others. As we watched them go I'm sure everyone felt a lump in his throat. But the war must go on, and in a matter of minutes this touching little drama was forgotten. As for sleeping habits, we found out in good time that a comfortable and uninterrupted night's slumber was a thing of the past up here at the front. Only in daylight hours were we able to catch up on the sleep we lost The Winter Front

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at night. Some people's biological clocks simply cannot adapt to a disruption in routine, and mine was one of them. Out of sheer weariness, I had no recourse but to lay my sleep-deprived body down and nap an hour or two every so often during the day. Besides the "two hours on, two hours off" guard rotation throughout the night — either in slit-trench duty or at an upstairs window — there were the patrols we had to go on night after bloody night. There was a patrol to suit every purpose: contact patrols, standing patrols, recce patrols, ambush patrols, and the most dreaded of all — the fighting patrol. The contact patrols were the least feared because all they required was for a party of two to cross the intervening ground between companies to make sure everything at the neighbouring company was as it should be. But even these patrols could be scary at times, especially if there happened to be a sentry out there in the dark with a nervous trigger finger. Men have been known to be killed by their own people this way. A standing patrol could be a little nerve-tingling at times, too. Four or five men would venture down into the valley on our left, usually about fifty yards or so, and lie "doggo" for two hours listening for enemy patrol activity. If we heard anything we were to hustle back to our positions and alert the company. On the two standing patrols I'd been on, the corporal in charge took us down no more than ten yards. I guess he felt like the rest of us: "It's no use sticking our necks out any farther than we have to." The recce patrols were also hard on the nerves. The section would make its way as stealthily as possible through the ravines and gullies choked with underbrush (no easy chore at any time), sneak up as close to the enemy positions as possible, pinpoint their positions, and gather whatever other information might be useful. Every patrol that went out had hopes of bringing back a prisoner, but this very rarely happened. In fact, it got so tough for our Intelligence people to come up with information on what units were out front that incentives were offered by Corps in the way of a money prize, along with a seven-day leave to Bari, for anyone who could bring back a prisoner for interrogation. Eventually some lucky patrol did win the coveted prize. The ambush patrol is self-descriptive and I need not go further on that one. But the patrols we all hated were the fighting patrols. Too many people got hurt and killed on them. In effect the purpose was to go out and stir up trouble, hoping you killed more of them than they did you. Most of the time, however, the patrol took the brunt of the casualties in any confrontation. The defenders were under cover in slit-trenches, dugouts or houses, while the patrol, although hidden in darkness, was out in the open with little or no protection from small-arms fire. In our two and a half 140

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weeks on the Orsogna front we had only one fighting patrol go out across the valley, made up mainly of Bill Hider's 17 Platoon. Armed to the hilt with Tommies, Brens and grenades, they made their way through a scrubcovered gully to a wide ravine. From here they made a beeline to a large farmhouse halfway across known to be occupied from time to time by the enemy. Hider wasted no time in rushing the place. Then all hell broke loose, as Schmeissers, Brens, Tommies and MG 42's all started going off at once. The heavy thud of grenades added to the ruckus. The fight was short and sweet — especially sweet for our side, since our boys cleaned out the house, killing or wounding all occupants, without a single casualty of their own. They grabbed one of the Jerries and tried to drag him back to our lines, but he put up such a vigorous struggle that they had to shoot him. All in all it was a first-class job executed by a green group of Canadians, a good indication that the regiment was on its way back to what every one of us had always believed we would be, "The Fighting Perths." A listening post was established in a small house halfway between the lines, just off the roadside. Each section in the company took turns spending the night in this house listening for enemy patrol activity. If anything of a suspicious nature was heard, a warning would be sent back to Company HQ by field telephone. The post itself was a deathtrap; I doubt we would have survived five minutes of an assault, had the Germans known we were there. Obviously they didn't, because the listening post never did get hit. The only incident of note during my turn was when John Trickey had a sudden attack of diarrhea. First it was the noise that scared living hell out of me; I swore every German between here and Ortona heard him crap. But as bad as that was, the horrible stink that followed was unbearable. Sound is sound, and once made is gone. But smell is smell and it can linger much too long, an overpowering, sickening stink so bad that I had to abandon my post for some gulps of uncontaminated air out in the open. But even out in the open I couldn't escape the smell. God, but it was awful! I swear, the stink probably even wafted over to where the Jerries were across the valley, which was maybe why they never came near the place. One night while I was on guard I came a little too damn close to wiping out one of our own patrols returning earlier than expected. I figured they wouldn't be coming back for another twenty minutes at least, so when I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye I snapped to full alert and swung the Bren to the left, where I thought I had seen someone dart across the road. As I lined up the gun, another figure flitted across into our positions. "Jeez," I said to myself, "a Jerry patrol!" I was about to squeeze the trigger when the thought hit me. "Goddamnit! I wonder if it's our guys coming back from the patrol." When a third figure scooted across The Winter Front

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I almost squeezed the trigger, but something made me hesitate. I had the feeling it actually was our guys returning. But the real scare came moments later when I heard movement behind the stack. "Oh God, I've had it, it's a Jerry patrol!" At this point the Bren was about useless, so I grabbed a No. 36 grenade, pulled the pin and waited an agonizing moment, ready to roll it outside in what I was sure would be the last move I'd ever make. When nothing happened I breathed a sigh of relief. It was only our standing patrol returning a bit early. Man, it was close! I went in and gave the buggers holy hell for putting me in the spot of not knowing whether to open fire or not. It didn't do a damn bit of good, though, they just laughed. Word got around one day that the Germans were using dogs to sniff out our positions, then lead night patrols straight to the target. We had noticed the odd dog skulking around but we hadn't suspected they were there for a purpose until the message came down from Battalion warning us. So now we were on the lookout. And it didn't take long before one of the beasts came sniffing. We tried to coax it in, but the dog sniffed the air in our direction for a minute or so, then turned about abruptly and went loping off towards the German side of the valley. This happened three days in a row, and so on the fourth day, instead of trying to coax the dog in, we opened fire. Five rifles and a Bren blazed away at the mutt but not a round found its mark. The dog got clean away. What a bunch of lousy shots! But we did have a good laugh after that. We reported what we had seen to Battalion, and shortly after, someone came up with what he must have thought was a dandy idea: luring the dog into our lines by offering him romance. A bitch in heat was somehow rounded up and tethered to a stake with hopes the dog or dogs across the valley would be attracted by the scent of sex instead of our own body odours. Once locked in feverish embrace, the dog would be easy to capture. A great idea, but it didn't work. Why not? Simply because the male dog wasn't interested. And why wasn't he interested? He'd been castrated, that's why. Another bright idea gone all to hell. February blew in with icy gales and stinging sleet, forcing friend and foe alike to beat a retreat from their cold and wet slit-trenches to the warmth of their respective hearths. The war on the Adriatic front, such as it was, had more or less come to a halt, or so it seemed. No one in his right mind cared to muck about in that kind of weather, not even the Germans. Alternate periods of rain, sleet and snow, usually accompanied by gale winds punished us for three days straight. It got so bad out there we were even loath to visit the latrine, preferring instead to do our business in a bully-beef tin just outside the door and pitch it as far as we could across the road. About the only danger we had to face in the way of gunfire were the 142

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occasional "heavies" the Germans sent over. Whenever these passed overhead to crash somewhere far to the rear they sounded exactly like the rumble and roar of a fast freight. A frightening sound, to be sure. In fact they scared the living hell out of us. We called them boxcars. On February 3 we exchanged sectors with the Irish Regiment of Canada. The relief was nothing noteworthy except for the fact that our trek to the new area was at the height of a sleetstorm. Although the trek was not much more than three miles it was a bastard. With the sleet hitting our faces like a million needle pricks and the slush and mud and water on the road making us slither and slide, it was no wonder that we were all in mean mood as we plodded on, cursing the weather, the NCOs and the officers for our discomfort. We had to unload on someone and it might as well have been them. About the only half-decent thing about route marching in lousy weather was the fact that we didn't have to worry too much about being mortared. We knew it would hardly be likely that Jerry mortarmen would be out in position on a day like this. Along the line of march I kept wondering what kind of accommodations we were about to inherit from the Irish. We could only hope that they'd at least be on a par with what we turned over to them. And it so happened, at least with Dog Company as battalion reserve, that we took over a group of farmhouses in a low-lying area about five hundred yards behind the forward companies. Worlds better than the dugouts we were afraid we might have to live in. The white tape stretching along both sides of the pathway leading to the houses, however, told us that the fields around us had not been cleared of mines and therefore we'd be severely restricted as to moving about in the area. Most of the mines, we had been told, were "S" mines, the kind that when trod on would spring six feet into the air and explode with devastating effect, lethal up to one hundred yards. This warning was enough for me to curtail my propensity for scavenging. There was nothing more terrifying to me than mines. They lay there hidden an inch or so beneath the surface waiting to be stepped on, and you just never knew when your next step would be your last. Just the thought of being blown all to ratshit was too horrible to think about. The day after we arrived, Bill Robotham was carried out after he took a .303 through the knee at almost point-blank range when Cec Vanderbeck's Bren gun accidentally fired as Cec was finishing cleaning it. Poor Robotham. Here was a guy who never seemed to warm up. He was forever whining and complaining about his cold feet. Well, now he wouldn't have to moan about being cold anymore. His fighting days were over. We all wished him well, though with some envy as they carried him out to an ambulance. The Winter Front

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Tragedy Strikes Baker Company — Februarys, 1944 It was almost noon hour and the hungry Baker Company men gathered in a tight queue on a ledge overlooking a thirty-foot-deep ravine. They awaited eagerly and with some impatience the meal, such as it would be, that the cooks would soon serve for lunch. The kitchen was set up in a cave at the western end of the ledge. No one concerned themselves over the possibility of a mortar or shell landing on the ledge because the high embankment above them hid them from enemy eyes. It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible for anything to hit them; a mortar or shell would have to come almost straight down to land anywhere along the ledge. But in the blink of an eye something did strike in their midst in a shattering blast. To this day no one can be sure whether it was a Jerry mortar or a short round from our own twenty-five-pounders. But whatever it was, it knocked the heart out of Baker Company. At the point where the missile landed it virtually obliterated six of the men. Bits and pieces of flesh, bone, entrails, and internal organs were plastered against the embankment and flung into the ravine below. Where the missile landed, the ledge was crimson from blood. Those who were standing a few yards farther from the blast were hurled like rag dolls on top of the embankment, along the ledge itself, and down into the ravine. Some bodies were so grotesquely twisted and torn it looked as though they'd been mauled, mutilated and ravaged by jackals. Those who had not lost arms or legs suffered just as grievously, with deep punctures and lacerating wounds. The ledge and the ravine floor was heaped with broken bodies. Most were dead. It was a ghastly welter of human remains. In all, fourteen men died on that sunny February 5. Two died on the way to the hospital, and another two died within a day. Twenty-three had been wounded, most of them seriously enough to end their service in the ranks. Four lost limbs. Word of the disaster reached us only minutes later. Volunteer stretcher-bearers were called for, and eight of us stepped forward to offer our services. When we arrived at the scene it sickened me to see the carnage. Bodies lay scattered everywhere amidst the underbrush in the ravine. Up in the trees fluttered bits and pieces of khaki, some of the larger pieces with bloody flesh clinging to them. Mess-tins hung in the upper branches, along with helmets, paybooks, service Bibles, gaiters, boots and sundry other personal possessions. Although my first sight of dead men in the Riccio Valley was a traumatic experience, it wasn't half as shocking or gruesome as what I witnessed on that afternoon. My senses reeled as I fought to overcome waves of nausea. Somehow I pulled myself 144

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together. Shortly thereafter, we made our slow and grueling way out of the ravine with our first casualty. By this time I'd gotten over the threat of throwing up. The first man we carried out was Leonard Setterington. Up until this moment I never realized just how tough a stretcher-bearer's job could be. I thought there was nothing to it, a snap. Halfway up the muddy slope, however, I had second thoughts. My shoulders felt like they were about to pop out of their sockets. My wrists also were about to give way. Once we handed the wounded Setterington over to the 24th Field Ambulance people we turned around and went down for another casualty, this time placing Corporal Clarence Harvey on the stretcher and started out again on the short but punishing trip out of the ravine and up the slope. Up until shortly before the incident Harvey had been a section commander in 16 Platoon. If the first trip had been a humbler of men, this second one was twice as bad. The muscles and sinews in my wrists, arms and shoulders hadn't been rested long enough to take on more strain. I struggled to hang in, while all the while I fought back the pain and the urge to cry out in agony. For the briefest of moments I considered letting my grip on the stretcherhandle go. But somehow I stayed with it. I don't know how I made it to the top. Most likely it was only because the other three struggling up that slope with me were still holding on and moving upwards. As long as they kept going, there was no way I was going to quit. If they could do it, I could do it. I figured I was every bit as tough as they were and come hell or high water I was determined not to fail. Somehow we made it, and after turning Harvey over to the Medics I hoped fervently we wouldn't be asked to go down into "death valley" a third time. But my hopes were dashed. Whoever it was in charge apparently wasn't aware how worn out we were, or else didn't care, and so it was back down into the ravine we went. It was about as close as I ever came to breaking down and crying in all the time I was in Italy as I did right then and there. Once again it was bloody hell making our stumbling way through the underbrush and mud with our burden, and then struggling up the muddy slope. "I'll never make it, I'll never make it" I remember saying to myself as I went up. And almost in the same breath forcing myself onwards with, "I've got to make it, I've got to make it!" I gritted my teeth, swore under my breath and hated with all the fibre of my being the three others straining their arms and guts along with me. Oh, how I hated them! But we made it, and all that momentary hate evaporated. And now I was glad, not only for what we had just gone through to save our comrades, but also for the fact that I'd won a battle over a weakness I hadn't known was a part of my make-up. I hung on when The Winter Front

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I had every reason to give up. The pain was worth it all. Following are the names of those whose names were added to the Perth Regiment's Roll of Honour: Pte. John E. AndersonB41645St. Catherines, Ont. Pte. Gordon E. BelroseA67832Tobermory, Ont. Pte. E.A. BoydA104912London, Ont. Pte. Edward J. EnglishA23409Windsor, Ont. Pte. Frederick T. GardnerB42814Fort Erie, Ont. Pte. Martin GiezeL101916Yorkton, Sask. Pte. Carmen W. HendersonA116744Blenheim, Ont. Pte. James E.A. HurlockAl 1791 Stratford, Ont. L/Cpl. John A. PainA50576London, Ont. Pte. Nil A.J. ParentA102747Windsor, Ont. Pte. Clark K. ParkA102887Chatham, Ont. Pte. Leopold RitchieE106635New Richmond, Que. Pte. Leonard B. SetteringtonA116458Leamington, Ont. Pte. John H. SimonsB59759Hilton Beach, Ont. Cpl. Andrew E. SimpsonA28251 London, Ont. Pte. Eric J. SmithA105127Arkona, Ont. Pte. Edward G.N. WaterfieldA 105081 London, Ont. Pte. Errol E. WiddisB37930Hillsburgh, Ont. Dog Company takes over from Baker Company With Baker having had its heart knocked out of it, Dog Company was rushed in out of reserve at first dark to take over its positions. After having spent a couple of hours earlier in this ravine of death, naturally I was loath to go back. I'd been wrung out. But I had no choice. John Trickey, George Simeays and I shared a dugout twenty yards away from where our boys got blown all to hell. But I tried not to let this bother me. By morning, with the promise of a sunny day ahead, I had pretty well gotten over the events of the past afternoon. I made up my mind not to dwell on it, because I knew if I let it get to me I'd end up in the "booby hatch," and there was no way I was about to let that happen. Death was preferable. One night, Ken Topping and I had to go out into "no man's land" to man a Bren post for two hours. For the first half-hour, the only problem was trying to stay awake. But then snow began falling, gradually picking up to become a full-blown blizzard. In no time flat, or so it seemed, a couple of inches of the white stuff covered the ground. And by the time 146

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our shift relief arrived an hour later we were half-covered with the stuff and feeling about as miserable as a man could. We were glad to get back to our dugout, now looking on it as something much more than just a hole in the ground. Everything is relative, especially when you're an infantryman in the front lines. The sector was even quieter than Orsogna had been. The occasional mortar and shell that came over usually fell harmlessly on the far side of the ravine a good hundred yards behind us. And with the embankment to hide us from Jerry snipers we felt about as safe as anyone could at the front. What happened to Baker Company, however, was never far from our minds. Whenever we went to the kitchen for our meals it was only two men at a time. Definitely no long queue. The trip to the kitchen and back invariably was made in quick time. We had only one incidence of a Jerry patrol working its way up to our positions. It happened on the last night of our stay. The Jerries stole close to 17 Platoon before our boys detected them and opened fire, killing two and wounding one who was taken prisoner. It made for a wee bit of excitement, as we came rushing out of our dugouts to fight off what we thought was a big fighting patrol. With everyone "gung-ho," it was something of a disappointment that the affair was over before we could get any shots off. On the evening we took over the dugout I came across two large cartons of "V" cigarettes tucked away in a cranny under the roof. There had to be at least ten thousand of the abominable weeds. The Vs were made in India, reportedly out of a mixture of dried cow shit, road sweepings and a trace of the poorest grade of Turkish tobacco. Whenever one of our boys smoked one it smelled like he had just shit his pants. But this didn't happen very often. Except for the Indian troops, no one, not even the Italians, cared to smoke the Vs, they were that bad. So their barter value was just about nil. In fact you couldn't even give them away. Which brings me to a letter sent in to the "Field Post Office" column in the Maple Leaf. The witty soul, whoever he was, suggested that the Allies might use them as a secret weapon. If our bombers dropped them, instead of bombs, on Germany, the cigarette starved civilians would soon get to puffing on them, and once that happened, their morale would plunge, sapping their will to fight on. As a followup, public demonstrations and even riots would force Hitler and his gang to sue for peace. Even with all the bad publicity, we still held hopes of getting something for the Vs; we hated to throw them away. Later, when the Sikhs came to take over, we turned our treasure trove over to them and won their instant and undying gratitude. The Winter Front

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The Crecchio Sector Our next sector was a few hundred yards back from the lip of the Arielli Valley, across from the enemy-occupied village of Crecchio. We were now about halfway between Orsogna and Ortona. Once "again we had to live in dugouts, much cruder and shallower and less protective affairs than the ones we had lived in for the past two weeks. We made ourselves at home as much as was possible in these gopher-holes. The previous occupants, the Van Doos, had done nothing to improve them in any way, either for comfort or protection. We'd heard a lot about these Quebecers, some of it not so complimentary, so we weren't all that sure of them as we mingled with them before they moved out. They didn't or wouldn't speak English, and most of us couldn't speak French, so little or no repartee went on between us. The manner in which they stood about with half-scowls or looks of disdain on their faces, ignoring our attempts to converse told me they didn't think too highly of us. I didn't care for the bastards, and was glad to see them go. It was strange how we seemed to hold more kinship with the bearded and turbaned Sikhs than we did for our own countrymen from Quebec. For the next two weeks we were not to know what it was like to be warm and dry. If it wasn't raining, a succession of sleet squalls added to our misery. For a month our bodies from the neck down had neither seen the light of day nor known the cleansing power of water and soap. In that time, only the hardiest of the company would dare bare themselves to the elements, and if memory serves me correctly, I can't recall such a hardy fellow living amongst us. We never took off a single article of clothing, not even our boots. We slept fully clothed, and that included our greatcoats, Balaclavas, and boots with two pairs of sox. By the end of the first week we looked more like denizens of skid row than soldiers. Our hair was as matted as rats' nests, and encrusted with dirt. Our faces were as grimy as those of coal miners after a long day down in the pits. Our bodies must have reeked but it bothered no one, since we all smelled alike. We'd lost our sense of smell, except when it came to the odours of decomposition. Directly behind the low embankment from which our dugouts had been excavated were the roofless remains of a stone shed used by Tommy Wilson and his two helpers, CQMS Cec Boyd and Clarence Wheatley (no relation to Bob) in the company kitchen. A tarpaulin draped over what remained of the roof framework served to keep the rain out, but there was no protection whatsoever from other things that fell from the sky. This was the one time I couldn't envy the men who worked in the kitchen. Although our dugouts wouldn't be much protection against a direct hit, they would 148

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at least provide far more than what a roofless canvas-covered kitchen could. And two days later, a clutch of mortar bombs suddenly came down all around the kitchen (fortunately, after we'd had our breakfast). Only Corporal Drysdale and two others from 16 Platoon suffered wounds, though none were serious. The trio didn't appear to be in much pain, and in fact were quite pleased to be on their way out with what we called "the million dollar wound." Of course, as at Orsogna, the listening post had to be manned, each section taking turns occupying it for a twenty-four-hour period from first dark to first dark. This particular post, a single-storey farmhouse with an attached walk-in stable, sat close to the rim of the Arielli Valley. From the windows we had a panoramic view of the valley and the enemy positions two hundred yards to the northeast. Once again I didn't at all like the looks of things the minute we walked into the place. Since we were at the very lip of the valley I could see at once how a Jerry patrol could quite easily crawl up on us before we could have a chance to react. I asked the 16 Platoon section we were relieving if we had any mines planted out front, or tripwired booby traps in likely approach areas. "Not a damn thing, so far as I know." was the answer I got. No, I didn't like the set-up at all. All I could hope for was that the Jerries opposite us were no more aggressive than those at Orsogna. If they did come across the valley with evil intentions, I don't think we could have done much to beat them off, and more than likely they'd make quick work of us. That first night, though filled with tension, passed without incident. With the coming of daylight I breathed a sigh of relief; now that we could see the valley and its openness we'd have half a chance of beating the buggers off. Night was a different matter altogether. But by this time we were getting used to such things and didn't get ourselves all worked up over it. Whatever comes, comes. There's no other way of looking at it unless a guy doesn't give a damn if his nerves break and he becomes psycho case. With binoculars we could see Germans walking about between their positions like there was no danger imminent. I thought this was a somewhat cavalier attitude, considering a sniper could have easily picked them off from any position on the ridge we occupied. As I came to learn, the average German soldier was far less disciplined in this respect than we were. They seemed far more unconcerned, even scornful of the dangers of such behaviour than the most fearless characters in the regiment. When night came on, we Canadians spoke in whispers while on guard at our posts, while the Germans' communications were loud, even boisterously loud. We often heard them at night and you couldn't help but wonder by the sounds of laughter, if they hadn't cracked a few too many bottles of The Winter Front

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vino. Such behaviour on the part of green troops might be expected, but from veteran troops as the Germans certainly were, it was hard to believe. In mid-morning, two Canadian artillery blokes, a captain and a sergeant, arrived at the listening post for some OP work. After observing the enemy's somewhat less than furtive comings and goings between positions, they radioed a message to their twenty-five-pounder battery, somewhere to the rear, to fire on the co-ordinates they'd come up with. Not twenty seconds later the first shells whuffled overhead on their way to the target. We watched through the window as they crashed just short of the Jerry-held farmhouse. "Up fifty," the message went back, and with that one correction the farmhouse and the yard soon blossomed with black puffs as the shells poured in. It was no more than a two-minute stonk, and when the firing stopped and the smoke cleared, we saw a couple of bodies crumpled up near a haystack and one draped over a window sill. The shelling was short and sweet but it made for some excitement in what could have been a long and boring afternoon. At about this time I was fast developing a reputation as a reckless souvenir hunter, a guy the others didn't want to be anywhere near when I was doing my thing. It was only natural then that I should focus special interest on a large two-storey house about three hundred yards away to our left and slightly behind our company positions. I'd seen no activity around it in the two days since we arrived in the area, so I assumed it hadn't yet been scoured for souvenirs. I had a bit of a tough time talking someone to go along with me as company, but finally Bob Wheatley consented to go along. As we set out across the intervening low-lying ground sheltered from enemy view by the rising slope of farmland to our front, I heard someone say, "There goes that crazy sonofabitch Scislowski again!. One of these days he's gonna get himself killed surer'n shit." Wheatley's name wasn't mentioned. Away we went like a couple of kids on a country hike. Though the house was only slightly scarred on the outside by shrapnel gouges and pock-marks, the inside was a shambles. The stairs to the second storey were now a heap of rubble. My immediate appraisal was that the stairs had most likely been booby-trapped and that one or more of our Canadian boys had gone up in the blast. But I didn't let the thought stop me from seeing what there might be upstairs. From the top of the rubble we could just manage to grab hold of the floor above and haul ourselves up. It was a waste of time and effort because there was nothing up there but a lot of German newspapers and a line of human waste along the perimeter of the rooms. The Jerries had been using the upstairs as a latrine. Careful not to pick up one of the newspaper pages that had been used for 150

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ass-wipe, I scanned a front page of the Volkischer Beobachter to see if I could gauge what the German people were reading about in news from the fronts. Many German words are close to English in spelling, so I was curious as to whether I could decipher what was on that page. The subhead read: 1ST DIE KANADISCHEN SOLDATEN DIE BESTE IM DIE WELTE? From my scant knowledge of German I got the impression that the article compared the fighting efficiency or qualities of the many varied national formations their troops had thus far encountered. From what I could guess, the Germans rated the Canadians as the overall best or very near to it. It sure bolstered the old ego, even though I knew they were mainly referring to our 1st Division, since they were the only Canadian major formation they'd been in steady combat with over the past seven months. After cautiously stepping around the piles of shit we both took a look out the window and saw below the graves of three of the Herrenvolk. One name painted on the Maltese crosses etched itself on my memory, perhaps because the surname was non-Germanic — Reinhold Quinque. Herr Reinhold and his two buddies were killed on the same day in midDecember. I said, "You know, Bob, maybe it was those two guys who were killed when the stairs blew up, not our guys." Just before leaving the place we thought we'd have a good look out the windows facing the enemy lines. We stood there gawking in the direction of the enemy as bold as brass, when a shell ruffled over and exploded in behind the house. "Uh oh!" Bob piped up, "I think they must have spotted us, I'm getting the hell out of here." Right behind the first shell came four more, bang! bang! bang! bang! in front and to one side. Bob took off like a shot, jumped down onto the rubble and disappeared out the door before I could react. I hesitated, not knowing whether to make a run for it or wait out the shelling in the house. When the next shell detonated with an incredible roar not twenty feet from the door, shaking the very foundations I knew I had to get out fast. But I had to wait for the right moment. I was scared, but not so scared that I wasn't able to plan when I'd go and the route I'd take, by the back where the shells were all landing, or the front. Twice I got set to go, only to be driven back to cover by a shell that thundered in a little too close for comfort. On my third attempt, I gritted my teeth, held my breath and then took off running like a bat out of hell. I didn't have a chance to hit the ground when three shells, one right behind the other, slammed into the vineyard on my right, no more than thirty yards away. At this point I was well out in the open and on the higher piece of ground where the enemy observers in the church spire in Crecchio could see me. "What the hell are they sniping at me for?" I was thinking as I sped across the soft turf towards the company lines. I could see Bob Wheatley The Winter Front

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some fifty or more yards ahead of me going to beat all mighty in that odd, slew-footed gait of his. He'd now reached the dip in the terrain and out of view of the enemy, and in a way, was more or less out of danger. Not so, me. The Jerries were solely after my hide now, and they were pouring it on. "What a hell of a waste of shells!" I was thinking as I sped across the damp ground. The next thing I knew they were using air-bursts. Every time one exploded somewhere above me I took a flying belly-flop, which wasn't a wise thing to do since I was presenting more of my body to shrapnel than otherwise. With my face inches off the ground I could actually see and hear the shrapnel slapping into the soft soil around me. They say everybody has a guardian angel. I never did believe such guff. As I used to say to the more religious types in the platoon, "If everyone had a guardian angel, then how come so many of our guys were getting killed and maimed in battle? Where were their guardian angels when they needed them?" They had no explanation for this. But on this particular occasion I became a convert, a believer in the angel that must have been running alongside of me as I sprinted and flopped my way towards the promised land. She did one hell of a job, let me tell you. By all rights I should have been dead. Instead, I just kept running, dodging, diving, getting up and doing the same, over and over again, until I reached the lower ground, breathless, but thankful that I was home free. As I ran the gauntlet of fire I could see the better part of the company doubled over, laughing their asses off, watching what was going on as though it was some comic stage routine I was putting on for their benefit. And in the last leg of my frightful journey they broke into a hilarious kind of cheer, urging me on to greater speed. This was one cheering section I didn't appreciate and I was madder than shit at them as I ran. "The bastards!" I kept saying, "What the hell's so damn funny?" I guess I was so mad at them I didn't have time to be scared in the way that some guys freeze into immobility. Once out of harm's way, though, I soon got over the anger, and in fact I had a few good laughs myself. Come to think of it, it might have been a little hysteria that got me going. Morale's always a problem with troops at the front, especially with the infantry, who are far more exposed to the possibility of instant death than others. Not only is it the constant tension that adversely affects their morale, it's living day in and day out in the meanest of physical conditions, aggravated by the cold, the rain and sleet, and the biting winds. Because of this problem, someone back in Battalion HQ came up with the splendid idea of setting up a rest centre just behind the front, not far enough to offer respite from danger, but a rest centre nevertheless, where a man could get a night's uninterrupted sleep out of the mud and cold. The regiment's rest 152

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centre was set up in a clutch of houses less than a quarter-mile behind the forward positions. Two men from each section were allowed to go there for a twenty-four-hour stay, and though it wasn't much as far as rest centres go, it was still a haven of comfort. Here a man could sit down at a table to hot meals, read old magazines and pocket books, play some of the popular tunes of the day on an old gramophone, and best of all, enjoy a decent night's sleep on thick, cornstalk-filled palliasses. The cornstalk mattresses might not have provided all the comforts of real ones, but after what we had been sleeping on for the past month, they did pretty well. Anything was better than feeling the cold, damp earth pressing against your back. Although the rest centre, which was largely organized and managed by our education corporal, Hugh Patrick, was smack in the front line, it never received so much as one shell or mortar strike. Why the Germans left it alone will always remain a mystery, for they must have seen the traffic coming to and going from the place. Perhaps it was because they had one of their own centres just across the valley and didn't want us to retaliate; as good a guess as any. Fifty yards down the road from the rest centre in the direction of the battalion positions, sat a knocked-out German Mk. Ill tank. Ever on the alert for any war souvenirs I could lay my hands on, I made a beeline for it in broad daylight, as if I was a hundred miles behind the lines instead of within sniper range. I climbed all over it like a kid playing on a junked car looking to see what I could unscrew or pull off, but there was bugger-all. Some lousy scavenger had beaten me to anything worthwhile. There was nothing worth taking except perhaps the instruction plates riveted on the interior in several places, but since I had no screwdriver to pry them off, I let them be. A good description of our lifestyle on the Crecchio front appeared in the Maple Leaf, written by Douglas Amaron of the Canadian Press. It went like this: THESE LADS GO SAILING WITH A SLIT TRENCH RAFT — Cpl. C.M. Smith of Owen Sound, Ont. dumped another bucket of water from his slit trench, looked up at the clearing sky and said; "It would be a pity if the sun were to shine now. I'm just getting used to this." The war seemed very near at this forward position of a Central Ontario Battalion [the Perths]. Just a few hundred yards away was the crest of a rise and beneath it in the gully beyond were the Germans. Shells flying so low you instinctively ducked as they passed The Winter Front

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over-head, screamed across the rise and crashed into the enemy's outposts. Mortar bombs coming the other way, plopped into the area of the Canadian battalion on the right, and you wondered when they would change direction and come your way. But if the war seemed near, if the shells, the mortars and the machine-gunning in the gully were too real for comfort, the mud of that forward platoon area was nearer and more real. You could duck from high explosives, but the mud was constant. Smith shared a slit-trench with Pte. J.H. Scott, Schreiber, Ont. "Better than a house," they called it, this four-foot hole in the ground which they had occupied only two hours earlier, and which they were now emptying of water. Other slit trenches were nearby, housing the platoon commander, Lt. Doug Cook, Toronto; Sgt. H.A. Wright, Kincardine, Ont., Cpl. L.D. Hood, Buttonville, Ont., Ptes. L.W. Naylor, Toronto; A. Ferguson, Kent Road, N.S.; and other members of the platoon. Most of them were just deep holes burrowed from the soft earth and covered with boards, straw, gas-capes, and whatever other protection was available. More straw and boards formed a floor through which the water seeped and the mud oozed. One slit trench was not being used. It had been previously, by Ptes. Nick Scollie, Port Arthur, Ont., and Tim Daly, Atwood, Ont. of another platoon, but when they moved back it was abandoned as "unseaworthy. There were 18 inches of water in this trench and despite constant bailing the level remained about the same. So Scollie and Daly built a raft and lived on it with the water sloshing about beneath them. All the men up here wore rubber boots and with good reason. After two weeks of steady rain and snow, the ground was knee-deep in cgoo', making even the damp slit trenches appear dry in comparison. This platoon, said the battalion's commanding officer, a Lt. Colonel from Toronto, had the most uncomfortable positions. None claimed to like them, but all made the best of a bad job, and the jokes they cracked about the mud were a good indication of their high spirits. More fortunate were men of another company living in what their Acting Company Commander, Captain Frank Kennedy, Stratford, Ont. called a little Stalingrad. This was a settlement of houses smashed by enemy shelling but with a few rooms intact to 154

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provide shelter and warmth. There were stoves in the rooms, one with a chimney made from the casing for an 88mm shell. A novel hot-water shower, bucket and pulley style was set up in an airy room, and soldiers coming back from patrols were soon clean again. Making the most of these limited comforts were such men as Sgts. N.O. Bell, Toronto; J.A. Fulcher, St. Marys, Ont.; and Pte. G.W. Furtney, Preston, Ont. The Scout Platoon, commanded by Lt. George Gallagher, Port MacNicol, Ont. had a house of its own not far from battalion headquarters. Sharing two large rooms were the men who go out nightly to reconnoitre enemy positions. Cpl. C.C. Nadjiwan, Cape Croker, Ont. had been out the previous night into a darkness so black that the hill he thought he saw ahead turned out to be a cave. Preparing to go out were Ptes. DJ. Smith, Kingston, Ont.; Alex Lang, Smith's Falls, Ont.; A.E. Liske, Inglis, Man.: and H.L. Nelmes, Kitchener, Ont. On February 26 we were relieved by Charlie Company and marched out two miles to the severely beat-up hamlet of Caldare, surrounded desolately by a sea of mud and water-filled shell holes. The whole area was not unlike the cratered fields of Passchendaele. From the number of craters all around the hamlet it was a wonder that any of the walls still stood, let alone a building. Yet we found more than enough shelter to house the company. For the next three days we were able to catch up on lost sleep, shower (as well as the meagre three-stream trickle allowed) and recall what it was like to be dry and warm once again. (The only drawback was in our having to traverse the six inches of deep mud on the road to got to the company kitchen.) And to top things off, our kit-bags were brought up and it was like being handed a grab bag of goodies. We had long forgotten what we even had in the bags, and so we were like a bunch of kids tearing open their gift boxes on Christmas morning. Within hours of our arrival, much to our supreme joy, came several Jeeploads of mail and parcels. We had seen neither since leaving Altamura in the first week of January. Every man got at least one parcel, most got three, and some were even luckier, walking away with five. Back in our humble quarters we celebrated like we had never celebrated before. I was so excited I didn't know whether to start reading the fistful of mail or tearing the parcels open. Everyone was doing the same thing. Unrestrained joy! If there was anybody whose morale had dipped a bit too low during our stay The Winter Front

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in the lines, it rebounded with the arrival of mail and parcels. There wasn't a downcast face in the room, or for that matter, in the whole company. For the next two days we could kiss good-bye to bully-beef, lousy Limey meat-and-vegetable stew, the godawful steak-and-kidney pudding, and whatever else the cooks had to palm off on us. We'd be digging instead into cans of the more palateable Spam, Spork, Kam and Klim to make sandwiches, or spread thick layers of strawberry and plum jam on our bread for tea. Another item we loved to find in our parcels were cans of fruit cocktail. After we'd had our fill of the staples, we'd all sit around happily munching on chocolate bars — Oh! Henry, Sweet Marie, Coffee Crisp and others. We were forewarned, however, not to draw drinking water from the local wells because of the likelihood of contamination, or worse, poisoning. It was rumoured that the Germans often poisoned wells by dropping carcasses of small animals and fowl into them. At times, so it was said, they even dropped human remains down the wells. Those whose water bottles had run dry would have to wait until sometime next morning when a truck would come up to refill them. And that was the case with me. I'd only enough for one good pull. Not that I was thirsty, but here I was with a large jar of malted milk powder I'd just gotten from home and I was dying to have myself a cupful or two of it. Thoughts of the refreshing and tasty drink damn near overwhelmed me, and I threw caution to the winds and went out back of the house and hauled up a bucket, which on cursory examination appeared to be about as pure and sparkling as that we got from the tap. I filled two water bottles and hurried inside to mix up a cup of this nectar of the gods, a drink I hadn't tasted in over a year. Did it ever taste good! I downed three cups, and passed some of the powder around to a few of the guys who were clamouring for me to share some with them. Not long after our food and malted milk orgy and the reading of our mail from home, we all drifted off to sleep on the hard, stone floor in front of the glowing embers in the fireplace. Life seemed worth living after all. Sometime during the night I woke up with a start, feeling most uncomfortable. It didn't take me long to find out why. At first I thought either I or the man next to me had pissed the bed. And then the smell hit me, and I knew I had shit myself, and shit myself good and proper. It was all up my backside. The smell was so terrible I damn near puked. Even in the dark I was mortified. Nothing like this had happened to me since my diaper days. I slid my long-Johns off and carefully made my way across the sleepers, somehow managing to avoid stepping on someone's face or groin as I made my way to the door leading to the backyard. Once outside, I 156

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didn't go a step farther, but squatted just off the pathway and emptied myself of what remained in the lower bowel. Once emptied, I was freed of the spasms that allowed me no control over my sphincter. With the offending germ or toxin purged from my system, all I had to worry about now was getting rid of the horribly brown-stained underwear. My name was printed in indelible ink in bold letters that began near my hip and ran all the way down to my ankles on both legs, and because of my childish fear of being found out as having shit the bed I was practically beside myself to make sure no one would see the incriminating evidence. I had to get rid of the mess somehow. But where? I couldn't bury it out in the yard, because I was barefoot and the yard was ankle-deep in mud, and it was too dark, besides, to see where I was going. Then I remembered having been up in the attic shortly after we arrived, on my usual scavenger hunt and decided that that's where I'd hide the underwear under a pile of newspapers and other debris. But since I couldn't see in the dark I simply pitched the offending underwear as far out into the attic as I could, with intention of waking up bright and early in the morning to complete the burial. The balance of the night passed without further bowel misadventure. But the story doesn't quite end here. Morning came, and with it came the nagging fear that some nosy sonofabitch might decide to see what was up in the attic and come upon my soiled drawers with the name STANLEY SCISLOWSKI emblazoned in bold blue down the front of both legs. "Oh, God no!" I said to myself, "I've got to get up there and make sure I bury them deep farther back in a corner." I hurried up the stairs to the allimportant job, and when I got to the top, lo and behold — scattered in an almost perfect half circle around my underwear were at least a half dozen other heavily brown-stained pairs. I chuckled with relief as I went downstairs, happy in the knowledge that I wouldn't have to be afraid of the jibes and pointing fingers of my buddies. My shame was their shame. I was glad I'd been so lavish in sharing my malted milk with others, but I couldn't understand though how none of us bumped into each other in the dark on that narrow stairway. It had been a busy stairway indeed. March 1, 1944 was another dull and heavily overcast day, making the scene around us even more depressing. Mud, water, and craters everywhere. It was a wonder we all didn't "go 'round the bend." It was as though we were looking out over the battlefields at Ypres. Now I knew what our troops in World War I had had to face; the incredible filth and degradation of living in the trenches for weeks and months on end. By comparison, our kind of war was a thousand times less evil and physically demanding. Adding some interest to what promised to be another lousy day was The Winter Front

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the visit by none other than the Corps Commander himself, LieutenantGeneral E.L.M. Burns. What prompted "ye olde high and mighty" to leave the relative comfort and safety of his rear-echelon caravan to inspect our regiment, out in the mud and dangers of the front line, was quite baffling. We awaited with growing impatience and some uneasiness the arrival of the great one. Drawn up into some semblance of parade-ground precision out in the muddy and much too open fields, we were an ideal target for Jerry mortars and artillery. It was outrageously stupid to have us standing there for close to an hour, first awaiting the arrival of and then listening to a speech by a man most, if not all, had never heard of until just a short time before. In no way did he inspire us, either by his general physical appearance or his speech. To me he looked like he belonged in a bank office or in a pulpit. When it was all over, we gave him the traditional (but half-hearted) "Hip, hip, hooray!" and an even less enthusiastic "Tiger." To a man we were relieved when Burns and his entourage drove away. Good riddance! On our way back to our billets we passed a knocked-out Sherman tank, its frontal armour showing two perfectly round holes on the driver's side. Two quick-shot AP rounds must have splattered the top half of the man's body all over the tank's interior. I wondered if any of the other crewmen managed to get out in one piece or died as horribly. After seeing what an 88 armour-piercing shell could do to a tank I no longer condemned my choice of marching with the infantry. When our three day respite from the front lines ended, we marched back to the lines, but not to the dugouts we had handed over to Charlie Company. We now took over the sector immediately to the left, and were at once pleased to see that it was far more comfortable than the dugouts we'd had to live in for too long. Although we still had to do the usual two-hour stints on guard in weapon posts, when our relief came we retired to houses that for some reason neither our artillery nor the Jerry's had damaged all that much. Except for a few clay tiles knocked off the roofs and an odd gouge or two in the walls, the houses were reasonably intact and provided a measure of comfort compared to earthen living quarters of the recent past. The interiors, though dirty and in a disheveled state, were at least dry. 18 Platoon's slit-trenches were located on the south side of the settlement, facing the rear, and we considered them fairly safe from enemy encroachment or infiltration. The rear party warned us before they departed that the enemy had been aggressive patrollers and suggested that we be on our toes at all times. I noticed, on my first two-hour guard duty that the previous occupants had strung up trip-wires attached to grenades all through the area out in front of the trenches. Although some of the 158

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trenches were elaborately dug affairs, most of them were knee-deep in water and therefore unmannable. The dry trenches were not much more than a couple of feet deep. On trying to deepen them we soon ran into water seeping in and so had to abandon further digging. The second day after we arrived, the weather took a welcome turn for the better. The sun came out and by noon the nip was out of the air, putting us in a much better frame of mind. It's amazing what a positive effect nice weather can have on a man's morale. An hour or two of sun and your whole outlook changes for the better. In fact I felt so good about the abrupt change in weather that I decided to root about the area in my neverending search for loot. And I soon found it, though it wasn't something I could send home in a parcel or use in bartering for spaghetti or the like. I came upon a cache of No. 36 grenades. As it turned out I gathered a whole wicker basket full of them. There had to have been at least fifty. "Man!" I thought "Am I ever going to have some fun with these!" My eyes fairly sparkled with anticipation of what I was about to do. I planned on doing some make-believe houseclearing and I was going to do it on the large two-storey house Bob Wheatley and I had visited a couple of weeks earlier, the one from which we'd had to flee for our lives. It was directly to the rear of our positions about two hundred yards away across low-lying ground, an ideal place on which to pretend I was bravely doing houseclearing. It didn't take much coaxing to get my buddy Walter Thomas to go along with me for the fun. So off we went down a winding cart track, lugging our heavy load of cast-iron grenades in the wicker basket like we were coming back from shopping at the local farmers' market. Just short of the house we came upon a slit-trench by the side of the path half full of water, prompting a harebrained idea; drop a grenade inside and watch the water fly. But then I got a better idea. A door lay nearby and I suggested to "Tomeau" that I'd cover the trench with it after he dropped the grenade in. This way we might see a more spectacular effect. And so I told Thomas to get ready as I hauled the door to the edge of the trench, finding it a lot heavier and bulkier to handle than I thought it'd be. And then the grenade plopped into the water and suddenly I found myself having a tough time placing the unwieldy door across the trench. I just managed to fling myself onto the ground about five yards away when the grenade went off. "Wow! And did she ever go!" From my prone position I craned my neck around and upward to see this high fountain of greenish water and the door (now in two pieces) turning end over end. To my horror I thought it was coming down on top of me. "What a way to die!" I scrambled from out from under the downward path of the two heavy pieces of lumber, but not by much. "Man! That was close!" The Winter Front

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Not satisfied with the thrill of a narrow escape, Thomas and I had to have more. We went on up to the two-storey house where we commenced throwing grenades in with reckless abandon — through upstairs windows, downstairs, everywhere and anywhere — and getting the biggest kick every time one went off. We even threw a couple in a nearby manure pile to see the shit fly. More fun than a picnic. And before we knew it, we were down to our last grenade. What to do with it? And then Thomas came up with the idea of dropping it in the big black cast-iron cauldron hanging in the fireplace. Great! But as stupid as I was portraying myself to be, I wasn't about to play the hero's role in the finale. I gave the dubious distinction to my good buddy and looting compatriot from Verdun, Walter Thomas. And he didn't even bat an eye. Now I knew there was at least one guy in this man's Canadian Army a little crazier than me. "Just don't get in my way, Stan," he commented as he stepped up into the fireplace to drop the grenade in the big iron pot. While he steeled himself for the task at hand I positioned myself tight up against the wall outside, my head about two feet from the door. We didn't bother checking the grenade to see whether it had a three-second or a five-second fuze, so Thomas knew he had to really nip to get away in case it happened to be the short one. Lucky for him it was the long one. What a hell of a roar it made when it went off, like a 210mm had landed beside us. The whole fireplace and odds and ends shot out the door past our heads. And when the smoke cleared and I looked up I thought the whole wall was about to come down on us. It was only an optical illusion caused by tufts of cloud moving across the sky. We hadn't noticed, but all through our spree of grenade throwing, we had an audience. As we set off down the cart track on our way back to the company we saw this good-size audience standing outside the platoon billets looking on like they were at a ballgame or something. They must have wondered what in hell was going on back there at the big casa to their rear. But when they saw "Tomeau" and I coming up the roadway, they knew: the two goofs were at it again. Who else? When we got back, Sergeant Halliday lit into us with a scathing lecture on wasting the Canadian taxpayers' hard-earned dollars. "For crissakes, you silly bastards, don't you know how much those goddam grenades cost?" Trying to look our most penitent, we acknowledged our guilt, but at the same time tried to minimize our wrongdoing by explaining that we found the grenades, that they weren't our issue. "I don't give a good goddamn whose issue they were, you just blew one hell of a pile of money up for what — bugger-all!" he fired right back at us. As an afterthought, but with a trace of a smile at the corner of his mouth, Halliday said, "I 160

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should put the both of you on charge, but I'll let you go this time." Meanwhile the appreciative audience broke up and drifted back to their billets convinced we were as wacky as they always suspected us to be. Hardly two minutes went by after Halliday's scathing blast when German artillery opened up in a sharp stonk on the house where we'd had our fling with the grenades. Inside five minutes they must have poured in a hundred shells and mortars into the place, the smoke from the detonations almost completely obscuring it from view. Why pound an unoccupied house? The only thing we could come up with, as we watched the house go up in smoke and pulverized masonry, was that Jerry observers must have been watching as we went about our game and thought an infantry training exercise was going on. So they thought they'd make a real killing by lacing it with mortars and artillery. When it was all quiet again I went up to Halliday and said, "Well, Sarge, what do you think now, does it look like we wasted taxpayers' money?. The Jerries spent ten times more than we did, and for nothing too." Sine took a sidewise glance and muttered, "Maybe you're right, Scislowski." And that was that. On every sector of the static front every battalion had set up a listening post in houses well-placed for the purpose and manned almost always by one section. Here in front of Crecchio the listening post was set up in a sturdy, almost fortress-like two storey house, sitting on the rim of the Arielli valley. Three hundred yards away, across the open fields to our right, I recognized the listening post house where No. 8 Section had spent a twenty-four-hour shift only a week before. Here in our new post the enemy positions were no more than two hundred yards away across the low-lying ground of the Arielli River valley. Like our previous post I had reservations as to whether we could hold our own against an enemy fighting patrol. And my reservations were valid, because the ground to our front, dotted here and there with thickets and scrub, made for ideal cover for a patrol to work its way right up to the front wall of the listening-post. One bazooka-toting German could get up close enough to send one rocket our way and we'd be done. The ground floor had been used as a stable, with one small cubbyhole of a room off to the side serving as a crude winecellar. A wide stairway led to the first floor living quarters. After a quick tour of the house we settled in to our assigned positions — four men upstairs — four men downstairs in the stable. Gord Forbes, Ken Topping, John Trickey and myself were downstairs, Corporal Hugh Gresham, George Simeays, Thomas and one other fellow, maybe it was Hanley, but I can't be sure, manned the upstairs posts. Downstairs our Brens were positioned in holes knocked out of the footthick masonry walls, and we were on the usual two hours on, two hours off The Winter Front

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routine. Daytime was the only time we could relax or catch up on our sleep. But we were lucky again because the enemy on our sector didn't bother us. On our right, however, in the listening post we'd occupied only a week or so earlier, the Cape Breton Highlanders lost an officer to a Jerry recce patrol that sneaked up at first light and waited in the lean-to stable for one of the occupants to come out and use it as a latrine. They got away with their prisoner before the others in the post realized their man was missing. They gave chase but came away empty. It could very well have happened to us one night here when one of our posts was left unmanned from two to six in the morning, and I was the culprit. It happened like this: I had the midnight-to-two shift along with Trickey; the shift went by without incident. As the hands on my luminousdialed wristwatch told me my shift was finished I left my post for an instant to wake Gord Forbes up to take over from me. Gord was the hardest guy in the world to wake up. It was like trying to wake a dead man. I shook him, grabbed his ankle, and pumped his leg up and down before he mumbled something indicating he was awake. "Gord," I said, "time to take over from me." and I hurried back to my post to await his coming. Five minutes went by, ten, fifteen. "Goddamn it!" I said. "Where in the hell is he?" I left my post again. And be damned if he wasn't asleep again and snoring up a storm. I shook him, harder this time. "Gord, damn it, wake up you bastard, your turn on guard.." "Mumble, mumble, mumble, okay, okay, okay, I'm coming." So again I hurried back to my post. Five minutes went by, ten, fifteen— again no Gord. "Jeezly Krist!" I exclaimed, thoroughly pissed off as I went back to Gord. I pounded him, but to no avail. All he did was give a couple of more grunts and back to snoring he went. "To hell with this shit!" I said to myself. "I'm going to bed" — and with that I made the unforgivable mistake. At 6:00 a.m. stand-to, a meaty hand grabbed me hard by the arm and I woke up, startled. I thought it was a Jerry taking me prisoner. It wasn't. It was only Corporal Hugh Gresham madder than all get out, practically foaming at the mouth. "You rotten bastard, you no good sonofabitch! Why weren't you at your post?" I spluttered as I tried to explain to him what happened, that no matter what I did I couldn't wake Forbes up, that I spent an extra half hour at the post when Gord should have relieved me. Gresham exploded. "You dumb asshole! You should have come and got me; I'd cave gotten the bastard up!" And that's when I realized how stupid I was to leave my post unmanned. I could have been responsible for the loss of an entire section. A court-martial offense, no less; I wouldn't have had a leg to stand on in my defense. But Gresham, as miserable a man as he often seemed to me, didn't push the issue and I have to thank him for that, 162

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even though I wasn't particularly fond of him. As for Gord, I didn't even want to speak to him for a couple days. When word came that two men from each section were being granted eight-day leaves to 8th Army Rest Camp outside Bari it started an unholy clamour in the platoon. Everybody wanted to be the first to go. There was so much jockeying for the privilege that I didn't feel it was worth all the bother. I took the view that if I had to be the last one to go, then that's the way it was going to be, no use getting all worked up over it. Maybe when my turn did come it just might happen to be at a time when the regiment was embroiled in some real heavy action, and I'd miss it. The way things were at the present, we weren't doing much of anything but sitting around taking things easy except for guard duties. As it turned out, when my leave did come up (the very last in my platoon), we were a long way out of the lines, sunning ourselves on the sun-bathed slopes outside Castelnuova in the Daunia Hills. What rotten luck! On the evening of March 12 a group of reinforcements arrived at Battalion HQ and were shortly parceled out to the line companies. Six came to Dog Company just as a fighting patrol was getting set to go out into the valley to raid enemy positions in front of Crecchio. One of these, John Douglas Hunter MacDonald of Toronto, a complete stranger to everyone (no one even got to see his face), now found himself in the patrol. In the ensuing action, after the patrol shot up the enemy positions and was withdrawing, MacDonald stepped on a mine and was killed. He came anonymously, did his job anonymously, and died anonymously. Therein lies a tragedy greater than that of men dying in the presence of their buddies. Early in the afternoon of March 14, the final day of our three-day stint at the listening post, in walked Sergeant Bob Turnbull with four truculent members of the PPCLI. The westerners were taking over from us. I was glad to be getting the hell out of there, but then Bob sprung the kicker: "I want two guys to stay behind with me," Bob said, looking straight at me and Thomas. "These guys need help until their own guys arrive in the morning." Like a couple of fools, Thomas and I agreed to stay. The only trouble we ran into was with one of the Pats, a big lug of a guy, a light-skinned Negro who walked around with a chip on his shoulder. He started right off taunting us with, "So you're the Mighty Maroon Machine, eh! You're the tough guys who were gonna show us how to fight back awhile ago, well you dumb pricks you guys couldn't fight your way out of a wet sack of shit, how d'ya like that?" I had the urge to drill him right then and there. Then he kept waving his big P38 pistol around like he might use it on us, all the while digging at our skills as infantrymen. He did everything possible to provoke us. It was a "touch and go" situation all that The Winter Front

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afternoon and I was more than glad to see the night come on, so that I wouldn't have to stare him down. I was even gladder when we headed out the next morning after stand-to. Hap Day, the company Jeep driver, had remained behind to take us out to rejoin the regiment. It was a crisply cold but clear day as we set out along the coast road, and we passed through San Vito and Vasto, where Hap had to do some fancy wheeling to thread his way through the jumble of heavy military traffic. "Man!" I remarked, "I can't believe how many troops we've got back here behind the lines, and most of them seem to be Limeys!" I hadn't seen so many Service Corps types since we'd left England. This is when I got the mistaken idea that the British had the biggest Service Corps in the whole damn world. Actually it wasn't so, but at the time, that's the way it looked to me. After a long and dusty drive we found the regiment camped on the side of a grassy hill just outside Castelnuova. Our winter front period in the Italian campaign had come to an end.

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CHAPTER 4

IN THE MOUNTAINS AT CASSINO

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he bitter winds of winter had gone, and with their going the gentle breezes of early spring caressed the hillside slopes and stole quietly along the valley floor. The olive trees on the terraced hillsides alongside the road brought forth new leaves, and the grassy hollows grew greener with each passing day. A warm sun shining from an almost cloudless sky drove the dampness from the fields, and the brown soil soon changed to the softer green of new growth. It was in this peaceful, unspoiled farming countryside outside the twin villages of Castelnuova and Castelvecchio, the new and the old, that the Perth Regiment arrived in the third week of March, 1944 to train in "infantry cum tank" operations. The stagnant period of static front duty had sapped the strength and stamina we had acquired in a year of intensive training. It wasn't far from the truth to say that we'd become soft after living a good part of the time like gophers in damp, cramped dugouts, unable to stretch or flex our limbs. Only a daily regimen of route marches in the hilly country around us, along with some hard training on schemes would bring us back to some semblance of the superb physical shape we were in before moving up to the front. The farming country below our hillside encampment, though nowhere near as eye-catching as the hills and dales and shady lanes of rural England, it had a beauty of its own. It was a region of grassy hillsides, of far away, white-crested mountains to the west, of freshly

harrowed cropland stretching for some two miles northeast, of stark, white stuccoed farmhouses, rush-thatched animal shelters and haystacks, and of winding ribbons of dusty roads climbing up and over the low hills to the north. Someone, for a change, had selected an ideal place for the regiment to clean up, rest, and do some intensive training. The day after our arrival, with the sun shining from out of an almost cloudless sky, most of us lay half-naked on blankets spread out on the grass, whiling away the idle hours soaking up the sun's warmth, glad to be away from the sound and frightfulness of the front line. Later that day a large body of reinforcements arrived to replenish ranks lost through battle and attrition. A fair number of the newcomers were from the HLI and the Essex Scottish Regiment. One valuable addition to the Perth ranks, a man who would distinguish himself throughout the campaign as a fearless and able scout and sniper was George Francis Cote. George, later to be dubbed with the name,"Wild Bill Cote," came to 18 Platoon, but we lost him when he went over to the newly-formed Scout Platoon shortly after. Across the road, close by a haystack in a farmyard, a donkey tethered to a large two-wheeled, colourfully decorated hay cart periodically raised its head and let go with the most godawful sound anyone could imagine. As close as I can come to describing it, it sounded like a cross between someone scraping a tin-can on a railway track and someone dredging up a glutinous "oyster" from deep within his gut. As grating on our ears as the braying was, we still got a big kick out of it. From over the brow of the hill behind us, at intervals during the day, a flock of sheep led by a bellwether ram and the most ragged of unwashed urchins passed through our encampment. The sheep, seeming oblivious to the encampment that had sprung up overnight across their usual path, passed straight through in a loud and nervous chorus of bleating, accompanied by the tinkling sound of the ram's bell. All of these — the grassy slope, the flock of sheep, the braying donkey, the unwashed shepherd boy clad in black rags, the distant snow-capped mountain peaks, the pleasant springlike weather — had a profound effect on all of us. There was nothing better to soothe nerves rubbed raw by battle noise and constant tension. We were well aware, however, that we hadn't been brought here simply to sunbathe on the hillside or enjoy ourselves in daily sport or idleness. The army doesn't work that way. The boys at the top were forever seeking and devising ways and means to make our life as uncomfortable or miserable as possible. We knew that the people above had something other than rest and recreation on tap for us. Three days after we arrived, Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford took 166

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leave of the regiment to take over command of a river-crossing school recently set up at the hilltop village of Guglionesi, inland from Termoli near the Biferno River. He was replaced for that period by LieutenantColonel J.S.H. Lind. River-crossing training was something we'd never gotten into, and I was looking forward to having a go at it. On March 25 A and D Companies departed in convoy for the school. The weather had made a drastic about turn from warm, sunny skies to overcast ones, and cold, blustery winds as we motored northward. It didn't take me long to lose all zest for river-crossing. I now had second thoughts about crossing any body of water with the wind blowing the way it was and snow flurries whipping across the fields. Very few of us had ever done any rowboating or canoeing back in Canada, so when we climbed into the collapsible canvas assault boats on the half-frozen sod of the Biferno River shore, we soon showed our officers just how lousy as boatmen we were. The river was in full spate, rushing headlong toward its outlet on the Adriatic a little more than a mile away, and as I scanned the wild rush of brackish water I had serious doubts about paddling our way across that seething mass. But there was no way I could avoid the fearful venture. Resigning myself to whatever was to be, I climbed into our craft along with the other nine men. It was a miracle we didn't end up in the water and drown. We never did make it to the far shore, just wallowed about in mid-stream fighting the surging current, straining with all our might to keep from being carried down the river and swept out to sea. It was an even greater miracle that we managed to steer our frail craft back to shore and safety, though some little ways downstream from our embarkation point. I can't recall as to how the other boats in the company made out, whether any succeeded in landing on the other side or not, but I do remember we learned very little about boatsmanship, and I do remember we were immensely relieved when on our way back to our billets in hilltop village of Guglionesi. It was rumoured at the time that the Irish Regiment lost several men when their boat capsized, but I later found this to be untrue. One admirable trait about myself, if I do say so, was my reluctance to make any kind of fuss about whose turn it was to go on leave. I simply didn't care to make a fool of myself, jumping up and down waving my arms in front of the officer trying to catch his attention when he came around back in mid-February to select the men who'd be going in the first batch. I stayed discreetly in the background and let the others get themselves all worked up in a dither clamouring to be the lucky ones to go. So what happened? I was the last one in 18 Platoon to go, and as my luck would have it, we were taking things easy on a peaceful hillside far In the Mountains at Cassino

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from the sound of shot and shell, far from the muck and mire of the front lines. But I wouldn't let that get me down. I was just glad to get away for awhile, and looked forward to what the rest camp would have to offer; for one thing, the comfort of sleeping on cots under clean sheets instead of on the ground under picky and smelly gray blankets. And for the other, a chance to visit the big city of Bari, which I hadn't seen since the evening of December 2, when Jerry planes bombed bloody hell out of the harbour and all the ships anchored there. Eight days later—thoroughly rested and satisfied that I'd had a most pleasant, though not a rip-roaring good time, I returned to camp along with a couple dozen other leave personnel only to find the regiment had gone somewhere — where, we had no way of knowing. A rear party of three drivers and a sergeant had been left behind to pick us up and take us to wherever the regiment had gone, which in this case was the Cassino front. This surprised us because we thought for sure we'd end up back on the Arielli front. Apparently the drivers themselves weren't sure of the destination, though the maps they carried and the route taken was in the general direction of Cassino. Every day for the past month we'd been reading in the Maple Leaf about the furious battles for the town and the heights around it, and now it was starting to look like our turn was coming to have a crack at the town. It wasn't a promising prospect, that's for sure. After a long, halting and twisting ride up and over razorback ridges, around hairpin turns, at times our outer wheels just a scant four feet from the road's edge and a straight drop for some two-hundred feet and more to oblivion, our convoy of three vehicles finally arrived in early evening at what had to be the saddest, most forlorn and derelict cluster of beat-up old buildings my eyes had yet fallen upon. Acquafondata, nestled in the cleavage of rock-strewn heights a few miles northeast of Cassino, a region so forbidding it was beyond comprehension that anyone could have made their home and eke out a living here. Had any wayward visitor in the past stopped here he would, no doubt have quickly turned about and hurried away. And now, after the fighting had closed in, the desolation was complete, with rats and the odd stray dog the only inhabitants of the ruins. Acquafondata's citizens had long since scattered to the four winds. Fortunately we didn't stay in this godforsaken place more than an hour before we were off on foot on the next leg of the journey. Two roads splayed out from Acquafondata, both serving as supply routes to the infantry units engaged in Cassino town and on the heights around it. The North Road, which had been there before the French Corps swept through in the fierce fighting that brought them from Venafro to Santa Elia, was under direct observation of enemy OPs across the Rapido River Valley on 168

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the Montecassino heights. All movement of vehicles and troops in daylight along this route brought instant reaction in the form of artillery fire, and before long, the verges and roadside ditches were littered with smashed and burned-out wheels of war. Shortly after the French Expeditionary Corps, under the able direction of General Alphonse Juin, arrived in the mountains to the northeast of Cassino in the Acquafondata region, the serious difficulty of maintaining supply along this route became clear. But the French were not to be denied. They set to work creating another route in what they felt would be a much safer approach to the units in the lines, a route that would not be under direct observation of the enemy, at least for the better part of its length. Their efforts culminated in the road that became known to all who used it as the "Inferno Track." It was aptly named. From the very beginning of this Herculean and valiant effort the French engineers and pioneers laboured under enemy artillery fire that came down at unpredictable moments all through the daylight hours. It took exceptionally brave men to venture out into the open with pick and shovel or bulldozer and truck while keeping ears perked for the sudden rush and whistle of the next incoming shell. Theirs was a most unenviable and extremely dangerous job, and almost every day saw a few more shallow, stone-covered graves amidst the rock and boulder-strewn scree on both sides of the road. With its starting point at Acquafondata, this narrow road, actually little more than a cart track, wound its way through the mountains at some places through deep clefts in the massive rock faces soaring to two thousand feet and more. At several points along the way the clefts were so narrow and deep that the sky above was barely visible to the troops marching through. It was as though they were marching along a subterranean gallery. The grade in many places along the Inferno Track was a one-foot rise every ten feet, demanding every last ounce of strength and stamina by the time the troops reached level stretches of the road. Along a good part of the way, only one-way traffic was possible, especially at one stretch where the track came precariously close to the edge of a narrow ledge overlooking a wasteland of rock, rock, and more rock a hundred feet below. One wrong move and driver and vehicle would be smashed on the jagged rocks at the base of the precipice. In daytime it was a somewhat harrowing experience to travel along the Inferno Track. In the hours of darkness it was a nightmare. At several places along the route where it emerged from the confining walls of solid rock onto a short stretch of open tract, the road came under the observation of those all-seeing eyes of enemy OPs up in the ruins of the In the Mountains at Cassino

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abbey atop Montecassino. At these exposed segments of the road it was necessary to string huge panels of camouflage nets attached to tall posts anchored in the rock on the side facing the German lines. The nets effectively shielded the traffic from enemy eyes. Although the netting, interweaved with strips of olive-drab cloth, provided a measure of concealment for individual vehicles or columns of troops moving along the road, it was no guarantee that enemy artillery would not come suddenly crashing down in reverberating fury all around them. Like as not, shellfire was a daily occurrence, whether there was activity on the road or not. Control posts had to be set up at both ends of the Inferno Track to regulate the fairly regular stream of trucks and jeeps and long, single-file columns of infantry moving along it in both directions day and night. The posts were radio-equipped and manned by British Military Police whose job was to see that traffic moved in only one direction at a time. As a vehicle or convoy or column of marching troops was given a signal to enter the road, no traffic was allowed to proceed from the opposite direction until the road was clear. There simply was no other way this supply route could have operated efficiently. The western terminus of the Inferno Track was sited in a sandy break a few hundred yards from where it emerged from the great cleavage in the mountain. A jagged spur of ridge in the middle distance between it and the Montecassino height gave some concealment from enemy OPs, so it was here that the main supply dump for the sector had been set up. "Hove Dump," as it was named, stocked supplies destined for the many units and sub-units in position on the Rapido River Valley sector of the Cassino Front. Every evening at first dark, scores of jeeps towing anywhere from one to as many as four two-wheeled trailers gathered at the dump to take on supplies, and then the drivers readied themselves in a nearby abandoned quarry for the short but hazardous dash to their respective destinations. These became known as "Jeep-trains." To reach the regiment's position in the lower heights north of Cassino our motley group of about a dozen or so individuals, guided by one of our Scout Platoon boys, made our way slowly in the dark along the narrow ledge of road hugging the base of a terraced hillside on the eastern rim of the Rapido valley. It was a quiet night except for the intermittent exchange of machine-gun fire up on the black heights across the valley behind Montecassino. Farther along we came to a stretch of road where the nauseating stink of a dead animal — it might even have been a human corpse in an advanced stage of decomposition — assailed our nostrils. Immediately I heard someone behind me throwing up. It was all I could do to keep from doing the same. Every so often, flares went arcing up into the 170

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sky across the valley, bathing it in an unnatural flickering light. We froze in our tracks, feeling like every German on that part of the front could see us. While the flares drifted slowly towards the ground I could see the gaunt shells of farmhouses, the limbless trees, the craters beyond count, the ghostly look of the boys ahead of us. It was almost like standing before some vast surrealistic Picasso canvas. A shudder of fear and loathing passed through me. Far to our left, where the black height of Montecassino massif loomed large and threatening, came the nagging mutter of machine-guns; first, the slow, deliberate tac-tac-tac-tac of the Bren, answered almost instantly by the high-speed ripping sound of an MG 42. We looked on with detached interest at the tracers ricocheting off the rocks, some zinging off almost horizontally, others shooting straight up. The bickering went on for a minute or two, and then as suddenly as it started, the little battle or patrol confrontation up in the rocks and along the goat-tracks ended. In the dying moments of a descending flare we entered the debrisstrewn main street of Santa Elia, now a ghost town. Not a soul remained. Not even our own troops chose to occupy this heavily shelled village. We passed through as quickly as obstacles and other impediments would permit, anxious to get away from it, not only because we had the feeling it might come under shellfire at any moment, but also because of the eeriness about the place — the hair-raising slap of a shutter, the scurrying of rats and wild dogs in the empty rooms of the shops and houses, the ominous sighing and moaning of wind through the eaves, and mostly the sickening stink of rotting carcasses and cadavers. On the far side of the village we came to the Rapido River, now merely a trickle of water bubbling over its stony riverbed. We crossed it practically dryshod, took momentary cover in a dilapidated farmhouse close up against the river's edge while waiting for guides from each company to arrive to take us up to our respective positions. We were at the Jeep-head, where supplies for the forward troops were transferred from the Jeep-trains to the backs of mules. On the return trip the Jeep-trains rarely went back empty. Sometimes their loads were made up of the wounded and the dead, along with empty "jerrycans" (a German-designed gas can, used for fuel or water). The convoys could travel only during the hours of darkness. To set out on the road in daylight was to ask for instant destruction. Those foolhardy enough to take life and limb in hand and venture out onto the road in daylight invariably found themselves, before they'd gone a quarter-mile, making a "run-of-the-gauntlet" drive between the black blossoms of 88s and mortar bombs bracketing the road. Even a single person stepping out in the open was fair game for the enemy gunners and mortarmen. In the Mountains at Cassino

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Every evening when the valley lay cloaked in darkness, mule trains were loaded with supplies and jerrycans of water, with no time wasted in getting the mules moving. Once the last knot was tied, the train made its way up the twisting pathways in its slow progress up to Company HQ positions. These mule trains were usually handled by Indian Army muleteers experienced in the care and handling of these often intransigent beasts of burden. But there were times when our own men took on this unenviable chore. Though in the beginning they struggled with great effort to control their charges, at which time the silence of the night around the Jeep-head was broken by the vehement sound of their frustrations, they soon got the knack of it and adapted themselves to the complexities involved in getting the stubborn animals to do what was expected of them. Throughout the two weeks the regiment spent in the rock-bound wastes below Monte Cifalco, the Perth muleskinners did yeomen service. The most dangerous of the skinners' nocturnal efforts was at the Jeephead. The enemy must have known what the farmhouse and lean-to stable were being used for, and gave it a good going-over with mortars and artillery-fire almost every evening within a half-hour after first dark, and every morning just before first light. There never was a moment in which the men working there could relax. In fact, there wasn't a square yard of ground on the godforsaken Cassino Front where a man might draw a few easy breaths. On the night we "leave" returnees joined the nightly mule train for the trek up to our companies and thence to our platoon positions, things were quiet. We were lucky. We'd missed the usual ration of incoming hate mail by about a half hour, and now all was quiet except for the clatter of jerrycans, the scuffle of boots on gravel, the hushed voices of men talking to each other or cursing the mules, cursing the rocks they stumbled on, cursing the bramble clutching at their trousers, and cursing everything and everybody in general. By no means were we quiet on our upward journey to the forward positions. If it wasn't somebody letting out a suppressed howl of pain on twisting an ankle, or the sudden nerve-jangling "heehawing" of a mule, or someone accidentally banging his rifle against a jerrycan, it was coughing spasms, sneezing or the frequent swearing that went on whenever a man walked up the backside of the man ahead. Strange as it was, though, we drew no response from the enemy, either from their artillery or their mortars. I was dead certain they could hear us moving up. Hell, we made enough noise for the enemy all the way across the Liri Valley to hear the commotion. We didn't come under fire, we learned later on, because the enemy were beset by their own problems of supply. Theirs were even greater than our own, especially on Monte 172

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Cifalco's steeper and much more treacherous ledges. I suppose it was a sort of unwritten agreement of "live and let live ," for they knew full well that if their artillery opened up on our supply trains, they could expect to get more than double back. The forward positions held by Dog Company were sited on a stubby finger of ground, or I should say rock. Out of the fissures grew woody shrubs and coarse grass and hardy weeds. Everywhere the eyes fell it was nothing but a wasteland of rocks, boulders and scrubby growth, about as inhospitable a place to spend the long, interminably boring daylight hours as one could imagine. I had to believe that our environment was hardly better than that of the Ypres Salient of World War I, in a totally different way, of course. Rocks, rocks, rocks, rocks—everywhere you looked it was nothing but gray rock. And then, of course, to our right front was this towering mass known as Monte Cifalco. The Jerries had OPs on the mountain peering through high-powered Zeiss binoculars, keeping a close watch on our lines. This meant we couldn't show ourselves at all during the day. Any movement whatsoever, even a man stepping outside his rock shelter for a leak, was enough to draw a sharp response from enemy mortars and artillery. In fact this happened on the very first morning after I arrived and took over a sangar (rocks piled in a circle to give cover) that had been occupied by Billy Brant. Apparently the self-professed brave one went missing shortly after the company settled into its positions. No, he wasn't captured—he just plain took off for points unknown. He was caught eventually and did time in detention. What a phony he was! Not knowing the lie of the land, though aware of the dangers in emerging from cover, I nevertheless had to do it. My distended bladder was crying for relief and there was no way I was going to piss in my sangar. So I climbed out to relieve myself, and even before I could shake the last drops off, Jerry mortars were on their high-trajectory arc heading my way, obviously with me being their aiming-mark. When they came down with those deep, growling crunches all around our positions I took an Olympic swan-dive into my sangar where I shivered and shook and repeated over and over a one-line prayer. "Oh God, don't let me die! Don't let me die!" For at least ten minutes the Jerries laced us, adding artillery fire to what their mortarmen were lobbing our way— all because I took a goddamn leak! After this noisy and fearful introduction to the Cassino Front, whenever my bowel or bladder acted up during the day I had to empty myself into a bully-beef can or any other can that was handy, and then toss the reeking receptacle outside the sangar. After a week of this, our forward In the Mountains at Cassino

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positions stank to high heaven, smelling like an outhouse in the high heat of summer. It was a wonder we could work up an appetite. But when you were hungry, smell or no smell, you ate. For all that the Jerries had thrown our way, not a single casualty resulted, testifying to the excellent protection the sangars offered. They were as good as slit-trenches, and I felt a lot better about it, even after being informed of a direct hit on a sangar the day before. A mortar bomb landed within the tight confines of one man's sangar. When the mortaring stopped and the smoke cleared, his buddies found his remains as a ghastly welter of blood, bones, organs and flesh plastered on the walls and the floor of his sangar. On hearing this, I weighed the merits and demerits of a sangar for a few moments and then realized the same could happen to any of us hunkering down in a slit-trench. A bomb falling one foot this way or one foot that way made the difference between life and obliterating death. As the days went by, we found ourselves living more and more the life of insects and lizards. We scurried amongst the rocks as insects do when disturbed at the upturning of a stone. We clawed our way into cracks and crevices wherever this was possible, worming our bodies into these narrow spaces in the jumble of boulders to the rear of our positions. The circle of rocks and boulders became our living-rooms, our bedrooms, our kitchens, and when nature called during the hours of daylight, they were our toilets. From the moment the sun peeked over the mountains to the east till it sank behind the peaks of the Aurunci chain across the Liri Valley in the west, we were never able to leave our sangars or even poke our heads above the parapet of rocks for a quick look around, for fear of drawing a sniper's shot, or bringing on another fierce flurry of enemy mortars. We could only lie there, each in our own misery and unbearable boredom, looking up at the cloud-flecked sky. Had any of us known we'd be living like this we'd have loaded ourselves down with whatever books, magazines and newspapers we could lay our hands on to help pass the time. Even the dullest book would have helped make the tedium more bearable. I resorted to reading the labels on cans. The German troops on our sector were from the elite 5th Mountain Division: Alpine soldiers skillfully trained in mountain warfare, and with a world of battle experience to draw from. They'd fought in Greece, Crete and on the Eastern Front against the Russians, while by comparison we had only one brief battle under our belts. It was what you'd call a classic case of mismatch of opponents. Here we were, a bunch of young, still inexperienced infantrymen, almost all of whom had never seen or climbed anything higher than the hills around Collingwood, ready to hold off or do battle with still another elite formation of the German war machine. But, as 174

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it turned out, we flatland dwelling Perths handled things as well as any of the other history-steeped regiments that had held the line in this place before we came on the scene. Although the Germans were the more aggressive, sending out patrols almost nightly, each one of the companies did a good job of beating them off. The Jerries, much to their surprise, found out early that we weren't pushovers. Every patrol they sent out, whether recce or fighting, was driven off in a hail of rifle and automatic fire, helped in a big way by showers of grenades. The Jerries well knew the deadly efficiency of our No. 36 grenade, and when these were flung out into the darkness in their direction they backed off in a hurry. Our most forward positions were less than a quarter of a mile from the mountain hamlet of Valleluce nestled against the base of Monte Cifalco. My first thought on seeing the abandoned ruins of the hamlet from my sangar was, why would anyone want to make their home in this absolutely unlivable jumble of rocks and scrub growth? Nothing fit to eat could grow here, not even forage for goats, sheep or cattle. How did they make their living? On several occasions, bored stir-crazy over having nothing to do, I actually played with the thought of making a one-man recce of the houses in the hamlet in hopes of finding something of value. It didn't take much warning from my section mates, however, for me to drop the crazy idea. But then, all I needed was one other half-baked individual to say, "Okay Stan, let's go," and we'd have been on our way. I was surprised and disappointed that even my buddy and looter par excellance "Tumoh," declined the invitation. I guess he had a little more sense than I did. After almost two weeks of a lizard existence amongst the rocks we were relieved an hour after midnight on April 22, glad to hand over our sangars to the Irish Regiment of Canada. As one of their platoons would arrive, one of ours would leave. And apparently the Jerries were aware of the fact that a relief was taking place. No sooner had we departed and entered a heavily wooded ravine than they began sending over their mortars, the first bombs landing with a huge uproar a short ways behind the tail of our column. This speeded us on our way. But we weren't homefree yet. The Jerries lifted the range and before we could get out of harm's way the bombs were going off all around us and in the treetops. We broke into a run, but the woody tangle was a bugger to run through. Every ten feet or so I went sprawling on my face while twigs, leaves, whole branches and hot steel fragments rained down onto the column. Besides falling whenever my foot caught in a root or ground-hugging vine, I also hit the forest floor every time a bomb landed a little too damn close for comfort. Though almost overwhelmed in sheer terror I somehow In the Mountains at Cassino

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managed to think, and the thought that kept going through my head while my face pressed tight against the mouldy leaves on the ground was, "I'll never get out of this alive." No prayer; just "I'll never get out of this alive." But yet again lady luck was with me and shielded me from harm and I got out of the inferno. In fact, except for a couple of guys killed and several wounded, the company got out from the stricken woods in good shape. How the Irish behind us fared, we never knew. After that bit of mauling we marched off down the road, weary to the point of dropping, and because of frequent stops for one reason or another, it was daylight before we reached our destination — close by Battalion HQ not far from Hove Dump. The last quarter of the distance was covered in broad daylight, and the only thing that saved us from more shelling was the thick pall of white smoke from generators set up at various points in the valley. The light breeze was blowing in the right direction and effectively shielded us from the malevolent eyes of enemy OPs across the valley. Our pup tents were brought up and we pitched them on terraces on the reverse side of a two-hundred foot high mountain spur that, as far as I could see, made for a fairly safe haven from enemy shell-fire. Whether we were safe from the high-trajectory mortar bombs I wasn't too sure. Astute by now as to where to place myself for a better chance of survival, I quickly chose to set my pup tent on the topmost terrace, just ten feet from the crest. It was a shrewd choice. I knew that no low-trajectory fired artillery shell could touch us on the upper terraces, whereas the lower ones, the ones near the bottom were vulnerable. I saw this when later that afternoon the Jerries commenced sending over some big ones, clearing the top of the ridge by no more than twenty feet or so and exploding on the far side of the road just fifty yards from the base of the terraced hillside. On the same day we pulled into the area a tragedy occurred in one of the other companies when Freddie Wells died in a smothering crush of soil and rocks while digging into the embankment at the base of the hill. What a way to go! You would never expect something like that to happen. There are more ways to get killed in an infantry regiment than being shot at, shelled, or putting your foot down on a mine. This was one of them. Eating meals on the terrace had its inconveniences. If it wasn't the gritty dust that seemed to be forever blowing and settling on your food in a layer thick enough to skim off, it was the mass of flies that alighted on it. They were so persistent and so thick you had to be extra quick at brushing them away and getting the food to your mouth without ingesting some flies along with it. Then there was another spoiler of one's appetite in the form of an entire human leg, brown and mummified, that lay on the terrace below our tent. The smell of decomposition kept wafting up to our nostrils 176

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every time Thomas and I were about to take in a forkful of whatever it was we were eating. I finally decided to find out the source of the stink and get rid of it, and quickly came upon this leg. Using my rifle and bayonet, I dragged the repulsive remains off to the side a piece where the prevailing wind would carry the smell up and over the hill and not past our noses. Meals were more palatable after that. The only excitement that broke the monotony of the grand, summerlike day, besides the occasional rush of a heavy-calibre enemy shell overhead, was the sudden appearance of a Focke-Wulf 190 trying to escape the eight-gun bursts of a Spitfire hot on its tail. They roared over at no more than a thousand feet, just clearing the crest of mountain to our right, weaving and twisting and then disappearing beyond the heights to our left. Right after they'd gone, a brush fire broke out on the slope to our right, most likely ignited by one of the tracer rounds fired by the Spit. A week later the Polish Corps began arriving, setting up camp on the available hillsides around us. We knew big things were shortly to happen as we watched the corps concentrate in the area, but we didn't know just where the Canadian Corps would fit into the bigger picture. And then on the evening of May 4 we broke camp and boarded our transport for the ride south and out of danger, glad to be leaving the Cassino front behind, glad also that we wouldn't have to be leaving on foot. One march along the Inferno Track was enough. Outside Acquafondata we broke into song, singing mainly dirty ballads and outrageous limericks, but by the time we hit the concrete highway somewhere around Venafro most of us drifted off to sleep. Twenty-five miles down the road our convoy pulled into a field near the village of Vairano where we off-loaded and spent the night sleeping on the ground. Fortunately the night was pleasantly warm and sleep came easy. The following morning, after a sparse breakfast, we got busy setting up our pup tents. How long we'd be staying, and what our role would be in the coming big spring offensive to break through the Gustav Line we could only guess. The general feeling was that the Canadians would play a prominent part, but where and when no one knew. Common knowledge said it would have to be soon now that the good weather had arrived. For the present though, it didn't occupy our minds to any great extent. We were out of the lines far enough back that we wouldn't have to dodge mortar bombs and 88s and beat off Jerry patrols, and that we could stroll lackadaisically down to the latrine any time we felt need to without fear. Our main concern about this time was comfort and how to go about enjoying it. Which brings me to one way we went about making life a little more pleasant. It started out when George Francis Cote and his partner In the Mountains at Cassino

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spent an entire morning digging themselves a wide excavation. I couldn't figure out what the refugees from the HLI had in mind, but I knew it had something to do with comfort. George, or I should say, "Wild Bill" and pal weren't content to simply spread their blankets on the ground and pitch a tent over them; they wanted a little more comfort than that. And what they ended up with was a hole wide and long enough that they could pitch their pup tent over it. But that's not all. They also dug a channel two feet wide and a foot or so deep down the middle, giving them each a ledge for a bed. Now, with that channel, when the boys woke up in the morning they could swing their legs out of bed and sit like they were sitting on a real bed. It made for a lot more comfort and less strain when dressing and putting on their boots. And not only that, the arrangement gave them two more feet of headroom. Ingenious — but simple. It only took some hard work. After inspecting their handiwork, more than half the company, me included, set to work with pick and spade to construct one of our own. By day's end we were the contented owners of the latest in pup-tent refinements. What a difference it made in comfort and morale!

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CHAPTER 5

THE Lim VALLEY PUSH

May 11, 1944 — The Cassino Front The evening was pleasant, with a trace of a breeze, cool, but not unduly so, unusually quiet, it was as though no war was going on — so unlike the evenings of the past five months, when the valleys echoed to the thunder of artillery rolling back from the sounding board of the mountain walls. The banging of the guns in the valleys, the ravines, and wherever else it was possible to emplace them had gone on day after day, night after night almost without pause. Guns—more than a thousand of them, small, medium, big, and still bigger — had been towed in daily over the past six weeks and positioned in every likely space from which they could send their shells hurtling into the enemy positions in the Gustav Line. This was just one part of the buildup for what every foot-slogging soldier in the theatre expected would be the final battle to break through to Rome. Up till now, in everyone's eyes, a breakthrough seemed more and more to look like a hopeless venture. One bloody defeat after another gave them every right to believe so. The Gustav Line had proved to be about as impregnable a barrier or fortress as military minds could devise. Over the past eighteen weeks of battle, beginning in mid-January and continuing with unabated fury into the second week of May, the Americans, the British, the Indians, and then the New Zealanders had a crack at turning the screws against the Germans. Not one of the battalions

had enjoyed success. In their futile attempts to bludgeon their way through the Gustav Line, in a style of fighting reminiscent in some ways of those of World War I, they succeeded only in suffering heavy casualties, with little or no ground taken. After weeks and weeks and weeks of battling the unwavering Germans, weeks that stretched into five months, the Allies still hadn't been able to turf the masters of defence out of their positions. The German units holding the lines were an extraordinary tough lot, wise in the ways of war, rich in experience, and extremely well-led, a combination hard to overcome. The 5th Mountain Division, the 94th, the 44th, the 71st and 3rd IPanzer Grenadier Division, along with the famous Hermann Goering and the 15th Panzer Division, were no slouches when it came to the art of battle. Later, when they were joined by the 1st Parachute Division, these topnotch units plus others of only slightly lesser calibre fought like lions. Every day, on picking up the Maple Leaf or the 8th Army News it was discouraging to read of setback after setback, of heavy casualties, of stalemate on the Cassino and Anzio Fronts. It got to be so disheartening we began to wonder if our armies would ever break through to Rome. It most certainly wasn't a promising outlook. In all those grim months since the Yanks first climbed the heights behind Monte Cassino in January, the men who fought in the mountains or the valleys of the Rapido and the Liri, knew the agony of defeat, knew what it was like to sit out in the rocks unprotected from snow and sleet, from the frigid winds and the cold rain that fell for what seemed like days on end. Groundsheets or gas capes kept out some of the rain but they were useless against the cold. The infantry knew only too well what it was like to spend long and menacing nights sitting alone in a cleft in the rock or crouched behind a pile of stones, staring into a darkness filled with real and imaginary shadow figures darting from one concealment to another, ready to deal out instant death. They would wait there, scanning the dark wasteland of rocks and scrub where the dull thud of grenades and the chatter of machine guns never seemed to leave their ears. They knew what it was like to slog through mud up to their knees in the valley and not know dry feet for days, or even weeks on end. They knew a cold and wetness they had never known before, a cold and wetness that killed hope and flesh alike. They knew only too well what it was like to sit within their little pile of rocks, hammered day in and day out by mortars and shells, to listen to the high-speed rattle of German MGs and the sharp crack of a sniper's bullet ricocheting off the rock face of their sangars. This was the Cassino Front, as soul destroying as any other battlefield, past or present. Day after day, week after week, month after month, in the bright light of day and in the black hours of night they fought, bled and died here on 180

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the mountain slopes and in the valley mud, the scrub- and brush-covered ravines, throwing themselves in utter futility against an incredibly brave and resourceful enemy with little to show for their efforts. First came the Yanks of 34th Infantry Division in early January, scrabbling their way up the rock-strewn slopes and across narrow terraces, seeking the slim protection of stone walls, fighting a brutal slugging match every foot of the way. They clawed their way upward, shooting and grenading their way to within a couple of hundred yards of the monastery walls. Had it not been failure to reinforce this early success, it's conceivable that the Yanks might very well have pushed ahead and taken the monastery, which wasn't yet manned by the enemy. Thirty-fourth Division's superb effort could have shortened the campaign by months and saved countless lives and war materiel, but that opportunity for decisive and early victory slipped from our leaders' grasp. With the loss of momentum it took another five and a half months, and the sacrifice of many thousands to disease, wounds, and death, to bring the Allies to the moment of truth and the launching of Operation Diadem, the fourth and final battle for Rome. They could not afford to let this one go down to defeat. After the Yanks came the British and Indian divisions, learning what hell was all about. Their efforts were examples of outstanding courage, but in the end, they too had gone nowhere. On the third try it was the Kiwis of 2nd New Zealand Division who came on the scene to have a go, and although their courage was lavish they were no more successful and had to pull back or lose more men in the meatgrinder of the Cassino Front. Such was the tenacity, uncommon bravery and consummate skill of the German troops defending the Gustav Line, that every Allied soldier must have believed that it would be impossible to punch their way through the valley and the mountains. That was how things stood when spring arrived with sunny skies and warm breezes. With the numbing cold and rain and snow of winter having passed and the valley rapidly drying out, there was no question in the minds of both sides as they crouched in their sangars on the slopes and terraces, or stood watch in their slit-trenches in the valley, that the "big blow" would not be long in coming. For the Allies, after all their discomfort, agony and frustration, there was still a flicker of hope that when that moment came, the enemy, if not destroyed, would abandon their positions and retreat helter skelter down the Liri Valley to Rome and hopefully beyond. The Allies' thoughts of having to emerge from their positions and go through the same frightening "climb, crawl, run, and die" routine were too bloody awful to contemplate. On or about May 8, the Perths moved out of the mountains on the The Liri Valley Push

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Cassino front, their positions taken over by the Poles of General Anders' Polish Corps, and after a thirty-mile journey at night, set up camp on the northeastern edge of the Volturno Plain. Three evenings later, as I and other sentries patrolled the pup-tented camp while our comrades slept, we had no way of knowing, as our watches ticked slowly towards 11:00 p.m., that the big blow everybody had been waiting for was within minutes of being unleashed. With only the tremulous warbling of nightingales and the occasional muffled boom of a faraway gun breaking the silence of our sentry "go," we walked leisurely amongst the pup tents, stopping every now and then to talk to each other and break the monotony of the chore. Casually, we'd turn our eyes to the north and the black silhouette of the mountains where we'd spent two weeks of nerve-wracking static front duty. And then, all of a sudden, the whole sky in that direction flared into one continuous flicker of light like the approach of a violent storm, followed seconds later by the deep roll of thunder. Sharp on the button at 11:00 p.m. a signal reached a thousand and more gunpits, and from that moment on, right through to daybreak, the night sky over the battlefield never stopped flashing and thundering. It was like a summer storm that gave no indication of ending. For those first fifteen minutes we passed it off as just another workover our artillery was giving the German lines, but when another quarter of an hour passed, and then an hour and still another hour we knew this had to be much more than just a battalion affair or a nocturnal jab by the Germans. Long past midnight the guns kept banging away nonstop, and half of Dog Company rose from their slumber to join us in looking at the northern sky and wondering how things were going up at the front. It was the same in all company tent lines; people awakened by the din gathered in groups outside their tents to listen and talk and conjecture as to what it all meant. I'm sure everyone standing there in the flickering darkness was wrapped in a feeling bordering on awe, listening to the vastness of the bombardment, bringing back memories of another bombardment, this on our first experience of combat. Back then, in the pre-dawn hours of January 17 outside Ortona we were witnesses to a similar scene, though from a much closer perspective as our field and medium batteries behind us drenched the enemy positions with high-explosive and steel in support of our first attack. We were transfixed both in awe and tremors of fear. Here in the back areas of another front we looked on, thankfully only in awe. We were too far back to know fear. We stood there in our tent lines wondering what might be going on in the minds of all those infantrymen waiting in their slit trenches and sangars for the signal to move forward into the attack. It was easy to imagine how they felt, and we felt sorry for them. Most certainly we didn't envy them. 182

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In those early moments, when the first salvos of shells and mortars plunged into the slopes amidst the German positions, the enemy paratroopers, grenadiers, fusiliers, mortarmen and sappers braced themselves for what they must have thought was just another one of many short and sharp artillery stonks on their positions. Long ago they'd acknowledged the fact that the Allies were richly blessed with an overabundance of shells, and must have assumed that they were only getting rid of some of their surplus. But as the minutes and then hours passed and the shells came in at an undiminished rate, an intensity beyond anything ever known before (whether on the Eastern Front, at El Alamein or anywhere else), they knew this was something much more than just a local attack. This was the big one. The barrage was the grand orchestral opening of the main event. Everything before had been merely skits. Every gun that could be brought to bear — from small mountain howitzers to twenty-five-pounders, to 105s, 155s, and 7.2s, right on up to the monster 9.2s — had been crammed into every available space in the valleys south of the Gustav Line. Now, as the drumroll fury of these guns sent wave after wave of thunder rolling back from the mountain walls, and the echoes melded with the crash of new volleys, the curtains were drawing back for the fourth and final act in the battle for Rome. For all the steel and high explosive crashing down on the enemy positions all up and down the line, OPERATION DIADEM (as codenamed by Winston Churchill) got off to an unpromising beginning. The 4th British Division's assault across the Gari, two miles below Cassino, and the 8th Indian Division's storming of the same river at San Angelo had every sign of failure about them. A number of the British assault boats capsized in the swift current, dumping their heavily laden passengers in the river to drown. Only a small bridgehead had been secured by daybreak. Although the Indian brigades suffered only a few casualties in their assault across the river, their problems began shortly after touch-down when German artillery and mortars, accompanied by machine guns, concentrated their fire on the crossing sites. With most of the men still above ground, not having had the chance to dig in, casualties mounted at an alarming rate. The situation deteriorated rapidly from that point on, but then stabilized as enough men had dug themselves in deep enough to offer cover. They hung on to their positions literally by their fingernails. Their lodgement, however, was by no means encouraging. By the time the sun rose above the high-peaked mountains to the east, it wasn't a bright picture that the four Corps Commanders of 5th and 8th Armies were looking at. The Americans attacking along the coast at Minturno were literally The Liri Valley Push

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stopped in their tracks by strong enemy reaction. Meanwhile, General Juin's French Expeditionary Corps, although faced with the daunting task of stabbing into the wilderness of the Aurunci mountains, went ahead with typical elan even when enjoying only moderate success. The first objective, the towering height of Monte Faito, the Frenchmen and the Moroccans surprisingly took in stride, but the six battalions lancing into the rugged defiles and narrow, almost inaccessible gorges were hit hard by a counterattack from the German 71st Division. They absorbed a punishing blow that very nearly sent them reeling back. Only the massed fire of some four hundred French guns saved the day, succeeding in not only stopping the German infantry, but nearly wiping them out. It's generally known in military circles that nothing is ever as bad or as good as it might seem in the early stages of any major attack. It's also known that success very rarely comes quickly. Many seemingly small incidents often effect the outcome of a battle far beyond what one thinks possible. Often the action of a single brave individual in an isolated effort has been known to turn things around when the outcome appears hopeless. Regimental histories are replete with glowing accounts of what lone individuals or small teams have accomplished in a particular engagement or major battle that helped turn the tide. A soldier in his very narrow view of the battle around him might see only disaster looming large, while a scant hundred yards away the enemy is about to fold. An incisive and bold commander must decide when and where an assault should be pressed home even harder, or when not to reinforce what appears to be failure. Few commanders are gifted with an intuition. Many have called off attacks when their men were within the proverbial inch of success. The decisions of the four Corps Commanders on that unpromising morning of May 12 were, happily, of the former type. Fortunately for all of us, these intrepid four — General Anders of the Polish Corps, General Juin in command of the French, General Keyes of 2nd American Corps, and General Kirkman of 13th British Corps — failed to cave in under the pressure of seeing their offensive get off to a poor start. It was their unshakeable determination and confidence that saved the day in those first critical forty-eight hours of the drive on Rome. Over the next two days, when the fate of the battle hung by a slender thread, practically every waking hour had a large circle of Perths gathered in front of the Intelligence Officer's bulletin board, eyeing the hour-byhour developments at the front. Over our heads, the clear blue sky throbbed to the neverending roar of Kittyhawk and Hurricane fighterbombers shuttling back and forth between the front and their nearby bases. At times the roar of engines was so loud as the low-flying planes 184

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flew northward with their bomb-loads that conversation was out of the question. Although at the time we knew little of how things were going at the front (only that progress was slower than expected), it was heartening to know that our air forces controlled the skies over the battlefield. Between looking upward at the squadrons on their way to bomb and strafe the enemy, and keeping a sharp and critical eye on the changes made on the large map on the bulletin board, we were loath to go back to our pup tents for a siesta. It wasn't until late in the afternoon of the second day that the first hint of success came through the wires or over the airwaves. Juin's Moroccan troops, after initial success and then a worrying check, broke through the German positions and surged into the wild and trackless wastes of the Aurunci chain. It was then that the German battalions started giving way under the fierce drive of the combined force of Moroccan and Algerian divisions. The latter, its strength made up of what appeared to be ragtag, undisciplined troops, looking more like bands of nomads wearing many-coloured, quilted blankets in place of uniforms, cut through the enemy's forward posts in spectacular fashion to wreak bloody havoc amongst the Germans trying to hold them off. These fierce-eyed warriors, known as Goums, had been let loose into the forbidding wilderness of craggy heights, thickly wooded ravines and valleys to run amok, shooting, stabbing, slitting throats and cutting off ears with maniacal abandon. The enemy fell back in disarray to escape hideous death. The fluid movement of these North Africans, led largely by French officers, through the seemingly impassable region of lofty crags and precipices turned out to be one of the major feats of the campaign, and was the first tangible sign that the Gustav Line was close to crumbling. By the end of the fifth day, with news of the battle becoming more encouraging by the hour, the gathering at the Perth Regiment IO bulletin board dropped off considerably. Now that things were going well, we no longer felt the need to glue ourselves to the big board. Our only concern now was when word would come for us to move out. We knew it wouldn't be long. Meanwhile we returned to the enjoyment of the reasonably good life, eating, sleeping and playing ball. And at one point an important visitor showed up in camp in the person of none other than the exalted 8th Army Commander himself, Lieutenant-General Oliver Leese. We were hotly engaged in a pickup softball game on a makeshift diamond when Leese and a dozen or more of his aides in the company of Brigadier Snow, several aides, Lieutenant-Colonel Lind, Major Andrews and Sammy Ridge came upon the scene. And what do you know, with Leese leading the way the group cut across the outfield from the left-field The Liri Valley Push

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foul line and parked themselves smack behind second base to watch us play. "What a stupid thing to do!" I said to myself as I waited at home plate for the next pitch. And then, with two strikes on me, I drilled a low line drive that almost took the pitcher's head of and went like a bullet straight at this august group sending them scattering in a cloud of dust and flailing arms and legs. After dusting themselves off, Leese and his band of high brass decided, with good judgment, that they'd better move on. They'd seen enough of the game and finished off their brief visit to the regiment with a quick walk through the tent lines. What the inspection was supposed to have achieved, I never did make an effort to find out. It could have been to give us the opportunity to see the man who was in charge of 8th Army's role in the spring offensive. But then Canadians weren't the kind of troops to be enthralled by visits of the high and mighty. Most of us looked on these visits as momentary distractions or with casual interest, something to write home about to fill space in a letter. We didn't seem to worship our top leaders with the same degree of intensity as did the British and other nationals. It wasn't until the afternoon of May 20 that 5th Armoured Division, got rolling on the Via Casilina, now Highway 6, for the short ride up to Cassino and the Liri Valley, ready to take its place in the push down the long corridor of the Liri Valley. The feeling of victory was in the air as we rode along in a stream of vehicles of every possible military make and purpose, mainly troop-carrying trucks, stretching in one solid line from the entrance to the valley at Monte Trocchio, all the way back to Caserta. We were all in pretty high spirits, which was remarkable in that we were on our way to once again face the perils of the battlefield. When you're feeling this way you never allow yourself to think ahead to what might be up there waiting for you. It only serves to make you worry and start feeling sorry for yourself — a sure way to an early nervous breakdown. The general tenor of things seemed to be that if the German 10th and 14th Armies were on their way to a stunning defeat, then we wanted to be in on the kill. We could see the campaign in Italy finally coming to an end, so it was only natural that we should be in a good mood moving up. If we had known how much more fighting still lay ahead for us, how many more miles we had yet to march, how many more ridges, hills and rivers there were to cross, we wouldn't have been so fired-up eager to go back into action. But then, for own mental well-being it was a blessing that we were not able to see into the future. The mostly one-way traffic was a herky-jerky, bumper-to-bumper affair, with the smell of exhaust fumes thick in the air. It's a wonder no one keeled over from breathing in all this carbon monoxide and blue smoke. As 186

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it was, our ride was a most uncomfortable one. Instead of sitting on benches as we usually did, we were draped atop a pile of kit-bags and large packs. The others in my section might not have found this too uncomfortable, but I did, and in some considerable agony. A few days earlier, a set of five boils formed on my lower back right at the belt line. At first I thought they were merely pimples and would soon go away, so I didn't bother going to the MO. From the day I joined this man's army I refused to go on sick parade unless I had a good reason. For one thing, I wasn't brought up to baby myself every time I picked up a germ, scraped my knee, or strained a muscle, and for the other, I abhorred the thought of being branded a leadswinger (malingerer). Now, however, as our truck bumped and jarred along in convoy on a road worn and battered from the six-month pounding it had taken from military traffic, I did nothing but moan and groan at every bump and sudden stop. I knew I was getting on the nerves of the guys riding with me, but what could I do? I was hurting, and hurting bad. Although they might very well have been joking, I didn't like hearing them say I was "putting on the dog," that I was trying to work a hospital trip and so get out of the coming "do." I was in agony, but got no sympathy for it. The pain and discomfort, however, got worse with every mile we travelled, so by the time we arrived at our staging area below Monte Maggiore I was groaning like a man undergoing torture. Even my closest buddies turned against me and were ready to heave me over the tailgate. We camped for the night not far from the base of the mountain. The site was at the opening to the Liri Valley between Monte Trocchio and Monte Maggiore on our left. We could see Monte Cassino and the ruins of the abbey at its crest through the gathering haze. An American Long Tom battery (a long-barrelled, 155mm. artillery piece) pulled in soon after we settled in for the night, and it didn't take us long to find them to be ideal neighbours. They were an Oklahoma outfit, and as to be expected, they had in their midst guitar players and fiddlers.They brought them out right after chow to do some "down home" music. These guys were talented — no getting away from it. The first song they reeled off confirmed it. They played and sang my kind of music. By the time they were halfway through "The Wabash Cannonball" they had a good size audience of Perths gathered around to listen. What a delightful impromptu concert they put on! It was like being in Nashville at the Grand Ole Opry. I hadn't felt so good in a long time. lust what I needed. The Oklahomans strummed their western guitars, played their fiddles and sang for perhaps an hour, when the unmistakable menacing throb of German aircraft engines came to our ears. This broke up the good-times gathering, with everybody hustling back to their own area, though it was The Liri Valley Push

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no safer than staying put. The Jerry plane droned high overhead back and forth across the front, but I'll be damned if any of us could spot it. A nervejangling quarter hour it was, listening to the offbeat drone of the engines, and waiting for the bombardier to decide when and where to unload his bombs. No matter where he dropped them he could be sure to do some damage. The high concentration of troops, trucks, tanks, guns and whatnot in the area practically guaranteed success. Our fears slackened as the plane finally flew north where one of our ack-ack batteries somewhere in the valley had a one-in-a-million lucky shot that picked the intruder off. The plane, completely engulfed in flames, plunged earthward. Shortly after that, two more planes came on the scene, and for the remainder of the night the Luftwaffe was on a shift rotation, making for a nervous and fitful night of sleep for all of us below. We spent a good part of the next afternoon getting ready for the "big push." Boxes of No. 36 grenades had to be degreased and armed with five second fuzes, Bren mags had to be loaded, ammo clips filled and tucked into cloth bandoliers, and weapons cleaned and checked to make sure they functioned smoothly. In the course of degreasing and arming the grenades, absentmindedness damn near caused what could have been a tragic incident. Eight of us were sitting in a circle wiping down grenades with rags soaked in gasoline. We wiped down the exterior of a grenade, making sure all the grease was removed, and then we unscrewed the baseplate and swished gas inside the round chamber where the fuze was inserted for the striker to come down and set it off. It was extremely important to make sure every residue of grease had been removed, or else the expansion of the spring when the safety lever is released would not be sharp enough for the striker to set off the percussion cap of the fuze. To test for freedom of movement, the baseplate had to be removed. You attached the safety lever, clamped it to the side of the grenade, put the open end of the grenade against your web belt dead centre at the buckle, and then let the lever fly. If the striker hit your belt a good rap, you knew the grenade was ready for arming. But, if you didn't feel the striker hit solidly, you knew you had more grease to remove. As usual in such situations we got to talking about a lot of things. I was so wrapped up in our conversation I momentarily forgot what I was doing. After cleaning a grenade I inserted a fuze, screwed on the baseplate, cocked the striker spring by attaching the lever and clamping it down to the body, put the baseplate against my belt and was about to release the lever when I suddenly realized I'd armed the grenade. I caught myself just in time, closed my fist tight on the safety lever and with trembling fingers inserted the safety pin. "Wow, that was a close one!" 188

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To this day, whenever this incident comes to mind I wonder how I would have reacted if I had let the lever fly. Would I have thrown it somewhere to get rid of it? I doubt it. If I did, I'd have been responsible for the death and injuries of more than a few of my comrades; there were people all over the place. And I couldn't have thrown it far enough to avoid hurting or killing someone. Would I have had presence of mind to toss it down the deep well, just six feet away from where we were sitting? Maybe. It was the logical and only place to get rid of it safely. Or would I have had the guts to give my life by smothering the blast with my body? I doubt very much whether I'd have had the courage to go to that extreme. It takes an incredibly brave man to do a thing like that, and I knew for sure I wasn't of that breed. It was a close call, too close a call. From that time on I never failed to keep my mind on the job at hand, especially when cleaning and testing grenades. We moved out that evening of May 21 on a short ride to where an Indian brigade and the Calgary tanks crossed the Gari River on the night of the grand assault. Off-loading at one of the many sharp twists in the river we made our way along a tape-marked, deeply rutted road and soon entered an area devastated by the barrage that came down on that first night. All around us as we hurried on our way, we saw what terrible havoc a barrage of that immensity could inflict. On the road, in the ditches, in the fields, and in the farmyards — everywhere lay scattered the wreckage left behind by the whirlwind of shellfire. We hopped, skipped and jumped over tree limbs, skirted whole trees that had been blown roots and all onto the road, and carefully stepped around strands of barbed wire, glanced momentarily at an abandoned German anti-tank gun lying askew on the road, with live shells and brass casings scattered all around it. As I went by, I remember wondering what had happened to the crew that had manned the gun. To our left loomed the gaunt and ghostly shell of a ruined farmhouse, a cloying, sickening smell of rotting flesh wafting out from its doorless entrance. We went at a good pace down the debris-strewn road, mistakenly thinking we were right up front in the battle zone. Actually, the fighting had passed on down the valley some three or four miles. We entered a grainfield off the side of the Cassino-San Angelo Road where we immediately dug in, not knowing exactly where we were in relation to Cassino. But when morning came and the dark and imposing Monte Cassino height came into view, we could orient ourselves. The sun, its brightness diffused by early morning haze and humidity, shone down the length of the valley of the Rapido River, at the far end of which I could just make out the village of Santa Elia. It was in the jumble of rocks below Monte Cifalco — not far from that village where we spent three weeks The Liri Valley Push

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holding the line some two and a half weeks before. Across the Gari River less than a quarter-mile away was the devastated village of Panaccioni, while behind us to our left rear was the sunlit slope of Monte Trocchio. Not content to sit in the clammy confines of my slit-trench and dwell on what might happen in the hours or days ahead, I decided to scour the area to see what I might turn up in the way of souvenirs. Taking a chance that no mines had been planted in the area, I pushed my way through a tall stand of bulrush and hemp. Ten paces into it I stumbled upon the decomposing bodies of two Germans. The one, a burly red-headed fellow, had the back of his head blown away, inside of which pulsed a mass of maggots. The other, close by his comrade, lay on his left side, his right hip gone; the large cavity was alive with maggots. Although the bodies were both repulsive to look at, and the stink overpowering, it didn't stop me from pickpocketing one of the corpses. In the pocket of the man with the missing hip was what I was sure could only be a bulging wallet. I had to have it. There was no way I was going to leave it behind for a burial-detail guy to claim it. It was no easy chore extracting it from his pocket. The bloated condition of the body had tightened his uniform to near bursting, making opening his pocket quite difficult. Come hell or high water though, I was determined to get that wallet. But I wasn't thinking. I could have cut the wallet out using my clasp knife. Besides dry-heaving from the awful stink and the revolting sight, the proximity of the maggots to the pocket had me doing some deft fingerwork to latch onto the wallet. While I did the fishing with my right hand I covered cover my mouth and nose with my left hand. It took at least five minutes before I had the target of my ghoulish efforts in hand. And what a disappointment it was! All I got out of the wallet was a bunch of snapshots of him and his army buddies, a couple hundred lousy lire (Italian currency) and some scribbled notes — but strangely, no family pictures. On my way back to the company lines, a tremendous blast sent me sprawling. I thought a heavy calibre shell had landed nearby, but when I twisted my head around from my face down position to see where it hit I caught the sight of a fender and a truck wheel looping end over end in a high arc directly over my head. I scrambled away in panic, afraid one or the other would land smack down on top of me. What I had thought was a shell was in reality a Teller mine going off. A CBH truck had just run over one of these frightful devices buried in a narrow dirt road that ran through the company area. The driver lost a leg, while his partner had both legs broken. Rather than discouraging me from an insatiable thirst for loot, the mine explosion merely caused me to pause a moment. The urge to explore 190

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was simply too strong to suppress. And where should I go to finish off my hunting, but right where the truck ran over the mine. I was a glutton for punishment. After taking a close-up look at the damage to the truck, I rummaged through three small houses alongside the road but came up with nothing to show for my moronic pursuit of loot. Sergeant Halliday, literally foaming at the mouth, confronted me when I returned to my platoon area. "Now where in bloody hell have you been? Goddamnit, don't you know this whole fuckin' place is mined and booby-trapped? Did you see what happened to that truck? Goddamn it to hell anyway, when are you going to grow up or smarten up, you dumb sonofabitch?" I merely gave him a sheepish grin, and that was that. The admonition and the warning went through one ear and out the other. Halliday didn't drag the bawling out, however, and I was allowed to go back to my slit-trench with a warning not do it again. Inside, I knew I'd likely never change. Shortly after noon, we hitched up packs and were on our way up to the front. What had promised to be a nice day soon clouded up, and a light rain began falling. The road to Pignataro was awash with trucks of all sizes and makes, Sherman tanks, Bren carriers pulling six-pounders, and a squadron of tanklike armoured vehicles unfamiliar to most of us. They were the newly introduced mobile anti-tank guns. It was the first time we'd seen these M-10 tank destroyers, and we were quite impressed with their deadly good looks. I couldn't help thinking, "There's no way the Jerries are going to stop us now!" The profusion of traffic — pedestrian, wheeled and tracked — was the 5th Canadian Armoured Division moving up in readiness for the big breakthrough once the infantry brigades of 1st Division opened a hole in the Hitler Line (actually named by the Germans the Senger-Riegle Line) big enough for this firepower to pour through. The Hitler Line was supposed to be even stronger than the recently shattered Gustav Line, and it caused some worry and doubts amongst the rank and file. We couldn't help wonder if our 1st Division battalions would be able to crack open this hard nut. A mile or two this side of Pignataro we had to move off the road to let some M-lOs through. While cooling our heels by the roadside my attention was drawn to a bulging German backpack across the drainage ditch. I was all set to go after it when Halliday, who happened to be passing by, piped up, "Okay Scislowski, don't get any crazy idea of going after that pack, remember what I said back there?" But I was not to be denied. As soon as he moved up to the head of the column I promptly jumped across, gritting my teeth and holding my breath as though that would help me if I should happen to land on a mine. The height of stupidity! Once across I tore open the pack while my platoon mates watched apprehensively from the other The Liri Valley Push

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side. I took no precautions whatsoever that the damn thing might be booby-trapped as the Sarge warned me about. Lucky for me it wasn't. Unfortunately I didn't find anything valuable or that I could use as tradebait. Most of the bulge that boggled my eyes was made by a greatcoat, one of those voluminous, tentlike items of clothing that came all the way down to the bootlaces. The only items I dug out worth keeping were a pair of khaki boxer shorts and a rifle-cleaning kit which I thought was better than ours—not any more efficient, just snazzier-looking. Instead of a rope for a pull-through this one was a metal beaded affair, looking more like a rosary than a pull-through. The oil came in a handy little metal squeeze can, both items neatly packaged in a spring-locked metal container that could easily be mistaken for a ladies powder and rouge compact, although nowhere near as fancy. The area we passed through on our way to Pignataro had the appearance, in a small way of World War I's Passchendaele battlefield minus the mud. Craters by the thousands, everywhere you looked. Every tree in the olive groves and orchards along the way had been so shattered and blasted that not a single branch remained except for the stubs sticking out from the blackened trunks. What had only recently been a farmhouse on a knoll off to our left now lay in complete ruin. The whole region was like the face of the moon. I'd seen such scenes on a smaller scale on the winter front around Ortona; as bad as they were, they could not near compare to the desolation outside Pignataro. It was destruction as complete as high explosive could wreak. On the far side of Pignataro, as we marched along a sunken road, we passed a column of turbaned Sikhs going in the opposite direction. I looked up on the embankment to my right and saw a newsreel crew cranking away at a tripod-mounted camera with the lens pointed straight at me. "Oh boy!" I said to myself, "I'm going to be in the newsreels." I wrote home about it, telling them to keep an eye out for me, but my picture never did make it to the screen. I guess I wasn't photogenic enough. Shortly afterward, we filed into a broad, rain-slicked meadow, speckled thickly with poppies. How could any of us not have the words to John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" come to memory? The grim possibility that not too far down the road these same delicate scarlet poppies might be decorating the base of a wooden cross above my own grave flitted through my mind. Not a cheerful thought. But I didn't dwell on it. Like everyone else I got busy digging a trench. We were in artillery range and no one cared to be caught above ground in case Jerry decided to greet us with a few shells. We spent two days here, just a short way behind units of 1st Division. Within an hour after we arrived we came under spotty artillery fire — not 192

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At the Reinforcement Unit — An Active Mind at Work Poison gases had seen widespread use during the Great War. Much effort was expended in the early years of the Second World War to develop methods of protecting troops, should the enemy again employ gas. This letter is a formal response to Stan's suggestion for the design of a 'Cellophane Protector Helmet.' (Scislowski collection)

Learning Something Useful Most skills developed by infantrymen are not transferable to civilian employment. The Canadian Army did its best to offset the interruption of normal lives and the service's frequent bouts of boredom. Stan took advantage of the opportunity to study chemistry, a subject that was to prove useful after the war when he entered the electroplating industry. (Scislowski collection)

Training in England — Perth Riflemen Take Up Fire Positions During training, the men wear coveralls (boiler suits) to protect their Battledress from dirt and wear. Their helmets are without the camouflage netting worn in combat by all Commonwealth infantry in the later war years. (National Archives of Canada — PA192809 — Lieut. A.M. Stirton MBE)

Training in England — Perths Practise Tank and Aircraft Recognition Ptes Alex Melville (KIA), Jerry McGhee and George Taylor sharpen their observation skills by examining models. They wear woollen Battledress and the Universal Pattern Field Service Cap which was later replaced by the beret. (National Archives of Canada — PA192808, Lieut. A.M. Stirton MBE)

Stan After the Liri Valley Show This portrait of a very serious Stan hides the great sense of humour and fun that are so much a part of his personality. His bush jacket mounts the Patches Distinguishing-style of regimental insignia unique to armoured and infantry regiments in 5th Canadian Armoured Division. The "Perth R" is embroidered in a deep red-coloured thread onto the division's maroon patch. This method of unit identification was worn throughout the Italian campaign. (Scislowski collection)

Some of Stan's Section Mates at Altamura, Italy This well-worn snapshot shows from left to right: Joe Gallant, (KIA); Gord Forbes (WIA) and Tom Flanagan (WIA) at "Present Arms" with bayonets fixed. Kneeling: Jerry Curran holds a Mk I BREN Light Machine Gun. Joe, "the oldest in the company," was the first Dog Company man to die in action. Gord Forbes lost his foot in a minefield at the Gothic Line. Jerry Curran served with Stan on the PIAT later in the campaign. This image was taken during refresher training after the long voyage from Britain. (Scislowski collection, November/December 1943)

Stan and His Closest Buddy, Walter (Tomeau) Thomas, Shortly After the Liri Valley Actions The photo shows two fit, young Canadian Herbies (Yanks were "G.I.'s"; Brits were "Tommies.") Stan and "Tomeau" were wounded in separate actions. In the photo they are wearing British-made berets similar to Balmorals without tooris; cotton bush shirts and shorts; web belts; hose-tops and web anklets. While serving in Italy with British 8th Army, the Canadians received a great deal of British equipment. (Scislowski collection)

An Infantryman's Life — Morning Ablutions in the Field A couple of Herbies of the Edmonton Regiment of 1st Canadian Infantry Division are seen "making do with what they got." In the foreground, the soldier uses his helmet as a shaving basin. (National Archives of Canada — PA24070, September 1943)

An Infantryman's Life — Digging In A Herbie of the Royal Canadian Regiment of 1st Division uses his entrenching tool to dig a slit trench. While the Germans were well-known for their precise digging, the Canadians were often slap-dash. By mid-1944, the ineffective E-Tool was laid aside in favour of full-size shovels and pick axes which, although more awkward and heavy, were far more efficient. Stan carried his shovel tucked under his webbing, placing the hardened steel blade so that it protected part of his chest.

(National Archives of Canada — detail from PA25158, 30ct43)

First Action — A Perth Regiment Section Moving Up During the Arielli Attack, January 17, 1944 The men are passing two Sherman tanks of 12th Armoured (Three Rivers) Regiment of 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade. At the time of 11th Infantry Brigade's first action, its sister brigade, 5thArmoured, was still awaiting its full delivery of tanks from North Africa. (Trustees of the Imperial War Museum, London — NA10964, photographer — Sgt. Christie)

First Action — The Cape Breton Highlanders Moving Up on the Afternoon of January 17, 1944 The Capes, the Perths' sister battalion, were committed to the battle later in the day, while the brigade's third infantry battalion, the Irish, remained in reserve. In this rear view, we see a section of Capes trudging past a Three Rivers' tank. The second man in the file is the BREN gunner and carries the LMG over his left shoulder. The third man, the gunner's No. 2, can be seen humping the BREN's spare barrel tucked through the flap of his small pack. Stan acted as No. 2 BREN in the Perths' No. 8 Section, 18 Platoon, "D" Company. (Trustees of the Imperial War Museum, London — NA10961, photographer — Sgt. Christie)

First Action — Mortars Support the Attack A mortar crew of the Princess Louise Fusiliers (11th Independent Machine Gun Company) protects their eardrums in heavy action. (Trustees of the Imperial War Museum, London — NA10968 — Sgt. Christie, 17Jan44)

Artillery Support for the Infantry — A 25 Pounder Fieldpiece in Action "Easy" Troop, 10th Field Battery, 2nd Field Regiment, 1st Division at Torelta, Italy on October, 1943. The 2nd Field alone fired ninety-four tons of ammunition in support of 11th Infantry Brigade on January 17, 1944. A total of one Heavy, five Medium, and nine Field Regiments plus thirty-two 4.2" mortars of 1st Division backed the Arielli effort.

(National Archives of Canada — PA26152; statistics — R. James Steel with Capt. John A. Gill, The Battery, The History of the 10th (St.Catharines) Field Battery Royal Canadian Artillery and Lt-Col. G.W.L. Nicholson, Of 'ficial History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War— Vol. II— The Canadians in Italy)

First Action — A Medium Machine Gun Crew in Support of the Arielli Attack A Vickers Machine Gun of the Princess Louise Fusiliers is seen firing harrassing tasks against German vulnerable points such as approach routes to the front and forming up areas for counterattacks. Ammunition boxes and packing materials litter the position. (Trustees of the Imperial War Museum, London — MA 10968 — Sgt. Christie, 17Jan44)

Orsogna Sector — Perths Conduct Daylight Patrolling During daylight hours, the Perths occupied this post overlooking the town of Orsogna. Shown are privates Clarence Albers and John Harwood on guard, close by a foxhole. (National Archives of Canada — PA29122 — Lieut. A.M. Stirton MBE, 29Jan44)

The Liri Valley and the Hitler Line The action against the key German defensive features at Ceprano by the Perths and Irish occurred on May 27, 1944. A German MG 42, dug in on this particular knoll, drove Stan's 18 Platoon under cover and caught 16 Platoon in the open, killing two men. At the time of the fighting there were no grapevines. (ScislowsM collection) The Liri Valley — The Hill Town of Arnara This post-war Italian photograph of the beautiful little town of Arnara was taken from the exact site where Dog Company spent the night and the next morning launched the advance to occupy the town, fortunately without opposition. Arnara is typical of many Italian hill towns whose topography and stone construction provided the Germans with ready-made fortifications. (Scislowski collection)

A Hidden Menace — The Teller Mine A Canadian Sapper carefully uncovers a Teller mine in preparation to lift and disarm it. This was the Germans' primary anti-tank mine. Its destructive power could disable a Sherman tank and destroy Universal Carriers or wheeled transport. (National Archives of Canada — PAS4750 — Potenza, Italy, 23Sep43)

Perths Crack the Gothic Line — A View of Point 111 The taking of Point 111 on August 30, 1944 by Dog Company of the Perths against the stubborn opposition of 26 Panzer Division was the key to unlocking the massive German defences of the Gothic Line system. (Scislowski collection)

A Telegram — What the Folks at Home Dreaded This crisp, impersonal and quite uninformative telegram represented the first news received by Stan's family that he had been wounded at Point 204 in the Gothic Line. Twelve days later a second message arrived advising that he had "bomb fragment wounds head and face." (Scislowski collection) 10 Platoon, "B" Company, Perth Regiment As Stan's story reveals, the manpower crisis in the Canadian Army had even greater consequences in Italy than in North-West Europe. Men were often returned to action before their wounds were completely healed. This snapshot of 17 men, excepting a few absentees, represented the total strength of 10 Platoon at the time. Regulation platoon strength was 43, all ranks. (Sam Moffat collection)

German Paratroopers — "A formation unequalled in Italy for its fighting skill and tenacity"

Two Examples of Stan's Macabre Loot The above photo is contrasted with this snapshot collected by Stan at Ceprano of a smartly turned out, young Airborne Sergeant in his walking-out uniform with side-arm and tassel. He wears a National Sports Badge under his left breast.

This gruesome photo is the bloody corpse of a young German Sergeant of the 1. Fallschirmjager Division with his personal possessions about him. His portrait photograph indicates that he had been awarded a 2nd Class Iron Cross for valour. This ugly image of war sharpens one's understanding of the horrors confronting Stan. He shut out his fears and anxieties by looting abandoned houses and souvenir hunting amongst the enemy's dead. (National Archives of Canada — PA27965 — 21Dec43; quotation — Lt-Col. G.W.L. Nicholson, Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War— Vol.II— The Canadians in Italy 1943-48) Another of Stan's souvenirs is of an intense, young senior NCO, a Fledwebel, of the Luftwaffe paratroops. The Canadians were frequently opposed by the 1. Fallschirmjager Division. The novices of the Perths and Capes were mauled by two regiments of this division at the Arielli. (Scislowski collection)

Drainage Ditch at the Fosso Munio Action, Dec. 19, 1944 Stan tells the story of "B" Company leading a night attack, using the cover of this drainage ditch which parallels the Via Chiara. Pte. Bud Manning of 10 Platoon, who had just returned to the company after recovering from jaundice, was assigned temporarily to the short-handed 12 Platoon. Bud was the third man from the front and in the first burst of fire had his arm shattered. He eventually managed to crawl over the ditch's edge, across the Via Chiara and to find haven in a farmhouse. The next day, he was found by the advancing Irish Regiment. (Bud Manning collection)

The Fosso Munio Culvert A German MG 42 sited at this culvert killed seventeen and woulded three of Baker Company's 12 Platoon. This post-war snapshot shows Stan standing beside the stone culvert. The drainage ditch appears faintly behind his head. (Bud Manning collection)

Italian Refugees on the Road

(National Archives of Canada — PA27064, San Pietro, 26Nov43; quotation: Bill McAndrew, Bill Rawling, Michael Whitby, Liberation — The Canadians in Europe

Stan's story reveals a mixture of disinterest and sympathy for the plight of the Italians, feelings shared by most Canadian soldiers. Only a few months before the Perths landed, the Italians had been enemies. The following quotation sumarizes the Herbies' feelings: "Almost a third of the 90,000 Canadians who served in Italy became casualties, 5399 [were] killed, and no one wanted to be the last in this neglected and V*3% -^^H& forgottencampaign. ,-..-",,**. Canadians were never quite sure whether, in Italy, they were liberators or conquerors."

Stan on Leave in London By August 1945, Stan had recovered and was back in England doing duty in a Repatriation Depot as a Battalion Orderly Room runner. He was on a weekend pass and cruising through Piccadilly Circus gawking at the "Commandos" plying their trade when a photographer caught him totally off guard. (Scislowski collection)

Stan Scislowski Today In this recent photograph, Stan is proudly wearing his Royal Canadian Legion blazer with the postwar Perth Regiment badge on the breast pocket. Sincerity, warmth and humour are reflected in his strong face.

too much to get alarmed about, but enough to keep us on our toes with guts tensed. When one landed with a terrific bang not fifty yards away, we needed no further urging to go a little deeper with our digging. Our first efforts almost always were pathetic affairs —just deep enough to get us below ground level. Hardly had the echo of the blast died away then Harry "High Explosive" Hanley and I were out of our shallow trench and hard at it putting spade to soil. And our feverish efforts to go deeper came none too soon. A sudden flurry of shells banged in all around us, one shell raising the dust no more than six feet from our trench. It scared the living bejeezus out of us, let me tell you. As for Harry, he flipped right out of his mind. He tried to burrow under me, whimpering, blubbering, crying, praying for the Good Lord to save him. He was past the point of just being scared. This guy, I thought, had to be shellshocked. What else could make a man go that way? After carrying-on this way even after the shells stopped coming I finally reacted, grabbing him by the collar and shaking him roughly, "For crissakes Harry, shut up, will you! You make me more nervous than I should be. If one lands in our hole we won't even know it!" It didn't help any. He kept crying for mother like a little kid who'd just got a licken' from dad. A real mess, he was. Ten minutes later when all was quiet again, he was back to his old self. But after the way he just acted, I couldn't trust him to face up to another shelling. I knew that the next time it'd be the same damn thing all over again, and eventually he'd fold or do something rash that would remove him from the ongoing torment.. By now my boils had grown pretty damn ripe, and the irritation brought on by the constant rubbing against my trousers while I was vigorously digging and hacking away with a pick made any movement almost unbearable. I couldn't see me doing much in the way of advancing and fighting, so there was nothing else for me but to see the MO. So I went up to Halliday and told him my problem. His eyes bored into mine with that look that told me he didn't believe me. To prove I had a legitimate complaint I pulled my trousers down, lifted my blouse at the back and showed him the boils. "By jeez! you do have 'em, " Sine admitted. "You can see the MO, but damned if I know where you'll find him." So, with my back arched backwards to take the pressure off the boils, I went on a hunt for the him. Not far away I came upon a sand-coloured fifteen-hundredweight with a big red cross painted on its door panel. I didn't know which outfit it belonged to, but it made no difference to me. Any MO would do. I wasn't fussy and I wasn't about to traipse over all hell and gone looking for our own. I asked a sergeant if his MO could look at my boils because I couldn't find the Perth MO. The artillery regiment MO agreed to treat me, although The Liri Valley Push

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he did so with what I thought was some indifference. He told me to bend over and take a firm grip on the tailgate and warned me that it might hurt a little. Hurt! The sonofabitch drove me to my knees as he lanced my boils and started squeezing the pus out of them one by one. It took every last shred of stoicism and endurance I had to keep from crying out in agony. It was worse than having teeth pulled. I closed my jaw so tight it ached. After he was through torturing me, he handed me a couple dozen pills, four to be taken immediately and four every four hours. I walked back to our lines hoping they wouldn't work. Only the day before, I'd been chafing to get into action, and now here I was hoping to could get out of it. What had made me so suddenly change my mind? It had to be the latest close call I had. The reality of where I was and what I was getting into hit home with a wallop. Medal-chasing was no longer so important to me. In fact I wanted no part of it. With this change of heart and mind was the fact that I had a legitimate reason for avoiding action, I experienced no guilt. As it turned out, however, much to my deep disappointment, the pills were wonder pills and worked quicker and better than I thought they ever would. By the third dose I was as good as new. What rotten luck again! Although ticked-off over this turn of events, I wouldn't allow it to get me down. If I had to go, I had to go and that was that. No use crying about it. With time on my hands and little to do but sit around listening to Hanley tell me over and over again how afraid he was, I decided I had to get away from him for awhile or else he'd drive me buggy. So I set out for a farmhouse not much more than a couple of long baseball throws away to see what I might dig up in the way of loot. Since no one cared to join me, not even my indefatigable scrounging buddy, Walt Thomas, I took off on my own with rifle in hand and a round up the spout just in case I ran into a Jerry straggler or two. I came back shortly afterward, empty-handed and with no notches to carve into the butt of my No. 4 Lee-Enfield. At 0600 hours on the morning of May 23, with the Liri Valley cloaked in a thick ground mist we rose to the thunder of 810 guns in the Canadian, British, French and Polish artillery lines banging furiously away behind us. The battle of the Hitler Line had begun. For the next half-hour our ears rang to the infernal din of the guns and overhead, the rustle, whir and whistle of twenty-five-pounders, 5.5s and 7.2s spinning their way to the enemy positions, where they exploded in steel and high explosive. From the target area up the valley came the muted drum roll of the shells ploughing up the wire, the open ground, and the trenches and dugouts of the Hitler Line. The valley was a madhouse of sound, as the devil's orchestra played their deadly overture. Normal conversation was impossible. It was 194

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awesome! It was mind-numbing! And to add to the frightening aspect of it all was the unnerving passage overhead every now and then of a shell with a loose driving band, a sound quite unlike any I'd ever heard before. It was a cross between a howling coyote, a car running on its rims, and the banshee wail of a London Blitz air-raid siren. You had no way of knowing whether it was coming right at you or on its way to its proper destination. Within a minute or two after the barrage ended, the three assaulting battalions of 1st Division departed the start-line. All went well until they emerged from the partial concealment of a stand of low-growing oaks. From this point on they ran into a hell-dance of rockets and artillery fire, joined almost immediately by machine guns sweeping the open fields over which they advanced. The lead companies soon found themselves caught in a killing ground between the start-line and the barbed-wire strung all the way across the front and were suffering heavy casualties. The Seaforth Highlanders and the Princess Patricias went forward on the right of the line just below Aquino, supported by tanks of the North Irish Horse. The tanks, however, were hindered severely by the close nature of the country and then were immobilized by unexpected minefields. Heavy and accurate fire from tank-turret guns mounted on concrete emplacements, so low in profile our tanks couldn't spot them, smashed into their inadequately armoured hulls. Tank after tank took killing hits. One of these highpowered guns knocked out thirteen Churchills before it was put out of action by an armour-piercing round. Overall, forty-one of the fifty-eight British tanks were knocked out, with the result that the assault ground to a jarring halt even after the reserve battalion of 2nd Brigade, the Loyal Edmontons were sent in to get the stalled advance moving again. The barbed-wire entanglements strung throughout the enemy positions, the mines laid in profusion, and the heavy small-arms fire from dozens of MG positions and rifle pits took a terrible toll of the attackers. Of course, we weren't aware of all this as we waited for word of the progress of the battle. We had no illusions that things were going to be easy, yet we were confident that the red-patchers would show the Jerries a thing or two on infantry tactics and the fighting qualities of Canadians and open the door to the Liri Valley. Once this happened we could expect to be on our way, and we hoped to go through the Germans like a dose of salts, nonstop all the way to Rome. The 3rd Brigade's assault battalion, the Carleton & Yorks reached their first objective in good shape, having escaped most of the small-arms fire, although mortars kept harassing them. As with the 2nd Brigade, tank support was largely lost when mines held them up, and then the concreteemplaced 75s and 88s and roving SP guns began taking a toll of the The Liri Valley Push

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squadrons of the 51st Royal Tank Regiment. They eventually silenced enough of the guns and drove off the SPs, enabling them to continue the advance and meet up with the infantry. Although things were starting to look promising in 3rd Brigade's sector, all was definitely not going well with 2nd Brigade. The companies were pinned down in the open with only shallow craters for protection, and the casualty list mounted as the morning wore on. Only the concentrated fire of our artillery saved the day for them. With the promise of success looking brightest in 3rd Brigade's sector, especially where the Carleton & Yorks were trying to ram their way through the enemy defences, General Vokes made one of his smartest decisions, giving orders to the Van Doos and the West Novas to shoot through on the Carletons' left. Leaning on the barrage, the assaulting companies pushed forward so quickly that the enemy defensive artillery fire fell harmlessly behind them, missing even the reserve companies mopping up the surprised enemy. Within two hours the brigade was on its final objective. Remarkably, they achieved this outstanding success at reasonably minor cost — forty-five killed and 120 wounded. This stunning success had taken the pressure off of 2nd Brigade, which throughout the day had taken fearful casualties in their attempt to hold on to the meagre gains made earlier. Their troubles came to an end when the Van Doos, sweeping in behind the Germans in a left hook, eliminated the worrisome threat. When this phase of the battle was over and the costs counted, 2nd Brigade's casualties totaled 162 killed, 306 wounded and seventy-five taken prisoner, a total unequaled in a single day's fighting by any other Canadian brigade during the whole of the Italian campaign. Grievous though the losses were, they ensured final victory at a time when chances for it looked slim. First Brigade, on the far left of the division's front at Pontecorvo, though not having as tough a nut to crack as 2nd and 3rd, nevertheless ran up against determined opposition from Germans manning pill boxes, intricate trench systems and anti-tank gun emplacements on high ground. Under a hail of small-arms fire, the intrepid 48th Highlanders surged up the slope, taking casualties as they went, but not slowing. Before they realized it, they were in amongst the Germans, and in a short but sharp hand-to-hand struggle the Toronto boys won hands-down. As tough as the enemy were, they soon lost stomach for this close fighting and quickly threw in the towel. While the fight between the Highlanders and the Germans was going on full-swing, the Hastings & Prince Edward Regiment was taking a lot of the pressure off the right flank battalion by sending two companies up the 196

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bullet-raked slope. Their thrust went in so resolutely and so efficiently that the enemy resistance deteriorated and then collapsed altogether. At this point the Hitler Line had been ripped wide open. Now it came down to the 5th Armoured Division to get rolling, to throw the dynamite punch, the haymaker that would either floor the enemy or drive him back down the length of the Liri all the way to Rome, and hopefully well beyond. PUNCH was the code-word signaling the launching of the second phase of OPERATION CHESTERFIELD, committing the 5th Armoured Division to the breakout and pursuit of the German forces down the length of the Liri valley. Seizure of a bridgehead over the Melfa River was the first objective, followed by a leap forward nine miles to take Ceprano on the Liri River, and from there a push on twenty-five miles to Frosinone, situated at the northern reaches of the Sacco Valley. The initial phase of the operation was borne mainly by tanks of the 5th Armoured Brigade, while the Irish Regiment of Canada and the Westminster Regiment supplied the infantry component for a speedy advance through the rolling fields to the Melfa River, which at this time of year was not much more than a series of rivulets. After several heated skirmishes with enemy rearguards — pulling back from their positions in the shattered Hitler Line in some disarray, and beating off attacks by Panther tanks hitting them in the flank — one Lord Strathcona Horse squadron reached the Melfa shortly after 4:00 p.m.. Within the hour, a troop of the Lord Straths and a company of the Westminsters crossed the river and were almost immediately set upon by enemy tanks. The fighting was touch-and-go for awhile, but this small force proved to be more than a match for the Germans, and the assaults broke off. The gutsy tankmen of the lesser-gunned and thinner-armoured Shermans commanded by Captain E.J. Perkins, in company with the Westminster company led by Major J.K. Mahony, held on to their foothold, the starting point for the Mighty Maroon Machine to break into the clear. For their courageous performance and leadership in this crucial confrontation, both commanders were decorated, Perkins with the Distinguished Service Order and Mahony with the Victoria Cross. Early on the evening of May 24 under a light drizzle and charcoalgray skies, the Perth Regiment climbed aboard trucks for a short ride to what was supposed to be the start line for our advance early the next morning. The ride should have taken no more than twenty minutes, but ended up taking more like two hours; the convoy would roll on for five minutes and stop for twenty, another brief roll and another lengthy stop, and so on. What the reason was for all the stops I couldn't be sure. It might have been caution on the part of the people leading the convoy, in case of The Liri Valley Push

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well-armed Germans were still loose in the area. Or it might have been that whoever was in the point vehicle wasn't sure where he was going. In this situation, you couldn't blame anyone for being cautious. The convoy could very well be heading right into an ambush. If it was that dangerous in the area we were moving through, then why weren't we given the order to pile out of the vehicles and move the rest of the way on foot? Not only would we have reached our destination in a quarter of the time, we'd have been in a better position to defend ourselves in the open from the ground instead of trapped in our trucks. When we did finally arrive at what was supposed to be our start line we were ordered to bed down for the night, half the men to sleep while the other half stood watch. From Dog Company's location in a pine grove a mile short of the Melfa River, those of us detailed for the four hour shift to midnight sat or lay in the shallow cover of our slit-trenches, weapons at the ready, eyes straining to penetrate the darkness and the gathering ground mist for signs of enemy activity. For all the noise of shell and mortar fire that had gone on in the Liri Valley since the night of the May 11, it was strangely quiet on this night, May 25.1 can't recall having heard a single mortar or shell fall anywhere. It was as though both sides had gone to sleep to gather strength for the coming day and further violence. There was no mistaking, though, that the Jerries had been holding down the fort somewhere nearby only a very short time ago, judging by the smell our noses kept picking up. It was a peculiar odour they always left behind. Throughout the campaign, every time we took over positions recently vacated by the Jerries we would, without fail, smell a stale, musky odour common to the enemy only. It got me to asking a question of the guys in my platoon; "Would we leave behind in any position the Jerries chased us out, a peculiar odour like they leave.?" Nobody could tell me, so I assumed we would. I told myself that body odours probably depended on a person's diet and hygiene habits. Morning greeted us in heavy fog and a flare of excitement. A small enemy group that had been cut off tried to slip through our lines but they made the mistake of cutting through the pine grove right into our midst. They offered no resistance, throwing their hands up in surrender at the first challenge. After being relieved of weapons, watches and whatever other choice piece of adornment and decoration they wore or had on their persons, one man escorted them just far enough back for someone else to take them in tow. A good start to the day like this got our tails up and we were raring to go. What a difference compared to our January 17 affair! The Germans, ever industrious when it came to making things comfortable and secure for themselves, had painstakingly built into a steep 198

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embankment nearby substantial shelters, each ten by ten with six-foot-high ceilings buttressed by tree-trunks and two feet of sod and soil — sturdy enough to withstand all but the heaviest bombardment. They were spacious enough to house an entire section. Jerry also went to a lot of trouble fixing them up with wood flooring, and built two-tier wood-frame bunk beds against the earthen walls. Not only were they impervious to ordinary shellfire, they made for half-decent living accommodations. After seeing one of these dugouts, one could understand how and why the enemy were able to ride out a storm of shells and then come up fighting. As was my inclination, I couldn't resist the temptation to explore the shelters, so I went over to see what I might find. There wasn't very much worth taking —several Mauser rifles, a couple of gas-mask canisters, a small pack from which I extracted several khaki coloured undershorts (these came in handy), two loaves of rock-hard black bread, some newspapers and a zippered safety-razor kit. A pan of soapy water, shaving soap, a brush full of dried-up lather, a safety razor, and the small mirror hanging by a string from the log ceiling told me the guy who'd been shaving had to drop everything and run when our infantry closed in on them. They were in such a hurry to get away, two of the occupants even left their rifles behind. Or perhaps more likely, they were taken prisoner. I was busy rummaging around, lifting this and lifting that, when a rock came bouncing into the dugout. Thinking it was one of the guys from my section acting smart by scaring me, I paid no attention. In came another rock. So I gathered up what little loot I had and decided to leave. As I stepped out into the sunlight with my acquisitions, there waiting for me were three grim-faced Canadian engineers, two with Tommy guns and one with a rifle levelled at me. I could see right off these guys meant business. I hesitated, with what had to be a look of surprise on my face. "Hande hoch!" the one in the middle shouted, waving his wicked looking Tommy gun like he meant to use it. I stood there with my mouth open like I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Were these guys stupid, playing games, or what? I finally spoke up: "For crissakes you dumb bananas can't you see I'm a Canadian?" There was no mistaking who I was: the pie-plate helmet, the tunic, the gaiters. What other proof did they need to see what army I belonged to? Then one of the glaring sappers exclaimed, "Man, are you ever lucky we had no grenades, or you'd have been mincemeat by now!" He didn't have to tell me that, I knew very well what would have happened. Our advance began an hour later. We marched off along a rutted road an inch deep in talcum powder-like dust towards the Melfa in a long single file, with five yards between men, and sections ten yards apart — one on the left, the next on the right, the third on the left, and so on all the way The Liri Valley Push

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down through the company. By this time, the fields and the dirt road were getting to be pretty crowded with infantry and the machinery of war moving up to the Melfa River. The rattle of small-arms, ours and the enemy's, grew in volume, and the steady bang of our tanks' 75s, along with the growling crump of mortars a short distance away told us that our time to get into the thick of things was almost here. Off to our right, in an open tract of country dotted with saplings, a troop of Sherman tanks were busy potting away at some unseen target, the sharp bang of their 75s interspersed by the rattle of their hull-mounted machine-guns. I could feel the tension rising in me, not so much in fear or apprehension, just the kind of tension I used to experience before every high school football game I played in. The feeling was unexplainably different than that which had overcome me when I had crouched in that naked ditch inland from Ortona five months before. At that time it was pure, unadulterated terror. A quarter mile up the road Ridge waved us into the knee-high grainfield on our left, and after some milling about, unsure what to do next, we managed to sort ourselves into arrowhead formation and without further ado were on our way through the gently waving knee-high wheat. To our left front about three hundred yards away was a line of tall, slender poplars. We paid no special attention to them until several shots snapped past our ears. The only place the fire had to be coming from was from a sniper perched in one of those trees. Our chances of survival improved when a gunner standing in the turret of a Honey tank (a light tank used for reconnaissance) opened up on the suspect line of poplars. He was right on target as we watched the tracers disappear into the branches all along the line of trees, sweeping from right to left. He must have nailed the bastard because no more shots came our way. A short way up the cart track we passed a dummy tank made up of wood framework covered with burlap sacking. From afar, it was supposed to fool us into thinking it was a Tiger tank. To make it look even more realistic, beside it the Jerries had piled up a stack of wooden shell crates. The ruse's value was questionable; it fooled no one. Just short of the Melfa River we came upon a couple of abandoned Nebelwerfers, or Moaning Minnies as we Canadians called them — a fearsome weapon, as I would one day find out up in the Po Plains. With the tiny bridgehead on the far side of the Melfa not yet secure and the Westminsters and the Lord Straths battling it out against a fiercely counter-attacking enemy, we were ordered to dig in and wait for the call to enter the battle. Fine and dandy! But what a hell of a place to wait to do it! Not ten yards away was a stack of Moaning Minnie bombs, and beside it a row of a much larger calibre rocket bomb, that had to be at least twice the 200

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size of the latter. Each of these monsters was inside an angle-iron framework that I thought was their packing-crate. I saw no launcher anywhere around that would take the behemoths and wondered why they were there. While I pondered this mystery, a knowledgeable soul from one of the other platoons happened by and put me in the know, saying the bombs were sent on their way from right out of the frameworks they were transported in. I hated to think what would happen if a shell or mortar landed on this accumulation of bombs. It'd be good-bye 18 Platoon, that's for sure. No wonder I was a bit uneasy. After digging a pathetic example of a slit trench, I decided to saunter over to have a close look at the six-barrel rocket bomb launchers, since I'd heard so much about them. This death-dealing instrument of war had six six-inch diameter short barrels, and in the empty space between the barrels of one of them I noticed five egg-grenades wired together. There was no mistaking it—this baby was booby-trapped. I hailed a passing engineer officer and pointed it out to him. Without hesitation, like he was doing a home-repair wiring job, he took a pair of cutting pliers from his pocket and reached in to his armpit. "Man, the guy's got guts!" I said to myself as I backed off ten paces or so, expecting the Minnie and the officer to be blown sky-high. No sense in the both of us getting killed. But this guy knew what he was doing and a few seconds later he removed the deadly package and went on his way. A real cool customer. Things were getting pretty exciting by this time. The roar of tank engines and the clatter and squeak of their tracks grew in volume as an entire armoured regiment came on the scene. Between the roar of the tanks' multibank engines, all the other noises they made, machine guns going non-stop, 75mms banging away, and mortar bombs landing with growling crunches a little too close for comfort, there was no way we'd hear the incoming Jerry response. I needed no urging now to get to work deepening my trench. I went at it with uncharacteristic vigour. How I hated digging. It seemed as though that's all we were forever doing since we entered this godforsaken valley. Though I was pretty damn tired of it all, the close proximity of the German rocket shells convinced me of the danger in shallow slit-trenches. This was one time I put a lot of muscle and enthusiasm into digging. While taking a short breather, sitting on the edge of my trench I glanced skywards and saw one of our Piper Cub observation planes flying back and forth over the area at an altitude low enough for even riflemen to take potshots at. One minute he was there, and in the next he was gone in a puff of black smoke. Out of the black smoke came a wing and part of the fuselage spinning to the ground like maple pods. The two pieces came The Liri Valley Push

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down less than a hundred yards away. At the time, I thought it had been hit by Jerry ack-ack, but I later learned that it had actually flown straight into one of our twenty-five-pounder shells on its way down to a target on the far side of the Melfa River. What a hell of a way to get knocked off! We waited on the south side of the Melfa River a good hour and a half for the Irish and the Westminsters and Lord Strath tanks to push the Jerries back far enough for us to crowd into the bridgehead. It wasn't until 1900 hours that we moved out. I was actually glad when the order came for us to get moving — not because I hungered to get in on the action, but because I didn't feel good about being so close to all those bombs that might go off at any time. We went at a good pace through a deep cut, and on emerging at the river's edge were surprised to see not much of a river there at all. The Melfa, though wide in flood season, was now near dry, with three or four ribbons of water no more than four feet across and a couple of inches deep trickling lazily over the stones. On the far side rose a forty-foot-high bluff which, from where we approached, looked to be a problem to scale, but it didn't prove so. A cart track had been cut across the face of the bluff which made for a much less steep climb, and though it took some leaning into the slope we made it in good time and without overexertion. A short way back from the lip of the bluff, not much more than a hundred yards, we came to a gravelled road where we stood fast for the night. I hoped to spend the night in the two houses close by, but orders were orders—we weren't permitted to do so. It was the drainage ditch running alongside the road where we'd have to do our sleeping, under the canopy of a myriad of stars. Since there was no threat of rain in the air, all we could hope for was that Jerry would be kind and thoughtful enough not to disturb us by lobbing mortars at us. Some time during the first half of the night two or three German planes flew over the battlefield, and after circling around for a nerve-rattling fifteen or twenty minutes, commenced unloading their bombs on the rear echelons and lines of supply, causing considerable damage and casualties. This was one time when it was an advantage to be up at the sharp end. The rear echelons, for a change, were the ones to catch hell, and catch hell they did. No matter where the Jerry bombardiers chose to drop their bombs, they could hardly miss. From Cassino all the way to the Melfa River, the Liri Valley was chock-a-block with troops, vehicles, guns, tanks and supplies. The Perths lost a good man in Sidney Jessop, the regimental provost. A big bear of a man, one of the thirty-niners, Syd carried out his duties without making enemies. He was both feared and respected. Syd died as he was tooling his Norton past an ammo truck parked in a field not far off the road — at that very moment a bomb hit the truck and it disintegrated in one hell of blast. 202

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In the early hours of May 27 Baker Company came under a brief flurry of mortar fire which killed CSM John (Mickey) McRobb and three others. Mickey had been my section corporal for a short spell on the winter front after he'd been demoted from sergeant-major for a breach of military law. I never did bother to find out what he'd done to deserve such a drastic demotion, but a good guess would be that he got himself stinko on vino while on duty. I found him to be about as unlike a CSM as you could imagine. He was an unassuming, soft-spoken type, said very little, got along well with everyone and didn't seem a bit bitter or upset over his demotion to corporal. It didn't take long, however, for Lind to decide he needed McRobb's qualities as a leader of men, and shortly thereafter promoted him to Sergeant and then back up to his original rank. Shortly after 0700 hours a squadron of NBH tanks arrived in the bridgehead to support us in the advance to begin shortly. We watched their arrival dispassionately, anxious to get on our way; more so for the fact that we were uneasy in being near tanks at any time, whether in an advance or in a static position. They always drew fire. And who'd get hurt the most? Naturally, the infantry. It was a love-hate relationship all the way. We loved them when we had to call for their help, but we hated them when they were all around us making so much noise we'd never hear shells coming our way. What a relief it was when Sammy Ridge got us moving. We went ahead without the tanks, making our way through the shin-deep grainfield at a good pace—no small-arms fire, no mortars, no shells. The only shots that came at us, came from the Cape Breton Highlanders who were on our right flank about a quarter mile away. We were slightly ahead of them and they must have mistaken us for the enemy and sent a few bursts of Bren fire in our direction. The message got to them in a hurry, with the happy result that no one was hit. Nothing worse than getting hit by your own fire! The way things were going thus far, it looked very much like the Germans had picked up and skedaddled across the Liri River, which was okay with us. In fact we were hoping they'd keep on going all the way back to Germany. Our momentary reverie, however, evaporated in the expresstrain rush of enemy shells slamming into the wheat all around us. I hit the ground and reacted instantaneously to something that had been drilled into my head over and over again while in training at Altamura: "When you come under artillery fire, never move back to get out of it. Always move forward. You're more likely to survive moving through it than going the other way." So when the first shells hit, that's exactly what I did. And I was lucky rather than smart or brave. I'd been following this three foot deep excavation for drainage pipes or it might have been for a water-line, running straight as an arrow all the way up to the Isoletta Reservoir straight The Liri Valley Push

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ahead. When the shells slammed in, I dived into it. Which was only natural. After landing, I didn't dare just lie there and wait for a shell to make a direct hit, I crawled like I'd been born to this mode of travel, crawling in the direction of our advance. I must have crawled at least fifty yards, and sensing, or hearing that the concentration of 88s was now well behind me I got to my feet and ran as fast as my legs could carry me, not looking back even once until I'd gone at least another two hundred yards. Now, feeling somewhat safer I stopped to have a look at where my platoon had gone to ground. The shells were still banging in amidst the wheat and I remember remarking, "Holy jeez! There won't be a damn one of my guys alive after that!" But when the short, but sharp shelling stopped, I could scarce believe my eyes. Out of the wheat, figures began popping up, and when I stopped counting I was surprised and overjoyed, and of course, greatly relieved to see that 18 Platoon had not been wiped out. In fact no one had been killed, and only a couple of the fellows sustained wounds—superficial wounds, at that. I'd never have thought it possible to have men come through shelling like that almost unscathed, yet there it was. I had seen it for myself. If there's one distinction I am truly proud of, it's that for at least fifteen or twenty minutes, I was the_pomt man in the whole damn Canadian Corps on this beautiful spring day, May 26, 1944. The only people ahead of me on that battlefield were guys wearing field-grey — the Jerries. So there I was, standing all alone, waiting for the rest of the Corps to catch up to me, feeling like an all-conquering hero. This, my one claim to fame (although it brought me no medal, no recognition, not even a "well done, Stan," from anyone in the platoon or company), came a little too close to disaster for me. Seeing as I was so far ahead of everybody else and had to wait for everyone to come up, I sat myself leisurely down on a mound of dirt alongside the excavation, calmly took out an overseas edition of the Windsor Star, opened it wide like I was sitting in an easy chair back home and started to look over the week's comics. "Li'l Abner" was my favourite. I was chuckling away at Joe Btfsplk when a burst of machine-gun fire snapped me back to reality. The stream of bullets tore up the dirt not five feet away from where I was sitting. I dropped the paper and rolled into the excavation, and just in time, because another burst chewed away at the very spot I'd been sitting. Then I heard the ominous clank and grating squeak of tank tracks approaching. I assumed it had to be one of ours. And it was. The crew in the NBH tank must have thought I was a Jerry. What could I do but wave a hankie over the edge of the excavation hoping they'd see it? I popped my head out of the trench for a quick peek and saw a coveralled tankman standing on the hull of his tank alongside the gun, motioning to me with his Tommy gun to 204

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raise my hands in the air. I climbed out of the ditch knowing that as soon as he saw my helmet and battledress he'd recognize me as Canadian. How could he not? "What in bloody hell are you doing up this far?" he demanded. And that was it. No explanation needed. No more said. He climbed back in his tank, pulled the hatch down and away the Sherman went, trundling off to the right and that was it. Shortly after this episode, 18 Platoon made it up to where I waited at the very edge of the Isoletta Reservoir. What else could I have said to them but, "What in the hell kept you guys so long? Did you expect me to fight the war all alone?" They didn't get the humour of it, so I didn't push it further. We stood there on the southern edge of the reservoir looking across the wide stretch of what was now only a vast mudflat. Beyond, in the distance, we could see the rooftops of Ceprano. And then we marched off along a dirt road skirting the reservoir where we soon came upon two gray horses lying dead in the scrub and torn-up trees on the embankment, harnessed to a large wagon loaded with ammunition boxes. Big-bodied, majestic animals, perhaps a couple of Clydesdales. What a shame that these two innocent beautiful beasts should die this way! Up the road a short way we passed Sergeant Pete McRorie on his way back from a recce. Pete had left us at Barton Stacey and gone over to one of the other companies. As he went by I said "Hi, Pete!" Not three seconds later, Pete's boot came down heavy on a mine. It would take a man of Pete's size and weight to set off a Teller mine. The power of one of these babies could blow the tracks off a thirty-two- ton Sherman tank, so you can imagine then what it did to the lower half of Pete's body. A horrible mess. The blast also killed Cpl Bob Adair of 7 Section who happened, as ill-luck would have it, to be just opposite Pete when the mine went off. The blast from fourteen pounds of TNT threw Bob's body high in the air and it came down on top of the brush-covered embankment on our right. Bob's legs and arms were mangled and twisted in such a grotesque way that they reminded me of a discarded rag doll I had seen a long time ago in an alley back home. When the mine went off it gave me an awful wallop in the back, sending me flying through the air in a swan dive. I came down on the road flat on my face some ten yards away with a mouthful of dirt and gravel. Momentarily disoriented and thinking a shell had landed, I looked around in a daze and saw the upper half of Pete's body lying in the middle of the road — a welter of blood, guts and bone. I thought I'd crack. But somehow I kept my wits about me. Why didn't I crack wide open? I can't begin to know. Maybe without knowing it I'd hardened myself to such terrible sights with the outlook of, "I'm glad it's not me," or something along that The Liri Valley Push

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line. If I hadn't looked at it in that calloused way, it's a good bet I'd have gone bonkers. And there was no way I wanted that to happen. It was the one thing I dreaded more than death itself. If I'd be lucky enough to survive this war, then I wanted to be able to live with myself. A life of mental torment brought on by guilt was something too horrible to contemplate. I like to think that this outlook, along with my insatiable pursuit of battlefield souvenirs, (looting, we called it) was what kept me going when I least wanted to go. Inside of two minutes, "Wham, wham, wham" — three NBH tanks went up on mines. They were everywhere. "What do we do now?" I thought, as I lay there helpless by the side of the road with the rest of my shaken section recovering from the jolt of what had just happened to Pete and Bob. I was second man in line in the lead section and it took some guts to get up and go on. But what else could we do? We had a job ahead of us. We crossed a railway line and entered a meadow that stretched ahead for about two miles. Not a single feature, manmade or natural, disrupted the openness of the terrain. For the first fifty paces or thereabouts, my eyes were fixed to the ground, searching for the telltale sign of a mine that might lie hidden just beneath the surface. After awhile, I threw caution to the winds and said, "To hell with it, if I go I go," leaving it up to lady luck to take me by the hand and guide me safely through. While Dog Company carried the advance on Ceprano by way of the dried-up Isoletta Reservoir, Baker Company's line of advance was off to our right some hundred yards. Our approach to Ceprano had thus far been unopposed, while Baker ran into isolated pockets of resistance, losing some men in knocking these out. By mid-morning the heat and humidity rose to an unbearable level. Not a cloud in the sky. Not a tree to give shade. Nothing but heat, sweat, dust, thirst, and sore, burning feet. We kept moving on in some semblance of an arrowhead formation, sweat running down our cheeks, hungry as jackals and godawful thirsty. Water bottles had run dry hours before, and now when we needed water more than ever, there was none to be had. Chances of replenishment looked pretty damn slim. No water-truck driver was about to risk his ass coming this far forward. And with no farmhouse anywhere to be seen, it looked like we weren't going to come upon any well, not this day at least. Not having had anything substantial to eat in the past thirty-six hours except a half-melted Cadbury bar, I wilted and wilted fast. I couldn't see going on much longer. But I did, like everybody else — somehow. I guess the only thing that kept me going was the fact that the other guys were still on their feet plugging away. If they could do it, then so could I. The advance went along unimpeded either by mines or fire of any 206

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kind when smack in the middle of this wide-open stretch of meadowland we were told to dig in. "Now, what the hell are we stopping here for?" I exclaimed to no one in particular. "Nobody's shooting at us. Shit, we might as well keep going." With the enemy off balance after being turfed out of their strong positions in the Hitler Line, the logical thing to do, it seemed, was keep right on their tail. Don't let the bastards get set, because if that happens, it's going to be one hell of a lot tougher to root him out again. At least that's what the good books on military tactics seem to tell you. What a way to fight a war— sitting here in the hot sun, fingers up our ass, while Jerry's up ahead somewhere probably building himself another Hitler Line. Night came, and with it the danger of enemy infiltration by recce or fighting patrols, or possible counter-attack, so it was imperative for us to maintain an outpost about a hundred yards in front of the company positions. My two-hour guard shift in this forward post was from 0200 to 0400 hours, not as fraught with peril as at first dark or first light, but still a nerve-tightener. Except for the odd brrrrp of an MG 42 somewhere off to our right flank, and the answering tak-tak-tak-tak of a Bren, I spent a quiet and uneventful two hours. Throughout my shift not one shell or mortar fell in our area. Towards the last half hour of my stint on guard I was finding it real tough to stay awake, so when Hanley, my relief, came up to take over, I wished him the best of luck, wasted no time in idle chit-chat and hustled ass back to the company to get in a couple of hours sleep before stand-to. And that's when I got the news of what had gone on up there. Someone nudged me awake, and the first thing I heard was that Harry had shot himself in the foot. I couldn't believe it — yet I really could. "Was it an accident or did he do it on purpose?" I asked Forbes. "I don't know, but I think he did it on purpose," Gord replied. "Hell, he seemed okay to me when he took over," I replied. Vern Gooding, our very capable stretcher-bearer who patched Hanley up, arrived a little later seething in anger. He told us all about what happened. "The sonofabitch squealed like a stuck pig when I cut his boot off, and moaned like he was dying when I pulled off his bloody sock. When I wiped away the blood and saw that the .303 had only taken the skin off the inside of his big toe and the one next to it I felt like giving him a good belt to the side of the head." The result of all this? Our friend ended up being charged under the military act for a self-inflicted wound and was convicted, serving eight months hard labour. He came back to us up at Riccione just after we'd come out of the lines for a rest. Since I went to the hospital very soon after and never did get back to the regiment I never saw him again. I've often wondered how he handled himself in action in that last month of the war The Liri Valley Push

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up in northern Holland. I couldn't see him taking it any better than he did in Italy. It wasn't until mid-morning of the 27th that Major Harold Snelgrove's Baker Company was up and moving in their drive to the Liri River where they expected to launch an assault-boat crossing at Ceprano, but on reaching it they had to take shelter in a wooded area when a heavy artillery stonk came down on the proposed launching site. While they waited in this wooded area for the shellfire to lift, we were sitting in our shallow slit-trenches out in the open field under a baking sun, sweating and panting like dogs after a bitch in heat. I could see no reason for our sitting on our duffs, with nothing out there ahead of us to stop us—no smallarms fire, no shelling, no mortar-fire, not a damn thing to be afraid of. As far as I could make out from the narrow confines of my trench, it had to be only the people above us that were holding up the show. Not that I was brave and thirsting for action, but I thought this was one hell of a way to fight a war. When you've got the bastards on the run you stay right on top of them, not sit back and let them get away. While contemplating this irritating turn of events I saw a cloud of dust coming down the twisting, dirt road. It was a Lynx scout car, and in it was the unmistakable figure of General Bert Hoffmeister, OC 5th Armoured Division. The vehicle braked to a stop not forty feet from my trench. Standing in the little armoured scout car, Hoffmeister put his field glasses to his eyes and scanned the terrain in the direction of Ceprano. I took it that he came up here at the sharp end to see what the hell the bloody holdup was. Although I'd always held Hoffmeister in high regard, considering him to be a better division commander than Chris Yokes, I wished he'd get his ass to hell back where it belonged because I knew it wouldn't be long before Jerry'd spot him and start lacing us. And I wasn't wrong. Pretty soon the Skoda Works steel (from a munitions factory in occupied Czechoslovakia) started coming over as predicted. It took the mortar crews only a minute or so to zero in on target and start pumping bombs down those black tubes. Carrrrump, carrrrump, carrrrump, carrrrump — dark geysers of dusty soil shot skywards as they erupted in that deep growling sound that seemed so much more terrifying than the sharper bangs of the 75s and 88s. The first salvo dropped short of the scout car, close enough though, to give even the bravest a good scare. But damn it, Hoffmeister didn't so much as blink an eye—just stood there with those big glasses scanning the terrain ahead. "Why doesn't the sonofabitch get the hell outta here before he gets us all killed?" I said to myself as I peeked over the edge of my trench, hoping the general could read my mind. Whether he did or not I couldn't say, but no sooner had I 208

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mumbled it than the driver wheeled the scout car about, and in another cloud of dust took off for the rear, leaving us to bear the brunt of the following salvos. I could only imagine what happened when he got back to his command post. The first thing he had to have done was ring up our CO, Lieutenant-Colonel Lind, and blast him for not moving. And then ring up Brigadier Snow for the slow progress of the brigade. And then, no doubt, Snow raked our CO, Lieutenant-Colonel Lind, and blast him for not moving. Whatever happened, it sure got results. Less than a half-hour later we were up and on our way. "It's about goddamn time!" was the general feeling throughout the company. A day and a half wasted sitting on our lily-white asses when we could have been across the river and on our way through Ceprano. What an opportunity missed! Along the way we passed a Support Company-towed six-pounder and crew moving up with their weapon. Arnold Day, one of the coloured boys that joined up in Windsor about the same time I did, waved his arm in greeting to me. Five minutes later the gun's wheel ran over a mine and Arnold died in the blast. One minute alive, the next minute dead. You just never knew. While Baker on the right and Dog Company on the left within yards of the launching site for the assault across the Liri, trucks hauling the assault boats and bridging supplies arrived and at once came under fire of Jerry artillery. Eighteen Platoon, in the lead, waited in a deep cut in the road, sheltered from view of the town and OPs suspected to be on a knoll across the river to the left of the town. We could hear the trucks approaching somewhere just beyond the lip of the embankment above us, when all hell broke loose. Jerry OPs spotted all the activity and now commenced laying the shells in accurately and sharply. I couldn't be sure whether they were 75s coming in or 88s, but it didn't really matter. Both were lethal. I was still second man in line, right behind the section corporal. March discipline was still good. We were spaced at least ten yards apart. It took only the fifth shell, however, for me to realize that their trajectory was right over my head and that the impact point was no more than a few yards past the lip above me. In mounting fear I decided to abandon momentarily what I felt was the most dangerous place to wait. I figured that sooner than later one of the incoming shells would come down short and splatter me all over hell and gone. By backtracking a little ways I'd have a better chance to survive. I jumped up and hot-footed it back to a safer stretch of road, with no intention of going any farther. Halliday, from his knee-down position on the road some forty yards back along the column stopped me. "And where in the hell do you think The Liri Valley Push

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you're going, Scislowski? Get the hell back up there where you belong! Get your sweet little ass back there, do you hear me?" I stopped in my tracks and gave him an argument. "Yeah, I heard you." I shot right back at him just as loud as he hollered at me. "Don't get your shits in an uproar, I'm not taking off. Can't you fuckin' see what's going on up there? When the crap stops flying I'll go back, don't worry. It's my ass, not yours!" He didn't believe me. I could see it in his eyes. After I finished saying my piece I was so pissed off with Sine I couldn't think straight. And that's when I came out with what had to be the all-time childish remark, a comeback that no infantryman in the whole damn Canadian Army could likely have come out with in the same situation, but me. "Okay, damn it all, Sarge, I'll go back, but if I get killed it'll be all your fault!" And with that off my chest, I strode back to my original place in the column, madder than all get out, so mad in fact, I could've chewed bullets. Right then and there I actually hoped one of the shells would land smack in the road right where I was standing — yeah, right where I was standing! I'd show the sergeant I hadn't panicked. I was just playing it safe. In a silly and stupid effort to show him what kind of guy I was, I didn't even bother to lie down. That's how furious I was. That the sergeant, whom I looked up to as much as I did, should stoop so low as to accuse me of chickening out was like being cut by a dull knife. It took a couple of days for me to get over it. When it came time to cross the hundred-foot-wide Liri, it was found that only one boat was seaworthy. The rest had been holed by shrapnel or smashed altogether in the shelling. Baker Company broke from cover in small groups and under the spirited leadership of Major Harold Snelgrove, got the assault underway with efficiency and dispatch. At first it was thought that the crossing-site at Ceprano would be covered by machine guns set up in the ruins and intact buildings overlooking the water, but as it turned out, the Germans had pulled back from the river's edge and had set up delaying-action rearguards on the far side of town. Because there was only one seaworthy boat, ferrying the battalion across the Liri was drastically slowed down. Once Baker, however, had crossed, Snelgrove quickly organized his company and entered the debris-strewn and rubbled streets of Ceprano, prepared to fight a street battle as the Edmontons had in Ortona. The only opposition, thankfully, was spotty small-arms fire coming from several of the town's taller buildings. It took the company less than twenty minutes to work its way through Ceprano and reach Highway 6, on the far side of town, where they consolidated and waited for the rest of the regiment to arrive. Dog Company followed in the wake of Baker, breaking from cover for 210

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the short run down the road to the boat launching site, hustled along when Jerries began lobbing mortars into the general area. It was lucky for us the mortars were meant for the jam of vehicles back at the road-cut because the loading and ferrying of the platoons across the Liri went on unimpeded. The brave efforts of Corporal John Derrick of 16 Platoon made the D Company crossing possible: he retrieved the boat when it broke loose from the handlers and was about to be lost to the river current. Derrick plunged into the water, boots and all, and somehow, though his chances of drowning were high, managed to seize the boat and haul it to shore. Derrick got a Military Medal for his performance here. As I ran along the hard-top towards the launching site, hard on the heels of the section corporal, I kept my eyes on the buildings along the far shore expecting to see a weapon pointing out a window aimed at me. If there was, there was nothing I could do about it but just keep on running. And the next thing I knew, I was in the boat pulling hard at the oars with seven other guys. A man can't help but feel totally helpless when he's crossing a river in a little boat and he knows there's an armed enemy somewhere on the other side that might blow him out of the water at any second. It was a teeth-gritting two minutes steering and paddling our flimsy craft to the far shore, but we made it. The fact that we crossed that river without a shot being fired at us told me the Jerries had pulled back. How far back, we would soon find out. It was only after we made our way through the tangled streets, piled high here and there with the rubble of buildings blown down by our shellfire streets, that enemy rearguards took a few long-range potshots at us. It seemed that every time a rifle shot cracked around our ears we'd say it was a sniper. Had they actually been snipers, I'm sure there'd have been more than a few of us left behind on the pavement with bullets between our eyes. Snipers don't usually miss, not with telescopic sights on their rifles. It was the same with artillery—every shell that came our way was said to be an 88. Never a 75 or a 77 or a 105, but always an 88. You'd think it was the only artillery-piece the German Army had in its arsenal. Likewise with every tank we'd hear or see; almost always a Tiger tank, not a Mark III or IV or an SP gun, but a Tiger. It wasn't until we reached a T junction on the northern edge of town that we came under machine-gun and artillery fire. First, an MG 42 that opened up on us shortly after we emerged from the town proper itself. Seventeen Platoon under Bill Hider turned left to clear houses along the west side of the trunk of the T, while Frank Switzer's 16 Platoon entered a grassy field on the left where it formed up in the prescribed arrowhead formation for an advance upward towards a knoll a hundred yards The Liri Valley Push

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northeast. Although some small-arms fire erupted amongst the houses 17 Platoon were clearing, there appeared to be nothing going on in front of 16 Platoon making its way up the side of knoll towards its objective: a knoll capped by a beige, two-storey, classic Meditteranean house. In the upper window of the house, a sniper waited, while down below him in a superbly camouflaged post an MG 42 team were ready to open fire. Eighteen Platoon, covering-fire platoon under Lieutenant C.D. Hood, clambered up the eight-foot-high embankment along the road that formed the top of the T junction. Thus far, everything was going more or less according to plan, with hardly anything to suggest the enemy was about react. In fact, it was assumed that the enemy had picked up bags and baggage and were hightailing it down the Via Casilina on their way to Rome and points north. With 16 and 17 Platoons branching off to the left to do the jobs required of them, 18 Platoon gathered around a clutch of recently vacated enemy slittrenches, every one of them beauties of construction, something to marvel at. Every trench was at least five feet deep, with sides cut geometrically perfect. We stood there looking down at them in a sort of a daze, and then a silly bickering began over who should occupy which trench. I couldn't recall any of us ever putting our hearts and energy into digging trenches so precise in measurement and so reassuringly deep. And then, while we were involved in the great debate, a machine-gun from somewhere across the intervening low ground of the meadow, likely the one positioned on top the knoll across the intervening low ground, opened fire. Lancing streams of 7.92mm rounds ripped up the turf all around our feet, so close it was hard to believe that not one of us had been nicked. We scattered in a mad flurry of diving bodies in frantic efforts to get into one of these deep shelters. The trench at which I launched myself was already occupied by two of what had to be the fastest men that ever sought to save their skins. It surprised me no end, because all along I thought no one could touch me when it came to making it to cover whenever something like this happened. Since it was impossible to stop myself in midair, I came down with solid and punishing impact onto the back of the man on top, which force in turn drove him hard into the man below. Never had I heard such loud cries of anguish and pain, nor such vociferous condemnations and outright threats as I heard that afternoon at Ceprano. The guys beneath me weren't concerned one hoot in hell that I might get my ass shot off by the Jerry bullets snipping and snapping in the air just inches above my back. They were more concerned about the dead weight on their backs. Here I am, my very life on the line and the two beneath me are doing nothing but bitching and calling me every name they can think of, some downright vulgar ones, at that. 212

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Though I wasn't aware of it at the time, every one of the fellows made it safely to a trench except poor Smitty (J.H. Smith, a Toronto boy), who was the "odd man out." With every trench filled three deep, he crawled back and forth over the open bullet-swept ground trying to find some hole, any hole at all that he could crawl into. Bullets kicked up the dirt all around him yet none gave him so much as a scratch. What a charmed life he led! How else can I describe how he got through the incident without being shot to pieces, than to say it was nothing less than a miracle? As a last resort Smitty piled in on top of me. Like a piledriver he landed, his knees punching me in the small of the back where the not-quite-healed boils lined my belt-line. Now I added my own anguished cries of pain to those coming from below. But it was as nothing compared to what the guys beneath me were going through. They turned the decibels up a few hundred notches. While we moaned and groaned, and cursed to beat all get out. Hood, our recently acquired platoon commander, made an effort to locate the source of the fire. Up until now, none of us had anything much good to say about the sonofabitch. Right from the day he came to 18 Platoon to take Handford's place he was as miserable an asshole as any two-pipper could be. After a few days of his surliness and constant hectoring, a couple of the boys expressed their feelings: "He better not turn his back on me at the front because I'll plug him one but good!" Although Hood might have been every kind of bastard back at Castelnuova, he gradually changed his attitude towards us while we were up in the rocks below Monte Cifalco. In fact, I for one, got along better with this unsmiling gentleman than I thought possible. Our contempt for him slowly turned to guarded admiration. It was nothing special or outstanding that he had done up there, only that he listened to us and our concerns and even helped carry the rations and water to the forward platoons on occasion. Now, at Ceprano, here's this former asshole taking one hell of a risk, leaving the safety of his slit-trench to see if he can spot the MG crew firing at us. He sprung out of his trench and ran to a nearby chicken coop partly hidden by the drooping branches of a willow tree, dodging the streams of bullets now concentrating on him. I saw him go and saw the bullets chewing up the ground all around him, expecting to see him cut to ribbons. How he made it to the coop I'll never know. He climbed up on top the coop and stuck his head through the screen of willow leaves with field-glasses up to his eyes. Not ten seconds later, Hood caught a slug in the ass. Did he get hit when he turned around to jump off the coop or did someone do as they threatened earlier? I tend to believe the former. Our guys might have heartily disliked him at one The Liri Valley Push

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time, but I doubt seriously they would have resorted to plugging one of our own men. I don't think they were made that way. Hood was evacuated along with Frank Switzer, who took a mortar fragment in the eye. Switzer's war had come to an end, while Hood returned to the unit later on in the campaign, but ended up in another company. While all this was going on, 16 Platoon, cutting diagonally across the grassy field, came under small-arms fire and were taking casualties. The Jerry riflemen and the MG 42, firing out of positions set up in and around the big house on the knoll, had clear targets as the platoon worked its way across the coverless field. There was nothing for them but to go to ground or be wiped out. While they lay there without cover of any kind, a sniper picked off rusty-headed Bill Simpson and Jack Windover, one right after the other. Both were killed instantly. Finally, a Support Company Bren-gun group took up position on the flat roof of a convent at the C T' junction. From this elevated position they spotted the MG nest and proceeded to lay down accurate fire on it. Although it's not known whether they knocked it out, they kept the gunners' heads down long enough to enable 16 Platoon to pull back to the road and the cover of houses. While this was going on, those of us caught three-deep in Jerry slittrenches were able to climb out and after a bit of looking around, all had one of our own. Shrubbery and small trees growing out of the embankment in front of our trenches gave a poor field of fire for all of us. One of our Bren-gun groups was the only one able to have a decent chance at throwing some fire at the knoll, but I doubt they did any damage, since they were more or less firing blind. And then some time during that afternoon the question came up: where in hell are our tanks? The answer: they were back on the south bank of the Liri, waiting for the engineers to throw a Bailey bridge across. So there we were again, waiting for something positive that wasn't happening. Shortly after I got myself comfortable in a nice, deep trench at the embankment's edge, I heard someone hollering my name. I stuck my head out of the trench to see who it was, calling for me. It was Halliday, escorting two prisoners down the road. "Now, what the hell does he want?" I muttered under my breath. He saw me before I could duck down, and called out, "Get your ass down here Scislowski, I've got a job for you." Reluctantly and somewhat apprehensively I hauled myself out of my slittrench and went down the embankment. He was standing in the middle of the road with a couple of scruffy-looking Jerry prisoners, one a short, rather youngish lad (about seventeen or eighteen, I guessed), the other a tall, sturdy fellow with a glower on his sallow features. "Here's a Polack," 214

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Sine said, shoving the shorter of the two towards me, "I want you to get some information out of him. Ask him how many of his men are out there" — pointing towards the house on the knoll — "and what weapons they have. See what else you can get out of him." I couldn't speak six words in Polish, so how in hell did he expect me to extract anything useful out of the scared little sonofabitch? Just because my name ended in "ski" didn't mean that I could talk like one of them. Hell, the kind of Polish I spoke at home, only my mother, sisters and brothers could understand. The Polish lad had to be only five feet four, if that — a couple inches shorter than me. And he had a scrawny build, to boot. I knew I had nothing to worry about with this kid, but I wasn't so sure about the big guy. He had a mean look about him — all Teuton, all six feet of him, from his middleparted ash-blonde hair to his black, knee-high leather boots. He'd have to be watched. I was prepared to shoot him if I had to. Any sudden move on his part and he was a goner. Sine left the prisoners in my hands and took off for parts unknown. I motioned them into the house, not wishing to stand out in the open and be picked off by a sniper. Once under cover I started in on the so-called interrogation of the Polish lad. It was pathetic, a hopeless cause, a laugher. He couldn't make heads or tails what I was saying, and I couldn't for the world know what the hell he was blabbering back at me. First, I asked him in my crude half-English, half-Polish how many from his outfit were out there in front of us. I could see by his eyes and facial gestures that I wasn't getting through; it was all gobbledygook to him. He looked at me with a dumb, helpless expression on his face with every question I asked him. After trying a few more pidgin Polish sentences on him, I tried a little Italian, figuring he must have learned something of that language while he was in the country. This didn't work so well either. Since I could see all this was a hopeless venture I decided to inject the odd German word I'd picked up. With hands outspread, face blank, and a shrug of his shoulders, he indicated I wasn't getting through to him. I gave it all up as a lost cause. At this point I wasn't sure what to do next, so I made them take off their helmets and drop them on the floor. The German didn't like this and was slow to respond, so I had to show him who was boss and jabbed him in the gut with the muzzle of my rifle and pointed to his helmet and then to the floor. He was lucky I didn't have my spike bayonet on. He finally took his helmet off and flung it on the floor with a look that told me he'd kill me if he had the chance. I felt my trigger finger twitch. He didn't realize how close he came to getting a slug in the belly. I then ordered them to empty their pockets, acting as mean as I could. I didn't want them to start thinking I was a soft-hearted patsy, even though in a way that's what I really The Liri Valley Push

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was. I might have a temper when challenged, but meanness wasn't in my makeup. As I was going through the Polish kid's wallet, pausing to look at the family pictures therein, we were rocked back on our heels by a sudden sharp artillery stonk zeroing in on the T junction. Our house seemed to be the bullseye. Shell after shell screamed in, exploding with tremendous crashes in front, in back and on both sides. Though we were the eye of the storm, not one shell hit the house, which was incredible since there were so many landing all around it. As terrified as I was, I didn't dare let my prisoners know it. But I shouldn't have been concerned about this because both looked even more terrified. What a job of acting I did! Somehow, though I don't know how, I managed to keep from flinching and ducking every time a shell crashed outside the door. As for my prisoners, they didn't care to impress me with their coolness under fire; they threw themselves flat on the floor with their hands covering the back of their heads. It took a heck of a lot more self-control than I thought I could ever muster to keep me from joining them. The fact that I remained stolidly on my feet seemed to impress not only the prisoners, but myself as well. When all became quiet again, Sine Halliday returned, asking me if I'd gotten anything useful out of the boy, and when I told him no, he promptly ushered the prisoners outside and handed them over to one of the boys from Support Company who escorted them down the street towards the river. May 27 ended on an unspectacular note. We stayed right where we were instead of pushing on against what looked to be only spotty rearguard action. Any kind of aggressiveness on our part would have carried us through and well beyond Ceprano. But it seems our Corps Commander, E.L.M. Burns, assailed by doubts and fears of being cut off, was afraid for his infantry to go on alone. Meanwhile the 5th Armoured Brigade waited with growing impatience at the site of the crossing, waiting for the engineers to throw a bridge across. The engineers worked all night to build the span, only to watch with heartbroken dismay as the nose buckled and the massive framework plunged into the river as they tried to set it in place. If the average soldier could feel bitter frustration in trying to knock out a single pestiferous MG post, then one can imagine what it must have been like for the engineers — working all night long under intermittent artillery fire putting the bridge to together, only to have it collapse before their eyes. Some of the sappers, we were told, wept openly when the bridge tumbled into the river. It must have been obvious to General Burns by this time that the projected headlong rush by the Armour, sweeping all before it down the 216

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length of the Liri Valley, wasn't materializing. Traffic congestion on the one highway and the few secondary roads reached horrendous proportions, preventing certain units and formations from moving to where they were needed. And now, after the major Bailey bridge setback, there had to be considerable reshuffling of priorities in the use of the new bridge once it was in place. The British 13th Corps now had the priority over 5th Armoured Brigade which had to backtrack all the way to the Isoletta Reservoir to a bridge thrown across the Liri in 1st Division's sector. This was the long route, and as a result, tank support didn't arrive until near midnight of the 27th/28th, although by this time the opposition had more or less melted away. The bulk of the enemy forces facing the Canadians had pulled back to the rugged country around Pofi, a hilltop village that at once presented a formidable objective to the infantry regiment whose task it was to take it. British Columbia Dragoons tanks and the SP guns of the 98th battery of the 4th Anti-Tank Regiment, along with two companies of the Westminster Regiment began working their way through the close country of the Sacco Valley (an extension of the Liri Valley) in the early evening of the 28th for an assault on the town. Because of the extremely close nature of the country, cut through with narrow streams, gullies, sunken roads and a maze of twisting trails, the advance slowed down to a frustrating crawl. To make things even more difficult, enemy Pioneers had planted mines and booby traps wherever they felt they'd cause the most disruption and damage to their pursuers and slow the advance. The two tributaries of the Sacco River, the Fornelli and the Meringo streams turned out to be further troublesome obstacles in the force's progress. Heavy shelling of the crossing sites, along with the accurate fire of camouflaged and well-sited SP guns stopped the division in its tracks, knocking out at least three Shermans. All through this scrub-tangled region of crisscrossing hidden laneways and near-dry streams, the armour and infantry were scattered about in what could only be called a chaotic "mumbo-jumbo." In no way could it be described as an armoured juggernaut steamrollering its way through to Rome. In spite of the mass confusion, an improvement in the situation developed as the day wore on. In their panic to get away before they were overrun the Germans abandoned large stores of ammunition, and in many cases, weapons and wheeled equipment in working order. Our own advance commenced at mid-morning right after we quenched our burning thirst at a well and filled our water bottles. Once clear of the town we advanced in extended order through a tract of cane brake and then a farmyard, pushing on for a half mile across open ground in a path parallel to Highway 6. We halted at a tiny house close to the road The Liri Valley Push

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where we were told to dig in. So here we were again, seeing no reason why we didn't keep on going, especially since we were encountering no resistance. Halfway to the house we came upon a scattering of butterfly bombs, and were puzzled as to why they should be there. The bombs were designed to be dropped by low-flying aircraft in the immediate path of an infantry advance, but we hadn't heard the Luftwaffe in the last couple of nights. They were small anti-personnel bomb about the size of mediumsize jam jars with a crude but effective vane assembly to slow them when ejected from a canister at a predetermined height. Each canister held twenty-three of devilish little man-killers. They could be set to explode on impact, on delayed time or when handled, depending on the type of fuze installed. Dangerous babies—we were warned not to touch them. Just another example of the many fiendish weapons the Germans used to slow us up. He needn't have bothered in this respect since our own people back in Div. or Brigade were doing a splendid job of this, continually halting progress. Instead of getting all worked up about the new state of events, I passed it all off as another example of high-level blundering. But long after the war's end, through reading Nicholson's book With the Canadians in Italy, I learned the actual cause of this hold-up. It seems that British 78th Division had been given priority on the use of Highway 6, so we had to stop to let them through. The lead unit in the convoy had crossed the Liri on the new Bailey and was moving up behind us. We had just finished eating an especially delicious and satisfying makeshift dinner of stew concocted out of tomatoes and potatoes picked out of the garden at the back of the house, with cans of bully-beef, meat-and-vegetable and steak-and-kidney rations all lumped together and cooked up in an olive-drab mortar ammunition box. No one worried about the toxic red-lead we were ingesting. In those days we weren't educated in such things. After our plentiful feed we had quite a bit left over, but were loath to throw it away. We couldn't take it with us, so when we saw this convoy coming up the road from Ceprano, rather than throw the stuff out. we offered it to the Limeys in the lead jeep. They must have been really hungry because they accepted the invitation to dine without hesitation. In nothing flat it seems, half the Limeys in the convoy came running down the road with their mess-tins, like it was mess-call time. Forced to change our axis of advance to make way for 78th Division, we swung over to the left about a half-mile to a secondary road where we climbed aboard our Dodge three-tonners that I hadn't expected to be there, for the four-mile ride up to within a mile of Pofi, where we off-loaded to go 218

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on foot the rest of the way. We waited outside the town for one of our other companies to clear the rearguards out that were holding up the advance. The sound of small-arms fire told us our boys were at work, because most of the racket came from Brens. It was all over inside a few minutes, after which, Hughie Gresham, formerly my section commander, came striding down the hill from the town escorting twenty raggedy-assed Jerry prisoners They sure were a mean and surly looking lot, and made no effort to hide their anger and frustration at having been put in the bag. One tall, muscular fellow gave us a hateful stare as he went by, and then spit on the ground to show his contempt. He couldn't have known how close he came to being blown away with a bellyful of slugs fired from a half-dozen assorted rifles and Tommy guns. As it was told to me, Gresham's section had come under fire from this batch of Jerries, but only momentarily. With his boys following on his heels, Gresham dashed out from cover swinging a spade over his head like a man gone berserk and charged the position. On beholding this wildeyed madman rushing towards them, the Jerries lost all heart for hand-tohand combat and en masse threw their hands up in surrender. If that's exactly the way it happened, then Gresham deserved an Military Medal. But, as was far too often the case with junior NCOs and privates, his reckless act of bravery went unrecognized. Par for the course. Had he been an officer, it's almost a foregone conclusion that he'd have come away with a Military Cross. Minutes after the prisoners had gone by, we were up and moving, entering the town at first dark. We hurried along the empty street, weapons pointed at every doorway and shuttered window of the line of flats on our left, ready to open up at any movement, sound, or burst of gunfire. We had nothing on our right to worry about since there was only a low wall running along the outer edge of the road, and beyond that the ground fell away almost perpendicularly in a three-hundred-foot drop to the dark valley. Our eyes were fixed on the buildings to our left where the potential danger lay. We heard an occasional rifle shot, but couldn't tell where it came from, most likely from the rifle of a nervous trigger-fingered Perth. No time was wasted passing through the hilltop town, vigilance relaxing only after we were out of it and down in the valley on the far side. Shortly after we left Pofi behind we entered what looked to be either a wagon path or else a dried-up stream bed and were joined soon after by a couple of Bren carriers, the clatter of their tracks and the noise of their engine grating on nerves already frayed in the passage through Pofi. I, for one, felt like telling the sons of bitches to bugger off. But then, as they passed close by, I recognized, even though it was dark, that one of the The Liri Valley Push

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figures in the lead carrier was none other than the CO himself, LieutenantColonel Lind. That a man of his rank should be right up at the sharp end was a welcome surprise. I thought he'd be back somewhere around Ceprano. Later, when we were in Army Reserve at Caiazzo, he had pinned to his tunic, the medal and ribbon of the Distinguished Service Order, awarded for his leadership of the regiment in this action. In effect, we, the ordinary guys in the ranks won it for him. But what was there for us to show for these efforts? Not a damn thing! We might ridicule the Americans for their lavish issuing of medals — we'd say, "They come up with the rations!" — but in this respect, when a unit distinguished itself in a battle, it would have been nice if we in the ranks were given something to wear, like the U.S. Distinguished Unit Citation bar. It's only fair and right that the men who actually did the fighting should be recognized in this way. Our move through the night to the next objective, Arnara, took us along more sunken laneways overhung with tree branches, thence across shallow, pebbled creeks, past dark and shuttered farmhouses, and then uphill to what would, at dawn, be the launching point for the assault on the town. For all we knew, Jerries could very well be occupying the farmhouses we passed along the way. And for all we knew, we might even be walking into a trap. This sunken laneway was a perfect setup for a Jerry MG crew or two to cut us to pieces in the blink of an eye. Silence was of the essence as we slunk through this close countryside, muscles and nerves as taut as bow strings. Here I felt a different kind of tension than what I'd known up on the Arielli. This tension was more like what I felt as a kid, when on my way home late at night with a buddy we took a shortcut through Windsor Grove Cemetery. With the natural overactive imaginations of boyhood ruling our every thought we hurried through, half running, eyes darting left and right, afraid of ghosts springing up out of their graves to wrap us in their cold shrouds. In those last twenty or thirty yards we literally flew. So it was with me as we hurried past the foreboding shapes of mausoleumlike farmhouses, half expecting the worst to happen. But we arrived intact on the crest of a hilltop where we set to work at once digging in. We had our work cut out for us early the next morning. Arnara, across the valley on another hilltop not quite as high as the one we were on, was our target for the next day. We could only hope, as we went to sleep that night, that the advance on the town would be as bloodless an action as that of Pofi. The 29th dawned in clear skies and the promise of another sunny and pleasant day. We looked out across the intervening wooded valley and saw the hilltop town of Arnara, stippled by sun and shadow, a picture of serenity in a land scarred terribly by war. If there were Jerries in the town in force, I had the feeling they'd have done something drastic by this time. We 220

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let our guard down and walked about the hill as though we were back in Altamura, taking no precautions whatsoever against possible enemy reaction. We were lucky, however, this time, that nothing happened. Jerry was too busy pulling his forces back beyond Frosinone and on his way to Rome and beyond, afraid of being trapped by the Yanks moving eastwards past Valmontone. At 0700 hours came the moment of truth. Dog Company wended its way down into the valley along a pathway on the tree-covered slope, crossed the valley by way of a dry stream bed arboured with hanging willow branches and fifteen minutes later leaned into the thirty-degree slope as it climbed along a donkey path to enter the town, straight into the welcoming arms of a deliriously happy crowd of Arnara's citizens. It was the first, last, and only time I experienced such a welcome on liberating a town or village. And a most exhilarating feeling it was too, to look on these people lavishing gratitude and adulation as we marched by. It was the one time I actually felt like a hero. Although minuscule in comparison to what took place in Rome five days later, this reception was nonetheless an incalculable lift to the human spirit. Arnara was ours, without a shot. What a joy! What relief that it had been so easy! As we worked our way past the crowd of cheering townspeople and eventually reached Highway 6 on the northwestern edge of Arnara, we caught the backside view of the last German troops to leave as their vehicles barreled around a sharp bend in the road and were gone. Two days later, 1st Division took over, carrying the advance to Frosinone five miles up the road. The Canadian contribution to the defeat of the German 10th and 14th Armies in Italy had come to an end. Unfortunately and unfairly for us Canadians, we were denied the opportunity, and a very good opportunity it was, to be the first into Rome. In the politics of war, this honour was reserved for the Americans and the British. To them, we were only minor participants in the final act of the battle for Rome. While taking things easy in Anara, waiting for our next move, I thought I'd investigate the interior of the town's most prominent building, which, as in every other town of its size in Italy, was the church. I wasn't entering the church out of any special devoutness, I was only interested in seeing what I might find to add to my growing collection of souvenirs. The church had sustained some considerable damage, so naturally I assumed it had been abandoned. It hadn't. While I was busy rummaging about in some cupboards in an anteroom I was brought up short by a blackcassocked brother, or maybe it was the priest himself. He caught me redhanded, and I felt deeply ashamed for ransacking the holy place. With a The Liri Valley Push

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look of deep disgust on his face he waved me off, and though I could have told him to bugger off or else showed him a little more defiance, instead I went on my way like a puppy dog putting its tail between its legs, feeling as though I committed an unspeakable crime. Two days later in mid-afternoon on June 3, we marched out of Arnara in sweltering heat to a site a few miles away close by the stony bank of the Sacco River. So what was there better to do as soon as we set up our pup tents than to go swimming in the cooling depths of this river? Within an hour there had to be at least a hundred men splashing about the base of the dam, beside which was the inevitable grain mill. At the site along with us, hard at work along the river's stony shore were six or seven women scrubbing clothes, while all around them virile young men were splashing about naked and cavorting on shore — distracting the ladies from their chore not one iota, even though a couple were young and quite pretty. They just kept right on scrubbing clothes and whatnot, soaping them, dipping them in the river and then slapping them on the stones. Their indifference to what was going on around them amazed me no end. Being overly modest myself compared to most of the others, emerging to dry myself was the ultimate in embarrassment; I hurried past them to reach my clothing piled up on the grass. A blur of motion, that's about what I was as I went by, covering my privates as I ran. The presence of the women, however, didn't seem to bother most of the swimmers. They swam, splashed gleefully about, and carried-on in and out of the water with absolutely no sign of embarrassment or inhibition. As I walked up the dusty path on my way back to our tent lines with one of the guys in my platoon I was taken aback: coming down the dusty pathway towards us was this glamorous creature dressed to the nines. "Get a load of what's coming. What's she doing out here in the boondocks?" I said to my partner, "On the Via Veneto in Rome I can understand, but here?" My buddy replied likewise. I can't quite describe exactly what she wore, but memory keeps suggesting it was a black, pleated skirt, platformheeled black patent-leather shoes, nylons on her shapely gams, a white, sporty, below hip-length jacket with black hem and lapels, and a jaunty hat to match. This woman was out and out gorgeous — right out of Hollywood. As we were about to pass each other I said in what I thought was my sexiest voice, "Molte bella, signorina!" She gave me a wink that was enough to make a minister lay his Bible down. But then my balloon was pricked when another guy heading for a swim informed us that the beautiful babe was none other than the regimental female impersonator par excellence, Hugh Patrick. That man could outwoman a woman any time—no question about it. 222

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The next day, June 4, the momentous but expected news of the liberation of Rome came over the regimental radio. It was exciting, but somehow we received it with something less than wild enthusiasm, knowing that we should have been amongst the first troops to enter the city, toasted by the ecstatic Romans as conquering heroes. As far as we were concerned, we got shafted. But we didn't let it get us down for long. We were glad to be out of the chase and able to relax and enjoy the peace and quiet of the back-water of the front. Two days later came even more momentous news when we heard over the battalion radio that the longawaited Invasion of France had taken place. We knew for certain now that the Italian campaign would be relegated to that category known as the "forgotten front." The next day, in bright sunshine and high spirits, we were rolling south to a two month holiday as Army Reserve. Our absence from the battlefield would extend for such a long period; much longer than any of us could have known.

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CHAPTER 6

SPEARHEAD IN THE GOTHIC LINE

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ur long summer holiday had come to an end, a holiday as enjoyable under the circumstances as any of us could have ever hoped for. It was spent under the bluest of Italian skies in the relaxing surroundings of an English cherry orchard. Following the battle of the Hitler Line and the long thrust down the Liri Valley, the Canadian Corps, less 1st Independent Armoured Brigade, had passed into 8th Army Reserve and gone back to a rest area encompassing an extensive acreage of farmland in the Campania region below Cassino. The Perths set up camp a mile north of the town of Caiazzo. While the tank squadrons of the Three Rivers Regiment, the Ontarios and the Calgaries were still in contact with the slowly withdrawing enemy formations north of Rome on the approaches to the Arno, the 1st Infantry and 5th Armoured Division units were now taking things so easy that even training had been cut to the barest minimum. Recreation and rest was the order of the day, and we made full use of the opportunity. It was never far from our minds, however, that good times wouldn't last forever and that more battles awaited us somewhere to the north. There was some dying yet to do, some hurting to endure, and a hell of a lot of misery to put up with. I don't think very many of us dwelled for long on what might lie ahead; we wasted no time worrying about what the future might hold. For the present everything was fine and dandy and that's the way we liked it. No more going hungry, and plenty of water to drink. No 88s or mortars to fear, no ripping bursts of MG 42s, no trenches to dig.

Also, now we could walk about anywhere without fear of being blown skyhigh by a mine. They'd long since been cleared away and the land made safe for man and beast. Peace and quiet. How wonderful it was down in this little tucked-away corner of Italy out of sound of shot and shell! It was exactly what we needed to bounce back and start to enjoy life again. After only just arriving in our new campsite in the cherry orchard, instead of immediately setting up our tents, we were up in the trees gorging ourselves on the juicy and delicious fruit. It was only after I'd got a good bellyful that I found out every damn one of the cherries had a big, fat worm. That brought an abrupt end to our feast. With all the worms we consumed I thought for sure we'd be on sick parade or running to the latrine every five minutes with a case of screaming shits. But it didn't happen. In fact the worms might have done us good because they were supposed to be high in protein content. Except for a half hour of PT drill every morning and a few short route marches, we did nothing in the way of training for those first couple of weeks in June but go on swimming excursions to the Volturno River below Caiazzo, or the sandy beaches of the Mediterranean. We played endless games of volleyball, and took things easy in the shade of the trees — reading, writing letters or snoozing. Not long after arriving at Caiazzo a lot of the fellows got involved in selling off or bartering buckshee clothing and whatever other items we latched onto while on our passage through the Liri and Sacco valleys. Although the temperature often climbed well into the upper nineties, you'd see these guys in their nefarious activities sneaking off across country bundled up in several layers of clothing like it was the dead of winter, most of it destined to end up in the hands of the 'paisanos' thereabout. They were on their way to some farmhouse where they intended to do a bit of trading for uovas(eggs), spaghetti, vino, and if they were lucky, a roll in the hay with some signorina willing to do business for the goods. The newer khaki-dyed blankets, along with boots and blouses were especially in demand by the local farmers and villagers of Caiazzo. This underground trade got out of hand though, and an order soon came down from the upper reaches of command stating that severe punishment would be meted out to anyone caught selling or trading army issue. This warning merely succeeded in slowing business for a few days, after which it picked up again. Instead of the selling and the bartering going on out in the open, it went underground. Which brings to mind a humorous incident involving myself and Ken Topping, The both of us set out one bright and hot afternoon loaded down with buckshee shirts, blouses, socks and blankets, with hopes of returning with some eggs, or perhaps of sitting 226

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down in some cosy farm kitchen to a heaping plate of steaming spaghetti. To make sure we wouldn't be caught, we stole along a hidden cart-track bordered by trees and shrubbery and then made our way into a leafy glen where we came to a hill. From the top of the hill we looked down into a broad valley where we saw a farmer in his field plodding behind a harrow pulled by a long-horned Brahma cow. We decided he'd be our first potential customer. So we went down with our goods and stopped him at his work, a wizened little bugger, but with a brightness in his eyes that told me he wasn't the kind who would be easily conned out of anything more than he was willing to part with. He listened to our spiel and then examined the blankets and clothing we displayed. Since by this time I could converse in Italian well enough, I quickly made a deal for a half-dozen eggs in exchange for a blanket. Then Topping got into his sales pitch, "Hey, Mac, you-ah want-ah buy-ah pair-ah socks-ah?" The farmer looked at him with vacant expression, shrugged his shoulders in non-comprehension, and replied with a sort of embarrassed smile, "Niente capito!" Topping, looking somewhat perturbed, repeated his sales pitch, only slower this time, pausing after each word, "You-ah . . . want-ah . . . buy-ah . . . pair-ah . . . socks-ah?" Again, the embarrassed hint of a smile, palms forward, a shrug of the shoulders and "Niente capito!" A third time, now visibly irked, Topping enunciated his pitch, very slowly and with emphasis on each word. "Niente capito!" once more came the reply. At which Topping came pretty damn close to flying off the handle; "For fuck sakes! You dumb bastard! Don't you know your own goddamn language. What the hell's the matter with you?" By this time I was almost doubled-over laughing. Ken actually thought he was speaking Italian. Up until this time I'd never given a thought to the fact that the regiment, especially my own company, had become my second home. I soon came to realize how much it meant to me when I happened to spend a couple of days at 24th Field Ambulance Hospital. I went in to have a large boil on my knee lanced. After the MO lanced it and drained the infected matter I thought I'd be going right back to my platoon. Instead, I had to spend two days there being treated with sulfa drugs. This I didn't mind so much. But after the evening meal, when I heard the ambulance boys outside the tent having a roaring good time in a game of volleyball I realized how much I missed being with my own guys, whom, I knew, were also going at volleyball hot and heavy. The way I carried on that evening, moping about not being back with the platoon, it was like I was homesick all over again. How I yearned to be back with my boys! It showed me how much the regiment meant to me, especially my platoon. In the two months that the bulk of the Canadian Corps spent in army Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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reserve, the German 10th and 14th Armies had been pushed steadily northward more than two hundred miles. Unknown to us, in the first week of August the three infantry brigades of 1st Division broke camp, and within a couple of days had taken over positions along the south shore of the Arno River at Florence. At about the same time the 1st Division convoys were rolling northward, a major deception scheme had been set in motion. This was designed to mislead German Intelligence and their High Command in Italy as to the whereabouts of the Canadian Corps. According to the Germans, it was imperative for them to know the precise location of the Canadian Corps. They knew from experience that whenever the Canadians showed up at the front they could expect something special to happen. They well recognized the fighting qualities of Canadians, whom they looked upon as something in the class of "shock troops." For this reason their Intelligence people worked overtime to locate us. Captured documents at war's end revealed the high degree of respect German High Command had for Canadian troops. They felt certain all along that the main blow against their extensively prepared Gothic Line positions would more than likely be delivered by 1st Canadian Corps, so it was of immense tactical importance for them to have their very best divisions close by where they believed the big blow would land." From the moment the deception scheme was set in motion, security became of paramount importance. A signal went out to all units in the 5th Armoured Division with instructions to remove all identifying insignia, including division and regimental shoulder patches and hat badges. All unit serial numbers and tactical signs on vehicles and tanks were to be painted over and strict road discipline was invoked on convoys making the long trek northward to as yet an undisclosed destination. This meant no talking to civilians along the route, and no chocolate-bar wrappers or empty cigarette packages (or even butts) were to be discarded along the roadside. Secrecy was of the essence, and would be strictly enforced, on pain of punishment. Whether this could be achieved or not, was something that could not be foreseen. Lieutenant-General Oliver Leese and his 8th Army planners banked their hopes on this movement of the Corps being completed without detection by the enemy, although they were afraid that this might not be possible because of spies in villages and towns along the route. No one in the Perths knew what the final destination would be, although we had a strong feeling it might be somewhere in the vicinity of Florence, since we knew that 1st Division was back in business somewhere in that sector. Wherever 1st went, we could be sure 5th wouldn't be too far away. In those last few days before we broke camp we must have heard at 228

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least a hundred rumours as to where we might be going, every one of them falling into the category of "out and out ridiculous." One had us making a landing in Yugoslavia to join up with Tito's Partisans. Another one had us going back to the U.K. to join the other three Canadian divisions in the campaign raging there. Another one had us going in on a landing with the Yanks in Southern France. But the one that took the cake had us on our way back to Canada to train the large force of "zombies ," who'd been sitting on their asses back home, drawing the same pay as we were and doing little or nothing to earn it. All of these wild rumours kept us guessing and in a small way entertained. The first threat to security that we were aware of came shortly after our convoy pulled into a staging area a few miles below Rome. The breach came in the seductive forms of three attractive and well-endowed ladies out to make a few thousand quick lire. The three signorinas showed up only minutes after we pulled into the wide tract of meadowland where they soon were doing a thriving business in the tall grass. We couldn't help but wonder how in hell these dames found out we were coming here. They seemed to know a lot more than we did. Very quickly, though, the Regimental Provost came upon the open-air brothel and brought all the merrymaking to an abrupt end, much to the disgust of those not yet served. The shady ladies were promptly hustled off to a lockup somewhere in the hinterlands from which they most likely were not released until the big move had been completed and the battle was underway. Fortunately for us the close-kept secrecy of the whereabouts of the Canadian Corps had in fact been maintained to this point and throughout. The convoys arrived at their final destinations a few miles inland from the Adriatic near Ancona with the Germans still believing the Corps was encamped in the vicinity of the Valley of the Volturno and Piedmonte d'Alife. After passing through Rome's modern and noticeably tidier and more affluent eastern suburbs, our convoy came out onto a stretch of highway north of the city littered on both sides with the wreckage of a German army in retreat. The smashed and gutted remains of trucks, tanks, SP guns, half-tracks and artillery pieces lay strewn through the fields and ditches for mile upon sobering mile. The scene was a stark reminder of the destructive power our air forces were capable of unleashing on the enemy. Everyone in the convoy must have silently thanked God that we had the air power and not the Germans. Our second stop was on the shore of Lake Bolseno, about forty-five miles north of Rome, as beautiful a selection for a stopover as we could have ever hoped for. It was good to know that someone up in the upper echelons, for a change, had our good and welfare in mind when he selected Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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this spot for us to spend the night. There couldn't have been a more ideal place to end a day's hard, hot, and uncomfortable road journey. Besides the lake where we washed off the sweat and grime of the journey and exercised limbs numb from too long being cramped in one position, there was the added benefit of acres of ripened corn and watermelons within arm's reach to supplement our otherwise uninspiring daily diet. After a long and thoroughly enjoyable swim in the refreshing surf we were now ready to augment our unimaginative, bland and much-too-frequent meal of bullybeef and Limey meat-and-vegetable stew with a generous helping of boiled sweet corn and delicious watermelons — delicacies we hadn't tasted since we sailed overseas. We helped ourselves to both, much to the loud lamentations and protestations of the helpless and frustrated farmer. We felt sorry for the old boy, but we were hungry, and the goodies were there for the picking. That evening, shortly before midnight we heard the familiar beat of a German plane high above in the inky blackness of the star-studded sky. Thrum-thrum-thrum-thrum-thrum-thrum. There was no mistaking that peculiar unsynchronized beat of the twin-engine bomber, who we knew was up to no good, that the pilot of the aircraft was on the hunt for a juicy plum of a target, and we could very well be that target. The plane had to be fairly high up because no matter how we strained our eyes searching the darkness above, we couldn't pick him up. He droned overhead in wide circles for close to twenty minutes, making it almost impossible for anyone to drop off to sleep. As long as that plane was up there somewhere, there was no way we could relax. Did he know we were here? Were his bombs already on the way down? As long as the thrum, thrum, thrum of the engines sounded, we knew the Jerry hadn't given up trying to find his target for the night. What a helpless feeling it was to lie there on the open ground with no slit trenches, no ditches, nothing to give protection. What made our situation even more nerve-wracking was the fact that all around us were parked the battalion vehicles, a perfect target for the bombardier. The plane droned back and forth for at least another half hour before the pilot gave up and flew off to the north. Three minutes later, the crump of bombs in the distance told us the bomber had jettisoned his death-dealing cargo. Only now could we close our eyes and drop off to sleep. The bombs we thought fearfully might have been meant for us, were unloaded instead on the heads of some other unfortunate souls or, we hoped, on an empty parcel of land. As the convoy rolled on in a general northeasterly direction it was everyone's assumption that we'd soon be setting our gaze on the great Renaissance city of Florence — whose streets had once known the soft 230

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tread of Dante's sandals, whose art and sculptures were the envy of the world, and whose bridges, especially Ponte Vecchio, were famous to all who treasure the ancient in architecture. Our direction indicated as much. We'd been reading daily in the Maple Leaf about the fighting going on in the city between British troops on the south bank of the Arno and the Germans and Italian Fascists on the north bank, where the greater and more historically famous part of the city lay. It was a strange war, consisting of sniping and other small-arms fire exchanges. No one, not even the Germans it seemed, wanted to see this ancient city of magnificent art, sculpture, and architecture devastated by bombs and shells. Although I looked forward to seeing Florence, even in the state such as it was, in no way did I look forward to locking horns with the enemy in the kind of street-fighting the Edmontons and Seaforths did in Ortona. As it turned out we didn't get to see the great city after all. At the tiny crossroads village of San Quirico the convoy swung sharply in a southeast direction, and as the miles sped by we soon realized that a visit to Florence was not to be. "Now where in hell are we going?" I said to Gord Forbes sitting next to me. More than a few of us thought we might be on our way to an embarkation port somewhere on the Adriatic coast for a landing in Yugoslavia. A few surmised we might even be on our way to Taranto to catch a boat for Egypt. We most certainly didn't want this to happen because it would point to our eventually getting involved in the Burma campaign. As tough as it was in Italy, we much rather preferred fighting it out here than scrabbling around in the jungles contending with fungus diseases, leeches, scorpions, snakes, mildew, and suicide-bent Japs. In mid-afternoon of August 6 the convoy turned south, passing through the dust-covered streets of Castiglione del Lago, close by the western shore of Lake Trasimeno. It was here that in 217 BC Emperor Hannibal's Carthaginian Army defeated the mighty legions of Rome under Flaminius, a decisive battle in which some twenty-five thousand Romans were slaughtered. Very few in the convoy, I would venture to say, were aware of the history made here in that battle. Only the bookworms, who continued to enjoy ancient history long after our schooldays had come to an end, could have known the historical significance embracing this particular region of Italy. If any of the others in our company had any inkling as to what had transpired here many centuries ago, they certainly didn't show it. It wasn't until about 5:00 p.m. in the afternoon that we arrived in the gently rolling countryside just off the south shore of the lake, not far from the city of Perugia. We pitched our pup tents here for the night, and were on the road again bright and early the next morning, this time travelling in Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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an easterly direction. The great deception wore on as the convoy snaked its way through the city streets and then followed a southerly route, to where we came to the neatly laid-out farms in the flat countryside below the mountainside village of Spello near Foligno. Here we set up camp in garden-crop farmland as flat as that of my own Essex County. As with the farms around Kingsville, Colchester and Leamington, the land was fertile and intensely cultivated and efficiently managed. We expected a short stay, but ended up spending almost two weeks in the vineyard encampment overlooked by the four-thousand-foot height of Monte Subasio and the lesser heights of the Umbrian Appenines. A good part of the time in the next two weeks was taken up in sports activities, interspersed with some PT and the occasional short route march and hill-climb, a daily syllabus similar to that at Caiazzo. We played volleyball for the better part of each day. We wrote scads of letters, and did little else in the way of exertion except for one minor exercise — and a river-crossing scheme without the benefit of a river. It was a farce, a waste of time and effort and I doubt that anyone gained anything from it. We should have seen it coming, as should have our officers and the CO, that one day not too far down the road the bill would have to be paid for the soft life we enjoyed through the summer. The due date was just around the corner. We broke camp on the morning of August 20, the convoy rolling in stop-and-go fashion along the twisting highway northward through the rugged gorges and wild region of the approach to Fabriano. The direction removed all doubts as to our destination and future commitment. The rumour mill, which had been grinding away at an ever sillier rate since the cherry orchard at Caiazzo, finally stopped. We knew by this time we were on our way to the Gothic Line. There was no question about it, except, "Did the Jerries know?" That answer wouldn't be long in coming. It was easy to understand the letdown of hopes that we might be seeing the last of this war-wracked country. But it was useless to brood about it. All we could do was to accept the fact and let it go at that. I glanced around and saw the disappointment in the faces of the fellows in the platoon. You couldn't blame them for the way they felt, especially after some of the rumours going around had us on the way to other more preferable places. The concentration area of 5th Canadian Armoured Division was in the rolling countryside about fifteen miles inland from Ancona. Jesi, the nearest town, was out of bounds and patrolled by Canadian provosts to make sure none of our men entered it or mingled with its citizens. To maintain anonymity, the provosts even removed their own shoulder 232

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patches and hat badges. As far as could be ascertained through radio interceptions of messages between field units and General Vietinghoff's 10th Army HQ, the enemy hadn't indicated in any way that they were aware of the Corps5 move back to the Adriatic, or that it was getting into position for the one-two punch it would soon uncork. The deception plan had worked to perfection. After only a few days under fire on the Arno in Florence, 1st Division pulled up stakes and moved over to the Adriatic front, arriving in front of the Metauro River in the third week of August. The lead battalions were inserted into the line between the Poles on the coast and British 5th Corps on the left. Minutes before midnight on August 25, Canadian infantry crossed the Metauro River under a tremendous artillery barrage. It was close by the shore of this historic river that Hasdrubal's mighty Carthaginian army met the equally mighty Roman legions led by the consul Nero and suffered a decisive defeat in 207 BC. Following the deathstruggle of his legions and subsequent destruction, Hasdrubal's head was cut off and sent to his brother Hannibal's camp in the deep south of Italy. And now, twenty-two centuries later, another mighty army crossed the storied Metauro River — a battle in which the Canadians were not to be denied victory. While the Canadian Corps lay poised to strike across the Metauro on the evening of Aug. 25, formidable defense works awaited the Canadians on the Adriatic sector of the Gothic Line. The line stretched across the full breadth of the Italian peninsula from a point just south of Spezia in the west on the Gulf of Genoa to Pesaro on the Adriatic. The organization and the building of this "Appenine positio," as the Germans named it, began at about the time of the Anzio landing. But for some obscure reason, not much enthusiasm had gone into the work until the fall of Rome became imminent. It was only when the last German units were pulling out of Rome that the Todt Organization, Hitler's construction battalions, sped up work at a feverish pace to bring the line up to the specifications as drafted by the planners. The effort continued without let-up right up to the very day the first Canadian infantry appeared on the Ginestreto Ridge overlooking the Foglia River valley. On the front held by the German 10th Army which barred the way of the Canadian 1st Corps, the British 5th Corps, and the Polish Corps, were some 2,375 machine-gun posts and 479 anti-tank, mortar and SP gun positions. The assaulting battalions would have to fight their way past and through 3,600 reinforced dug-outs and shelters, and more than 16,000 riflemen's' individual weapon-pits. But even before the assaulting troops could come to grips with the solidly entrenched enemy they'd have to Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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traverse a vast minefield comprised of 72,000 anti-tank Teller mines, plus several thousand Italian wooden box mines. Buried also all through the flats were 23,000 "S" mines known to the infantry as "Bouncing Betsys" or "daisy-cutters." When trod upon, these mines would spring up six feet in the air and then explode, spraying hundreds of small steel balls, along with fragments of the canister itself in a full circle at high velocity. The results were deadly on exposed infantry. If these man-killers weren't enough to slow up or stop the attack, thousands of tiny Schumines buried under the loose soil of the flats were expected to hinder their progress. This diabolical weapon was nothing much more than a small, hinged wooden box about five inches square and three inches deep containing a quarter pound of TNT. It took very little pressure to make it blow, and when it did it almost always tore a man's foot off or mangled it so severely it required amputation. It was designed to maim rather than to kill. The only redeeming feature of this little mine was that its searing blast cauterized the arteries, veins and blood vessels so that bleeding was cut to a minimum, and a man in most cases survived. Beyond the minefield, which had been laid down in wide overlapping panels, more than 117,000 yards of barbed-wire obstacles interlaced the front, reminiscent of the World War I battlefields at Ypres and the Somme. Behind this was an anti-tank ditch fifteen feet across and ten feet deep, with almost perpendicular sides. This tank trap and infantry impediment had been excavated close up against the road that ran along the base of the ridge overlooking the broad and entirely bare fields through which our infantry would have to advance under small-arms fire. The deep anti-tank barrier extended across the front for nine thousand yards. All vegetation on the valley-floor, trees, bushes, hedges and vines had been cut down, and all houses and outbuildings except for two farmhouses and a long, low barn close by the Foglia River had been leveled to provide a clear field of fire for the German infantrymen manning ideally sited positions overlooking the wide killing ground of the flats. Why the three buildings by the river had been spared leveling, no one ever did come up with explanations. Had we known in advance what was waiting for us in the Gothic Line, I'm almost sure our performance would have been adversely affected for the simple fact that not one of us believed in suicide. And that's just the way it would have looked to us had we known the grim fact. "Ignorance is bliss", so the saying goes, and that spelled the difference between the spectacular success we achieved and something that might have turned out to be considerably less. The initial assault on the night of August 25 against the outer-works of the Gothic Line along the Metauro River had gone very well. The enemy, 234

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as tough and as disciplined and resilient as he ever was, put up stiff resistance as they pulled back to more defensible positions on the wooded knolls and hills stretching all the way back to the last ridge overlooking the Foglia River valley. Through astute use of ground features and their exceptional ability in putting to maximum use the comparatively lesser number of troops and weapons available to them, the enemy battalion and company commanders were able to slow the inrush of Canadian infantry. Strongpoints they had set up in and around scattered hamlets and farmhouses in the path of the oncoming Canadians did an outstanding job of preventing a major breach that showed every sign of developing. The first determined stand made by the troops of the 71st Infantry Division and the always-tough paratroopers of Heidrich's 1st Parachute Division came on the August 28 and 29 at the Arzilla River. The river itself, a mere ribbon of water bubbling between grassy embankments, was no obstacle to any attack. It was the adjacent spurs and ridges overlooking the approaches to the Arzilla, however, that gave the defenders an ideal tactical advantage which they used to maximum effect in fending off 1st Brigade's dagger thrust up from the Metauro. The superbly dug-in enemy infantry laid down heavy and accurate small-arms fire, and coupling this with outstanding mortar support, they slowed and then brought to a jarring halt the point Canadian platoons. Whenever the British tanks, supporting the Canadians, shot their way in close enough to these positions, camouflaged anti-tank guns and Panzerfaust teams knocked them out one by one. It was a close country of hillocks, shallow valleys, thick hedges and orchards, less than ideal for tanks. The attack petered out as 1st Division battalions found themselves butting their heads against strong enemy positions interconnected with the hilltop towns of Monteciccardo and Ginestreto on the right and Monte Carbone on the left. These towns were the major Strongpoints of the enemy defense system, barring the Canadian Corps advance to the main bastions of the Gothic Line. After the infantry's first bloody encounter with these formidable positions, the Desert Air Force was called upon to dive-bomb Monteciccardo and rake it with their machine guns in an effort to help the attacking infantry to close in for a final rush. The planes did an outstanding job strafing and bombing the German positions but their efforts went for nought when the battalion commander on the ground waited too long to deliver his own punch. When the CO of the Edmonton Regiment finally committed his companies some six hours later, the troops ran up against an enemy completely recovered from the battering they had taken earlier on and were met by withering rifle and automatic weapons fire which inflicted heavy casualties on the attackers. After this setback, it wasn't Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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until twenty hours later that the enemy was rousted out of his positions in the town. With this glaring lack of aggressiveness, a perfect opportunity to break the Canadians into the clear had been thrown away. It meant more "knock 'em down and drag 'em out" fighting before the battlewise enemy broke contact and hustled back across the Foglia River valley to their main positions on the high ground. The big drive that was to have carried the Canadian Corps all the way to the Po River in one mighty surge was already beginning to lose steam. Meanwhile, back in the rolling fields outside Jesi on the hot and muggy afternoon of August 27, all companies of the Perths gathered around a Jeep to listen to a short, but rousing speech by the new CO, Lieutenant-Colonel William W. Reid who had come over to the Perths from the Irish Regiment of Canada. The boys didn't like this newcomer taking over the outfit, when everyone felt old "Butterballs" Andrew (our second in command and a Stratford citizen) should have been moved up to full command. My first impression of the new CO was that he seemed to be a reasonably nice fellow, but like every other high-ranking officer I had thus far listened to on these pre-battle briefings, the new boy sounded like a high school football coach whipping his team up for the big game, with all that rah-rah stuff. We'd heard it all before, and fancy rhetoric didn't sit well with us. Reid predicted that within a fortnight we'd be riding the watery streets of Venice in gondolas, and although we wanted to believe him, we were decidedly more skeptical than convinced that this would happen as easy as he made out. The high brass in every army had a tendency to make everyone believe an operation was going to be snap, but things more often than not didn't turn out that way at all. Yet as Reid rambled on, I think most of us were beginning to believe him. To do otherwise was to be stamped as pessimists, and no one had to remind us that pessimists rarely if ever put on a good show in battle. So, when Reid said we'd be riding in gondolas in a couple of weeks, damn it, we had to believe him. The following afternoon, Aug. 28, the Perths geared themselves up for battle. And surprisingly, to a man, we were in an upbeat frame of mind. Company after company hitched up packs, shouldered weapons, and adjusted webbing, and then we were on our way, heading in the direction of the Metauro River only a couple of miles away. Somewhere not far beyond the river 1st Division was fighting its way against spotty opposition. We could hear the sound of small arms — first the fast ripping sound of the MG 42, then the slower, deliberate tac-tac-tac-tac of the Brens coming in short bursts. Otherwise the battle-sounds were minimal, nothing to what we expected to hear. 236

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Ahead of us was a thirty-five-mile route march, such as we'd never known before. It wasn't necessarily the terrain that was so hard on us, but was the tempo of the march and the blazing midsummer sun that extracted almost every last ounce of strength and will to carry on. Within the next twenty-four hours we'd find out whether we had what it takes to go the full shot, or be quitters. We hadn't gone two miles when the high heat of the August sun began to take effect. Sweat dripped off our foreheads in a steady stream, brought on not only by the heat absorbed by our steel helmets, but also by the pace of the march. Whoever was up at the head of the column was clipping along too fast for our liking, and it took a lot out of us just to keep up. And that's when the cursing and the complaining got going. "What the hell's the bloody hurry?" someone behind me rapped out, and then more voices began to echo rude sentiments. They came thicker and faster by the minute. "I'll shoot the sonofabitch if I ever get my hands on him! I'll cut his balls off, the bastard!" By the time we'd gone five miles a few of the fellows started dropping out by the wayside. They'd gone as far as they could go. The summer-long period of minimal training was beginning to show. Legs and lungs that had been brought to tip-top shape through daily PT, route marches, crosscountry treks, hill-climbs, and all the other means by which an infantryman builds up stamina, had been eroded by the relative inactivity of our summer's respite from battle, and now we were paying for it. Our boys were falling out not only because their legs couldn't take the strain of keeping up, they were falling out because their lungs were burning up. The ninety-five-degrees Fahrenheit, heat had gotten to them, and to the rest of us straining to keep up. Sweat poured down our faces, soaked the collars of the denim we wore, and the constant rubbing of the coarse, salt-laden cloth against our necks chafed us something terrible — but there was nothing we could do to ease the irritation except swear and keep on going. Why we were going into battle wearing denim trousers and full blouses instead of shorts and bush shirts, I'll never know. But even had we been so garbed I doubt whether it would have mattered all that much. Another couple of miles of "pick cem up and lay cem down" and our blouses were ringing wet and reeking in salt-saturated sweat-salt that our bodies were being depleted of, salt so necessary in the proper functioning of a body under extreme stress and heat. It was no wonder some guys fell out. A thick layer of dust, as fine as talcum powder, swirled upward like white smoke from under our boots. It settled into the corners of our mouths, and with every intake of breath the dust built up in the mucous of our nasal passages and coated the soft tissue of our throats. Breathing came Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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in laboured gasps, and all along the way it was a spit, gag and cough affair. Sweat dripping off our foreheads ran into our eyes and blurred our vision. And to make matters worse, salt in the sweat mixed with gritty dust irritated our eyes to such a degree that we had to constantly use the water in our canteens to wash it away. A steady demand for water brought on by extreme thirst, rinsing out dust contaminated mouths, and washing out our eyes had soon drained our water-bottles dry. Had it not been for the wells in farmyards that we passed along the way where we filled them during the hourly five-minute breaks, we'd have been in deep trouble and I doubt any of us could have kept going for much longer. Our minds, dulled by the furnace heat of the blazing sun and the monotony and weariness of lifting what felt more and more like leadweighted feet, stride after stride after stride in a march that seemed to be taking us nowhere, were not that far off from the edge of delirium. In my case, and probably in everybody else's, the only thing that kept me going was the fact that as long as the man ahead was on his feet and moving, so would I. He literally carried me. My steps, however, were more that of a robot rather than of a human being. The countryside through which we were passing no longer held any interest for me. Everything had become a blur of farmhouses, trees, vineyards, low hills and saucer-like valleys on the periphery of my vision as my burning eyes remained fixed alternately on the heels and the back of the man ahead. Only the muted sound of desultory gunfire from somewhere ahead of us nagged at my almost comatose mind. As the long shadows of evening slowly crept down the western slopes, the column thankfully came to a halt at a communal fountain hidden from enemy observation by a ridge topped with picturesque umbrella pines and cypresses. Had we not been moving up to do battle I'd have loved to pause here for a longer while to enjoy the scenery. The fountain, fed with crystal-clear cold water from an underground stream, was soon alive with naked bodies, shouting, laughing, splashing and dunking in the cooling depths. The fever and pains brought on by our physical exertions on the march were soon washed away, and it was little short of amazing how quickly we could recover and feel fit enough to go another twenty miles—or so we thought. Just as we were getting into the swing of things, the whispering rush of a heavy calibre artillery shell came to our ears, and everybody stopped moving and became statues, coming to life only after it had passed overhead and crashed with an uncommonly loud and reverberating bang on the long incline we had marched down not a half hour before. Three more shells followed, and each time we heard one on its way, all activity in 238

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the pool stopped until it hit in an echoing blast on the same slope where the other had landed. After the third fell somewhat closer, the pool emptied in a flash except for a couple of braver but less wiser souls who chose to stay and take their chances. As for myself, I abandoned the pleasures of the cooling water seconds after the first shell came over. After towelling myself down and dressing in record time I ran for the relative safety of a deep slittrench that an earlier occupant, quite likely a German, had dug out of the side of a nearby embankment. There's one notable skill I acquired early on in the campaign and that was my uncanny ability to find a hole to dive into when danger became imminent. I had it down to a science. The much-needed rest lasted no more than two hours in which time we were able to get some shut-eye. At midnight we were on our way again, the two hours having passed as though they'd only been minutes. The night was so black, it was hard to see your hand at arm's length from your face. So you could imagine what it was like to have to march without walking up the backside of the man ahead. And that's just what happened all night long — we were forever walking on the heels or into the backside of the guy ahead. Never heard so much swearing; it's a wonder the Jerries didn't hear us moving up. Then another problem developed. Whoever was at the head of the column apparently had lengthened his stride, because the pace picked up noticeably. Now we were really pushing ourselves to keep up. In fact we were almost into a near-jog. It went something like this: walk faster, break into a run a few paces, walk again, jog five or six paces, walk. It was like this all the way right up until the first light. And if the night had echoed to vehement shouts because of people walking up each other's backsides, now the profanity got louder and more frequent as everyone in the trailing companies practically sprinted to keep up. To add another dimension to our problems during the night's march, we came to a point along the route where a twenty-five-pounder battery, off the side of the road and invisible to us in the darkness, opened up in a sudden heartstopping shoot. The gunners pulled the lanyards at the very moment my platoon was passing in front of the guns. They couldn't have been twenty yards off the side of the road when they let loose in earsplitting bangs and blinding flashes. With hearts racing, we hurled ourselves in a wild flurry of arms and legs into the roadside drainage ditch thinking a salvo of enemy 88s had zeroed in on us. The fright lasted no more than a few seconds, when the flash from the next salvo revealed the battery on the east side of the road. With relief, but with heart still beating faster than normal I climbed out of the ditch along with the others in the platoon and hurried off into the darkness to catch up to the column. Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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It seemed like we'd been marching forever and that the night would never end. When morning finally came, we got the bad news that we had some way to go yet. How far? No one could say for sure. The scenery looked to be not unlike that which we had been passing through since we started out; low, round-topped hills and ridges on both sides of the road, shallow saucer-like valleys, vineyards and olive groves, farmhouses and haystacks and longhorned Brahma cattle grazing in the fields. But there was something different here. There was no sign of human activity. Not a soul could we see anywhere. No one was out working in the fields. No one was out tending the cattle. No one walked about in the farmyards. A few chickens pecked away at the ground here and there.. .and that was all. Nary a soul to be seen anywhere. Where had all the people gone? On one of our all-too-brief rest stops, Thomas and I poked our heads inside a deserted farmhouse right up against the roadside. The place was a shambles, as though someone had gone berserk and turned everything upside down. Pots, pans, dishes, clothing, family portraits, religious icons and a hundred other items lay piled in a heap or scattered about all over the house. Somebody, either enemy troops or our own, had ransacked the place. We poked momentarily amidst the debris hoping to find something worth taking along, but came away with nothing. We filled our canteens at a well just outside the door and were on our way again. Across the valley about a mile away, a bald ridge cut across our line of march. We could only guess that the Seaforth Highlanders and the Loyal Edmontons were up there somewhere and in contact with the slowly backpeddling enemy. The sound of intermittent small-arms fire indicated this. We could hear the all-too-familiar high speed bursts of the MG 42s, followed immediately by the much slower tac-tac-tac-tac of the answering Brens. Mortar and artillery fire was strangely absent, most likely because of the presence overhead of Desert Air Force Hawker Hurricane fighterbombers circling in search of likely targets. Any Jerry mortar or gun crew that had the audacity to man their weapons became instant prey for these planes to pounce upon. It was at once apparent to the Canadian infantry that if we did not have the kind of air-support and dominance of the skies, things would have been considerably rougher for us. At this point we had come to the last leg of the forced march, a distance of some thirty miles as the crows fly, which in reality was closer to forty miles due to the many twists, turns, and switchbacks we'd taken. It had thus far been a tortuous march in darkness and the blazing heat of a late August sun, a series of climbs and descents that came close to exhausting every last ounce of energy that remained in my sore tried body. I wasn't for more of the same. 240

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In the course of a short halt, Jeeps arrived with our breakfast of corned-beef sandwiches lavishly laced with thick swabs of waxy, almost indigestible margarine. Although corned-beef, the Argentine Fray Bentos canned variety never did win a popularity contest with me or anyone else, on this occasion it was a feast for the Gods, wolfed down with eagerness born out of sheer hunger. It was hard to believe that such a drastic change in our taste towards such unpalatable food could ever come about. But then, when you're ravenously hungry, you're hungry and everything tastes good. What really hit the spot was the piping hot tea—a real pick-me-up. While we were milling about on the road munching away on sandwiches and sipping at tea, a three-Jeep detachment of Saskatoon Light Infantry mortar crews rolled up and tried to press through the crowd. The SLI sergeant in charge grew furious and began shouting. This only made us more determined to stay put. We were pretty well damn tuckered out and hungry and weren't about to be bullied by a three-striper from 1st Division. An argument developed between the sergeant and Captain Sammy Ridge as to who had the right of way, and both were going at it hot and heavy, jaw to jaw, nose to nose, eye to eye. It looked like one or the other was about to unload a roundhouse right. Somehow, through all the hollering and gesticulating, good sense prevailed, with the sergeant managing to convince Ridge that his detachment had been called upon by one of the infantry battalions to give emergency mortar support in their attack on an enemy-held ridge straight ahead. And with this truce, Sammy waved us off to the side of the road to let the SLI jeeps get through so the crews could do their job. By noon of August 29, the second day of our march, the Perths were strung out for miles on the dust choked road stretching back over hillocks and down valleys. Man, but was it ever hot! Steel helmets by now had become brain-baking ovens. Pack straps had taken on knife edges, cutting sharply into aching shoulders. Thigh muscles strained at every incline, and feet throbbed from the pounding they'd been taking over the past twentyfour hours. When the column turned off the road and moved across farmland, we assumed everything would be easier from here on in. It wasn't. Although we had less dust to contend with, we faced another torment. Brambles tore at our knees. Potholes, field stones, and erosion ruts on the slopes added another dimension of discomfort as we plodded sullenly and bleary-eyed towards the sounds of battle, now little less than a mile away. My boot caught on a hidden root, pitching me flat on my face, and for the first time I swore like only a Cape Breton Highlander can as I dragged my bruised and bone weary frame off the ground and lengthened my stride to catch up to my section. I cursed the army. I cursed the officers. Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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I cursed my NCOs and I even uttered a few choice words of profanity up to God for having chosen the infantry to serve in. When we thought we'd be allowed to take a ten-minute break, we found ourselves leaning into yet another scrub-covered slope. I heard someone behind me cry out in mock anguish, "Oh no, not another jeezly hill! Damn it to hell anyway! I'll never make the sonofabitch!" Then suddenly it was all over with. The long march had finally come to an end. We dragged our dehydrated and aching bodies over a low concrete-block wall just outside the stuccoed and jammed-together buildings of Ginestreto and flopped down onto the pavement panting like we'd just run an 880 yard dash. Those of us who toughed it out every foot of the way and who were lucky enough to survive the coming battle and the war will always be able to look back on this march with a flush of pride. As for myself, I've always looked back on it as a personal victory of sorts, not a great and glorious act of bravery deserving of a medal or even Mention in Despatches, but a victory nonetheless. The sad part of it all, whenever my memory takes me back to that two-day march, I can't help but think of those boys who'd gone all the way and felt good about what they had faced up and won but didn't live long enough to enjoy the memory of it. Some, in fact, didn't live through the first hour of the attack that would be underway the following twilight. With our arrival on the Ginestreto ridge overlooking the Foglia River valley, we had our first glimpse of the hills and valleys where the enemy waited in deep dugouts, trenches and armoured cupolas. From our vantage point we couldn't detect any signs of fortifications or gun positions, although we knew they were there. The Jerries were masters at the art of camouflage. We saw nothing on the flat land between where we stood and the slope beyond that looked like bunkers or trench systems. Neither did we see any movement of troops or vehicles. This gave us some faint hope that perhaps the Germans had indeed gone all the way back to the Po. Our approach march wasn't supposed to have ended at Ginestreto, but was to have carried us on across the thousand yards deep flats and into the Gothic Line proper. At this stage of the offensive, it looked to Corps Commander, General E.L.M. Burns that the enemy hadn't been able to rush up enough of his reserves to man the Line in the strength needed to hold off the Canadian drive. He at once thought it might be possible to push the infantry across the low-lying flatland into the hills beyond and gain firm lodgement before the bulk of the enemy forces could rush up and confront us with a real problem. In effect, he felt we had a good chance of "gatecrashing" the Line. Fine and dandy! But he hadn't taken into account the exhausted state of llth Infantry Brigade after the long march. The 242

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battalion commanders doubted the ability of their men to do the job in the light of their extreme exhaustion. Bone weary men cannot and should not be called upon to fight a battle that required well-rested troops. For this reason, Reid requested a twenty-four-hour postponement of the attack. The Corps Commander concurred, and the Perths, along with the Irish Regiment and the Cape Breton Highlanders, stood down. The minute we heard the good news you could almost hear the collective sigh of relief. Not only were we physically exhausted, we were also in desperate need of sleep, having had no more than two hours in the past thirty-six. A wise decision. Had the companies not been given a rest, the outcome of the battle very likely might have come out entirely different from the overwhelming victory it turned out to be. Exhausted infantry rarely win battles. With most of the town's inhabitants having flown the coop, there were more than enough sleeping accommodations available. Although the summer night was warm and absent of mosquitoes due to the altitude, few chose to sleep beneath the stars and the refreshing night breezes. A roof overhead and sturdy walls between us and enemy shells lobbed or thrown our way was far preferable to fresh air. After all, the Jerries did have a nasty habit of plunking mortars down on top of us from time to time, especially when we least expected them. So it was only natural that we should choose to spend the pleasant summer night indoors rather than outside listening to nightingales serenading us into slumber. No matter how often we had it hammered into our heads in lectures, on exercises, and at the front on how much safer a slit-trench was when one comes under fire, we were never quite convinced. It seemed we always gravitated to the strongly built farmhouses or any building that still had a roof. The feeling prevailed: "Just give me a roof over my head and four strong walls. I'll take it before a slittrench any day!" And that's the way it was with us on Ginestreto Ridge. A good part of 18 Platoon found an ideal spot to bed down for the night. It was in a tiny chapel halfway down the forward slope where we spread our blankets on the ceramic-tiled floor in front of the altar. Behind the altar and on the walls were the usual pictures and icons of Roman Catholicism. Although I had never embraced religion in terms of attending Sunday church services back home (unlike a fair number of my comrades-in-arms), I was aware of the holiness of this sanctified shelter. As I lay my weary body down on the two blankets barely cushioning me from the hardness of the floor, I looked up at the icon of Jesus on the cross. I murmured a short prayer asking Him to watch over me in the hours and days ahead in the battle we were about to fight. I prayed in my unpracticed way for whatever mercy he might bestow on me in the fearful Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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moments that I knew I'd shortly have to face. It was a good guess that the others bedded down on the floor around me were doing the same, each in his own way. However crude my own prayers might have been, they were every bit as fervent as were those spoken to God in the proper manner of prayer. It was the first time I prayed with heart and soul. Anything before that was merely a mumbled plea. I'd always held the opinion that far too many of our boys put altogether too much faith in prayer to bring them through the hell of battle safely. When I observed that the devout Christian died in about the same numbers as those who put little or no faith in prayers, I questioned their usefulness. I didn't think God favoured one boy over another. Early on the evening of August 29, a three-man Scout Platoon recce patrol led by Lieutenant D.L. Thompson, crossed the stony bed of the Foglia River and made its way up the gravelled road all the way up to the anti-tank ditch at the far end of the flats without drawing fire. This road was to be the centreline of 11th Brigade's thrust. The absence of opposition indicated one of three possibilities: Either the Germans had decamped, or their battle-groups had not yet taken up station in the many positions facing the Canadians, or those who were already in position on the heights had seen the patrol's approach, but held their fire with intention of drawing a much larger target into their sights. If it was the latter, then it made good sense and was far more important to them to snare an entire battalion in the kind of killing-ground their Todt Organization had so cunningly and efficiently crafted, than to wipe out a four-man patrol. The patrol returned with the assumption that the line was ripe for the taking. As events turned out, they were right. The Line was not yet fully manned, although at the time, no one could be sure that it wasn't. Early the next morning after first light, . Reid himself, in company with Lieutenants Thompson and Henderson, boldly crossed the Foglia to recce the regiment's intended route in the attack slated to go in late that afternoon. Waiting to go into battle sure plays hell with an infantryman's nerves. Any footslogger'll tell you that. No sooner did word come down the pike that we were on one hour's notice to move than every organ in our bodies switches into high gear, especially the bowel and the kidney. The respiratory rate and heartbeat also picked up speed. Worst of all, there was still time to sit down and do some serious thinking — maybe a little bit too much. Nothing's funny anymore. You look around at the drawn faces and haunted looks and you know that it's exactly the way you must look to your buddies. In a way, it can be the worst hour in a man's battle experience. Once committed, however, the somber thoughts evaporate and you begin thinking of how you're going to get through this thing. You're scared, but 244

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you're still in control. There are those, however, who don't have what you have, so their nerves give out very soon into the battle and they end up having to be evacuated as Psychoneuroses or battle exhaustion cases For all of that sunny and stifling August 30 we'd been taking things easy waiting for the word that would send us across the valley flats into the heart of the German defenses. Though we knew that the wait wouldn't be long, for the fateful word that would send us into battle again, morale was surprisingly in good shape. Every man had his own way of fighting off tension and nerves. Those who loved their vino had no trouble finding it. Whether it helped to ease their concerns I wouldn't know, being not much of an imbiber myself. Others prowled the streets of Ginestreto on the hunt for female companionship and a roll in the hay, always a pleasant and popular sport, though healthwise, a dangerous pursuit. Then there were guys like myself who preferred to nose our way about the area ever on the lookout for loot, civilian, military, whatever. I just loved rummaging around, an eternal pack-rat. All too often at the front I'd go into houses with such gusto that no one cared or dared to be anywhere near me. They knew only too well what could happen to me and to them. Yet for all the warnings and curses my buddies unloaded on me, this irrepressible need to go prowling around at the front, throwing caution to the wind, took my mind off things. As long as I was preoccupied poking around through dresser drawers and kitchen cupboards, or picking my way through bits and pieces of enemy equipment left behind in dugouts, I'd have no time for morbid thoughts. Behind the chapel, Thomas and I came across what looked to be a breadwagon van left behind by the Germans. It carried a load of mortar bombs and odds and ends of personal gear. No one dared climb inside to see what else there might be in there; they knew the van or contents could be booby-trapped. I climbed inside anyway. Only my sidekick Walt Thomas accompanied me. Again we were lucky — no booby-trap, but we found nothing of trade value or that would be useful. All that day it was strangely quiet on the ridge, so quiet one would have to think the Germans had pulled up all stakes and hit the road for distant points north. Not so much as a single mortar bomb or shell landed on the ridge all that day. Emboldened, we moved about freely, foolishly forgetting what had happened to Baker Company on the Winter Front. Most hadn't even bothered to dig slit-trenches, and those that did, dug down no more than a foot, only enough to get below ground level. By the look of things, you'd think the war had ended. At mid-morning came the ominous drone of many engines, not tanks, but aircraft. We looked to the south and saw squadron after Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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squadron of medium bombers in loose V echelons at an altitude of no more than eight thousand feet. I couldn't identify them as Mitchells or Bostons, but someone more knowledgeable in aircraft recognition said they were Baltimores. "Never heard of them." I replied. We thought they might be on their way to bomb the big manufacturing cities of Milan and Turin north of the Po, but when they were directly overhead we saw the bomb bay doors open, and seconds later saw the strings of bombs on their way to the ground. For an instant we froze, thinking the bombs were coming straight down on top of us, then with relief, saw them erupting in the flats in four parallel rows of mammoth clouds of black smoke and brown soil. It was the most awe-inspiring sight any of us had ever witnessed. It was a strange feeling to be standing there in the bright and glorious sunshine like casual spectators at a ballgame, while not two miles away the valley flats shuddered under the thunderous impact of heavy bombs exploding with devastating fury one after the other, throwing up monstrous clouds of smoke and dusty soil. It was as though a colossal pair of hands had seized the ridge on which we stood and shook it like someone sifting ashes. Now we had a fair idea of what an earthquake had to feel like. Even before the echoes of this man-made storm had faded, a second wave of bombers arrived on the scene and commenced to unload their 250 and 500 pound bombs, this time on the high ground across the valley. Ours were ringside seats at the bombing of the Line, as gripping a show as anyone would ever want to witness. While watching the spectacle I found myself feeling sorry for the poor bastards across the flats, hunched up in their slit-trenches and dugouts, hands clamped to their ears, terrified out of their wits as the world exploded all around them. It wasn't something I'd wish upon anyone, not even the enemy. But I had to admit, if it had been the other way around, with the Luftwaffe having mastery of the sky, we could be sure the enemy pilots and bombardiers wouldn't have hesitated to do the same to us. Very little flak went up as the planes made their bomb runs, and none were hit. As they turned to go back to their bases at Foggia they left behind a heavy pall of smoke and dust cloud that cloaked the flats and the high ground beyond for a good half hour afterwards. When it cleared enough for us to see the hills and the ridge on the far side we were surprised to see everything looking much the same as it did before the bombing. The huge craters the bombers had created on the flats and amongst the camouflaged defense positions were not discernible from where we stood. We saw no movement of personnel or vehicles of any kind, not even ambulance evacuating wounded, which made us wonder if there had in fact been any troops actually holding the line. From what we 246

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could surmise, either every last one of them had been killed or they'd gone deep into their underground bunkers the moment the bombs were on their way down. Although the line appeared to be deserted, it was in fact populated just enough to cause trouble and grief to our lead companies. Even though the German units had suffered casualties, most of the infantry had escaped death and injury because the greater number of bombs had fallen on the unoccupied flats instead of on their trench systems and dugouts carved out of the ridge. About all that the bombing accomplished was the destruction of a couple of hundred mines. Otherwise, the Gothic Line was left very much intact. The only saving grace for us in the impending assault was the fact that the Line was inadequately manned. At 4:30 p.m. on the hot and muggy August 30, both Canadian Divisions, Chris Yokes' 1st Infantry on the right, and Bert Hoffmeister's llth Infantry Brigade of 5th Armoured on the left were all set to deliver the knockout punch that General Burns hoped would open up the Gothic Line for exploitation by the armoured component. Once our tanks broke loose and ran wild in the enemy's rear, Burns was confident that a quick jump to the Lombardy Plains — and thence to Venice and the Po River — would follow. A grand hope, to be sure, and one that was not all that unrealistic. Success depended to a considerable degree on the strength of the enemy holding the line, tanks in close proximity of the battlefield, artillery and mortars in place, and lastly, on how quickly the enemy top command could rush up reserves to plug the hole torn in their defenses. Although the fighting qualities of the assaulting battalions gave the Corps no concern, there was always the possibility that bad luck and unforeseen developments would throw the proverbial monkey wrench into the works. In other words, one of the requisites for success lay in the unmeasurable factor of "battle luck," that intangible something that is so often the difference between success and failure. I'm sure that every officer, NCO and rifle-toting private who'd gone into action knew how indispensable "battle luck" could be. Without it, even the best laid plans and execution had a way of turning sour. The starting lineup for the assault on the Gothic Line had the Cape Breton Highlanders on the far left, with their objective a pine-covered knoll at the end of a long finger of high ground cutting across the Corps front. The Perth Regiment's axis of advance was along a gravelled road cutting straight across the flats to a point two thirds of the way where it curved in a gentle arc left to the lateral road running from Pesaro on the coast to Urbino twenty-two miles inland. The Perth's objective was the grasscovered 111-metre high ridge marked on military maps as Point 111. Its Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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twenty-degree slope began right at the road's edge, with a climb for the attacking troops of some two hundred yards to the crest studded with weapons positions. Some three hundred yards to the Perths' right the West Nova Scotia Regiment, one company in the lead, were to cross the flats at 4:00 p.m. with intention of breaking into the line between Borgo Santa Maria and Osteria Nuova, and from there make straight for Point 133 northeast of these two levelled hamlets. The assault on the Gothic Line got off to an unpromising start for the three lead battalions who went forward without benefit of artillery support. The West Nova's lead company soon became ensnared in the killing-ground of a minefield halfway between the river and the defended ruins of their first objective. The men began dropping like the leaves of autumn as their boots came down on Schumines buried an inch below the surface of the powdery soil. And then, to make things worse for the Maritimers floundering in the minefield, the enemy's artillery and mortars zeroed in on the hapless company, while long bursts of MG fire laced into the ranks as they struggled to extricate themselves from sure death. It was no easy job. They couldn't go forward. They couldn't go anywhere. Yet to stay put would mean annihilation. The only option open, as grim as it was, was to pull back and hope they wouldn't lose too many as they tried to get out from the deadly predicament. As was to be expected, however, the Novas lost almost as many men pulling back as they did going up. An hour and a half later, the Cape Breton Highlanders and the Perths got their attack underway. Although the Cape Breton Highlanders had no trouble in working their way across the flat country and up to the base of the pine-covered Point 120 knoll rising from the very edge of the road in Montecchio, they ran into a buzz-saw of enemy machine-gun fire and showers of grenades as they tried to scale the rocky slope. They tried several times to go up and were thrown back, although parts of one company managed to establish themselves on the very crest and then were driven off by a strong enemy counterattack. After suffering heavy casualties throughout a night of unremitting close-in combat, daybreak found the Capes back on their start-line at the Foglia River. Baker Company under Major Harold Snelgrove, kicked off the Perth attack at the same time as the Cape Bretons, their axis of advance taking them along the gravelled road up to the anti-tank ditch where they came up a "cropper." It wasn't until they approached to within yards of the unblown roadway across the wide and deep tank barrier that they were hit by bursts of MG 42 fire coming from the ridge directly to their front. This was Point 111, the regiment's first objective. The MG fire scythed through the lead two sections, knocking men 248

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over like pins in a bowling alley. It stopped them cold. Any attempt to go forward at this point was doomed, so the survivors of the lead platoon pulled back through the follow-up platoons, and then the whole company drew back all the way to the Foglia River. At the very moment this was happening, Dog Company under Ridge waited in a torn-up vineyard just short of the river, listening with apprehension at the sounds of battle coming to them from their left front and their immediate right. On the right it was the deep crunch of mortar bombs, while on their left front, up near the ridge came the high-speed chatter of an automatic weapon. It was hard to relax with mortar bombs and shells going off with stunning regularity where the West Novas were operating. When we first entered the vineyard we simply made ourselves comfortable on the ground waiting for our entrance onto the battle stage. But with the ruckus of bombs and shells banging away not two hundred yards off, we needed no urging from the officers or NCOs to get us to hacking away at the ground. We were afraid that if Jerry OPs spotted us in the vineyard we could expect welcome cards in the form of 88s and mortar bombs. What saved our skins, I suppose, was the incredible tangle of the vineyard that hid us from their ever-watchful eyes. Or it might have been that since we had three battalions attacking simultaneously, the Germans weren't able to take on all comers with the few guns and mortars that were in position. I'd scooped out only a few spades of sandy loam when the all-toofamiliar and feared high-speed brrrrrrrp of a Jerry machine-gun came to my ears from the direction Baker Company had gone forward. I could hear it even over the drumbeat of mortar bombs. I counted at least five bursts and just as many short ones without so much as a single answering burst from a Bren. Something told me that things weren't going right for Baker Company. We didn't know how bad the situation was, but we found soon enough that it was not in our favour. A runner came barreling into the vineyard moments later, breathless and flushed in the face, with a verbal order for Captain Ridge to take Dog Company across the Foglia to relieve Baker. A hard knot of fear hit the pit of my stomach, as it did every time at such moments. But in a way I was glad to get moving. I never felt at ease whenever we had to wait while the noise of battle was going on not too far away. We took off from the vineyard at a brisk dog-trot down a road strewn with branches, twigs, leaves and all sorts of other impedimenta. You'd swear a tornado had passed through. A hundred and fifty yards down the road we came to the Montelabbate crossing site, a chaotic scene: tanks milling about in clouds of dust and exhaust smoke, the unholy roar of their aircraft engines, the grinding squeak of their tracks. Besides the tanks there were Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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Jeeps, 15 CWTs and larger transports competing for the right of way. And to add to the confusion and fierce racket, people were running all over the place shouting and waving their arms. Nothing made sense as we passed through this turmoil to get across the river, which to my surprise and everyone else's was nothing but three narrow trickles of water. We sprinted across the wide, stony riverbed without even getting the soles of our boots wet. In this dry season the Foglia River, like almost every other river in Italy, had shrunk to merely a ribbon of water no more than three feet wide, trickling lazily over the rounded stones and pebbles. On the far side we sped through Baker Company survivors huddled close up against the shallow embankment, frozen looks of shock and fear on their faces. I expected they wouldn't be in much of a mental state to carry on even once they recovered from their ordeal. When someone enters this state they rarely come back and contribute anything worthwhile to their company's progress. But this was no time for me to be doing any philosophizing. I stayed right on Jimmy Heaton's heels as we ran down the road through stifling clouds of dust churned up by a troop of tanks maneuvering about on the road and in the field close by to our right. As long as Jimmy was there ahead of me picking them up and laying them down, I followed. At that moment I was too preoccupied to be afraid. My lungs were on fire and my breath came in rapid-fire gasps. And my mouth was as dry as old shoe leather, not so much from nerves, but from excitement over what was going on around me and the anticipation of what might soon happen in that thousand yards of open country straight ahead. I felt a lessening of tension once we got away from the river and all the noise and confusion, knowing what a likely target that would be for Jerry artillery and mortars. I was even breathing a little easier when Ridge and Sergeant Blackie Rowe came hurrying up motioning for the lead section of 18 Platoon (that was my section), to climb the wire fence and form up in extended order in the field on the right side of the road. In the light of what had happened to the Baker platoon, Ridge decided it would be smarter to advance across the flats by way of the open field than by the road where the MGs were firing on fixed lines. Strung all along the fence at eight-foot intervals were these triangular signs with the death's-head insignia and the words ACHTUNG! MINEN! painted on them. Mines! "Holy Jeezuz!" I blurted out. "They're not sending us in there! We're as good as dead!" But we had to go, and that was that. With undisguised dismay and misgiving we climbed the fence, muttering oaths. Jimmy went over first. I was right behind him, and while I was holding my breath as my foot was about to touch ground I heard Rowe 250

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running off at the mouth at someone behind me who must have been giving him a hard time. "Never mind—just get your ass over the fence, and don't give me anymore of your lip! C'mon now, over you go!" No one wanted to commit suicide, that's for sure, and yet the order to go over the fence and into this minefield demanded we do exactly that. So, what drove me and everyone else into climbing that wire fence to enter what we all were sure would be our graveyard? I'll never know. I suppose it might have been fear of court-martial if we refused. Or maybe it was, at least in my respect, because I wanted to prove something to myself — that I wasn't afraid to die. Ridge knew that from time to time, the Germans pulled off ruses in which they'd put up ACHTUNG! MINEN! signs hoping to fool our attacking troops into taking another, supposedly safer route. This time, however, the Germans told the truth. The flats were indeed mined. With Jimmy Heaton leading the way, 8 Platoon walked out into the field, each man with his fingers mentally crossed. Behind me in order came Gord Forbes, Walt Thomas, Bob McLean, Bob Wheatley, Jimmy Eves and one other man, his name long since forgotten. 16 and 17 Platoons were echeloned to our rear as we formed up for the advance. By this time it was almost dark. If there's anything an infantryman fears more, even more so than an 88 or a mortar bomb, it had to be mines. It's the not knowing whenever you put your foot down whether a mine's buried there or not. And if it happens to be one of the bigger mines, "whammo!" — you're gone, with bits and pieces of your body splattering all over hell and gone. The grim thought of what could happen to you plays on your mind as you screw up every last shred of courage to keep going. Although you eventually come to accept the fact that the odds of surviving get worse with every action you go into, you can't accept that fact that when you do go up on a mine, it'll be in such tiny pieces there won't be enough of you to bury. I'd seen what a Teller or box mine could do to a tank or any other vehicle, and I'd seen what happened to Pete McRorie and Bob Adair in the Liri Valley. We lost no one while filing out into the field, but inside a few paces of the advance came the first bang. Someone off to my left closer to the road had gone up on a mine. It wasn't an ear-ringing bang like the Teller mines made, so I knew it could only be one of the small anti-personnel Schumines. A few more paces and two more men went up, the lower extremity of their legs mangled by the searing blasts. We stopped dead, afraid to go on. We were trapped smack in the middle of a minefield, there was no getting away from it. Then I heard Blackie Rowe's stentorian voice hollering from somewhere behind, "Get your goddamn asses moving! Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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Come on! Move! Move! Move! Haul your asses!" I turned to Gord and said, "Holy shit! The crazy sonofabitch is determined to get us all killed!" We resumed the advance, but with cold fear in our hearts. Again I turned to Gord, "I can't see us getting out of here alive. " He didn't even have time to agree with me when bang, down he went. My first instinct was to stop and help him somehow, but Blackie kept barking at us to keep moving, so I moved on. Before we'd gone thirty yards farther on, we lost three more men on mines—three more men who'd one day be walking around on artificial legs, that is if the stretcher-bearers could get them out without stepping on a mine themselves. "Gripes," I said to myself, "we'll all be gone before we get even halfway to our objective." Mixed feelings of fear, anger and even pride were going through me. Uppermost was the fear of dying. Next came anger over being made to sacrifice ourselves in a hopeless venture. And lastly, there was the pride in being brave enough to go ahead and do as we were ordered to do even while our comrades were going down all around us. What else could have made us do what we were so deathly afraid of doing? Courage? Blind obedience? Fear of being branded a coward? Perhaps it was a little of each. But as long as my buddies kept moving, so did I. I wasn't about to let them down. To walk through that frightful garden took steely nerves far beyond that we thought we had. That's exactly what it took for us to go another two hundred yards, losing a few more men, before Ridge saw the folly in it. He called a halt and ordered us out of the deadly pasture. We'd go the rest of the way along the road. It was a touch-and-go operation, but we did manage to extricate ourselves without losing more men. What a relief! Full darkness cloaked the valley as we made our way slowly and warily up the road to where the Baker Company platoon had been shot up, less than fifty yards from the anti-tank ditch. The twisted and torn bodies lying scattered about on the road, on the verges and in the drainage ditch on our side of the road told us in grim detail that we were now in the killing zone, so Blackie had us walk on the far side of the drainage ditch keeping as close to the fence as possible. He wanted no part in our being cut down like the boys lying dead all around us; he pinned hopes on the likelihood that the enemy's field of MG fire didn't cover any more than the road, the verges and the two drainage ditches. It was a smart decision that saved our lives. It was also a move that spelled victory. On reaching the anti-tank ditch, we were surprised to find that the road across this massive tank barrier hadn't been blown. What an opportunity it gave us! Now, if we could only get our people across without being seen and shot to pieces we'd be in a pretty damn good position to 252

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take the high ground. But the bodies of Baker Company lying all around us told us it wasn't going to be that simple an undertaking. The MG 42 up on top of Point 111 had to be trained on this weak spot in their line, and we could be sure it would open up the minute someone made a dash across that short stretch of road. We lay strung out along the wire fence waiting for Blackie Rowe to give the word for us to go. We didn't have much time to ponder the consequences of the bold rush we were about to make. Like the gallant six hundred at Balaclava, ours was not to reason why. As we waited with bated breath and some considerable doubt that we could get across, the Jerry behind the gun up on the height squeezed off a burst from his magnificent weapon. Brrrrt—a three-second sixty-round torrent ripped along the road throwing spurts of dust and gravel in the air, but they found no target except those already dead. We were out of the cone of fire. Twenty seconds went by. Not a soul moved. Not a soul dared to move. And then another three second burst stitched a long path up and down the road. Twenty more seconds of silence. A third three-second burst walked up and down the road along the verges. Again twenty seconds went by and no fire. Now alert to the timing of the hidden gunner, Blackie Rowe made his mind up in a flash. He saw a way for 18 Platoon to get across the ditch and to the relative safety of an embankment at the base of the ridge on the far side. He passed the word down the line of the platoon lying close up against the fence, telling us how we'd go about getting across without getting shot to pieces. "Every time that gun up on the ridge stops firing, two guys make a run for the embankment on the other side, and go like hell. Get that? Ready now. Okay, Bun [Ray Welsh], you and Humph [Johnny Humphrey] go first." Although it was only fifteen feet of roadway across the big ditch and another twenty yards to the embankment across the lateral road at the base of the ridge, to each man it would seem more like a mile. It was a slim chance we might get enough guys across, but we had to take it. There was no way of knowing it, but we were on the verge of achieving what had to be the outstanding success of the Gothic Line break-in battle, a tactical success that would literally pull our chestnuts out of the fire. When Bun and Humph took off, we stopped breathing, resuming respiration only after the two reached the safety of the far embankment. We couldn't believe our eyes. "They're across! Hot damn, they're across!" I remember saying to myself. And now it was Jim Heaton's and my turn to go. My heart was really thumping now as I got ready to go. And then, a split second after the next burst of gunfire stopped, we took off, our legs going like runaway pistons. I practically ran right over Jim in my haste to get across the beaten zone to the safety of the embankment Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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before that gun on the height flared into life again. And we made it! My luck was holding out. The Germans, as so often was the case, were methodical to a fault. Every burst came at exactly twenty second intervals — three seconds fire, twenty seconds wait, three seconds fire, twenty seconds wait, and so on. This fatal flaw in their thinking enabled Dog Company to cross the antitank ditch without a single casualty—a remarkable bit of battle-luck on our part, and a large bit of battle savvy on Rowe's part. It also required a sizable portion of nerve on everyone's part. It took Dog Company not much more than fifteen minutes to cross the anti-tank ditch and another fifteen minutes to form up for the assault on Point 111. While hugging the protective embankment, thankful that another major obstacle was overcome, we watched with some detached interest as an NBH tank slowly moved up the road and then stop at the exact spot from which only minutes before we'd made the big rush to get across the deep moat. It opened up with its 75mm gun at the ridge-top a little ways to our right, pumping round after round. It fascinated me no end the way the crew went at their job with the 75 and the ball-mounted MG in the hull. While I was engrossed in the spectacle, two rifle shots smacked into the embankment. They couldn't have missed me by more than a foot or so. "Holy jeez! Where in hell did that come from?" I exclaimed with more than a little fright. "The hell if I know!" someone along the bank spoke up. And when another two quick shots hit at about the same spot, I pinpointed their source as the wooded knoll on our left a couple hundred yards away. This was Point 120, the CBH objective. It was obvious they hadn't taken it yet. After several more rounds smacked into the embankment in quick succession we were beginning to feel a little like tin ducks in a carnival shooting gallery. Although I didn't relish the thought of going up the hill to take out the enemy post, we knew exactly where it was, and its crew didn't know where we'd be on our way up. Better to go now than stand around and risk getting picked off by someone firing blind from the knoll. By the amount of racket on the knoll we knew the CBH were having one hell of a rough time. The night echoed to the whole gamut of battlefield noises, the deep crunch of mortar bombs, the muffled thud of grenades, the sharper crack of artillery fire accompanied by the steady clatter of machine-gun fire, ours and theirs. The mortar bomb blasts in particular, were so earsplitting loud I had to believe that Jerry had brought up his heaviest howitzers to unload their fortress-busting hardware onto the boys from the Bay. Every time one landed you'd swear the very hill was being ripped apart. 254

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Finally Sammy gave the magic word: "Okay, up we go!" This was our first bayonet charge. Seventeen Platoon under Lieutenant Bill Hider was on the right, 18 Platoon, with Lieutenant Dooley in command, was on the left, and Lieutenant George Till's 16 Platoon came up close behind. Strange, but I wasn't as apprehensive as I thought I'd be. With our spike bayonets fixed, full mags in weapons, safety catches off and rounds up the spouts we went up, leaning into the slope, which was a lot longer than it appeared from the road. Halfway up I felt my thighs and calves tightening from strain. Everything quiet up above. But not for long. The Jerries awoke to the fact that something was amiss, that the Canadians were across the big ditch and moving in on them. They cut loose with their Spandau. We hit the ground as the quick, short bursts sliced through the air inches above our heads. Two of the boys in 16 Platoon got nicked, but that's about all. Corporal Tupling had part of a finger shot away, while the other man took a flesh wound in the arm. Either the gunner couldn't see us too well, or he wasn't able to depress his MG far enough to do any damage. Had he been able to, he likely would have stopped our attack right then and there. But then it's possible he might have thought we were still back on the road and that's what he was aiming for. With some couple hundred bullets zipping through the air less than two feet over our prone bodies I couldn't see us doing much about putting that gun out of action. In effect, we froze. Nobody moved a muscle. Of course, with only one gun firing, somebody could have gone off a little wide to the left and come in from the side and knocked it out, but no one thought of it. Who was going to be the big hero? I didn't think it'd be me. Yet I could feel a growing urge to leap up and make a one-man charge to take the gun out. "Here's my chance for the Victoria Cross." But, as much as I dreamed of being a one-man army, I had sense enough to know I'd never make it. And so, like the others around me, I lay there glued to the ground, wondering who'd be crazy or brave enough to get up and go. Only a sudden uncontrollable impulse would stir me into heroic action. That impulse never came. Instead I buried my nose deeper into the thick grass, bracing my body against the 7.92mm rounds that at any second might punch holes in me from head to toes. I felt so inadequate, so helpless. By the same token, there were apparently no other potential VC types around on Point 111 slope that night. The assault had stalled fifty yards from the enemy positions. For what seemed like a long ten minutes, though it couldn't have been more than two, we lay face down in the dusty grass, frozen into immobility, wincing at every Spandau burst burning the air above us. Someone had to make the first move. I tried. Lord God Almighty! How I tried! But I couldn't bring Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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myself to get up and go. And then it happened. From close behind us I heard Sammy Ridge give out a bellow of orders. I couldn't make out exactly what he was hootin' and hollerin' about but it sounded like, "Come on Dog Company, up and at 'em, what the hell are you waiting for?" I raised my head high enough to take a sidewise glance and saw someone off to my right a short ways stand up. And then right next to him somebody else got up. And then, as if by magic, the whole company was up and moving. No one now had to tell us what we had to do, we knew what our job was. "Take the high ground!" Up we went. The man at the trigger squeezed off a burst again, but this time, though we must have made better targets, no one was hit. Another miracle. And with me hardly knowing it, all of a sudden we were going up that last fifty yards as fast as the slope and the strength and endurance of our legs allowed, with everyone hooting and hollering at the tops of their lungs. To this day I can't be sure the noise I made was from blood lust or fright. Maybe a little of both. Anyway, the vocal racket we made going in with the bayonet was, as we were later told, loud enough for our people a way back at the Foglia River to hear us. I guess it served its purpose because it took all the fight out of the Jerries. My sidekick Walt Thomas was on my right elbow as we went in those last few yards, both of us cutting loose, firing from the hip. Jimmy Heaton on my immediate left let go with a couple of short bursts from his Bren, while someone else off to our right fired off short bursts from a Tommy. A surge of exhilaration and extreme excitement swept over me. For that moment, at least, I'd forgotten what fear was. In fact I felt so full of piss and vinegar, I actually felt like I could do this every day. As we hit a five-foot forty-five-degree incline directly below the Jerry gun position, a grenade went off with one hell of a bang knocking me and Thomas ass over teakettle. Whether it was one of ours or the enemy's I couldn't tell. But neither of us had been hurt, and we bounced right back up on our feet and went up and over. But there was no bayonet work or trench clearing of any kind to do. A trench full of Jerries were standing there with their hands high, all crying out in unison, "Kameraden! Kameraden! Kameraden!" A beautiful sight. Once the prisoners were rooted out of their dugouts and the hill secured, we got ourselves ready for a counter-attack, which we felt sure would come inside the hour, or at first light. We'd taken Point 111 and were pretty damn proud of ourselves. After all, Dog Company was the first unit in the Corps to take its objective. In seizing Point 111, we got the ball rolling not only for the regiment, but also for llth Brigade and subsequently for the Corps itself. Within the hour, Major Jack Tipler's Able Company passed through our foothold, and in a 256

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classic example of a left hook took Point 147 some three hundred yards to the northeast. Both Baker and Charlie Company arrived soon after and took up positions astride the high ground between Able and Dog. Once this was accomplished, the enemy battalions holding off every thrust made by the Princess Pats and the West Novas in the flats had to pull back. The Pats were now able to take the rubble heaps of Borgo Santa Maria, while the West Novas passed through Osteria Nuova and pressed on to the heights above. Now, all it would take for the line to be busted wide open was for the western and maritime battalions to take their next objectives. Once this happened, the situation became ripe for 5th Armoured Brigade to go rambling through the hole. The day of decision lay ahead. With what llth Infantry Brigade had accomplished on Points 111, 120 and 147, the self-assured 1st Division boys could no longer look down their noses at 5th Division, the Mighty Maroon Machine as they so disparagingly called us. It was we who had taken the laurels in this battle and they could not deny us this outstanding honour. We showed them once and for all that we were every bit as capable in battle as they were, and in this particular battle we outperformed them, and by a wide margin. The Perth Regiment, especially Dog Company, could rightfully lay claim to the fact that we were the first unit in the Corps to take its objective. After the Gothic Line we heard considerably less of the usual scathing remarks about what happened to us in the valley of the Riccio River outside Ortona. The monkey was finally off our backs. Once Point 111 was secured, Jimmy Eves took 8 Section down the forward slope about fifty or sixty yards to set up an outpost to watch for an enemy counter-attack forming up. Six men accompanied Eves — Jim Heaton on the Bren, myself as his No. 2 man, Walter Thomas, Bob McLean, Bob Wheatley (who'd just come back to us after a stint of duty as an RP at the Base Depot in Avellino), and one other man I'm at a loss to identify. Digging in on the rather steep slope was no easy matter, since the ground had been baked hard as brick by three month's of unrelenting heat and little rain. Although we knew the night was pregnant with danger, especially for us here on the forward slope, we put no special effort in digging our slit-trenches. For one thing we hadn't fully recovered from the thirty-five-mile march, and secondly, after advancing for over five hundred yards through a minefield, and then charging up the twenty-degree slope, we were plain "whacked out." I don't know how deep the others went, but Jim and I called it quits after about three feet, nowhere near enough to give us protection should the Jerries suddenly mount a counter-attack. Our lightning capture of the height had tended to lull us into a false sense of security, a tendency to believe the enemy had pulled out far enough back that his guns wouldn't be in place yet to shoot at us. Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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Maybe the guns were gone, but there were still some infantry around. We found this out soon enough. A Jerry ammunition-carrying detail blundered into our lines, not suspecting that the hill was no longer in their hands. They made their way up along a well-worn path, right past Jimmy Eves and Walt Thomas, who were hacking away at the rock hard soil with halfhearted effort. Eves, an easygoing, gangling young farmer from Stella on Amherst Island (near Kingston) was startled when the detail walked right in on them from out of the dark valley. Not sure whether they were our own men from another company or the enemy, he called out the password. No countersign. He called the password again, only louder. The ammunition carriers dropped their loads and threw up their arms in surrender. A gefreiter (lance-corporal) escorting the carriers got off a shot from his Mauser, missing Eves by a hair, but he didn't get off a second. Thomas, off to the side a bit, grabbed Eves' tommy gun — closer to him than his own rifle — and blew the aggressive Jerry over backwards with a short burst in the belly. The impact of the .45-calibre slugs tore the man's guts away, killing him instantly. Jim Heaton and I were caught outside our trench when the firing broke out, and thinking it was a counter-attack we dove into our trench in a tangle of arms and legs. When we got straightened away, Jim lined up his Bren in the direction the firing came from, but then he saw he had no magazine in place. All the mags — eight of them, even the one Jim had momentarily removed from the gun so he could give the piston group a wiping-down — were six feet away so as not to get covered with dirt while we were digging. Although I was afraid to leave the protection of our hole, I had no other choice but to retrieve them; you can't shoot without ammunition. So I scrambled out, groped around in the dark for a few seconds, and was back with the ammo in a blur of motion. But by then the commotion was all over with. Already, long, lean and lanky Bill Hider of 17 Platoon was hustling the four docile and frightened ammo carriers up and over the crest as prisoners where he immediately put them to work digging slit-trenches for his boys. As for Jim and I, we went at the task of deepening our trench with an alacrity that was quite remarkable for a couple of weary old warhorses. After that, we spent the remainder of the night at full alert, ready and waiting and better prepared to defend ourselves should the Jerries launch a counter-attack. It was a long, long night. Stand-to came at first light and no counter-attack. Then our relief arrived. And were we ever glad to see them. In little less than a stupor we dragged our asses uphill to the reverse slope where we flopped down in slittrenches, compliments of the relieving 9 Section. The trench Heaton and I inherited, like every other one, was just barely wide enough to allow the 258

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two of us to lie head to feet, and couldn't have been more than two feet deep, if that. Comfort, however, wasn't all that important to us right now. We were giddy with fatigue and lack of sleep, almost dead on our feet, and any place at all would have been just fine. The way we felt, we'd have slept like babies even in a pig-sty. As so often happens in the infantry, though, we got next to no sleep. We'd only just settled ourselves in as comfortably as possible, not even removing our boots, closed our eyes and slept perhaps no more than fifteen minutes when our twenty-five-pounders on the south side of the Foglia River began firing. We didn't hear the first ones go over, but we sure heard the next couple. The express-train whistle they made as they cleared the ridge woke us up and scared the bejeezus out of us. "Goddamn it Jim, they're pretty damn close," I mumbled, looking along the length of my body to Jim whose head was at the other end. "Yeah, they sure are, the bastards better raise their sights a notch or the next one's gonna land right on top of us." No sooner said, than done: one slammed in right on top of us. Miracles never cease to happen. The short round that I was afraid would happen hit at the very corner of our trench, right above my head at the going-away side, which is no doubt why the blast and the shrapnel didn't kill us. All we got was the backlash. The shell smacked down right where I'd placed my rifle, pouches, small pack and helmet. The rifle was cut in half at the small of the butt, the pouches were full of holes which meant that every Bren mag in them was ruined, the small pack was torn to shreds, and my helmet was gone, probably blown all the way to the Po. I didn't know how long I'd been knocked out, but it couldn't have been more than a minute or two, because when I came to the first thing that told me I was alive was the rank smell of HE. I damn near puked. It also felt like someone had given me a good wallop upside the ears with a two by four. It took a good two minutes before I could say something to Jim. Though my lips moved, no words came out. Then I felt helping hands lifting me out of the trench. I had trouble focusing my eyes for a second or two, and as the cobwebs in my head cleared, I saw the man holding on to me was our old reliable stretcher-bearer, Vern Gooding. He said something to me but be damned if I could make out what it was because both my ears were ringing something awful, and a wave of nausea came over me. I was in a fog, disoriented, dizzy, groggy, my ears rang and I stumbled around like a drunken sailor. Gooding decided to send me back to the Foglia, where a Field Dressing Station had already been set up in the one house still standing this side of the river. Though I had trouble making out what he was saying because of the ringing in my ears, I was glad when he asked me if I could make it back on my own. I nodded that I could, and in somewhat Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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of a shaky condition I made my way downhill, passing the Irish, who were moving up through our positions for their famous right hook that finally took out the troublesome Point 120 knoll. Across the anti-tank ditch I came upon the bodies of Baker Company, men still lying where they'd met their death. One of them had been run over by a tank and lay flattened out on the verge like a gingerbread man cookie. I couldn't get over the fact that his body hadn't burst and his organs and entrails exposed. He was flattened like dough under a rolling pin. I could have identified him had I just bent down and read his dog-tag. But I didn't care to. Along the road I passed an NBH tank squadron on its way to the ridge. Also on the road was a steady stream of ambulance Jeeps, some moving up, some on their way back with wounded. At the Field Dressing station I found myself in the midst of the hustle and bustle of 24th Field Ambulance people bringing in the wounded. It didn't take me long to realize I didn't belong. There were stretchers all over the yard and alongside the road, and on every one of them lay a seriously wounded man. One had an arm gone just below the shoulder, a shell-dressing splotched in red covering the stump. Next to him a man had a leg off just below the knee, and another had a foot gone, with arteries and veins sticking out like macaroni. I looked around hoping I might find Forbes, but he was long gone. I wondered if he had died. It was then that a wave of guilt washed over me. Here I was with not a mark on me, while all around me lay the grievously wounded — bandaged men 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 shelldressings 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. Others lay in torpor, showing no interest in what was going on around them. The pale upturned faces of the gravely wounded had taken on a grayish, 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, better known as "shellshock," a holdover term from the first big war. A few yards away lay the blanket-covered bodies of six of our boys who had succumbed to their wounds. 260

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After seeing all this, my conscience began nagging at me. "What in the hell am I doing here? I've no right to be here. There's not a damn thing wrong with me except a couple of ringing ears, a little dizziness, a headache and a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach." An urge came over me to go back up to the company where I belonged, but I made no concerted effort to go back; I didn't relish the thought of dying for my country. But neither did I relish having to live the rest of my life tormented by gnawing guilt and inner shame. "Better to die," I kept telling myself. And then, after evaluating my performance up to this point, a flush of pride swept over me. After all, I'd done everything that was expected of me, and though it was a small part, with all the other small parts it had added up to victory. "Why spoil everything now?" I said to myself. I knew what I had to do: go back to my platoon. There was no way I wanted to let my buddies, my regiment, my country, and especially my family down by taking the easy way out. At a long, low-slung building across the road from the dressing station I saw some Perths standing around like they didn't know what to do, but I recognized no one. They looked at me in dull resignation, but said nothing. Nor did I bother to say anything to them. They were not an inspiring sight to behold. They looked hopelessly beaten and shorn of pride— battle-exhaustion cases. I went inside and saw more men sitting against the walls. They looked no better than the ones outside. Since it wasn't doing me any good to stand there looking at the lost souls, I went outside into the fresh air. My morale had been shaken enough without having to be in their sorry company. Now, I wanted more than ever to go back to where I belonged, but I wasn't quite ready to make the move. What I needed was someone to come along and kick me in the ass, or else pat me on the back and speak a few kind words. The latter came very shortly after in the welcome form of our padre, Crawford Smith. He walked up to me, and seeing no bandages or evidence of a wound, asked me in a soft and reassuring voice if I'd been hurt. I described what had happened to me and how close I came to meeting my Maker. He compassionately understood the state I was in, but then, without mincing words, said, "Stanley" — I was surprised that he knew my name — "the boys need you up on the hill. Don't let them down. Please join them, won't you." That was all I needed to snap me back to what I knew had to be done. I picked up an abandoned rifle, a couple of bandoliers of ammunition, a set of webbing with pouches, a bayonet in scabbard, a water bottle, and finally a helmet that didn't exactly fit me. The liner didn't conform to the shape of my head. And so, it was with a great sense of relief that I strode down the road sucking on a multi-flavoured Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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Lifesavers the Padre had given me. I found myself actually looking forward to being back with the boys. Along the way I passed about a dozen enemy prisoners on their way to the rear, escorted by a lone sapper. By their camouflage-pattern smocks I knew they were paratroopers. Though they had their hands clasped behind their heads, there was an arrogant attitude and a sullen look in their eyes. These guys were as tough as they come. I taunted them with a smattering of the German language I'd picked up. "Wo ist der wunderwaffe?" I said to one of the bigger boys in the line: "Where is your wonder weapon?" (An allusion to Hitler's constant ranting about a weapon that would win the war for Germany.) He glowered at me but said nothing. Several of the prisoners wore Iron crosses on their left tunic pockets, which I knew they'd soon be relieved of somewhere down line before being herded into the POW cage. I arrived on Point 111 expecting to get the glad hand of welcome from my buddies, but found to my dismay and surprise that they'd been shifted elsewhere. The present occupants, the Irish couldn't tell me where they'd gone. So I had to strike off to the right, the most logical direction. My trek was made difficult and highly perilous when I had to go to ground frequently, as enemy shellfire kept whistling in with stunning regularity, scaring the living daylights out of me. Farther along I ran into mortar fire, which I feared even more than the shells. At least I could hear the shells coming from a ways off. Mortars, on the other hand, you heard only in the last split-second before their landing. It took me about a half hour or so before I finally found Dog Company dug in on the eastern slope of a low hill marked on the battle maps as Point 115. I was more than happy to find 8 Section intact and in surprisingly good mental state, considering all they'd been through. And I was even happier to see that they were especially glad to have me back. High noon, August 31 — no lunch, not even a dried-out bully-beef sandwich or hardtack to munch on. As famished as we were, our need for water was much more urgent. The constant shelling and mortaring precluded any attempt to send a water truck up to us. Not only would a driver have one tough time getting through the crap falling out of the sky, but he'd have to run a gauntlet of small-arms fire from the enemy holed up in trenches and dugouts all through the area. Not only were we individually in danger of being done in by the enemy, there was a better than even-money bet that heat and our desperate need of water might knock us for a loop. Enemy opposition thickened up noticeably as the afternoon wore on. The volume of mortar bombs hitting around our shallow trenches on Point 262

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115 and on the adjacent high ground increased by the minute. The all-toofamiliar plaintive cry for stretcher-bearers could be heard even above the crescendo of bombs going off around us. All we could do was to hug the ground in the pitiful depth of our trenches and pray. No one envied the stretcher-bearers on this day. These intrepid souls were always out in the open — scurrying from trench to trench, patching people up as best they could. That none of them were wounded themselves on their errands of mercy was nothing short of astounding. The Germans, troops and top echelons of command alike, had been caught off-guard with our quick break-in of their Gothic Line, and were now reacting in characteristic manner, pounding us with every calibre of gun they could. They used even a few old and cumbersome Italian field-pieces, relics from Montgomery's campaign against Rommel in North Africa. The regiment was supposed to have married up with the tanks of the British Columbia Dragoons earlier that day, in a thrust that was to take us through the rolling countryside to Point 204 two miles to the northeast, the linchpin in the Gothic Line. But with the heavy concentration of artillery and mortar-fire saturating the form-up place, there was no way this marriage could take place. Casualties in tanks and men would have been horrendous. No one foolhardy enough to emerge from the protection of his shelter could have remained alive for more than seconds. Casualties mounted at an alarming rate, although individually none of us knew just how bad things were. So there we were, hunkered down in our slit trenches on the grassy slope of Point 115, four hundred Perths desperately trying to hold on to the last shreds of courage and sanity within us. A downpour of shells and mortar bombs churned the hill and valley below us into a boiling cauldron of dirt, smoke, and whizzing steel. Every man caught in that smoking hellfire was down at the bottom of his trench, clutching at the ground beneath him in abject fear. Four hundred sets of nerves throbbed under the unremitting explosions sounding like the roll of monstrous drums. Throughout the long, soul-searing afternoon the Perths also endured the wilting heat of a blazing August sun. Thirsty to the point of dehydration, weary to the point of collapse, their nerves tighter than bowstrings, they waited it out, knowing that hell could not last forever, that the enemy had to run out of ammunition sometime. And the shelling did finally diminish, and then stopped altogether. The punishment of all punishments came to an end, as the first shadows of evening appeared below the crest of Point 147. With the sudden lull, the men of the two companies that had seen the wildest part of the storm climbed out of their trenches, dazed but not defeated, and soon after, Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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formed up in arrowhead formation and moved off down into the valley with one squadron of the 8th NBH tanks in support. Our objective was across the valley about a mile away, a nob of ground known as Hill 204 or Point 204. Unknown to us, a squadron of BCD tanks had already taken 204 shortly after noon. We'd seen them roll up noisily into the narrow opening between Points 115 and 133, where we were supposed to have married up with them. Since we had never shown up, Lieutenant-Colonel Fred Yokes (CO of the Dragoons) impatiently decided to unleash his squadrons without infantry support — not a wise thing to do, since it exposed the tanks to the killing power of the enemy's abundant antitank weapons. In the meantime, an enemy regiment from 1st Parachute Division (equivalent to a Canadian brigade) had been rushed up to plug the hole punched into the line. Within yards of leaving their start-line in the vicinity of Osteria Nuova, the BCDs ran into a hornet's nest, as these formidable paratroopers fired on the lead tanks with their extremely effective Panzerfausts (handheld bomb launchers) and Panzerschrecks (a bazooka-type weapon, both much-feared by our tank crews). These two weapons fired rocket propelled shaped-charge bombs that could make an unholy mess of a tank's interior, incinerating everything and everyone inside. One of the Shermans was instantly knocked out, and when the crew bailed out they were immediately locked in a small-arms duel with a trench full of the enemy. Grenades flew back and forth, accompanied by an exchange of small-arms fire. While this exchange was going on, a second tank from the same troop backed up on a slight incline in order to depress its 75 to where it could blast from point-blank range the camouflaged position. It took only two shots to convince the Jerries to throw their arms up in surrender. Later, when we moved through the area we passed two Shermans jammed up together; the front tank's turret blown was blown off and lying several yards off to the side, giving a good indication of the destructive power of the shaped-charge anti-tank bombs. Whether it had been knocked out by a Panzerschreck or a Panzerfaust we didn't know, but it didn't matter. Both were capable of doing the same. I learned on reading about the incident in a Legion magazine some years after the war that when the first tank was hit and its turret blown off, it rolled back down the incline and collided with the second, knocking its track off and immobilizing it. One shot — two tanks out of action. Once the tanks broke loose, they went on a rampage, catching enemy reserves rushing up on the roads, wagon tracks and in the open fields, blasting their way through with their 75s and ripping apart whole platoons with their hull mounted machine guns The surprised infantry scattered in 264

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panic under the onslaught of the tanks, charging into the heart of their positions. The Shermans then swung left in clouds of dust, racing past hillocks and haystacks and scores of dug-in Germans. They barged their way through narrow gullies and across farmyards, all weapons banging away at anything that might have been a strongpoint or an anti-tank gun. The crews, cooped up in the ovenlike confines of steel hulls were not aware of the fact that they'd punched a gaping hole smack in the solid centre of the Gothic Line. They also didn't know that they'd soon get wrapped up a fight for their lives. Tanks brewed up left and right as camouflaged, wheeled anti-tank guns caught them in the flanks. Taking losses as they went, the squadrons surged on, pouring HE and AP rounds at everything. With enemy infantry popping up everywhere, their machineguns played a terrible tune of death. In this bold thrust into the heart of the enemy defences some tanks lost their tracks on the steep ground of the undulating farmland and were immobilized. In their near helpless state, the crews had to beat off tankkilling Panzerfaust teams stalking them. The gunners in the tanks, still operational, sweated hard firing at the many human targets darting in and out from behind haystacks, hedges and other concealment. At no time throughout that searing afternoon did the enemy paratroopers show signs of throwing in the towel, though things must have looked hopeless to them. Ordinary troops might have given up, but these weren't ordinary troops. These were the best of the best. The fact that a battalion of tanks was stampeding through their lines was no big deal. They'd seen such breakthroughs in Russia and had held their own. Renowned for their tenacity in defence, and for quick recovery when caught off guard, the Fallschirmjagers fought with the same brand of reckless and fanatical courage they'd displayed against the Edmontons and Seaforths at Ortona, and the New Zealanders in Cassino. Their tenacity, skill, and guts, however, could do only so much, and by late afternoon they had been pushed off Point 204 and the lesser heights around it. Within an hour after elements of the BCDs gained control of the dominating feature, Yokes took his Regimental HQ — consisting of four tanks — and roared off to see how his forward squadrons were making out. Shortly thereafter they passed through an area left of the hill where the enemy had dug in and camouflaged a battery of towed 75mm anti-tank guns, supported by four concrete-emplaced tank-turreted 88s. Three of the tanks, including Yoke's unarmed command tank, were destroyed. The CO managed to bail out and climb onto the rear deck of the remaining runner which eventually arrived on Point 204. But only a few minutes later, while he was standing beside a tank discussing plans with two of his squadron Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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commanders, he was struck by mortar fragments. He died while being rushed by Jeep-ambulance to the Field Dressing-Station. All this happened while we were being subjected to heavy artillery and mortar fire back near the start-line. With what the BCD tank squadrons had already accomplished, our own eventual advance went smoothly and without incident. What a relief it was not to have to contend with mortars and artillery as we crossed the now shadow-covered valley on our way to Point 204. In less than half an hour our arrowhead formations ascended the slope and came out onto a road running just below the crest. This road followed the contour of what was known as the Pozzo Alto ridge, at the southeast end of which was the village that gave its name to it. And then, to our pleasant surprise, what should we spy off the side of the road but a well. All of a sudden the glory of taking Point 204 wasn't near as important to the dehydrated footsloggers as the water in that well. I think we were all of the same mind; some even broke out of formation with intention of filling up their long empty canteens. I was one of them. We had taken no more than three strides when Blackie Rowe stopped us in our tracks. "Get the hell back where you belong you dumb bastards!" We went back but we weren't happy about it, calling the sergeant every vile name in the black book of profanity — all under our breath, of course. For that moment, at least, there was no one we hated more in this man's army than Blackie, good man though he was. To appease us, he assured us that one man from each section would be detailed to go back to the well to fill up the section's water bottles — but not until we secured the hill. We should have remembered the enemy's propensity for catching people at wells with a few precisely aimed mortar bombs, and that's just what happened. Once the company was in place, thirsty Perths began gathering at the well. The Jerries must have known we'd be desperately in need of water after a full day of battle in what had to be the hottest day of the year, and with this in mind, after pulling back off Hill 204, they waited just long enough for our men to congregate, and then cut loose with his mortars. No sooner had the first pail been hauled up from the well when a flurry of bombs plunged out of the iridescent evening sky. When the smoke cleared, six Perths lay dead. Another six lay writhing on the ground in the agony of their wounds. CSM Bob Johnston of Dog Company was one of those killed outright. Once again it was shown in stark detail what happens when you let your guard down at the front. The lesson of the Baker Company tragedy on the winter front apparently hadn't sunk in, and more good men died needlessly. My ever-loving friend and protector lady luck was still smiling on me. Why? Because I happened to be the guy in my section who offered to go 266

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down the hill to the well to fill my section's water bottles. However, I was turned down because I had to go with Jim Heaton down the forward slope again, like we did on Point 111 to set up the Bren as a forward post. Naturally I did my usual bitching. But also as usual, it did no good. So the two of us went ahead to do our sacred duty like the good soldiers we were supposed to be. It saved my life. It was close to midnight when Jim and I, sitting in our trench halfway down the forward slope of Point 204, weary beyond weariness, snapped to full alert when we heard strange noises below us in the pitch-black valley. There were people down there, but whose were they? Ours or theirs? We heard voices, but we couldn't make out whether they were English or German. We thought it might be Baker Company. Or could it be the enemy? We weren't sure of anything, just kept straining strained our eyes peering into valley. And then suddenly a bazooka round shot out of the valley and swished like a Roman candle no more than two feet over our heads, following the angle of the hill in its upward passage. Startled, we whipped our heads around and watched it zoom high up into the starlit sky, and then it disappeared as its solid fuel burned up. Now we had no doubt as to who it was down in the valley: we didn't have bazookas, and the Germans did. Maybe we should have opened up at once with the Bren and my rifle, but since our only purpose for being there was to pull back and alert the company to new threats, we scrambled up the slope and ran from trench to trench waking up our boys. Every one of them was so sound asleep we had to give them a good shaking them before they responded. In our frantic hurry to get everybody up we somehow overlooked one trench, at the bottom of which slept an exhausted Hugh Detlor, our boy from Niagara Falls. In fact Hughie was so zonked out he slept through the night, with the clamour of battle going on around him. If the enemy, while they momentarily held the hill, had glanced down into his trench and seen him, they most likely would have thought he was dead. Fortunately for Detlor, they did nothing to make sure. While Jim and I ran around the hill getting everybody up, grenades began popping off all around us, though none came close enough to do any damage. They had to be rifle-grenades because a good many were going off well down the hill. No German had an arm strong enough to pitch a grenade that far. This could only mean they were getting ready to throw in a counter-attack. Just then, Blackie came up the hill and saw Jimmy and I running around from trench to trench getting the guys up, and when we told him what we'd heard and described how the rocket was meant for us he motioned everyone back from the brow of the hill and told Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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us to take cover in a substantial zigzag trench, which Jerry himself had dug before being chased off by the BCD tanks. It was another smart move by the sergeant. From this trench we had an ideal view of the brow of the hill where the enemy would soon emerge from the valley, if indeed they were putting in a counter-attack. They'd be sitting ducks for us. There couldn't have been more than fifteen of us, ready to take on whatever Jerry threw at us. Those were tense moments, as we listened to Blackie instructing us not to fire until he fired. "I'm not going to holler 'Fire' — when my rifle goes off, you guys open up, d'ya get that?" He no sooner said that when over came the rifle-grenades again, but we weren't too concerned about them. Our eyes were focused on the brow of the hill, waiting for the silhouettes of the enemy to appear. I can't recall being afraid, only nervous, like the feeling I used to get before every high school football game. If there was any fright, it came only when several rounds of our own twenty-five-pounders whistled in and exploded in deafening blasts in front of and behind our trench. In fact, one landed so close it caved-in a small section of the trench just three feet from where I stood, filling my boots with gritty dirt. These close calls were getting to be something of a common occurrence. Not twenty seconds after the guns stopped, the first wave of attackers came up out of the valley. "Man, what beautiful targets!" It was the first time I had seen the enemy up this close, and the first time I was in a position to get in some dead-on shooting. Fifteen fingers twitched on triggers, but not a shot rang out. It was fire discipline at its very best. It surprised me how cool we were as the enemy came towards us in that peculiar half crouch of the infantry. One wave, a second, and then a third emerged from the valley, each about five yards apart. I swallowed hard, but there was nothing to swallow. My throat was dryer than burnt toast, and it wasn't from thirst. As the enemy came on, not knowing we were only yards away ready to slaughter them, I shot a glance to where Blackie peered intently over the lip of the trench. "What the hell's he waiting for?" I muttered under my breath, tension mounting to an unbearable degree. Then his rifle spoke, at which every weapon in the trench followed suit as one. An explosion of smallarms fire blazed away at the hapless enemy. The first volley chopped the lead wave down in their tracks. The second wave went to ground but got no shots off as .303s and .45 slugs slammed into their bodies. They were out in the open with no cover. It was pure bloody murder! The third wave was somewhat luckier. Since they were only a few yards from the lip of the valley, most of them were able to duck back down out of the line of fire. Only a few from the second wave were lucky enough to escape. Round one to 18 Platoon, round two coming up. 268

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The second round began much the same way as the first. The Germans, stubborn to a fault again, thought they'd scare us off by coming straight on instead of from our left flank, or even from our right flank, where they'd be hidden by a growth of tall bushes and a stretch of hedge. Either of these avenues would have been the more logical and effective way to take the hill back. Instead, they ran smack into another hailstorm of small-arms fire and were driven back, leaving more of their men sprawled in death behind them. One of the Krauts, who was carrying a phosphorus grenade on his belt took a hit that set off the grenade. He fell to the ground screaming and thrashing about in hellish agony as the chemical slowly consumed his flesh in a phosphorescent glow. His agony lasted only fifteen seconds, because one of our recent reinforcements, Lloyd Querin, let fly a five-second burst from his Bren. The bullets slammed into the screaming man's smoldering body, ending his agony. Then came what we thought had to be the most ridiculous order we'd yet heard. A runner came up telling us we were to pull back off the hill. We couldn't believe what we were hearing. It could only have come from Brigade. "Pull back off the hill? Are they nuts? Who in jeezly hell thought that one up?" The reason for the pullback, as Sergeant Rowe explained, was because our artillery was going to give the hill a good working-over and they wanted us back far enough so none of our own people would get hurt. "Why give it back just to kill a few more Germans?" was our way of looking at it. We couldn't believe our people upstairs were that dumb. Since we knew you don't argue decisions and orders, but go ahead and do as you're told no matter what, there was nothing for us to do but climb out of our position and walk back down the hill, leaving it to Jerry to use against us later on. At the road we ran into Ridge, who told us to get under cover as quick as we could. Our guns were due to open up in a couple of minutes. He didn't have to remind us that we could expect a short round or two. Finding cover, however, was easier said than done. No matter what hole I found, there was a man or two already in it, with no room for me. I was in a bit of flap there for awhile, until I came upon a culvert under the road large enough for me to crawl into. I crawled in and heard voices; they belonged to Bun Welsh, Bob Wheatley, Jim Heaton and Maxie Pincombe. We felt about as safe as anyone could want to feel, what with a couple of feet of hard-packed gravel and a heavy gauge galvanized steel pipe between us and any shell falling short on the roadway. The Germans had been using it, perhaps only an hour before we took up tenancy, because there was straw inside. I'd only just crawled into the trench and made myself comfortable on the straw bed, wishing I could stay there all night, when our twenty-fiveSpearhead in the Gothic Line

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pounders and mediums began slamming into Point 204. It was like the rolling thunder of a mid-summer storm. For ten full minutes the hill shook under the torrent of steel-encased high-explosive, and as predicted, several didn't quite make it to the crest. They came down on the road, and some even landed well short of the hill. One hit not two feet from the culvert opening. Had it landed at the opening I doubt any of us would have been taken out of there alive. The culvert might have seemed to be the ideal place to stay out of harm's way, but it most certainly wasn't ideal when it came to comfort. We soon found out, agonizingly enough, that there were other species of life besides ourselves inhabiting the place. Lice, cooties, fleas — the culvert was crawling with the little tormenting beasts. I felt whole divisions of them crawling up and down vertically, horizontally and diagonally across my back, and the more I scratched, the more vigorously they marched. In a column of threes they marched across the parade-square at my right shoulder, left-turned smartly and went off in the direction of my left shoulder, where they mark-timed for a spell. From here they left-wheeled and marched at a slow pace down to my hip, then decided to make a crosscountry trek to the small of my back where they broke off and cavorted around while I dug, scratched, dug, scratched, and dug some more. And then when some of bloodsucking little devils migrated down into my groin area I decided I'd had enough. I crawled out to take my life in my hands in the drainage ditch; though it might not have been anywhere near as safe as the culvert, I'd at least be a lot more comfortable. While I lay there in the ditch during the last minute or two of the shelling, I suddenly stopped scratching or digging. The little bastards had buggered off back inside where they'd be safe, and where there were four more healthy bodies to climb onto. They were smarter than me, I had to admit. Hardly had the echoes of shellfire died away when a truckload of German infantry came whipping around the corner from the west, buzzing through the T junction in a squeal of tires and grinding gears and speeding off into the darkness towards Pozzo Alto a quarter-mile down the road. In my sorry lack of alertness I failed to get a shot off at them. Not more than a couple of minutes later the same truck came roaring back, careening around the corner almost on two wheels, and before I or anyone else could get our wits about us, it was on its way to its own lines. Again, not a shot! What a bunch of frozen dopes we were! We missed our chance to knock off or capture half a Jerry platoon. It was a little past midnight when the platoon formed up on the Pozzo Alto road in extended order for the advance to reoccupy the crest. From my point of view, it was getting to be that 18 Platoon seemed to be 270

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always selected to lead the way. We most certainly didn't care for the distinction. Maybe it was because Sammy Ridge figured since we'd been doing such a good job as the lead platoon, he thought it'd be wise to go with a winner. 16 Platoon formed up in skirmish order close behind us, with 17 Platoon another ten yards or so behind them. At this point, one thought impinged itself on my mind: not the possibility of my getting killed, but what kind of killing machine was I going to be when we were up there amongst the enemy? Would I kick him in the nuts first, then stick my bayonet in his guts? Would I beat his brains out with the rifle butt, or maybe grab the poor bastard by the throat and squeeze till his eyes bugged out? Or would he do it to me? No matter which way I looked at it, it wasn't what I'd call pleasant thoughts. Since there weren't any small-arms fire or grenades coming at us from the top of the hill, I banked hopes on the possibility that the heavy shelling had convinced the German commander to pull his troops back to the next hill, and all we'd have to do is walk up and sit. I was about ten feet in from a line of shrubbery or hedgelike growth as we move up the slope in extended order. Only Bob Wheatley was on my right. We hadn't gone more than twenty paces when I saw the guys around me bunching up, an all too common tendency that was not a good practice in an assault. One burst of gunfire and a third of a platoon would be gone. I didn't like it at all and spoke up, "Hey, you guys, spread out!" I barely got the words out of my mouth when a bluish white flash went off close to my right foot, bouncing me half around as though there were coil springs under my boots. In the next instant another flash went off in the air only inches off the top of my helmet. I don't recall hearing the blasts, nor did I recall how long I was knocked out. It might have been only seconds for all I know. When I came to, I was lying face down. My helmet was gone and blood was running freely down my face and the side of my head. I felt little pain, but at the rate the blood was flowing I was afraid I was bleeding to death. I probed the ground all around me, trying to find my rifle but was unsuccessful. I got up, stood there for a second or two, dizzy, light-headed and then almost passed out, but managed somehow to fight off the darkness closing in on me. Five of us had been knocked about by two grenades lobbed from over the shrubbery. Big Bob Wheatley got the worst of it and died a day later in 1st Field General Hospital in Jesi. Jimmy Eves, Maxie Pincombe, myself and one other fellow suffered lesser wounds. Though I looked to be most seriously wounded, what with all the blood pouring down my face, the surgeon at the Field Dressing Station, after removing the bandages and Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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cleaning up all the blood, found that my wounds were only superficial. I ended up in 14 General Hospital in Perugia for a two-week stay. From what I later learned from the boys, Dog Company had kicked proper shit out of the same parachute battalion that had given us a going over in the Riccio Valley seven and a half months earlier. When the big scuffle ended some time later, our boys had killed something like sixty of the enemy while losing only a few of their own men —none of whose wounds were fatal. The Germans hadn't been on the hill when our shoot came down, so they escaped that. But now our fellows were more than ready to take them on. It became an "every man for himself" melee, and Dog Company was equal to the task. Wielding their spike-tipped rifles with a skill they never thought they had in them, they beat the Germans hands down. When it was all over, the humbled and considerably weakened enemy (at least those who were still alive) beat a hasty retreat into the safety of the valley, leaving behind them in the battle arena another score or more of their men dead — either run through, shot, bludgeoned or strangled. By daylight the Germans had pulled all the way back to Monte Luro, three miles to the north. They'd had more than enough. Blackie Rowe always went into action with a rifle instead of a Tommy gun, as did most other sergeants. Senior NCOs learned this lesson a long time ago; enemy snipers had a penchant for singling out senior NCOs and officers for special attention. And so, Blackie always took his trusty No. 4 LeeEnfield into action. This time he got to use the bayonet with deadly effect. When the company ran headlong into the Germans, Rowe, like a latter day knight of old, waded into the squareheads with cool and deliberate thrusts. First a big behemoth of a man loomed up in front, coming at him like a runaway freight. Thrust, parry, thrust, parry and then a good thrust just under the rib cage — the big fellow let out a groan and went down. Then another came at him — again, thrust, parry, thrust, and the German went down clutching his throat, a gurgling groan escaping his lips as blood gushed out of his mouth and nose. One hulking brute took a hip shot at the dancing sergeant but missed; Blackie jumped sideways as though he knew exactly where the shot was going to go. Then he danced the opposite way, narrowly missing a second shot, and nailed his would-be killer. When Blackie was through disposing of his German adversaries he climbed on the hull of a Sherman tank, while small-arms fire crackled in the air all around him, and pointed out likely targets for the gunner. For this outstanding and courageous performance on Point 204, Rowe was subsequently decorated with the Distinguished Conduct Medal. At this point in the narrative, details become clouded by uncertainties and expanded imaginations of those who were there. But there are no 2 72

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doubts as to the overall picture. Dog Company won an astounding victory, winning for the Perth Regiment a major Battle Honour, considered the greatest the regiment won during all of World War II. Private Roy Saunders received the Military Medal and Captain Ridge and several others were Mentioned in Dispatches. On Point 204, Bill Reid proved to everyone in the regiment that he wasn't the kind of Battalion Commander who directs his men from well back out of the line of fire. He was up there on the crest, right in the thick of it with the rest. At the height of the brouhaha, when two Jerry SP guns trundled up out of the darkness to support the counter-attack, the wounded Reid rounded up a party of PIAT gunners from Dog and Baker Companies and led them to a position on the flank to take on the armoured vehicles. In the ensuing action the CO got his second wound, but he and his teams had succeeded in stopping the threat. They also knocked out a farm tractor the Germans were using to make the Canadians think they were under attack by a larger armoured force than was actually the case. For his bold and determined leadership and for the regiment's unexcelled performance in the Gothic Line, Reid won for himself and the regiment the second highest battlefield award, the Distinguished Service Order. We were pretty damn proud of him, and pretty damn proud of ourselves too for what we'd accomplished. It was no mean achievement when you realize who our opponents were — the German 1st Parachute Division, known far and wide as the elite division in the German Army. Meanwhile, on my way back through the medical stops I was repeatedly mistaken for one of the enemy, and was shot at, sworn at and generally mistreated. The denim I wore was covered in dust, giving it a field grey appearance. My head was swathed in bandages, with just the corners of my German style brush-cut showing. I had no shoulder patch or any other insignia confirming my Canuck status. The only way I could prove my identity confrontation was by swearing as only a Canadian could. First one of the Armoured blokes sent a bullet over my head, after which I unloaded on him every four-letter word in the Canadian lexicon. Then a little farther on, as I was passing a trio of PLDGs moving up to take over from us, I heard one of them say, "We ought to shoot the bastard!" And when I came to the top of Hill 115, where a medical officer and medical sergeant were at work treating our wounded, it happened again. The sergeant looked at me kind of funny and pointed to a stretcher, but said nothing, just tossed a folded blanket to me. Next to my stretcher the MO was working on a wound in another man's leg. He looked at me and then sharply spoke to the sergeant, "Get that goddamn blanket off that sonofabitch and give it to one of our own." Spearhead in the Gothic Line

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I looked at him in disbelief and anger, and spoke up in as vile a manner as I could muster. "What in fuckin' hell does a man have to do to prove he's Canadian? For crissakes I'm from the Perth Regiment. I come from Windsor, Ontario and live at 1720 Parent Avenue. What more do I have to say?" The MO looked me straight in the eye and finally apologized. "I'm sorry, son, but damned if you don't like one from the other side." Even the surgeon on duty thought I was a Jerry, and he too apologized. My last frustrating encounter came at the Casualty Clearing Station some miles back from the lines, when I inserted myself into a lineup of Canadian walking wounded entering a marquee tent. To our left was another line-up, this one of German walking wounded prisoners. Someone made a motion with his leg as though he was going to kick me in the ass and pointed to the other line-up, saying "Get the hell over there you Kraut bastard!" If I hadn't have been so weak I'd have taken a roundhouse poke at him. Once I reached No. 1 General Hospital in Jesi, I had my first bath in weeks, exchanged my filthy denim for fresh hospital blues, and finally felt like a Canadian. My part in the battle of the Gothic Line had come to an end.

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CHAPTER 7

INTO THE Po PLAINS

A

fter the first week I spent in 14th Field General Hospital in Perugia, a strange, uncomfortable feeling came over me — a cross between nervousness, boredom and irritability. Why I should feel this way, I couldn't hope to answer. All I knew was that I should have been jumping for joy, glad to be catching up on lost sleep, glad to know that I had a nice sheet-covered cot to climb into at night, glad for the regular meals that were so much more palatable than what old Tommy Wilson could serve, glad I was able to bathe or shower whenever I felt like it, and most of all, glad to be far away from the front and all the terrors thereof. But although Jimmy Eves and Maxie Pincombe were only a few beds over from me, I found myself missing all the other familiar faces of the platoon. In other words, I missed my home away from home. Something inside of me kept nagging, insisting I didn't belong here, that I should have never let the medics send me this far back. At no time did I feel any pain or weakness from my superficial wounds, so why didn't I stand up like a man and refuse to be sent out? It had to be that little guy inside of me — the little cringing fellow I knew was there all the time, the little guy I despised. Most of the time I pinned him down so he couldn't do much damage, but when I was on my way through the Field Ambulance and the Casualty Clearing Station, the detestable little guy worked himself free and kept needling me to go as far back as they'd take me, telling me I'd enough of fighting, that I should save my own skin and not worry about anybody else.

But now that I'd had a good rest, instead of feeling on top of the world, a malaise set in. I couldn't sit still. I couldn't even enjoy reading the Maple Leaf. By the eighth day I knew what it was that was troubling me. I wanted to be back with 18 Platoon regardless of what it would mean. Normally, when a man spends some time in a hospital, on recovering he was sent to the convalescent depot at Avellino for a spell before going back up front. Since I was in hospital for only twelve days, it was deemed I required no convalescence, but instead would be sent directly to No. 4 Battalion, a way station for reinforcements and recovered hospital cases on the way up to their units. The camp was located on the rolling heath outside Jesi. For a moment or two, I was torn between anticipation of rejoining the regimental family, and dread of what I'd have to face up to all over again when I got there. The better half of my nature, however, won over, and I felt both a wave of relief and a surge of excitement. On the way up, someone in our truck mentioned something that scared hell out of me. He said there was a chance we might end up with a unit other than our own. According to him, the reinforcement situation was in bad shape, what with all the casualties the Corps had sustained in the Gothic Line fighting. As a result, it was decided by the powers-that-be to parcel out the men to whatever unit needed reinforcements most at a given time. This meant that a man who couldn't speak or understand a word of French could very well end up in the Van Doos, and of course, vice-versa for the French who knew no English. Now, the Van Doos were one hell of a fighting regiment, and I'm not taking anything away from them, but who'd want to be sent to a regiment where he wouldn't be able to communicate with his platoon mates? Certainly not me. But I'd have no choice. I could make all the noise I wanted, weep, wail and gnash my teeth — it wouldn't do me any good. Orders were orders. There was no way I wanted to go to any other regiment but the Perths. I couldn't stand the thought of being thrown in amongst strangers. As it turned out, my worries came to nought. I breathed a sigh of relief when I found myself on draft next morning with eight other guys on my way to the Perths. We stayed at No. 4 Battalion overnight and arrived in San Giovanni di Marignano shortly after noon, greeted on the outskirts of town by a sudden flurry of heavy-calibre shells crashing with monstrously loud bangs in the vineyards to our right — close enough to give us a good scare. Now I was having second thoughts about the situation, wishing to hell I hadn't been so goddamned eager to go back up front. What the hell had come over me? I must have been nuts to want to face the crap all over again. No one had to tell me what was up there waiting for me. I knew well enough. Within the hour I'd been reissued with full fighting gear, all the same items 276

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of web equipment I'd been issued with when I joined the army, plus rifle, spike-bayonet and scabbard, four Bren mags a helmet and a water-bottle. The helmet didn't fit too well; it took awhile for the liner to assume the shape of my head. My battledress and everything else had not long before been the property of some unlucky guy who'd been killed or wounded up at Coriano Ridge. The llth Brigade, after its quick and spectacular victory on Coriano Ridge had been brought back to San Giovanni for a rest and refit. Supported by their armoured brothers of 5th Armoured Brigade, they had done one hell of a job of kicking Jerry's ass off the ridge and out of the town. And they did it in only one day of battle. British V Corps had had a couple of cracks at this powerful layback position in the Gothic Line, but suffered heavy casualties and got nowhere. Lieutenant-General Oliver Leese had no recourse but to turn the job over to the Canadians who were coming in on Fifth Corps' right. A little over an hour after midnight on September 13, following an artillery barrage by the all the guns of Corps artillery, the Cape Breton Highlanders scrambled their way up the ridge on the right of the town under moderate resistance from the enemy holed up in elaborate trench systems and individual weapons posts, and though they later ran into trouble with mines and loss of communications and heavy defensive mortar and artillery fire, suffering moderately heavy casualties, they took their objective and prepared for the inevitable counter-attack which they expected the enemy would not be long in launching. The Perths on their left, at the southern extremity of the ridge, were on their objective within a little more than an hour, less than a mile and a half from town. Their victory came with surprising ease and few casualties. With the ridge secured and tanks of the 8th New Brunswick Hussars coming up in support of the two regiments at daybreak, the Irish Regiment of Canada passed through to take on the enemy in a sharp and spirited fight for the town. The Panzer-Grenadiers of the 26th and 29th PG Divisions fought hard and with great skill for most of the day against the Toronto Regiment — making almost every house into a fortress, from which the attacking Irish had to eject them one by one. It wasn't until about 9:00 a.m. the next day that the last Jerry had been either killed, captured or driven out of town. In comparison with the high number of German casualties, the scores that were captured by the Canadians and the seven hundred or more that fled straight into the waiting arms of British V Corps, 5th Armoured came out of the battle having sustained relatively light losses. The Cape Bretons suffered the highest number in dead and wounded, with twenty-two of their men making the supreme sacrifice, while the Perths had ten killed and Into the Po Plains

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the Irish fourteen. As for 18 Platoon, I was glad to see they got away with only a half-dozen wounded and no one dead. It was the only action I missed in the campaign. My first night back with 8 Section as a rifle-toting Perth was a jim-dandy. A torrential rainfall and electric storm hit us a roundhouse whack. It was the worst storm we'd experienced since the one that hit us under the English cherry trees at Caiazzo in July. On that occasion we were in pup tents and stayed dry, but here in San Giovanni, things were altogether different, at least for those of us not lucky enough to be billeted in houses. Some of the boys in the company, along with the recent arrivals, had to settle for slit-trenches and dugouts in gardens behind the houses. I shared one with a young lad, a reinforcement I rode up with from No. 4 Battalion — a quiet little guy by the name of Don Neal. He was from Sarnia. In just a couple of weeks Don would be killed not ten yards away from me. There was no doubt that the trench we bedded down in had been the work of a Jerry. It was too deep, too neatly measured out and too precisely excavated to have been the craftsmanship of a Canadian. The floor was covered in a thick layer of straw and it was roofed over with heavy timber and a layer of sod. Canadians very rarely went to all that work and trouble in constructing shelters. Our trenches were almost always slipshod affairs, deep enough only to get us below the surface. In this one, a man could really feel secure, and so I looked forward to a good night's sleep. Knowing that the town was in range of Jerry's big guns I felt it would be safer for me down at the bottom of this splendid excavation than in a house that might come down around my ears. By midnight, however, instead of being rudely awakened by the loud crash of 155mms, we were greeted by a powerful electric storm, accompanied by a downpour of hurricane proportions. At first, things weren't too bad, and I turned over on my straw bed and tried to get back to sleep. But sleep was out of the question. A virtual Niagara Falls began running down the dirt steps to form a pool under the straw Don and I were sleeping on. For a short while the thick layer of straw kept us above the wetness, but then the sheer volume of water cascading down the steps had now risen to about two inches deep, forcing us to abandon ship in panic. We made a frantic dash through the sheeting rain and the loud cracks of thunder and lightning flashes, as we made tracks for the nearby houses. But there was no room available at the inn that night so we had no choice but to spend the remainder of the night trying to get some sleep on top of a pile of kit-bags in a storage shed. It wasn't exactly what you'd call comfortable sleeping, but at least it was a whole lot better than drowning in a dugout. 278

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On September 22 we were on the move again, this time to the "promised land," that piece of flat real estate known as the Po Plains. A little over three weeks ago we had listened to a speech by our new CO, Lieutenant-Colonel Reid, as we prepared to follow on the heels of 1st Division units on the approach to the Gothic Line. He had boasted that once we broke through we'd go "hell-bent for election" across ideal tank country — riding triumphantly on the hulls of Sherman tanks, chasing the Jerries all the way back to the Po. It was easy for him to say, but a hell of a lot harder for us to do. Instead of barreling ass all the way to the Po, it became more like a wormcrawl through mud, shit and blood. We'd been told that our arrival in Venice would take no more than two or three weeks. Instead it took us four and a half heartbreaking months of a soul-destroying, man-killing campaign just to reach the Senio River, with Venice still out of reach another seventy miles north. Our convoy snaked along secondary roads through a farming region relatively unscarred by war. Most of the farmhouses and outbuildings were intact, with only odd shrapnel marks on the stuccoed walls. Though the fields on both sides of the road were pockmarked here and there with shellholes, the vineyards stood largely undamaged, their vines heavy with grapes ready for picking. We soon passed through the battleground at Coriano where llth Brigade gave the Jerries a good rocking-back on their heels and then delivered the knockout punch. It was a battle that won the highest of honours for the division, a victory important enough to have Churchill himself announce it in one of his press conferences. Also, a well-deserved congratulatory message from 8th Army Commander Oliver Leese had been sent to all units involved. We de-bused at the base of San Fortunate Ridge, the last piece of high ground before the wide, flat expanse of the Romagna, better known to the troops as the Po Plain. The ridge had been cleared by 1st Division units a couple of days earlier. They were now into the plain and shouldering their way up to the wide, stony bed of the Marecchia River three miles away. Not much activity was going on along the front at that moment as we filed out into the fields and set to work digging ourselves in for the night. There seemed to be no urgency to get below ground, at least not until three heavy-calibre delayed-action shells whistled over the crest to slam down in Dog Company lines. The earth shook under our feet. This was the first time we'd come under fire of delayed-action shells, and they sure scared the living hell out of us. The big bastards went down about five or six feet before exploding, throwing huge lumps of clay fifty feet in the air. We could Into the Po Plains

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survive an ordinary artillery and mortar stonk, as long as there was no direct hit on our trench. But this was something else again. If one of these hundred-pound missiles slammed into the ground a couple of yards away from our trench, it would kill us through the blast or by burying us alive in the collapse of our trench. I was later told that this happened to Gerry Purcell of 16 Platoon. There were many ways to die in this war. The big "boxcars," as we called them, moaned and rumbled over in sets of three, spaced about a minute apart. After fifteen minutes of quiet, over they'd come again, the final second of their flight sounding like a freight-train rushing by. One landed no more than twenty yards from my trench, giving me an awful jolt, while the next two landed near the kitchen. Fortunately, the kitchen crew's slit-trenches were far enough away for them to escape unhurt. I knew that it didn't matter what I was doing or where I might hide on that godforsaken ridge — there was a chance one of these monsters could kill me. I thought it might be wiser to walk up the slope to the crest, where the shells were unlikely to fall, than to stay down near the bottom. Along with the fear driving me, I wanted to be the first in my company to lay eyes on the "promised land" we'd been hearing about for the last three weeks. After my exhilarating view of the Po Plains I went on a meander about the stately mansions and gardened estates on the crest of the ridge, the properties shaded by stately cypresses and umbrella pines and landscaped by masters of the art. I had hopes of going through the mansions for something of value to sell, trade, or send home, but came away with nothing. As luck would have it, the people who owned these mini-palaces hadn't deserted them, choosing instead to ride out the storm and protect their investments. The imposing mansions and grounds had so far escaped with very little or no damage. It was a relief to get away from the San Fortunate slope which the enemy's artillery OPs seemed to have singled out for special attention. After a quick breakfast of scrambled powdered eggs, fried Spam and a cup of weak tea, we formed up on the road, each man five yards apart, and went up and over the slope into the plain, pausing at the top to take a breathless panoramic view of the flat country stretching all the way to the foothills of the Alps. What a relief it would be not to have to climb any more hills and mountains! We saw nothing that could possibly deny us now the privilege of closing down this long and bitterly fought campaign with a lightning sweep with armour to the Po and beyond to the Alps. Of course, we couldn't know, having no access to maps, that ahead of us were all kinds of rivers, streams and ditches, barriers that would be defended with the same skill and bulldog tenacity that the Germans 280

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displayed in the mountains to the south. How were we to know that the rainy season was at hand, and that after days of steady rain the farmlands in the plain would become expanses of gluelike porridge through which our tanks could make almost no progress? Even the infantry would find these muddy fields major impediments to assault and advance. We'd been misled by our Intelligence people. In that deceptively tranquil triangle of a plain stretching for some forty miles ahead of us to the Senio River the farthest our advance would eventually carry, a lot of Perths, Irish and Cape Bretons would yet know the pain of wounds, and a lot more would give their lives in the taking of it. The Advance to the Fiumicino River After spending four days in the vicinity of San Giustina on the Via Emilia, enjoying the last days of summer sunshine, we took to the road under leaden skies with a touch of autumn in the air, our route taking us through the gun-lines of a twenty-five-pounder battery. A short distance down the road we cut across open fields on our approach to the arena of battle and came across three abandoned German naval guns set on concrete aprons. These had to be the guns that had shelled us with delayed action projectiles on the San Fortunate slope. Just past the guns, we came upon enemy slittrenches littered with gas-mask canisters, ammunition boxes, helmets, rifles, and personal effects. To me, it was obvious a bunch of Jerries had been taken prisoner and our boys relieved them of their watches, wallets, weapons, decorations and anything else they had of value. Being a notorious looter, I was quick to rummage through the debris, but I came away empty-handed except for a few snapshots of a Wehrmacht officer in his walking-out dress. For some unknown reason we had to pause here, and as usual, I couldn't let the time go by without an exploration of the surrounding neighbourhood — which on this occasion offered little in the way of encouragement. The only house or building close enough to go nosing through was at least four hundred yards across the open fields, but I didn't let that stand in my way. Slipping away without the sergeant or platoon commander seeing me, I took off. And as usual I had to listen to remarks like, "Damn it, Scislowski, can't you ever sit still? One of these days you're gonna step on a mine or get blown up on a booby trap." The warnings, as always, went in one ear and out the other. I entered this block building, not much larger than a two-car garage, and was jubilant to find I'd stumbled upon an abandoned Jerry food warehouse packed with canned goods. With my clasp-knife I opened Into the Po Plains

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several cans to see what they contained, though I could more or less guess what was in them by the names stenciled on the cans. One had "kartoffel" stenciled on it; I knew this had to be potatoes because the Polish word for this staple was the same. Another can read "sauerkraut," and who couldn't guess what that word meant? A third was packed with sausages. My hands actually trembled with anticipation as I opened the cans. To my intense delight there were even cans of barley soup —one of my favourites — stacked to the ceiling. Before loading my tunic with as many cans as I could tuck inside, I opened a can of sauerkraut and bratwurst and had myself a good feed. How good it was to taste these long-forgotten delicacies! I filled my gut until I could eat no more. And all along I'd been under the impression the Germans were near starving. Not according to all the good things piled up around me. Now I knew they dined like kings compared to what we were getting fed. And so, labouring under the load of cans inside my tunic, and as many as I could carry in my arms, I made off across the soggy pasture to where my platoon waited passively for orders to move on. When I arrived and dumped the load of goodies in front of the boys, their eyes popped wide open in amazement. They went off across the farmland like stampeding buffalos. It looked for a while no one in the company would be going hungry that night, nor for a couple of days after. But when it came time to move on again, most of the canned goods had to be left behind. There was just no way we could carry this extra bulk into battle. For most of us, carrying four bandoliers of .303 ammo, a rifle, four extra Bren mags, a couple of No. 36 grenades, and a phosphorus No. 69 grenade was a heavy enough load. I took along only one can of sausage, which I consumed later that day. After that, all I had left as emergency rations was a small can of Yank beef stew that I had picked up somewhere in my travels. After a tiring slog through farmland still damp from heavy rain , we came to a gravelled secondary road that was a lot easier on our legs. A mile up the road we crossed the Uso River, claimed by some historians to be the historic Rubicon that Caesar crossed with his legions in 49 BC (others claimed the Fiumicino was that river). The historic significance of this mere trickle of water made no impression on me, since ancient history wasn't one of my favourite subjects in school. I'd heard the name Rubicon mentioned from time to time when we were into Julius Caesar and the study of the Roman Empire, but the boring details thereof weren't things I took to heart.Canadian troops, by and large, were lazy when it came to digging in. We exerted ourselves to dig deeper only when caught by a sudden rash of mortar or shellfire. Since the few that fell that night were 282

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well to our front, we felt no need to deepen our trenches. After all, we knew we'd be leaving in the morning, so why work up a sweat? We awoke at the crack of dawn next morning to the growl of tank engines and the squeak and grate of many tracks, and then watched with some uneasiness as a squadron or more of tanks maneuvered in the fields around us. Much as I felt secure whenever our tanks were in the vicinity, I hated to see them up as close. All they did was make a great target for enemy artillery and mortar crews, and when the shells did come it was the infantry who did most of the dying. The tank boys at least had armour for protection — we had nothing but our Battledress and underclothing to stop shrapnel and bullets. This time we were lucky. Nothing came over. The Jerries were pulling back to their next line of defence and hadn't yet set their batteries in place. Regardless, we were more than relieved to get away from the noisy throng of tanks, Brencarriers and trucks moving all around us. Shortly after forming up we marched off towards the sound of smallarms fire up the way a piece. Rain began falling — at first only a drizzle, a half-hour later a deluge. Out came the gas capes and groundsheets, and though protected well enough from the rain, we weren't all that enthusiastic to do any more marching, let alone to look for a good dogfight. Rain will do it every time. As bad as it is to die at any time, whether on a warm and sunny day or under the dark clouds of winter, to most of us it was unsettling to imagine ourselves dying in cold, hard-driving rain out in the middle of a barren field that was nothing but a quagmire. So, here we were, slouching along, each one of us wrapped in a suffocating blanket of misery, shoulders hunched against the pelting rain, heads down, eyes fixed on the road, trudging reluctantly towards the sound of battle only a short way up the road. We were not yet under direct fire and already I felt a weakening of the resolve to fight. "How can we expect to win a battle feeling this way?" I remember in my misery wondering if the Germans also felt this way about going into battle under these conditions. I was so wrapped up in this, I was walking in a trance. Then a strange sound snapped me back to reality; it was like someone swinging a rusty gate back and forth. Seconds later, the products of this sound came rushing towards us in a low moan, like the sighing of wind through the cracks of an old barn. The column instantly disintegrated in a mad frenzy of diving bodies. "Moaning Minnies!" It was our first time under the fire of this fearsome six-barreled mortar that fired rocketpropelled bombs. The six bombs straddled the road with ear-punishing detonations, but thankfully not one of them landed on the road or in the ditch where we so desperately hugged the muddy ground. After we'd Into the Po Plains

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climbed out and gotten moving again, I saw a large fragment from one of the bombs lying at the roadside, a jagged, twisted piece of orange-painted metal about a foot and a half long, six inches wide and a half-inch thick. The sight of it sent a shudder up my spine. Not two minutes later we heard the Nebelwerfer cranking up again — another salvo was on its way. This time the fearsome rockets crashed into the fields well behind and off to the left of the road, tearing up more grapevine trellises. Misery and discomfort could only go so far before losing their harmful effect on morale. So it was with us, with the rain coming down in torrents. We simply leaned into it, the water running off our helmets, the rain beating into our faces, seeping through openings in our groundsheets enough to make things so miserable that we no longer cared whether we lived or died. Everywhere around us and above us was nothing but dreariness. It was in the low ceiling of dark and dismal rain-laden clouds., the wide sweep of desolate fields covered in wide sheets of water rippled by the wind, the patches of brown mud like tiny islands here and there. But by this time we were numb to all this. We hadn't gone a quarter mile when Captain Swartz, Dog Company's second in command, realized we were on the wrong track and were running into 2nd New Zealand Division's axis of advance. Backpedaling in a hurry, we returned to our original line-of-march route, along which we continued for another quarter-mile before turning right again. Then we were where we were supposed to be. Up till now, except for the two salvos of Moaning Minnie fire, things were going fairly easy for us, but the ease of our advance was not to last. In fact, we ran into heavy mortar fire, driving us into the drainage ditch, where by now the water was up to our ankles. We sloshed along the ditch, ducking every time a bomb landed close by. From the sheer volume of bombs Jerry was sending over, it was surprising that no one in Dog Company had thus far been hit. It was probably because the mud and water absorbed most of the blast and fragments — otherwise we would have lost a lot of people. We swore at the rain. We swore at the cold water we were wading through. And we swore simply for the sake of swearing. One of the reinforcements suddenly went "off his rocker" and went screaming and hollering down the road, flailing his arms about like a cheerleader at a football game or like someone fighting off a swarm of bees. He was a quiet, studious-looking lad with blonde hair and dark-rimmed glasses; he was slender in build, non-athletic, and looked out of place in the infantry. He should have been behind a typewriter back at Corps HQ. The poor kid had taken as much he could handle, and he snapped. We stopped 284

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in our tracks to watch him run first one way down the road and then back the other, eyes bugged out, crying in abject fear. He was totally out of it. A sad case. But as much as we felt sorry for him, there was nothing we could do for him. We had our own rising fears to fight off, our own survival to worry about. The same could very well happen to us, but we weren't thinking too much about it. And then, from out of nowhere, a tight little group — a lamb, a goat, three chickens, a duck and a cat — ran up and down the road in a frenzied panic similar to that of our friend. Strange that I should, for those few moments, have felt more pity and concern for the beasts and fowl of the barnyard than I did for myself. Stranger still that as I watched them run back and forth, the lamb and goat bleating and the chickens cackling up a storm, I actually forgot my own fears, though only for a moment. With the rain coming straight down in sheets we crouched in the ditch with the water shin-deep and getting deeper by the minute. With the mortars coming down almost as heavy as the rain I had a feeling it wouldn't be long before one of them would land right in the ditch. I was in the lead section, fifth down the line, as we scurried across the neck of the T junction and waded along the ditch on the far side, spaced five yards apart. Splashing in the water behind me came Lloyd Querin, with the rest of the platoon stretched out at equal intervals behind him. In front of me was Norm Diamond, and ahead of Norm was Don Neal. We'd gone no more than twenty-five yards when a mortar bomb landed in the ditch between Diamond and Neal. The blast knocked both Querin and me on our backs, Querin against one bank and me against the other. It stunned me, and as I lay there not knowing what happened, I looked across at Querin. His eyes were closed so I thought he was dead. I got to my feet, stumbled about in the water in a daze and then saw Norm Diamond lying on his back in the water, blood draining from a gaping wound on the side of his head and flowing downstream past my boots in a long red streak. Another five yards along lay the horribly mangled body of young Don Neal. This did it. Something snapped inside. I went to pieces. It wasn't a proud moment. Whether my rifle had been blown out of my hands or whether I simply let go of it and ran, I couldn't remember. I only remember taking off out of the ditch like I was shot out of a cannon, making a beeline for a small house on the far side of the road. I was in shock, like the blond reinforcement who had gone haywire not five minutes earlier. I'd been scared many times before, but never enough to fall apart the way I did this time. I threw myself through the partially opened side door like a fullback finding daylight in an opponent's line and before I knew it I was under a Into the Po Plains

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bed. To my surprise there were two guys already under it. Although I was shaken up, these two looked a lot worse off. I wasn't concerned about them, though; I began to question myself, and damage to my self-esteem was beginning to set in. Battlefield breakdown isn't a pleasant sight, especially when you see it happen to someone you've always respected. It's a hell of a lot more unpleasant when it happens to you. "Oh, God!" I was thinking, "How can I go back to my family with this on my conscience? I failed not only my buddies, I failed my country too. How can I face the gang back home knowing the guts I had shown on the gridiron deserted me here where it really counted?" My mind was in a terrible turmoil. How could I live with myself anymore? I hadn't been under the bed more than five minutes when I heard a commotion at the door, so I stuck my head out and was relieved to see some of my guys from 18 Platoon: Sergeant Rowe, Corporal Bun Welsh, Corporal Tony Wanner, Private Bill Humphrey, and three others whose identity never registered in my memory. The boys saw me at once. Rowe exclaimed, "What in jeezly hell are you doing under that bed, Scislowski? Get your bloody ass out of there right now!" I crawled out, feeling lower than any man would have any excuse to feel. The other two guys refused to crawl out. "C'mon you guys, haul ass outta there!" Rowe repeated. Not a move. "Never mind, shoot the bastards!" Bun Welsh rapped out in a sarcasm that stung me, though I'd gotten out and was now standing with the group. Still, the two under the bed refused to come out. In nervous and disjointed manner I managed to convey to Rowe what had happened, which wasn't necessary since he knew the details. After all, he was no more than twenty yards behind me. Seeing me in such a highly nervous state, Blackie decided to send me back to the RAP, and had Humph go with me. Why have Humph take me back? I could make it out on my own. But then who was I to argue? I said nothing — just nodded my head in agreement. The other two, as I was later told, finally did crawl out from under the bed. I never did find out what happened to them after that, whether they were branded as psychoneurosis cases or not. They must have been, because they never did come back to the regiment. I think I would rather have died than carry a cross like that for the rest of my life. Instead of going back by way of the road, because of the heavy mortar fire Humph and I took to the field. Though it was tough going slogging through the mud, we made fair time. After about two hundred yards through the muck and mire, we swung at an angle towards a stretch of road that appeared to be free of mortar fire. But before we reached the road, Jerry began using air-bursts. I 286

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still think they were using us as an aiming mark — otherwise why were all the air-bursts going off over our heads and nowhere else? Hell, we were the only people above ground. There wasn't a soul to be seen anywhere. They followed us all the way across the fields, the fragments splatting in the mud around us., and there was no use hitting the ground because we'd just make a larger target. It sure took some nerve to stay on our feet, though. We'd no sooner reached the road when one of the babies went off right over our heads, and before I knew it, both of us were flying through the air in frantic dives for the drainage ditch on the far side of the road. When I came down on the far bank I thought I'd been hit. It felt like a hunk of shrapnel had gone through my back and exited just below my breastbone. I flipped over on my back, gasping and grimacing, but the pain was all in my chest, not my back. Then I felt my chest and was surprised to find no blood, no gaping wound. "Why am I hurting, then?" No time to dwell on it. I got up and took off as fast as my short legs could carry me, splashing through the water like a runaway racehorse to catch up to Humphrey ahead of me. Humph thought I'd been killed and wasn't about to hang around confirming it. I made up his fifty-yard advantage quicker than I thought possible, practically tripping over his heels as we emerged from the ditch and made it to the relative safety of the RAP. Recovery from battle shock can come in strange and unexpected ways. It came to me half an hour later, after sitting around the aid station waiting for someone to look after me. While sitting on a wooden crate twiddling my thumbs, mulling over in my mind what I had just gone through, I could feel myself coming back from the edge. I knew I'd be okay from that point on. I had to get back to the platoon. Under the circumstances, I should have lost all appetite for food. But I hadn't. Then I remembered the small can of Yank beef stew I'd been carrying inside my tunic. I reached in to take it out, but it wasn't there. I went into a nervous fit until it dawned on me that it had to have been the can of stew that gave me that awful wallop in the chest when I came down in the ditch. It must have shifted in my tunic when I dove, coming to rest on the breast-bone when I landed, all 170 pounds of me. And then it fell out into the water. Now, all of a sudden the uppermost thing in my mind was the retrieval of that can of stew. Nothing else mattered. I had to find that can. That's all there was to it. No 'ands', cifs' or cbuts' about it, / had to find that can! Not even the bombs going off with frightful regularity would deter me. They were of no consequence anymore. I hustled along the ditch to where I thought I'd lost it, and felt around in the cold, shin-deep water. A bomb hit almost on the very lip of the ditch only yards away — still, I kept Into the Po Plains

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at it, raking with both hands, trying to find that can of stew. I straightened up to take a brief look around, but ducked down when a sniper somewhere tried to pick me off. This happened twice more, and I decided it wasn't worth losing my life over a lousy couple mouthfuls of stew. I was ready now to go back 18 Platoon, if I could find them. At night this would be no easy job. It would be pretty risky mucking about in the dark, where I might get shot by my own people — or else bump into a Jerry patrol and end up taken prisoner, or shot. So I decided to wait for daylight. Since the decrepit old farmhouse was taken over by the RAP staff, the only place I could find to bed down for the night was an animal pen at the back of the house. Its skimpy overhead cover would at least keep out the rain, and might even provide a small measure of protection from mortar fragments. A direct or even close hit would be another matter altogether. And so, using a clump of the animal crap as a pillow, I laid my weary head down and soon fell asleep. But the sleep was a short and broken one. A cold breeze blowing through the slats woke me up, and as the night wore on, the disturbing and unmistakable drone of a Jerry plane kept me awake. It could only be the legendary "Mad Major," a moniker our people hung on every Jerry pilot who flew his plane over the front at night. If indeed it was, he had to be the most overworked pilot in the Luftwaffe. I couldn't relax until he finally flew off to the north. After he'd gone, the only thing I had to contend with till morning, was the bone-penetrating clammy cold and the stink. By morning, my knees, back and my neck ached something fierce from the combined effect of the cold and cramped position. After wangling a corned beef sandwich (canned variety) from the RAP boys, along with a cup of tea, I felt a lot better than I had in a while. Now, determined more than ever to get back to 18 Platoon and knowing I'd have no peace of mind until that came about, I picked up a rifle propped up against the wall and a bandolier of .303 clips. Who it belonged to I had no way of knowing, nor did I care. I just took it and went off down the ditch. On the first sortie I got no more than forty feet out, when I had to high-tail it back after mortars came down right across my path. I waited until things cooled off a bit and went out a second time. This time a couple of snipers picked me up and tried to pick me off. Two shots, one after the other, cracked past my ears, the bullets smacking into the muddy bank beside me. I ducked down, waited a few seconds, then went into a duckwaddle up the ditch. I gave up when another mortar stonk came down, two bombs landing so close that stink of the HE was in the air. To go in daylight was out of the question. I'd have to wait for darkness, or at least twilight. 288

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What I couldn't figure out was why the Jerry mortar crews hadn't targeted the farmhouse. Was it possible they knew it was being used as an RAP and respected it as such? My third try at finding 18 Platoon went off without a hitch, and in fact, much easier than I expected it to go. At the T junction I hesitated, not knowing whether to go straight ahead — along the ditch where Don Neal and Norm Diamond had so brutally perished — or turn left and head straight for the Fiumicino River some four hundred yards away. I chose the latter, which happened to be the right choice. Ten minutes later I found Eight Section holed up in an abandoned stable less than fifty yards from the river. Outside the stable, scattered about in the nearby vineyard lay the bloated bodies of the recent occupants, the cows' legs projecting stiffly out from their ballooned corpses. They must have only recently been killed because there was no stink hanging in the air. My guys were glad to see me back and asked me how I managed to find them, but before I could answer, Blackie broke the conversation off and directed me to take up a position by a narrow opening overlooking the road. I spent the entire night straining my eyes looking out into the darkness, listening with ears cocked for the sound of a Jerry patrol moving in on us. When a man stares into darkness long enough, his nerves as taut as violin strings, imagination takes over and starts playing weird tricks on him. Everything in the forbidding darkness seems to move. Shrubbery, fence posts, trees. Though it was a night of unrelieved tension, it passed without incident. Knowing that Jerry wasn't more than seventy-five yards away, though, I knew we might not be so lucky the next night, or the night after that. When the urge to smoke came, a man had to take his puffs under a groundsheet, to hide the glow of the cigarette. Conversation was in whispers, and at no time were we supposed to leave our post to even take a leak. We did it off to the side and that was it. Throughout the campaign it seemed that Jerry was more aggressive than we were when it came to patrolling. They might not have been as expert at it as we were — especially compared to the Indians in our midst, who were masters at the game of stalking — but the sheer boldness of their forays had to be admired. Because of this we had to be on our toes all night long. And since we were now closer to them than at any time since we'd come to the plains, it was only natural that we should expect them to be out and about with mayhem in mind. It had been hammered into our heads a long time ago that a position in a building of any kind was almost impossible to defend against any determined fighting patrol. All it would take to knock us off was a hit or Into the Po Plains

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two from a bazooka, or a couple of grenades tossed through a window, and it'd be "goodbye, Charlie." So why weren't we in slit-trenches instead? Because it was impossible to dig down more than a foot before the trench filled with water. With the untenable state of our defences here on the Fiumicino, it was understandable that we should be more than relieved when a runner arrived at first light with the good news that the New Zealanders would be taking over from us that night. As darkness cloaked the mud-flats, we waited by our posts with great anticipation for the Kiwis to show up, ready and anxious to hand our stable positions over to them. Disturbing, though, was the outrageous racket they made on their way up. We could hear them coming a mile away; a rabble at arms. NCOs shouting orders, people laughing, loud talk, equipment banging and rattling: they sounded more like a crowd of fans hurrying through the gates of a football stadium on a Saturday afternoon than the great fighting troops we knew them to be. We thought the Kiwis knew better than to carry on the way they did, making enough racket to alert every German between there and the Po. We would expect such behaviour from green troops, but not from these superb veterans of the North African Campaign. We wasted no time getting out of the place once the Kiwis, section by section, took over our positions. We hustled off down the road like scared rabbits, expecting Jerry artillery to open up on us at any minute. If we heard the Kiwis coming, then certainly the guys just across the river heard them as well, and would radio or telephone back to their guns that a relief was in progress at this map co-ordinate. This time, for some unknown reason, the enemy was uncharacteristically slow in reacting. We were well down the road, with 18 Platoon in the lead at the T junction, before German guns started banging away. We thought the shells would be on their way to where we were and braced ourselves for a flight to the ditch, but this time they weren't meant for us. Behind us we could see the flashes and hear the shells going off like a roll of drums. It was the Kiwis getting a good and proper lambasting. Although we felt sorry for them, they had only themselves to blame after their riotous approach march. Home free! Or so we thought. After marching a couple of miles and reaching a point somewhere around the Rubicon River, just as we were approaching a large three-storey building that looked like it might have once been a convent, all hell broke loose. Jerry artillery fire started coming down alongside the building and straddling the road. Reaction to this new threat was swift, but unusual and even insane. Instead of taking to the ditches or making a run for the open fields to our right, where no shells were falling, we ran straight toward the inferno. Why? Damned if I know! 290

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Maybe it was because the big, fortress-like building looked so invitingly strong and safe. Whatever it was, we had to be either nuts or brave — I don't know which. It would have been so much more sensible and safer to go in the opposite direction. But, as so often happens in the grim experience of war, people do strange things. What should have been a slaughter turned out okay for us. Only one man died, so far as I know, and only a half-dozen others suffered minor wounds. As the big building with an inner courtyard or quadrangle was already occupied by a signals unit, an engineer company, some artillery personnel, and a sizeable number of people from the district seeking shelter within its thick walls, the only space available for Dog Company was the attic, the floor of which was piled two feet deep in oats. Although we weren't scheduled to put up here for the night, this is where we stayed. And a most restful night it was, spent in the warmth of a soft bed of grain. Although the loud blast of shells outside the walls all night long was disturbing, we slept reasonably well and in relative security, knowing there was a substantial roof over our heads. With the coming of the new day we rose in good frame of mind, although we had to beat the grain dust from our Battledress and cough it up out of our lungs. For a while, the loft sounded like a sanitarium for severe TB cases, what with all the hacking and coughing going on. We were hungry, but there'd be no breakfast for us that morning. The unit occupying the space below had rations enough only for their own people. But this was no big inconvenience, for within the hour our kitchen in San Giustina served us a welcome hot breakfast. We took over a row of heavily damaged houses just off the crossroads of that shell-beaten hamlet, glad to be out of action for a spell, although we weren't out of range of Jerry's heavier artillery. Upsetting, however, were the horrible wrecks of the billets assigned to us. They were little but shells, offering scant shelter from the elements or from lethal things that fall from the sky. Half the roof was missing in the house my section took over, and the interior was a godawful filthy shambles. Seeing the condition of our new quarters, I would have much preferred a pup-tent. Wherever we spent more than a day, construction of a latrine was the first item on the settling-in agenda. The length of our stay determined how elaborate or how basic the latrine would be. A long stay like the one we spent outside Caiazzo demanded a six by six by six foot deep excavation over which a wooden platform with eight holes — four back to back, would be set in place. But since our stay at San Giustina would be for no more than three days, all that was required was a six-foot-long trench two feet deep. Into the Po Plains

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The officers' latrines were always a notch or two better than our own. They were always shielded from public view by burlap screening; not so for us Herbies. The lower ranks were never accorded the simple luxury of privacy. Preservation of our modesty was something the army was not particularly concerned with. But this time, modesty and dignity in regards to the officers' needs went by the boards; somebody in QM stores had slipped up. There wasn't a yard of screening to be found in the supplies. So the officers had to share the embarrassing situation of having their rear ends exposed to all and sundry, alongside our own humble backsides. Hardly any civilians were around anyway, but as it happened, on the first day I was squatting blissfully, side by side with two other characters, when hunkering down only fifteen feet away were the company commander and two platoon officers — all doing their thing. Meanwhile, across the stubbled field we could see Captain Gerry Getty of the newly organized Special Assault Weapons Platoon instructing his men on the workings and the handling of the lifebuoy-type, backpack flamethrower. Since we'd handled the flamethrower in demonstrations we knew pretty well how far it could shoot. As for the officers, they knew bugger-all about the weapon. So, there we were, six Perths sitting and straining in peace, idly watching the proceedings, when Getty swung the nozzle of the flamethrower in our direction and squeezed off a long gout of smoky flame. We three privates instinctively reacted with a start, but caught ourselves and remained in position; the distance was too great to pose any danger. The officers, on the other hand, overreacted. They didn't wait to pull up their trousers, but shot away from the latrine with their trousers around their ankles, hopping away with frozen looks of fear on their faces. We burst out laughing so hard we damn near fell backward into our own mess. Across the field, the crowd, watching their instructor squeeze off another stream of liquid fire, were practically rolling on the ground in fits of hysterical glee. When the three officers recovered their composure, there was no mistaking their anger. Their faces were near crimson with rage at the foul deed their fellow officer had pulled on them. They also didn't appreciate our unsuppressed mirth. Whether they made a formal complaint to old "Butterballs" Andrew I never did find out. If they had, more than likely the big boy must have had a few hearty chuckles over the incident himself. Our stay in San Giustina was only for two days. Instead of going back up to the front as we thought we would, we went even farther back down the line. This time we took up billets in Riccione, a peacetime seaside resort six miles below Rimini on the coast road. From the Po Delta to the pine forests outside Ravenna and continuing 292

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south to Rimini and Riccione and all down the Adriatic coast stretches an almost uninterrupted succession of popular seaside resorts. Although the war in all its hideous violence, hunger and sadness had been visited upon the Italian population, these resorts hadn't been completely avoided by the Italians. Still, crowds were down considerably, mainly because people from Germany, the Netherlands, and eastern European countries — who every summer formerly came in droves — could no longer do so. The German soldiers stationed in Italy however, had taken every opportunity of availing themselves of the splendid beaches when on leave in the summer time. As for the Canadians and other Allied troops near either coast, by the time we arrived in the neighbourhood it was a little too late to swim in the surf. The cold rainy season was full upon us, making even a stroll along the sandy beaches an uninviting pastime. What had been plush beachside villas in peacetime were no longer plush and comfortable when we set up housekeeping. All windows had long since been removed and put in storage somewhere by the owners, and there wasn't a stick of furniture. In effect they were no more comfortable — in fact less so — than the farmhouses we had lived in on the winter front the previous winter. At least the peasant homes had fireplaces we could warm up by when coming off watch or patrol. The villas had no fireplaces, nor hay, straw or rush to use as bedding on the cold, hard terazzo floor. The only good thing about our Riccione villas was they were out of range of enemy artillery. As far as I was concerned, I could live quite comfortably in the meanest of hovels, as long as that hovel was well out of range of anything that could hurt or kill me. For some reason, or maybe no reason at all, parade-square "spit and polish" was overlooked. With the streets as muddy as they were, it'd have been folly for anyone to stroll about like models for recruiting posters. It might have been happenstance that dress regulations were not enforced, but more than likely it was because old "Butterballs" took pity on us. Wecd been brought back this far to rest, not to impress the locals with spic and span uniforms, blancoed web, and high-shined boots. Shortly after arriving in England, I had enrolled in a Canadian Legion correspondence course in chemistry. I'd been doing very well in exams, but after my arrival in Italy the school lost touch with me. So for the next six months I received no new set of exam papers. It wasn't until after the Liri Valley battles that they arrived in the mail. I dug the booklet-type texts out of my kit-bag, boned up on the lessons for a couple of days (I had ample time to do so), and then wrote the exams. It was another three-month wait before the final exam papers arrived, which I filled out at the YMCA reading room just down the street. It wasn't until July of the next year, Into the Po Plains

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while I was at C Wing, 10 Repatriation Depot, outside Esher, that my diploma came — a tiny wallet-sized certificate showing I'd been given "A" standing in College Chemistry No. 1 from Weybridge College. Not bad at all, considering what I'd gone through between each exam. It wasn't easy to concentrate on what I was reading when shells were banging around outside my quarters at the time. One night while on sentry duty outside our seaside villa I came pretty damn close to shooting myself in the foot — by accident, of course. It happened during the last half-hour of my midnight-to-two shift on watch. My eyes were getting heavy with sleep as I sat on the concrete-topped stone wall in front of the villa, not with my rifle as per usual, but with a revolver. It was the first time I know of that sentries were armed with revolvers instead of rifles or Tommy guns. I remember the revolver hanging rather loosely in my hand, pointed to the ground between my feet, my head drooping, when all of a sudden a loud bang shattered the stillness of the night, snapping me to full alert. I jumped down and ran a few paces — first one way and then the other — not knowing what was happening or where the shot had come from. Meanwhile, half of 18 Platoon came charging out of the villa, weapons at the ready. And that's when I smelled the gunpowder on the muzzle of my revolver. There was nothing else I could do but own up to the fact that I was the guilty party. I told the sergeant with some embarrassment that I had fired the gun, and explained how it had happened. All he said was, "You dumb sonofabitch!" He didn't report it to Sammy, and it was soon forgotten. I may be wrong, but if memory serves me correctly it might have been at Riccione that we were issued with felt-lined leather jerkins and rubber galoshes. The galoshes weren't the usual bulky type from back home. These were more like rubber boots, but only ankle-high. They were the ideal footwear for the wet weather we were encountering. The leather jerkins also became a popular item of wear. After five days of rest at Riccione we were on our way back to the front, our transports dropping us off at San Giustina, from where we marched right back to the general area of the Fiumicino River, where the New Zealanders had taken over from us. We passed their skimpy column going the other way, and although it was obvious they had suffered losses, they didn't look at all morose or subdued. As always, they looked full of piss and vinegar. No matter what happened to the Kiwis they always seemed to be in good mood, taking losses and adversity like the great soldiers they were. Where the Canadians tended towards moodiness after a hard knock, the New Zealanders, no matter how bad the battle had gone for them, how lousy the weather, or how mean their accommodations, were 294

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always in good spirits. I envied them their ability to take adversity with the proverbial grain of salt. Their advance from the Fiumicino had taken them all the way up to the Savio River, and now they were on their way back to a well-deserved rest. There wasn't much in the way of battlefield noise going on as we made our approach to the lateral road a hundred yards short of the Savio. It was dark by the time we took over a line of houses on the east side of the road, near the hamlet known as Borgo di Ronta. Across the road were no houses, only open country stretching about seventy-five yards away to the bank of the Savio River, which we crossed twenty-four hours later. Inside the house we took over were several families — dreadfully frightened old men, women and children. At first the children shied away from us, afraid to speak or even take the chocolate bars we offered them, drawing back with looks of dread on their gaunt little faces. The adults were likewise afraid when a couple of our men tried to give them cigarettes. Within an hour, however, when they realized we weren't the bloodthirsty monsters the Germans must have told them we were, they slowly came around and made friends with us. The relief on their faces was a revelation to behold. From what we could make of it, the Jerries had really been scaring the daylights out of them, telling all kinds of horror stories about us — that we took fiendish delight in scalping people, abusing children, raping the women folk, and shooting the men. Shortly after we settled down in our comfortable casa, Corporal Jimmy Eves asked if anybody would volunteer to go with him on a contact patrol to the CBH, supposed to be somewhere on our right. No one jumped up and offered to go. Jim tried coaxing and mildly rebuking the fellows, but saw he wasn't having any luck. So, he looked my way and said, "Okay Stan, how about you? You coming with me?" I could have shot him right then and there; he knew he had me. Whenever a sergeant wanted a volunteer for some unpopular chore and got no response, all he had to do was look me in the eyes and that was it; I then felt it my bounded duty not to let him down. If he thought that much of me, to ask me above others, then how could I let him down? And so I went, but with little enthusiasm. Although the front was uncommonly quiet this night (October 24) and we were pretty certain the houses along the road had been cleared of the enemy, there was always an element of danger to any kind of patrol. And for this reason Jimmy and I kept a sharp eye on the houses we passed as we strode down the road to make contact with the Cape Bretons. We both carried Tommy guns, minus the clumsy wooden butts, By the time we reached a crossroads about a quarter-mile down the road I relaxed enough to actually feel pretty good about what we were doing, a feeling that rarely came over me. Into the Po Plains

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We reached a T junction where we heard boisterous singing, the unmistakeable sound of a party going on full tilt. The voices of revelry came from a house diagonally set well back from the intersection. Jimmy nudged me: "That's got to be the CBH. It sounds like they're really tying one on, let's check 'em out." As we made our way down the pathway to the front door a sentry challenged us, barking out the password: "Tea!" We responded with the countersign: "Coffee!" The guard (the only sober man in the lot, as it turned out) motioned us forward. Once we were identified and our purpose made clear, he parted the blanket over the door and let us in. There had to be at least two dozen of the Highlanders inside, A few sat around a bare table with bottles of vino in front of them and half filled glasses in their hands, while the rest were either raucously singing or standing around, each with a bottle of vino, guzzling the red contents down with great gusto. Every one of them appeared to be half-stoned, with a few doing all the hooting and hollering and carrying on. The way they were going at it you'd think there wasn't an armed Jerry within a hundred miles of the place. Right off the bat I wanted no part of this partying stuff and was anxious to get the hell out of there. I didn't like the look of things. I said to Jimmy, "Let's get outta here." Just then, one sawed-off little prick thrust a bottle up and said, "Here, have a jeezly drink you fuckin' Perth bastard!" Jimmy, being the good guy that he was, and not wishing to antagonize, took the bottle, had a long pull and gave it back. Then the mouthy bantam rooster thrust it into my face. I pushed it away saying, "I don't drink." He looked me in the eye, his lips tightening into thin lines. He thrust the bottle back at me like I'd insulted him or something. "By the 1'arrrd Jayzuz man, drink up!" he shot back at me defiantly, his jaw clamped tight like he wouldn't take no" for an answer. I pushed it away. "Didn't you hear me the first time? I don't drink!" Then I said to Jim, "Let's get the hell outta here before I get into trouble." When the little jerk stuck the bottle almost up my nose I brought my Tommy half to the ready and said loud enough for all to hear, "Goddammit, I don't drink!" And with that we turned sharply about and went out the door. For one nerve-twitching second or two, I came within a hair of pulling the trigger. I was never so glad to get away from a party. So much for the confrontation. I had more important things on my mind after that, like the assault across the river scheduled for the next night. The Savio was twice as wide as the Lamone at any time, dry season or otherwise. In the summer months, the river narrowed down to no more than thirty feet, moving sluggishly in its meandering journey to its outlet just north of Cervia. In some spots, the river, when not in flood, could 296

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actually be waded. The PPCLI did just that, wading the chest-deep river closer in to Cesena sitting astride the Rimini-to-Bologna highway. The heavy and sustained rains of late September and early October had largely drained off to the sea by this time, restoring the river closer to its normal width of about eighty feet. Two days after we crossed, the river, after being fed by the heavy rain of three straight days, rose to within six feet of the flood bank crest — a 120-foot-wide churning mass of water rushing on its way to the Adriatic. On the night of October 25, the day before the skies opened again in deluge, we made our unchallenged crossing of the Savio, and though the river current was strong, it presented little problem. We might have been lousy seamen but somehow we managed to navigate our canvas assaultboats across the swift-flowing river to the far shore without mishap, much to our great relief and surprise. What made things easy for us was the bridgehead made by the West Novas and PPCLI, and then the Seaforth Highlanders who went over on our immediate left about a mile away. In the face of these bridgeheads and the fact that a British division on the west side of the Via Emilia had advanced deep enough to outflank them, the Germans were forced to pull back or face capture. This development enabled us to make our own crossing without a hitch. Except for a few parting mortar shots, the Germans did nothing to stop us from pushing on to the concrete paved Cesena-Ravenna lateral road, some six hundred yards away. All through this area the Germans had mined the fields with anti-personnel concrete stake mines connected by trip wires. Embedded in the concrete were steel fragments to increase the killing effect. Fortunately for us we didn't have to advance by way of the field, so Jerry's effort went for nought. On reaching the Cesena-Ravenna lateral we turned right, and half a mile down the road, established positions around a group of substantially built houses, which turned out to be the extent of our latest venture. All in all it proved to be one of our easiest advances. We spent the waning days of October here, undisturbed in any way by the enemy. Such inactivity was always welcome. 18 Platoon was quartered in a two-storey farmhouse, where we lived side by side with the owner's family and assorted neighbours who sought the mutual feeling of safety of each other's company. Although crowded, we were reasonably comfortable and got along famously with our new friends. One of the amiable company was a strikingly pretty ash-blonde young lady with an appealing figure to boot, answering to the name of Tina. She couldn't have been much more than 17 or 18, but was "all woman." Every one of us, except Hap Day, laid lustful eyes on her, and though some of us tried every which way to draw her Into the Po Plains

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attention and interest, she had eyes only for one man: Hap Day. That goodlooking lad didn't know luck when it stared him in the eye. Here's Tina practically laying her body at his feet and Hap's not giving her a tumble. And all along I always thought he was a lady's man — Errol Flynn, Don Juan and Casanova all wrapped up in one. To Tina's disappointment and deep frustration, Hap showed absolutely no interest in her, whereas those of us not so handsome had our tongues hanging out like mongrels after a bitch. All Hap wanted was to get looped up on vino. As long as he had a bottle of vino in his mitt, he was content. What wasted opportunity! On our second night in the casa I was on Bren duty up on the landing between the first and second floor, while down below in the kitchen everybody — civilians and the cream of Canada's manhood alike — sounded like they were having one hell of a rip-roaring good time. And then the door opened and Tina came stomping up the stairs in a fit of pique. As she swept by me on the way to her bedroom crying, I asked her what she was crying about. All she said was "Fangula, Hap!" With that outburst, I thought maybe the time was ripe for me to move in and console her. I abandoned my post to go to her side. Not a wise thing to do at the front, but chances of the enemy disturbing the peace seemed pretty remote. Tina had thrown herself face-down on the bed sobbing, so I sat beside her hoping I might be a reasonable substitute for forsaken love. Nothing doing. After a couple more gentle tries, I gave up and went back to my duty unfulfilled. Next morning, Sergeant Rowe came up to me and asked if I'd escort this "old biddy" — a tall, hawk-faced big-boned widow in her sixties, who'd been pestering him since we arrived — to her home about a half-mile across the fields so that she could bring back some pots and pans and utensils. She was afraid to go by herself. Now, why did Rowe have to ask me to do the dirty work? Why didn't he ask someone else? I didn't like the idea, fearing that mines might be planted all over the place. To take such a chance just so some old biddy I didn't even know could get some pots and pans! I bitched a little, but as always, I relented and made the old woman happy by taking her — but I made her lead the way. No sense in both of us going up if we ran into mines. Anyway, we made it safely to her home, loaded up with what she wanted and then went back, again with hawk-face leading the way. After doing my kind bit for grandma, I was now her personal hero. She thought so much of me I even detected what might have been a lecherous expression on her face, like she'd be willing to go to bed with me in payment for what I'd just done for her. What a horrible thought! I might have been starved for love, but I wasn't that starved! 298

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While we were taking things easy, heavy rains began falling and by the next morning the Savio River was in full spate again, so powerful was the current that it swept away the one Bailey bridge the engineers had thrown across. For the next two days we were dangerously cut off from our supplies and reinforcements. Had Jerry been in position to throw in a counterattack, we might have found ourselves hard put to beat him off. Jerry, however, was nowhere near ready for such business. The units to our front had pulled back to the next major river line, the Montone, and were busy setting up positions along this river. Two days later, when the floodwaters receded and the river returned to near normal, the engineers pushed another Bailey across, eliminating the concerns at Brigade that they might lose us. No one at the sharp end, however, gave any indication they were worried about being isolated on far side of the Savio. On the last day of October we marched out after being relieved by units of Porterforce, a composite brigade made up of the British 27th Lancers, the Governor General's Horse Guards, the Royal Canadian Dragoons and the Westminster Regiment. After taking over from us, Porterforce conducted a very successful month of operations in the region immediately below Ravenna. We crossed the Savio and marched to Cesena, where we boarded transports and were soon on our way to a month's rest at Urbino. llth Infantry Brigade, as well as support units, were billeted in the hilltop town of Urbino, the birthplace of the renowned Renaissance painter Raphael. Since the town had been scarcely touched by the war, most of its citizens had remained in their homes, and so, to make room for close to four thousand troops, all commercial and municipal buildings and even schools had to be taken over for billets. Although Urbino was a centuriesold town, in a make-work program of the Mussolini regime, several modern buildings had been constructed over the past ten years. They made fine billets, except for the fact that not one item of furniture remained, nor was there any glass in the windows to keep out the cold. But we were long used to discomfort, so it was no big thing. As long as we had a roof over our heads and a dry place to bed down, that was good enough. Usually, when a regiment goes into a reserve role and the location is far enough out of reach of enemy guns, the men can expect to find themselves involved in some form of training syllabus, the severity or intensity of which is dependent on the whims or degree of sadism of the reigning CO. Fortunately for the Perths, old "Butterballs" Andrew decided rightly that the men needed rest and recreation more than training. What our training amounted to, then, was on the order of short route marches, PT, and arms drill. Into the Po Plains

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Each regiment had an Auxiliary Services Officer whose job it was to set up canteens and provide reading material and whatever other means of recreational activity he might have access to. At the canteens one could buy chocolate bars, gum, razor blades, Brylcreem, shaving soap, Eno's Fruit Salts and other items. The fruit salts seemed to be a most popular item, especially for those who tended to dip a little too much into the vino. They were supposed to alleviate hangovers and sour stomachs. The Perth canteen was set up in a most unlikely location, in front of the altar of the Church of San Bernardino. No other canteen could have boasted such ornate surroundings — fluted columns, religious icons, rounded arches, and a black polished marble sarcophagi. The funereal aspect certainly did not discourage the customers; they were used to such things. The one popular place to visit daily was the Cosy Canteen, a former restaurant taken over by the YMCA and converted into a tea room. In fact it was so popular that line-ups stretched for a block on any given afternoon or evening. About the only bit of excitement or activity that took place at Urbino was the daily changing of the guard in the Town Hall square at 6 p.m. Each unit stationed in the town had to provide one platoon on a rotating basis for this guard ritual, and on this day the incoming guard was from the Cape Breton Highlanders, while the outgoing was from the Irish Regiment. As usual the citizens of Urbino were out in full force to watch this affair. The Italians, from the deep south of Italy to the Po Plains, were always deeply impressed by the appearance of a Pipe Band marching through their streets. On this one day in particular, the proceedings began as usual, with the inspecting party of the COs of both Regimental Guards, RSMs, CSMs and platoon commanders going up and down the ranks of the outgoing platoon, each with that stern look of inspecting parties. Off to the side where the incoming guard stood — ramrod straight, eyes fixed to the front, no hint of facial expression — something was amiss. Walking from left to right in front of them was this tiny, twisted hunchback character with a small canvas bag attached to the side of his belt, in which from time to time he deposited a cigarette butt speared from the ground by a stick with a nail at one end. It was somewhat disconcerting to the men in the front rank, and it took some inner strength to maintain that look of stern, nononsense business military decorum. Then "Hunchy" reached the end of the line and proceeded to walk to the rear, nimbly retrieving butts lying about on the pavement, wielding his spike-pointed stick like a true swordsman. Now it was almost impossible for the men in the ranks to maintain discipline. Suppressed smiles, eyes no longer looking straight 300

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ahead, cheeks screwed up in embarrassed grins — all these were visible as the butt-sniper made his rounds through the ranks. As for the spectators, civilians and troops alike, their amusement increased by the minute as they watched the little guy go about his retrieval. Meanwhile, the inspecting party, busy with the outgoing platoon, must have wondered at the ripple of amusement in the crowd around, since there was nothing hilarious about inspections. And as they moved over to begin the inspection of the incoming guard, the little man with the canvas bag and the spear skipped on unobserved over to the other platoon, to do his thing there. Now the ripple of amusement grew even louder, interspersed with shouted comments, like, "Atta boy, hunchy!" and others. The inspecting party, striving to look as dignified as possible, must have been driven to distraction, still not aware of the cause of all this hilarity. Then it was the incoming guard's turn to find out how tough it was to keep a straight face. That they did was a credit to their training. And so the inspection passed into history, unworthy of recording in the annals of great wartime events, but recorded nonetheless indelibly in the minds of those who were there, participants and spectators alike, as one of those humorous moments that help brighten the otherwise drab daily comings and goings of soldiers. On the last day of November, the entire regiment gathered in the local opera house to hear Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew brief us on operations in the weeks ahead. It was an encouraging picture he painted, one in which we were to ram our way through to Venice, as another CO had promised. And again we believed.

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CHAPTER 8

ASSAULT ACROSS THE LAMONE RIVER December 10,1944

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fter spending the whole of November in Corps reserve at Urbino, only two miles away from where we made our assault on the Gothic Line, the Perths were on their way back up to the front. In the time we spent in reserve the Germans had given ground steadily, but a hell of a lot slower than our leaders had expected. The front had moved northward from the Savio River, to a line stretching from just below Ravenna across the triangle of flat country to Faenza (on the Via Emilia, the highway running from Rimini to Bologna). What was to have been a one-two punch armoured sweep through the Po Plains to Venice had degenerated into a jabbing session, with a resultant disheartening crawl through a countryside intertwined with waterlogged vineyards and numerous drainage ditches. The farmland, squared off by trellised vineyards, made for ideal conditions for machine-gunners and tank-killing Panzerfaust teams to hold off a disproportionate force. The constant heavy rains of September and October had left the land a quagmire in which neither infantry nor armour could do much in the way of decisive assaults. And now on the first days of December, as our convoy rolled at good speed along the coastal highway on our way to action, we looked out the backs of our trucks and didn't like at all what we were seeing. The open stretches of farmland between Rimini and Cervia were much as we had left

them at the end of October: wide pools of water and mud. The terrain looked more suitable for muskrats than human beings. For certain we weren't looking forward to wallowing about in the muck like another army had done at Passchendaele. Five miles up the road, however, the fields appeared to be a lot dryer, with only the occasional puddles of water and mud in the vineyards and the open fields beyond. Here, at least, the terrain could be handled without having to resort to the use of that remarkable and ingenious vehicle known as a DUKW (an amphibious vehicle designed to transport personnel and cargo on land or water). On the other hand, if we'd been born with webbed feet maybe we'd have had no trouble stomping through the stuff. Thoughts of not having to contend with mud and sheets of water were encouraging, and went a long way towards brightening our outlook. In fact I might even go so far as to say we were "gung ho," ready to do whatever and wherever our service was needed. On looking around I saw no more hangdog expressions. The Byzantine city of Ravenna, birthplace of the great poet, Dante Alighieri and famous also for its mosaic tile creations, hadn't yet been taken, but as things were going, it wouldn't be long before it'd be in our hands. With our 12th Brigade starting to outflank it on the west, it was a foregone conclusion the enemy would soon have to abandon it or risk being taken in the bag. We off-loaded at Cervia, a peacetime beach resort fortunate in having escaped heavy wartime damage. After many others not so fortunate, it was a sight for sore eyes. And unlike all the other towns we'd passed through in this country, it was neatly laid out, more along the lines of our own small towns back in Canada, in blocks of individual brick houses with front and back yards fenced in, some with low stone walls out front, others with picturesque white picket fences. It made you feel like you were back home. We thought we might be staying the night in Cervia, but late that afternoon, under dark, rain-threatening skies, we climbed aboard the trucks and were off on the final leg of our journey. It was only a short trip. We de-bused at a crossroads just before first dark and marched from there to farmhouses a couple of miles down the road, where we spent the night. The deep crunch of mortar bombs landing in the open cropland behind the house put us instantly on edge. Nerves that had pretty well returned to normal over our thirty- \day rest in Urbino once more began acting up. In other words, we had to readjust to the fearful sounds and sights of the battlefield. Two miles down the road was a little place called Godo, taken that very afternoon by 12th Brigade as it kicked off OPERATION CHUCKLE. The Westminsters did an outstanding job of booting the enemy out of 304

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strong positions along the line of the Montone River. Their success was followed up by the Lanark & Renfrews and the "Plugs" (Princess Louise's Dragoon Guards) pushing out from the bridgehead in a spirited thrust to bypass Ravenna. We expected we'd be on our way to take over the advance that evening, but it wasn't until the following afternoon that orders came for the regiment to head for the next river line, the Lamone. That night, we got our first look at artificial moonlight as provided by a bank of searchlights set up well behind the front. I was at once skeptical of its effectiveness. The intense brightness of the beams not only lit up the enemy ground, they also lit up the fields over which the Canadian battalions had to advance. The infantry, crossing fields lit up like a stadium for a night football game, would find themselves in full view of the enemy. So where was the advantage? While I was on guard that night at the rear of the farmhouse six partisans came to the house; the leader was a scruffy-looking character who looked to be a cross between Santa Glaus and a grey-bearded woodsman. He and his motley crew were armed to the teeth with bandoliers of ammunition draped over their necks and hanging crisscross over their chests. The old boy had a couple of No. 36 grenades attached to his belt and two potato-masher grenades protruding from his pockets. His five cohorts, two of them women, were also armed to the teeth. Even with the searchlights on I wasn't able to get a good look at the women's faces. There was no femininity about them at all — they were just a couple of tough, no-nonsense broads with Schmeissers resting on their broad hips. According to their stories, they'd been harassing outlying Jerry posts along this part of the line over the past few days, sneaking up out of the darkness and either shooting the Jerries up or slitting their throats. They took no prisoners. As mean and as tough as they appeared, I still had my doubts as to their exploits. I heard all kinds of hair-raising stories about what they were supposed to have done at the front and behind enemy lines, but I'd never seen them actually in action when the shit was flying around. Whether the stories were bonafide or overblown I had no way of knowing, nor did I much care. December 5 dawned bright and clear, although with a sharp nip of frost in the air. It wasn't until late that afternoon that we set off for Godo to relieve 12th Brigade's units. As we marched up the road, high in the sky above us we saw a flight of Liberators on their way back from a bombing mission. One of them had a long trail of smoke behind it, and as our eyes followed them we saw six parachutes blossom in the sky beneath the stricken plane. The doomed bomber flew level for another minute or so and then keeled over on its long plunge to the ground. Assault Across the Lamone River

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Shortly after we entered Godo it came under sporadic mortar fire, but since the mortaring was concentrated on the far side of the village we didn't bother taking cover in the houses, although we stood not far from the doorways just in case. Were we getting to be somewhat indifferent to gunfire? Not really. But by this time we oldtimers in the platoon considered ourselves wise in the ways of battle, knowing when to take cover and when not to waste effort in doing so. It wasn't until long shadows of evening crossed the fields and roads that we got moving again, this time marching off at quick time down a road lined on both sides with tall pines. Signs of heavy fighting lay scattered about all along the road, in the ditches and in the fields just beyond the trees. The personal gear, the equipment, the ammunition of all kinds and the vehicles — all had belonged to the enemy only a few hours before. As we approached the southern edge of Piangipane a heavy fog or ground mist rolled in and in a matter of only a few minutes visibility had fallen to near zero. We had mixed feelings about the fog. In one way we welcomed it because it hid us from enemy eyes. At the same time it gave us a feeling of uneasiness over not knowing what we might soon run into. The long, tenuous column ghosted along the road, every eye fixed on the dim outlines of houses on the right side of the road. On our left was a fenced-in field, but we didn't expect to be fired on from this direction. What demanded more of our attention were the houses. There could be Jerries holed up in them ready to mow us down. Sixteen Platoon was in the lead and shortly after emerging from the built-up area they ran into an enemy rearguard, and a short, sharp firefight erupted before the Jerries were chased off. Anticipating more such rearguard action along the road, Sergeant Blackie Rowe of 18 Platoon took our undermanned sections through the soggy fields on the left of the road. If 16 Platoon should run into another roadblock we'd slide by and take them in the rear. In the time it took us to slog through four hundred yards of the stickiest mud we'd ever floundered our way through, the fog dissipated enough for us to see where we were going. We soon found ourselves on a gravelled road cutting across our line of advance. On the far side was a thick stand of pine trees and several houses, but instead of checking the houses to make sure they harboured no Germans, we turned right, and hurried off towards the sound of smallarms fire. The enemy rearguard, however, buggered off before we got near enough to do anything. Wasting no time, we continued eastward and cut across Highway 16. Dog Company kept right on going to within a hundred yards of the high banks of the Lamone Abbandonato. 306

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The Perths came out of this action with very few casualties: only two men killed and six wounded. Although our contribution in the overall scheme of things wasn't outstanding, the regiment was successful in cutting off the escape route for strong enemy detachments fleeing Ravenna and other positions between ourselves and the city. The Jerries had begun moving out of the city on the morning of December 5 when they realized that Canadian infantry units were bypassing the city on the west. Singly and in small groups the Germans tried to slip through our thin cordon. Aware that the highway north of the city would likely be in our hands, they struck off across the damp fields, hoping to skirt the roadblocks and strongpoints they rightly figured would be awaiting them. They couldn't have expected to run into any obstacle in open country, but when morning dawned, they ran smack up against 17 Platoon deployed around a farmhouse in their path. From three Bren positions 17 Platoon opened fire, driving the greatcoat-clad Jerries to ground. The group got off some shots at our boys, but when 17 Platoon, throwing good sense to the wind, came charging out of their slit-trenches firing their weapons from the hips, the Jerries lost all heart for tangling with the crazy Canadians. They jumped up with their hands high, crying out in surrender. Obviously they couldn't have been paratroopers because paratroopers didn't give up quite that easy. More than two dozen of this ragtag group were marched off into captivity. Dog Company remained in the vicinity of Mezzano until midafternoon, by which time the gray sky, which had been threatening to bust loose with rain all morning, finally opened up. At the height of the downpour, we took to the road draped in groundsheets and gas capes, backtracking the way we'd come. We turned right at the T-junction outside Piangipane, and with the sharp northwest wind lashing the rain into our faces, trudged off towards Santerno. Although we had only a couple of miles to go, the cold rain made for another form of misery. In February and March on the Arielli it was the cold, the snow and crawling in and out of damp lice-infested dugouts — not bathing for weeks, and with precious little to eat — that made life miserable. In the mountains at Cassino it was the lizard life we led inside the tight confines of our home amongst the rocks. In the Liri Valley the heat, the shortage of food and water, and the constant "up and go, up and go" made things tough. In the Gothic Line it was mainly that long, long march that wore us down. And now here, as at the Fiumicino, it was the rain that added a new dimension to the meaning of misery. We were little more than robots as we leaned into the rain, our eyes glued to the ground, wishing we were elsewhere, when the sudden, sharp Assault Across the Lamone River

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rattle of a machine gun close at hand sent us flying into the drainage ditch (fortunately a wide and deep one allowing us to take cover on its banks without being under water). Then we realized it was only a Princess Louise Fusiliers Vickers MG set up in a barnyard that had opened up in a harassing shoot. Not one of the eight reinforcements who joined us at Urbino threw themselves into the ditch in a frantic flight for safety. Instead, they stood there on the road looking down at us with dumb looks on their faces, as if to say, "What's all the excitement about?" We, who they should have been looking up to, crawled out with sheepish grins on our faces and took our rightful places back in the column. What a bunch of lousy veterans we must have looked to them. Before long, however, they'd be just like us, galvanized into action at the slightest hint of danger. As we continued on our way I couldn't help but think of one of Bing Coughlin's "Herbie" cartoons from the Maple Leaf— one where Herbie and his mates race frantically for their slit-trenches while a newcomer to the outfit stands out in the open with his kit-bag, large pack and rifle on the ground by his side, looking at them in bewilderment, exclaiming, "A moaning what?" We learned long ago that at times like this, ignorance too often spelled death. I got to thinking; could this kind of ignorance be the reason why reinforcements were often knocked off at a greater rate than the guys who had been around long enough to know when to get the hell under cover and get there fast? Santerno, a crossroads village close by the Lamone River, was to be the jump-off site for our Lamone crossing, but when the Scout Platoon led by Corporal George ("Wild Bill") Cote found the river impassable, a boiling, seething mass of water rushing headlong to the sea, the information they brought back forced Brigade to postpone the crossing. So the regiment took up housekeeping in the abandoned houses in Santerno until the river current slowed enough to make a crossing possible. With the rain still blowing in sheets, Dog Company took over a string of sturdy houses just off the intersection, glad to get inside where it was dry. Daylight on December 7 came with no sign of the rain letting up. Not a soul was in sight. Even traffic along the rutted roads had stopped. With the absence of all military activity it was hard to believe a war was actually going on. Everywhere nothing but muddy fields, great expanses of water. A solid mass of dark rain-saturated clouds scudded eastwards just above the rooftops. With no glass in the windows, and the rain and wind whipping through the west rooms of the house, we retreated to the two rooms on the opposite side to find dry floors and comfort. With so little to be cheerful about, poor weather and all, and lack of direction, morale rapidly deteriorated—not a good situation to ensure success in an assault river-crossing. 308

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December 8 dawned somewhat more cheerful, with most of the cloud mass now well over the Adriatic. The rain had stopped and with the appearance of the sun between breaks in the clouds, the streets came alive with locals walking about, taking care of whatever chore there was for them to do. Our own people were also out strolling between platoon billets, glad to enjoy the sunshine and to dry out. As for myself, I had only one aim in mind to beat the blues, and that was to go on a liberation spree and there were plenty of houses to do it in. Very few of the people who had made Santerno their home had remained. With all the abandoned houses around, there had to be a lot of stuff out there ready for the taking, I didn't have to go far. In fact, the first place I hit was the building directly across the road housing a post office and several family units. I no sooner had my head deep inside a fancy, brass-bound travel trunk — rummaging through the linen, miscellaneous papers, trinkets and whatnot — when I heard a gruff voice behind me protesting in Italian, obviously over the fact that I was about to walk off with his possessions. I looked up and back, and saw this big, seedy character with a wide handlebar moustache giving me a most disapproving look. I felt like a kid caught stealing candy in the corner variety store. And then began the weeping and wailing. I'd never heard so many agonized "Oy mama mias!" since I stepped ashore in this country. I rose, mumbled something in my fractured Italian, and with a feeling of guilt and shame, slunk away to find another source of treasure. An hour later I came by and noticed another person, a little guy this time, enter the same house and a few minutes later saw him wheel away a pile of goods in a wheelbarrow. I watched where he was taking the stuff, which happened to be just a short block away. Now I was suspicious. Why would someone move their possessions just down the street? It didn't make sense, which gave me the feeling that something fishy was going on. After watching three other people taking out loads of stuff, each going in different directions I finally wised up to the fact that none of these people were the owners of the goods. They were looters like myself. So, incensed over what I'd seen, I marched right over to the house across the street and jabbed the latest thief with the muzzle of my rifle and told him to fuck off, just itching to give him a round up the ass. There's no honour amongst thieves; besides, I was no thief, I was a liberator! With mortar fire and shells slamming down in the streets and amongst the houses intermittently, it took some nerve to venture outside. Jerry knew we'd be out in the open walking about now that the sun was out, and he did his evil best to make our life miserable. One of these sudden mortar stonks caught a group of Baker Company boys strolling Assault Across the Lamone River

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down the street by the main intersection, killing three and wounding two others. When I heard about it, the first thing that came to mind was, "When are we ever going to learn that you never let your guard down at the front?" Even when things were deceptively quiet, there were many ways you could still die. It happened before, and it happened now again. Seven Section, 18 Platoon, came within seconds of being wiped out when a shell whizzed through their window and exploded in the room. They'd gone to the kitchen only moments before. Had they delayed just one minute, their bloody remains would have been plastered all over the ceiling, walls and floor. Shortly after first dark a recce patrol led by Cote squirmed its way over the Lamone dike and down to the water's edge to take note of the river condition, to see if the current had slowed enough for the regiment to make an assault-crossing. They found the river in full spate and the current fast and treacherous. Under ordinary conditions the Lamone was a placid stream, not much more than ten feet wide and a couple of feet deep flowing sluggishly on its way to the sea ten miles away. But as conditions now were not ordinary, any attempt to cross the river in fragile assault boats under fire would only end in disaster. Once again, postponement. For the next two days we watched RAF Hurricane fighter-bombers and RCAF Spitfires of the City of Windsor Squadron shooting up enemy positions on the far side of the Lamone River with their wing guns, and lambasting them with 250-pound bombs. "Go get 'em you bastards, give 'em hell!" was the general feeling as we watched them dive and go in. Some time during the day word trickled down to us that the crossing was on for that night; the assault was set for 2200 hours without the benefit of artillery support. The night was dark when we moved out to make the short jaunt from Santerno to the dike. Halfway down the road we swung off into a combination of fenced-off garden plots and vineyards reaching all the way up to the Lamone, some two hundred yards away. How we managed to work our way through a tangle of vines and wire that had been ripped up and scattered about by the shelling and mortaring over the past several days without waking up every Jerry in the vicinity I'll never know. With all the stumbling, the tripping, the cursing and the general confusion, I was almost sure they had to hear us approaching. I expected mortars to zero in on us at any moment. If it hadn't been for the fifteen-foot-high dikes between us and the Germans acting as a sound barrier there's no doubt we'd have been found out and hammered. After fifty yards of working our way through the muddy vineyard we came to a wire fence cutting across our path, making it necessary for 310

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each man to help the man behind climb over with as little noise as possible. The PIAT team, namely myself as No. 1 and Gerry Curran as my bomb carrier, brought up the tail-end of the company. When it came my turn to climb over with my cumbersome PIAT, Burk, who was supposed to have held the wire down for me, had taken off, leaving me to make it on my own. By the time I got over and then helped Curran over with his bombs, the company was long gone. We hurried along as fast as we could go to catch up but when we reached the dike, there was no one there. "Now, where in the hell did everyone go?" I whispered to Curran. There were only two directions they could have gone — right or left. Definitely not over the dike, at least not that soon. We decided to go left — which as it turned out was the wrong way. We made our way along the dike for about a hundred yards or so expecting to run into the company. No luck. Any right-thinking guys would have turned and gone in the opposite direction. But we weren't rightthinking guys that night. We kept going westward. After going another fifty yards and finding no one, we considered backtracking, but a sudden twenty-five-pounder stonk crashing almost on top of us sent us scurrying for a nearby house right up against the dike. With shells banging in no more than forty yards farther along the dike, we hammered on the door with our fists for whoever might be inside to open up and let us in. "Operta la porta! Operta la porta! Canadese soldate! Canadese soldate!" Finally the door opened and we piled inside, almost knocking down the person who opened the door for us. Gathered in front of the large canopied fireplace were perhaps a dozen or more civilians. There were two women in their seventies or eighties, two grizzled old men of about equal age, three or four children (none older than ten), two signorinas (one a real knockout, one not so pretty), and two younger men in their thirties or early forties. Right off I didn't like the looks of the two younger men. There was something about their manner that made me distrust them. They put me on edge. It was obvious they didn't like the idea of our busting in on them. Not once did they smile or try to open up conversation. All we could do was keep a sharp eye on them. Since we didn't intend to stay long, I let my concern slide. No use getting uptight about it; once the stonk ended we'd be on our way. What I was worried about was the trouble we'd be in if we didn't find the company. After five minutes the shelling stopped, so Curran and I decided to get on our way, but where to, we weren't sure. We should have known after travelling this far that we'd gone the wrong way, but we kept going in the same direction, with me leading the way. We stole down a path running Assault Across the Lamone River

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along the base of the dike and hadn't gone fifty paces when I pulled up abruptly. About fifty feet ahead, partly up the side of the dike, I thought I could see what looked to be a Jerry standing patrol or a sentry dug into the side of the dike. I spun about sharply, damn near knocking Curran over as I took off back to the house. Curran went by me like I was standing still. So once again we pounded on the door. This time the people inside opened it up right away. There was nothing for us to do now but to stay put for the night and see if we could meet up with the company in the morning. The night passed without incident and very little sleep, as we took turns staying awake to make sure these people didn't come up with any crazy notion of cutting our throats or shooting us. We had to be on our guard all night long, neither one of us wanting to drop off to sleep. How glad I was when morning came and we could be on our way. But to where, we hadn't a clue. Another house, a much smaller one about a hundred yards away, looked to be as good a place as any to check out. So, with Curran on my heels, complaining, bitching and blaming me for everything that had gone wrong, we slipped over to it and were greeted by an old man in shabby clothes with full beard; I thought he was the spitting image of the national Italian hero, Garibaldi himself. By his side was a fairly attractive woman in her late thirties. Holding onto her hand tightly with a bit of a frightened look in his eyes was a boy about six or seven years old. The three, at first didn't seem to know what to make of us — whether we came as friends or foes. But when I handed the lady a can of bully-beef and the boy a package of Doublemint gum they fell all over me with relief. Unlike the people in the other house, these three, now that they knew we wouldn't harm them, opened their hearts to us, although all they could offer us in thanks was some wine. I hardly ever drank the stuff, but I accepted, and after a couple of glasses it was amazing how much my conversational Italian improved. I did much better than I ever thought possible, and made fair headway in getting across to them who we were and why we were there. I also couldn't help but notice that the woman was getting better looking to me with every sip of wine. And to make things even more interesting she offered body-language and eye signals suggesting better things to come. Even the old boy encouraged things along with a wicked wink or two after she slipped her hand down inside my undershirt and fondled my pectorals. While the fever of desire took an upward surge and I contemplated where and how I might consummate our sudden friendship, a rifle shot just outside the door snapped me out of my reverie. I grabbed a grenade out of my Bren pouch and ran to the door, ready to throw it. But, to my relief I saw no need to get excited. It was only Curran sitting with his back up against an olive tree, taking potshots with 312

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his rifle at a tin-can propped up in the yoke of another tree. A half-bottle of red and Gerry's higher than a kite. Breathing easier because it wasn't the enemy, nevertheless I had to show my displeasure by hollering at him, "You dumb bastard, what the hell are you doing? Don't you know the goddamn Germans are on the other side of the dike? You want to get us knocked off or something?" Bang: another tin-can went flying out of the tree. So I slammed the door and looked at the two Italians, twirling a finger in circles around my ear: the international sign language for a person sick in the head. They knew exactly what I meant. My libidinous designs of only a few moments ago had evaporated, although I wasn't all that disappointed. I decided instead to assert myself and do something positive for a change. Since I didn't know whether the regiment had crossed the river that night or not I suggested to Curran that we take a chance and cross on our own. But how? We had no boat, and for sure wading the river was out, but, I thought we might be able to get across if we could find a ladder, using it as a footwalk bridge. We searched all through the farmyard hoping to find one that was long enough. A harebrained scheme if there ever was one! But at the time it sounded feasible; I guess the wine was taking effect. Thank God we did not find one! If we had, I don't think I'd be here writing this account. But I felt we had to do something, even if it meant only taking a quick look-see across the dikes, not realizing that this was just about as dangerous. One hell of a gamble, let me tell you! I went up first, the top half of my body exposed to whoever and whatever was on the opposite dike, a perfect target for a sniper. In fact almost anybody with a rifle could have picked me off. I stood exposed for at least ten seconds, scanning the far dike and hoping to see something that would tell me if our boys were over there. I saw nothing. Curran went up next. No one took a shot at him either. Why we weren't shot at, we'll never know. I guess our number just didn't come up. Time to call off all this nonsense and go back and face the music, which I knew we'd have to do. Unsettling visions of a court-martial did a slow dance in my head. Court-martial or not, I was glad to get going. For one thing, I'd had just about enough of Curran's constant yapping, blaming me for everything that had gone wrong. He was still yapping when we ran into a patrol sent out by Ridge to find us. I was glad to find out the crossing had not gone in, that it had been called back again because the water was still high and flowing fast. By this time, Curran's nonstop running off at the mouth no longer wore on my nerves; in fact, when the patrol ran into us they found me smiling. It was the wine. On arriving back in Santerno, Major Ridge had us appear in front of Assault Across the Lamone River

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him, one at a time of course, to explain what had happened. Obviously he suspected we'd laid low to avoid making the assault. Anyway, Gerry went first, and then came my turn. Our explanations must have sounded credible enough to Sammy, and with Sergeant Rowe speaking on our behalf, he let us go without so much as a reprimand. All in all, both of us were relieved to be back. Likewise, our platoon mates were glad they hadn't lost us. At 1845 hours on December 10, all companies moved out from their respective billets in and around Santerno for the short march up to the Lamone dike. The assault of the Lamone was set for 1930 hours sharp, consistent with the previous plan in that it would go in without artillery support. Able and Dog Companies were selected to lead the attack, with Dog Company on the left, crossing the Lamone at the western edge of Borgo di Villanova, while Able Company would cross a hundred yards to the right. Both companies reached the dike without mishap or delay. It was an unusually quiet night; not so much as a rifle shot broke the stillness. Support Company supplied the boat-carrying parties, a job that proved to be no easy chore. The collapsible canvas assault-boats were heavy and cumbersome and had to be manhandled from Santerno across fields mucky in spots and overall on soggy turf that sucked at the rubber galoshes everyone now wore. Halfway to the Lamone, in Dog Company's sector, the unwieldy and heavy boats had to be lifted over the wire fence and then brought up as silently as possible to the dike, the straining carriers aware that the Germans were close enough to possibly hear them. Their job, however, wasn't over. The worst was yet to come. Five minutes later — hardly time to rest aching arms — the signal came for them to go up and over the dike to launch the fragile craft. Sixteen Platoon, the lead-wave assault platoon, went with them. The covering fire Bren and PIAT groups were already in position on both flanks ready to take under fire any reaction from the opposite bank. Everything went right until the assault boats were unfolded at the river's edge; then two MG 42s shattered the silence with bursts that ripped into the launching site. Although the range was almost point-blank, only four men went down in the first two bursts as the boat-carriers scrambled for their lives. The enemy, alerted now to the assault, brought other weapons to bear, and from their converging streams of fire it looked almost certain the attack would die without a single boat getting across. Half of 16 Platoon climbed into a boat and launched themselves into the fast-flowing current, pumping their oars with a skill they never knew they had. Behind them came the other half. Both boatloads made it to the far shore unscathed and went up the dike with guns blazing, losing two men in the process. The first sign of 314

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success! Meanwhile the fire support groups on both flanks on the near dike opened fire on the enemy positions. In the ensuing confusion of launching the first and second boats, two other boats broke away from their handlers and were caught in the current and were being carried downstream. CSM Earl Weaver, ignoring the MG fire thwacking into the soft turf just inches from his boots, ran along the water's edge and managed to seize one of the drifting boats and held it while the men from 17 Platoon climbed in. Had it not been for him, the assault over the Lamone might very well have died right then and there. His calmness under fire and cool direction of Dog Company's effort virtually saved the day for Dog Company and perhaps the regiment. Had he lived long enough, he was a candidate for an MM, at least. Ten days later, however, CSM Weaver was killed in the Fosso Munio battle. Because of the incomprehensible unfair regulations regarding posthumous awards which were eligible only for those winning the Victoria Cross, Earl Weaver, and so many others of equal bravery got nothing for their courageous efforts. Once the two MG 42s firing on the crossing-site were knocked out, it was possible to send the third boat across. Between the three boats shuttling back and forth Dog Company crossed without any further trouble. The Germans, however, were now fully alert to what was happening on the Lamone and began lobbing in mortar bombs. They crashed with resounding violence all through the assault area: in the river, on the dike and in the field behind the dike. After firing one PIAT bomb at a house across the river, Gerry and I made the run down the embankment to a boat waiting to take us across. We piled in just as a mortar banged in almost exactly on the spot where we had lain with the PIAT. "Wow, that was close!" was all I could mutter, my heart thumping furiously and my breath racing. Once in the boat we took to the oars with a vengeance, paddling as though we'd been born to the sport. Fear drove us hard and somehow we landed exactly where we were supposed to. When I leaped from the swaying craft with my heavy PIAT cradled in my arms, I promptly fell flat on my face. On getting back on my feet the damn spigot came unlatched and floated free. Now I had a six foot long mechanism on my hands — which I tripped over and landed flat on my face again. Swearing at a good clip I slammed it together again, only to have it open up two strides up the dike. Down I went again. It was a Laurel and Hardy production. Three bloody times I slammed the elongated weapon together and three bloody times it came unlatched. And then I lost my helmet. I pawed the ground looking for it but had to get going without it because the mortars were starting to smash down thick and fast. One fell in the river not ten feet behind us. I scrambled, stumbled and fell all the way Assault Across the Lamone River

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up the dike and down the other side. And so, for the next three and a half weeks I went into battle without a helmet, although I didn't miss it all that much since the damn thing gave precious little protection against shrapnel and small-arms fire anyway. If it didn't fall off, it almost always fell over my eyes whenever I hit the ground. Once the company was across the river in full strength, 17 Platoon went through the houses on the edge of the village shooting up enemy posts, while 16 and 18 Platoons pushed on through a ploughed field, anxious to get as far away from the river as possible. When the rivercrossing began, the air was cold, but still a few degrees above freezing. An hour later the temperature seemed to have dropped ten degrees, and before long the damp fields were white with frost. By this time 18 Platoon had worked its way through some three hundred yards and then swung off to the right to follow the line of a shallow drainage ditch behind a row of houses. Then for some inexplicable reason we stopped. We plopped ourselves down on the cold turf and sat and sat and sat. Why the holdup, none of us had a clue. Then, not fifty yards away, a Jerry mortar crew in the backyard of one of the houses began dropping bombs down the black tubes, and with every flash we could see the silhouettes of the crew hard at work picking them up and laying them in. They were sitting ducks. Like everyone else, I sat there chafing at the bit, wondering why we showed no aggressive spirit. We sat there with cold asses and frozen trigger-fingers as the Jerries, suddenly out of ammunition, calmly packed up onto a horsedrawn wagon and away they went at a gallop. What a beautiful opportunity to knock out a mortar team, and we let it go by! Somebody fumbled. Hell! We all fumbled! We sat there with our fingers up our asses and did sweet fuck-all. What a lousy bunch of infantrymen we turned out to be! Not what you'd call one of our prouder moments. No sooner did the Jerries disappear down the road than the command to advance came. Too late! While Dog Company was enjoying spectacular success, Baker Company crossed the Lamone a shade to the right of Borgo di Villanova, also with minimum casualties. Two platoons abreast, the company cautiously worked its way through vineyards and olive groves against scattered small-arms fire, arriving at the Via Aguta-Cocchi cross-roads about a mile from the river intact. With their advance, we were no longer point company. Baker Company ran into a few Jerries holed up at the crossroads, but these they eliminated after a short exchange of Bren and rifle fire and took a few prisoners. From what I could see of the prisoners as they were escorted through us on the way to the Lamone, they didn't look anything like the tough Aryan stock we'd been running up against. They were a raggedy-assed, gaunt, frightened of face, sorry-looking lot. 316

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We dug in on the east side of the Via Cocchi, setting up positions around a line of four low-slung houses. While Curran and I were busy hacking away with pick and spade at the half-frozen turf, a shell whistled overhead, crashing with an incredible clap of thunder among the buildings of Villanova, a quarter-mile to our rear. This shell was only the first of a ten-minute dose of enemy shells whizzing over at thirty-second intervals. For once I didn't envy those who had to operate behind the infantry. They were getting the worst of it. Curran and I had dug our trench down about three or four feet when we heard a commotion and someone shouting in great agitation. It was three of our boys belting down the road hollering "Tiger tanks! Tiger tanks! Tiger tanks!" A wave of both anticipation and fear swept over me: "Here's my chance to win a medal!" I jumped into the hole behind the PIAT. Gerry inserted a bomb into the holder, and we waited. We could hear the iron bastard's labouring engine and the squeaking and grinding of its tracks as it lumbered ominously down the road towards us. I braced myself for the appearance, hoping I'd have the nerve to face the behemoth when it poked its nose out from behind the last house in the line of four. We had a perfect spot from which to knock it out. If it was a Tiger or a Panther I knew the only way to stop it would be to hit the hull under the suspension, or wait until it went past and send a bomb into the engine compartment. If I hit the frontal armour, the six inches of hardened steel would shed the blast. If this didn't do the trick it'd be "goodbye Charlie" for the both of us and maybe even the company. My chance for a medal came to nought. Another intrepid PIAT group somewhere down the road brought their weapon into play, scoring hits, but did no damage to the tank. Sounding very much like it was long overdue for a lubrication job, the tank lumbered on towards us. The crew, unable to see in the dark where the bombs were coming from, didn't open up with their own weapons. The one advantage the PIAT had over the bazooka paid off here. It left no tail of fire that the gunner in the tank could pinpoint and shoot at. Although the PIAT team didn't knock the tank out, it scared the driver into turning abruptly and retreating. The balance of the night we spent undisturbed except for the intermittent rattle of small arms and the occasional mortar that fell either well behind us or on our flanks some ways. The battle of the Lamone River, which in reality turned out to be little more than a skirmish, had come to an end, with the regiment suffering only eleven dead and a little less than twice that in wounded. A cheap price to pay for the quick victory — but only in the greater scheme of things. For the loved ones of those who died, it was a price far beyond what they could afford. Assault Across the Lamone River

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I might mention here one instance where MacKenzie King's weakkneed policy on conscription was indirectly responsible for one man's death. Eugene Clutterbuck had, ever since he joined up with the Perths at mobilization in Stratford in 1939, served as a driver-mechanic. Although he went through basic infantry training like the rest of us, he wasn't prepared for combat. His job was to drive one of the company vehicles, a chore which he did very well in England and all through the Italian campaign. But now, late in the campaign, with the Base Reinforcement Depot having for some time been scraping the bottom of the barrel to find enough people to send out to the infantry units, every regiment in 1st Corps found itself drastically short of personnel. Most platoons were down to twenty men, with some even as low as a dozen riflemen. Some platoons, like 18 Platoon had gone weeks without an officer at the helm. The shortages got so bad there was talk of some regiments dickering with the unmentionable idea of refusing to go into action. How true that was, I'm not in a position to say. I only know that here was one example of the many that could instigate this state of affairs, where a guy like Eugene Clutterbuck had to be pressed into taking up a rifle because there weren't enough men on hand to do the dirty work. Eugene was in that first boat of 16 Platoon's which crossed the Lamone and he died in the assault up the bank of the dike during an opposed river crossing — one of the toughest jobs an infantryman had to face. It was a sad, sad state of affairs. It was at about this time that Canada's defence minister, the Hon. J.L. Ralston paid a visit to several regiments at the front, and his ears got a scorching as the men unloaded their frustration with the army's inability to supply manpower. Every man in Italy knew there were something like two hundred thousand well-trained troops sitting on their asses in Canada drawing pay, so why in hell didn't they send the bastards over here? This is more or less what Ralston had to listen to time and time again. He got an earful, and it wasn't long after this that Ralston resigned his post after failing to change MacKenzie King's mind on the conscription issue. It wasn't until near the end of the war, in April 1945, that some "zombies" were sent overseas and finally began to show up in the front lines. And from everything I've heard or read about them, they performed about equal to what the volunteers had done thus far. Some even made the supreme sacrifice. The morning of December 11 dawned in poetic beauty. The harsh lines of furrowed fields of the evening before, the rooftops, the trees empty of leaves, and the vines strung in long rows of trellises, were now softened by a veneer of frost making for a wintry picture as captivating as I'd ever seen. Although by this time I might have been somewhat hardened by the 318

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war, I was glad I wasn't so hardened that I could not appreciate the beauty around me. I was so taken up with what my eyes were seeing I even tried to compose a short poem — an ode, a couplet — but the muse within me had slipped somewhere into the recesses of my mind. It just wasn't in me to create some deathless piece of literature. Units of the 12th Brigade, after passing through the CBH were severely mauled by the Germans and suffered inordinately heavy casualties in the fields just outside Villanova, a mile to the east of Borgo di Villanova. They were now embroiled in a fierce fight with the enemy along the line of the Canale Naviglio, all this going on while we were back in houses along the Via Aguta taking things easy. Which brings to mind one particular twohour stint of guard duty I did on the Bren. It was the 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. shift. The post was in a shallow slit-trench dug into the bottom of a large haystack, and from it I could look straight down the plot of ground between the rows of high-trellised grapevines about fifty yards apart extending for some four hundred yards all the way to the Fosso Vecchio dike. So there I was, squatting half asleep behind the Bren, when I snapped to full alert by the sudden appearance of a gaggle of Germans crossing from one line of vines to the other, east to west. There was no mistaking they were Germans. The overly long greatcoats they wore told me this; the damn things draped to within a couple of inches of the ground. Although the range was long, I opened fire, emptying close to a whole mag, but not a damn one of them went down. In fact they didn't even bother to pick up speed or weave or hit the ground to keep from getting hit. Now, I'd never been known to be a hotshot with the Bren, but this was ridiculous. They just ambled across at their own pace as though nothing lethal was coming their way. After they disappeared behind the next line of trellis I saw why I had done such a lousy job of shooting. The sight was set at six hundred yards, so the bursts had gone well over the Jerries' heads. Other than this incident, nothing of note happened here in our reserve positions except for a nervous half-hour we spent riding out a shelling by a large calibre gun whose delayed-action shells raised monstrous geysers of mud clods just a few yards off the side of the house. The gun had us bracketed. The first few shells smacked into the field on the east side of the house, then two screamed over the house and tore up the earth in a farmyard across the road. But what really got me to grit my teeth was the shell that came at us like an express train and went off in the haystack behind the house, sending a cloud of hay particles flying past the windows. I thought for sure we wouldn't find anything left of the guy who'd taken over from me. It was a direct hit. I couldn't believe it when a few seconds later the guy came barreling into the house, his face white as Assault Across the Lamone River

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chalk, scared right out of his wits. What a close call! What saved him was the hay. It absorbed or dissipated a good part of the shrapnel and blast. We expected the next one (boxcars, we called the big ones) to come straight through the tile roof. Had it done so, it would have made a shambles of the house and a gory end for the lot of us. There simply would have been no more 18 Platoon. That afternoon we finally got a new officer. This gentleman was the epitome, if there ever was one, of the Hollywood hero type. He came to us wearing no helmet, just a beret worn at a rakish angle, and he sported what looked to be a brand new pair of paratrooper boots and carried the early tommy gun, the one with cooling rings, Cutts compensator, finger-molded grip and fifty-round drum magazine. "The old Chicago piano," they were called. He was a real Jim Dandy, a VC winner no less: so was our impression of the man. His chance to prove what he could do came soon enough; in fact it came that very night. Dog Company had been selected to make a large-scale raid across the Fosso Vecchio using every Bren gun and PIAT group in the company for extra firepower, and this swashbuckler was handed the job of taking the show on the road. I didn't think it was such a good idea to hand a newcomer a patrol of this size, especially a fighting patrol. But who was I to say what should or shouldn't be done? As things turned out, the guy folded even before the patrol got to the jump-off site. Marching at the head of the column as it set out for the big ditch, the lieutenant was the picture of confidence and bravado and I said to myself, "Man, this guy's really going to be something. Am I glad we got him." Then we turned onto a cart track leading to a house at the base of the ten-foot-high Vecchio dike looming straight ahead, to rendezvous with George Cote and two of his Scout Platoon boys. They were to take the raiding party across the Vecchio, shoot up some Jerry-occupied houses, and bring back a prisoner or two if the opportunity presented itself. Cote had acquired the nickname "Wild Bill" almost as much for his carousing habits as for his exploits as a sniper and fearless scout. George, a Windsor boy, had come to the Perths at Castelnuova in March as one of a large draft to replace those lost in battle. He and about twenty other exHighland Light Infantry had volunteered to serve in the Mediterranean, because, as the story goes, they were fed-up with endless route marches and invasion exercises. They wanted action, and Italy was the only place they were going to get it at that time. Every one of them proved to be valuable additions to the ranks of the Perths. For all of his unbridled tendencies to "tie one on" every chance he got, George had all the credentials necessary to lead the fighting patrol. He was utterly fearless. But that was only one of his attributes that make a 320

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man a natural as a scout. Above all, he had the ability to think under stress, and the men under him respected him for what he was capable of doing. The MM ribbon he wore on his tunic was proof enough that he had the guts. We were glad when we heard that Cote would lead the way. The guy was a winner. As we made our way along the cart track a sudden burst from a Spandau somewhere behind the Vecchio dikes cut the air well above our heads. We hit the shallow ditch alongside the track, realizing after our reaction what the firing amounted to. It was nothing more than harassing fire. We got up to continue on our way, but the column didn't move. We stood there for at least ten minutes wondering what the hell the delay was all about. And then, even from my position at the very end of the column I heard someone giving someone purple hell. It was Cote standing at the side of the cart-track looking down at someone huddled on the side of the shallow ditch, and he was giving the guy both barrels. "You no good rotten sonofabitch bastard!" And so on and so on. Damned if it wasn't the new wingding of an officer, the potential VC winner, the Hollywood hero, — and he wasn't saying a word, drawn up on the side of the ditch with his chin tight up against his chest, too ashamed to look up or defend himself. We never saw him after that. What a lousy memory that man had to carry through life. There had to be at least fifty in the patrol, give or take a couple, gathered in the comforting warmth of the stable on the ground floor of the two-storey house overlooking the Fosso Vecchio dikes. The flickering light of candles cast grotesque shadows on the walls and the heavy-beamed ceiling, while around us in their stalls the great-bodied, long-horned Brahma cattle looked with droopy and disinterested eyes at the intruders. I looked around at the tempting piles of hay and straw piled in a corner of the stable; it looked so inviting I wished to hell I could have stayed behind and crawled into it to sleep out the war. But we had a dirty job to do, and after Cote briefed us on how he wanted the operation to go, we in the covering fire groups went out to take up position on the dike. As at the Lamone, Curran and I set up post on the right, ready to let go a bomb at anything that opened up on the patrol as it waded the shallow waters of the ditch. No time was wasted. With Cote in the lead, the patrol forded the ditch and were in among the enemy houses on the far side creating mayhem, shooting and throwing grenades with reckless abandon as they ran from house to house. From some ways off to our left one Spandau cut loose, the tracers ripping the air only a foot or so above our heads. We slid backward down the bank far enough to keep from getting hit and waited for our Brens or PIATs on that flank to take care of the Assault Across the Lamone River

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offending gun crew. This done we got back into position again, only to come under fire of Jerry artillery, whose shells zipped in and crashed with resounding crunches directly behind us not thirty yards away, severely wounding Corporal Cawley and his two-inch mortar team. Meanwhile, from the sound of things on the far side, the patrol was having things go all their own way. We knew this because all we could hear was the unmistakable chatter of Brens and Tommy guns, with no answering fire from the faster-firing Schmeissers and MG 42s. After wreaking considerable havoc on the far side, the patrol returned, having suffered the loss of not a single man. As successful as the raiding party had been, they failed to bring back a prisoner, and they had no way of knowing how many of the enemy they killed and wounded. Still, everyone felt good about what they had accomplished. The severity of Cawley's and his mortar crew's wounds necessitated their being evacuated as quickly as possible. The fellows detailed to carry out the two badly-wounded privates got away soon enough down the cart track and escaped the Jerry artillery and mortar reaction to the raid. Four of us were picked to carry Cawley out. There was Joe Shinnick, "Bumsteer Mouse" Mosionier, Johnny Turcotte, and myself. To carry Cawley I had to hand the PIAT over to Curran to take back, and as I expected, he did nothing but bitch. But this was Curran and I didn't get worked up about it. Bitching, I guess, was his way of handling stress. Because Vern Gooding, our stretcher-bearer, took longer to medicate and bind up Cawley's upper arm — where a fragment of steel had torn the muscle and laid bare the bone — we were slower in getting away. In the time lost, Jerry guns and mortars zeroed in on the cart track, knowing the patrol would be going back along this way and hoping to wreak vengeance on it. Travel on the cart track was therefore out of the question; it would have meant disaster for all of us. Our only recourse was to cut crosscountry, another one of those easier-said-than-done ventures. Without a doubt it had to be one of the most gruelling and agonizing physical efforts I had ever endured, equal to what I had gone through on the winter front when Baker Company was all but blown to pieces, and the punishment I took in the long march up to the Gothic Line. How we carried Cawley out it I'll never quite understand. If the ground had been dry it wouldn't have been half so bad, but the brown gumbo we had to slog through damn near killed me and the other three guys. With each step, great gobs of the stuff stuck to our boots. We stumbled. We fell to our knees. We cursed each other. Fingers went numb. Wrists ached. Arms felt like they were being pulled out of their sockets. Thigh muscles were so sore I didn't think I'd be able to walk another ten 322

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steps. Then there was the nagging worry and fear that the Jerries would make things even more miserable for us by dropping a few mortars. Fortunately they didn't, at least not until we were more than three quarters of the way home. This happened minutes after we took a short breather at an abandoned farmhouse close by the Fosso Vetro — another ditch bisecting the countryside, but with lower embankments and was only half as wide. We could have used more rest but Cawley's mangled arm looked pretty bad and he needed surgery if he expected to survive. It was a wonder he didn't slip into shock. We had to get him out and get him out fast. We came upon this ponderous, two-wheeled ox-cart sitting by one of the barns and decided we could use it to make our job a lot easier. We set the stretcher on it, figuring our troubles were over and it'd be clear sailing from here on in. Not so. We found out before we'd gone twenty yards just how tough the job of pulling and pushing the heavy cart through the mud would be. We gave up on the cart and once more took hold of the stretcher and ploughed our way slowly through mud up to our ankles. Now that we were well out in the field, Jerry observers on the Vecchio dike must have spotted us, because just as we reached the ditch, they began lobbing over mortars. The mud-flats around us now erupted in geysers of the brown stuff. We dropped the stretcher in panic and dove for cover, but there wasn't any, not so much as a rut. I was so scared I actually tried to hide behind a sapling not much thicker than my thumb. And then the four of us, realizing that we'd abandoned Cawley, rushed over to pick him up and got moving. Again, it was one of these frequent miracles that happen in battle. With bombs going off all around us we literally flew across the field. Never till that moment had I known that fear and the overpowering need to save someone's life, including our own, could give us the strength, stamina and sense of purpose to carry on. With all the racket of bombs going off (muffled somewhat by the mud), and the red-hot steel whizzing around us like so many bees, we somehow came through without so much as a scratch. And then, as suddenly as the mortars plunged out of the gray sky, they stopped. Only then did we feel our last reserves of strength depart our weary bodies. We set the stretcher gently on the ground, checking to see whether Cawley was still alive. For all we knew, shrapnel might have got him. But we were relieved to see he was still with us. As bad as his wound was, he had taken the mortaring and the rough trip like a real trooper, not once complaining, not once crying out in pain, not once giving us hell for having abandoned him momentarily to the mortars. In Assault Across the Lamone River

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fact he even gave us a little smile in what I'd like to think was a "thanks, fellows" gesture. Each one of us felt better after that. We had another couple hundred yards still to go to reach our company lines on the Aguta road. Could we do it? I wasn't sure, but I knew I had to try. Joe, Mouse, and Turcotte must have been thinking the same. Just as we picked up the stretcher for the last two-hundred-yard struggle, we saw four figures hurrying across the fields towards us, and were surprised to see they weren't our boys, but Italians. They ran up, didn't say anything, just took the stretcher out of our hands and hustled away. Man, were we glad they came! I could have kissed them. There had been times over the past year when I didn't know what to make of Italians. Could we trust them? Could we depend on them to help us when we needed help? Most of the time I thought we could, but there were times when some gave me reason to doubt. But now, after seeing what these four fellows did for us and for Cawley, my heart and admiration and thankfulness went out to them. No one ordered them out there. They did it on their own even though they had to have known the danger in their action. They saw us struggling with our burden, weaving our way through the mortar bursts, and when they saw the opportunity to help, they went. Brave men. To this day I regret very much our failing to learn the good Samaritans' names and turning them in to our CO with a recommendation for awards. Within a half-hour after we got back to our own quarters, we laid our weary aching bodies down onto the thin blankets spread on the hard and dusty cement floor and dropped off to sleep.

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CHAPTER 9

THE BATTLE OF THE Fosso MUNIO

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n the afternoon of December 19, only six days before Christmas, the Perths were taking things easy, only in the sense that they weren't under heavy shellfire. Shells did fall close by, although only sporadically, and the occasional long burst of an MG 42 served to keep the men on edge, ready to dive for cover at the first hint of danger. At no time could a man relax, especially with enemy snipers active in the area. The men who'd so spectacularly seized a bridgehead over the Lamone lay about on stone floors in the farmhouses scattered throughout the district north of Borgo di Villanova. Some slept their tensions away. Some propped themselves up against the walls reading the latest issue of the Maple Leaf. A few sat pensively, fountain pens in hand, writing letters to their loved ones. Others passed the time away playing solitaire. The past week had been an exceptionally harrowing one, filled with the strain and exhaustion of battle, the incessant banging of mortars and shells, the nauseating stink of HE and the incalculable fear that is so much a part of combat. From the short but thunderous outburst at the Lamone they had advanced through wire-meshed, muddy vineyards and along soggy drainage ditches, hitting the dirt at the snap of a rifle shot or sharp burst of an MG, throwing themselves into furrows or depressions as a mortar or a shell exploded a little too close for comfort. Now they relaxed, each in his own way. To dwell on what they had just come through and to think too deeply on what might yet lie ahead

was not good for morale; they knew that only too well. They could only be thankful that thus far they were still alive and unhurt. That was all that really mattered. With Christmas only five days away it was only natural that each man would do some serious thinking about what he had gone through in the last few days, and probably do some fervent praying. Whether the men went to church regularly or never at all, they prayed, and prayed often, each in his own way. This time their prayers had to be for the Good Lord to protect them in the days ahead so that they might see the dawn of Christmas Day. Thoughts of having to fight on that holiest of days, and the possibility of death, had to sit heavy on every man's mind. No one had to remind them that death at any time is still death, the final chapter, the closing of the book. They had long ago come to accept the grim possibility. But to die on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day somehow seemed too horrible to contemplate. This they could not accept. Whatever form their prayers took, whether whispered with biblical eloquence or rude, unpracticed manner, one part of them went unanswered — that part that begged God to keep them from battle at least till after Christmas. In the late afternoon of December 20 a runner brought word of imminent action. The movement order was for the companies to be on the road at first dark and on their way to the FUP for the advance to the Senio River. In the short time in which the Company Commanders could brief the men, the only information given was that the regiment was to push along the line of the Via Chiara to the Senio River a little less than three miles to the west by northwest. If ever infantry went into battle ignorant of their tactical role, it was on this night, with only the flicker of stars above to light the way. The men who'd be doing the advancing, the falling, the crawling in the mud, the shooting, and (as is bound to happen) the hurting and the dying, knew almost nothing. No one told them what enemy troops they'd be going up against, whether the 29th Panzer-Grenadiers, the 1st Parachute Division or the 114th Jaeger Division. Not that it mattered. Those were all tough, battletested units. They had no clue what they'd run up against, what obstacles or strongpoints would bar their way. They had no way of knowing if there'd be mines planted in proliferation in the fields they'd have to cross, as there had been in the Gothic Line. About all anyone knew was that there was a pretty damn good chance they might not live long enough to celebrate Christmas. A basic principle of battle preparation, that of "putting the men in the bigger picture," had gone by the boards. Why no intelligence information had been passed on to the rank and file, no one there would ever understand. Was it Battalion's fault? Should the blame be placed on the doorstep of Brigade or Division? No one could hope to know. 326

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The plan, in essence (although it didn't filter down the chain of command to platoon level) was that llth Infantry Brigade, with the Irish Regiment of Canada on the right and the Perths on the left, were to move off the start line at the Canale Naviglio at 8:00 p.m. sharp and make for the Senio River. The river, a carbon copy of the Lamone, cut across the Canadian front from Granarola on the west, then flowed northeast past Fusignano and Alfonsine to its confluence with the Reno River at the southern shore of the great Commacchio lagoon off the Adriatic coast. The country over which the regiment was to advance was as flat as a billiard table and, like the Foglia River flats in the Gothic Line, almost devoid of cover for at least a thousand yards where a cluster of farmhouses and outbuildings had been given the battle-map code-name MEASURE. From this built-up area it was another quarter-mile to the Senio. In the early gathering dusk of the late December day the platoons formed up in their respective farmyards all through the area just below the Fosso Vetro — a mile northwest of Borgo di Villanova. With packs hitched and trying hard, but without much success, to suppress before-battle nerves, they waited in the dying light of the last day of autumn for the order that would send them on their way. There was no sign of cockiness, the "let me at 'em" kind of fake bravado, as they made last-minute adjustments to gear, checked weapons, and made sure their pouches were filled with either grenades or loaded Bren mags. Such behaviour had been knocked out of them in their battle baptism almost a full year earlier. Now, as they awaited orders to move out, they merely stood in the gloom of the evening, quiet and resigned, contemplating what lay ahead, each alone with his thoughts and apprehensions. As on so many other occasions like this, they'd reached that point where it was no use worrying. There was an unpleasant job to do and they might as well get it over with. Whatever will be, will be, was more or less the attitude they took. There was no avoiding it. A battle awaited them, and they were ready, as ready as they ever would be. As darkness closed in on them the platoons moved off in single file onto the gravelled roads. Dog Company was on the Via Aguta, and the others on the Via Cocchi. Sections merged with sections, platoons with platoons, companies with companies, until the whole regiment was strung out in a long, tenuous column. With Baker Company in the lead, and Able, Charlie, and Dog following in that order, no one foresaw that they were about to experience the hell of infantry warfare in its wildest form. Silently they moved through the night across the Fosso Vetro and then on over the Fosso Vecchio, and finally across the wider and higher-diked Canale Naviglio. The only sound came from the occasional clatter of a mess-tin or The Battle of the Fosso Munio

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a rifle against a helmet and the muffled tread and scuff of boots on gravel. There was no hushed urging from NCOs to pick up the pace or not bunch up. No one spoke. Like robots they plodded up the road to the start-line, as they had done so many times before. Within the hour the point platoon of Baker company was across the Naviglio, while the tail of the regiment was still back somewhere near the intersection of the Vias Aguta and Cocchi. The Fosso Munio, a thirty-foot wide ditch flanked by eight-foot high dikes, cut across llth Brigade's front. Although the floodbanks of the Munio were a good thirty feet apart, the actual water width was no more than four feet at its widest and only about three inches deep. In its present state, no one thought it would present much of a problem. Its real value came in the wide field of fire provided by the two-mile expanse of flat and unobstructed soggy ground to the front, stretching all the way up to the Senio and to the flanks from a mile to the left of the Via Chiara all the way to the Via San Antonio on the right where the Irish were getting set to jump off. The entire area was as flat as a ping-pong table. The only cover for the infantry existed in a cluster of four houses on the Chiara road S bend approach to the Munio. Unknown to the Perths, a tough and battle-experienced enemy infantry battalion, undismayed by being ejected from the strong Lamone River defence line and pushed inexorably back to their present positions, waited in camouflaged weapon pits in and around the farmyards and olive groves in front of the Senio. In support of the infantry was a troop of Mark IV Panther tanks, mobile land-fortresses that were more than a match for Sherman tanks. Several Hornet SPs mounting powerful 88 mm guns, tactically well-placed and concealed around outbuildings and haystacks were also a part of the German defence system. Artillery and mortars echeloned on the far side of the Senio were zeroed in on the Munio crossing site where the Perths intended to cross in their advance along the line of the Chiara Road. In the open fields between the main defensive positions and the Munio were scores of individual rifle posts and MG nests. To advance in broad daylight would be tantamount to sheer murder. Only under the cover of darkness would the Perths have any chance of succeeding with light casualties. As Baker Company approached the Munio along the S bend in the Chiara road, they were oblivious of what lay ahead for them. All that each man was aware of was that somewhere up ahead they'd cross a scraggly little ditch and make a beeline up the arrow-straight road to the Senio River. Up to this point the night was relatively quiet except for the occasional flare of small-arms fire off to the left in 12th Brigade's sector. The dull thud of mortars added to the desultory sounds of the front. 328

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Otherwise the night was quiet. No one expected much in the way of opposition. If the Jerries reacted it would be up near the Senio River. Even here they felt, or at least hoped, that the Germans had pulled out and were on their way in full retreat to the Po River. And so they marched on, unaware that the enemy knew they were coming. The battle-hardened troops of General Reinhardfs 98th Fusilier Battalion of the 98th Infantry Division waited in slit-trenches and mortar positions, their weapons at the ready, their fingers on the triggers, all set to unleash a blizzard of rifle, machine-gun and mortar fire. Tank and SP gun crews also waited, ready to emerge from behind cover at the right moment to blaze away. The Fusiliers, fresh from their stunning victory over the RCRs and the Hasty Pees at the Lamone and the Fosso Vecchio four days earlier, were in fine fettle and more than ready for another go at the Canadians, confident they'd beat back any attack that came their way. The element of surprise lay with the men in field grey, not with the khaki-clad Perths. Ten Platoon, Baker company, under command of Bob Patterson, crossed the Munio quickly and without incident. At this point the operation had every appearance of being a walkover. Able Company, under the capable leadership of Major Bob Cole, crossed the Munio a hundred yards to the right. Farther over to the right another hundred yards or so was the Irish Regiment of Canada, poised to make its own move. The Senio operation was progressing smoother than anticipated. But the easy part was about to end. Shells began falling, first in random fashion all through the area of the two battalion operation, but not yet with an intensity that would indicate the Germans were aware of the attack. Meanwhile, 12 Platoon of Baker entered the drainage ditch on the right hand side of the Chiara Road. Four hundred yards to their front a stone culvert barred their way. Behind the culvert a two-man enemy MG 42 crew waited. There was no way they could miss the target approaching them. All they had to do was point their gun straight down the ditch and fire. Anyone approaching along the ditch made a perfect target and in no way could avoid being cut down like wheat under a scythe. The crew waited until the lead section came within twenty-five yards before the man behind the gun squeezed the trigger. In that first fivesecond burst 150 steel-jacketed rounds ripped down the length of the ditch. The first eleven men were knocked backward under the impact of the bullets smashing through flesh and bones. Most were dead before they even hit the ground. The survivors of that first burst flung themselves against the slick sides of the ditch in a desperate attempt to scramble out of the line of fire, but their frantic efforts delayed only for seconds their own deaths as the next burst stitched a murderous a path along the line of fallen The Battle of the Fosso Munio

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and scrambling men. The wounded, the dying, and the dead lay piled in heaps of blood-splashed bodies, the trickle of cold water beneath them running red from the gallons of blood draining into it. The cries of the wounded rose above the whiplash of machine-gun bursts. Help, however, wouldn't reach them this night. Any move by a stretcher-bearer to reach the wounded would have only brought his own instant death. The ditch was an abattoir. Although 12 Platoon was hard hit, those who brought up the rear managed to escape the streams of bullets and made it back to the protection of the Munio dikes. The firing of one gun was the signal for every mortar and artillery piece in the area to open up on the regiment's crossing site. At least six machine guns joined in the clamour, their streams of tracers converging on the roadway and the Fosso Munio. While the rate of fire grew more intense by the minute, Charlie and Dog Companies, waiting under cover in a line of houses along the Naviglio canal road, saw that the night was not going to go easy for them. The deafening explosions of mortars and the sharper crack of shells outside told them in no uncertain terms that the Germans had no intention of giving up the ground this side of the Senio River. In fact, by the sound of what was going on out there, everyone was sure that the Jerries were throwing in a counter-attack. While the two companies waited in the impenetrable darkness inside the houses for orders that would send them into the meat grinder, on the far side of the Senio enemy gunners were working up a sweat, slamming shell after shell into the breeches of their 75s and 88s, and pulling hard and fast on lanyards, while mortarmen dropped bombs down the black tubes as fast as they could pick them up. They were right on target and poured heart, soul, and venom into their job. At the point where the Perths tried to push their attack, the dikes and fields literally heaved under the heavy fall of mortars and shells. Hardly a square yard went unscarred by the destructive power unleashed on the Perths' centreline of advance. By now it must have been obvious at Brigade that the enemy's intention was to smash the Canadian attack right at the start-line by sheer weight of bombardment alone. And it looked very much like they'd do just that. No company, no platoon, no machine, not even a single person could be expected to survive the hurricane of shells and mortars and the tracer-dotted lacework of Spandau fire concentrated on such a narrow frontage. Major Sammy Ridge, whose Dog Company waited in the cover of three houses close by the Canale Naviglio embankment, listened with growing apprehension to the uproar outside. He heard the ratchet slap of bullets against the sturdy masonry walls, as did everyone else. If they had 330

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held hopes that the night's operation would go well, these hopes were swept away in the godawful manmade storm that raged outside. Every man in the house knew numbing fear only too well. It had never been a stranger to them. On this night, however, they had to wonder if they'd have guts enough to go out into the flaming night and face the hell that was going on all around them. Sitting and waiting can have a harmful effect on nerves. As long as a man is doing something — running, digging, or shooting — he has little time to worry or fret about what might happen to him. He's too busy trying to stay alive and keep his wits about him. On such a seemingly hopeless venture as the one developing, how could any man be expected to march off into what had every indication of being sure death? Yet, when the time came for the platoons to fall out onto the road, no one held back. They filed out into the flame-shot night, into a darkness split with the thunder of bursting mortars, to face the unthinkable fate awaiting them on the road. They showed what they were made of as they waited on the road, dropping every now and then to their knees when a shell or mortar landed particularly close by. They didn't panic, though all the ingredients for panic were there all around them. Although the boiling centre of hell was at the Munio crossing-site, it was almost as bad at the Naviglio. Nerves stretched to near-breaking as the men waited for the word to move out. And when it did come, it was accepted in a sense of relief. Though this next move would take them straight into the eye of the storm, they never gave it a thought. They were only glad to be getting away from their dangerous and helpless position on the open road. With 18 Platoon leading the way into the S bend, Dog Company came under the fire of at least three MG 42s, the bursts crisscrossing only feet above their heads. It was obvious the Germans had their weapons on tripods on fixed lines. The converging lines of tracers stayed at the same height throughout. Run the gauntlet, take the chance: that was all anyone could do. Nothing half so frightening, demanding every last shred of courage, had confronted them ever before. By sections they made the gut-wrenching run, and what a run it was! Along with the steady rip of the MG bursts cutting the air over their heads, mortars whuffled over to explode with characteristic deep crunches, sounding like giant hands tearing a sheet of boiler plate in half. The air around them, already alive with zipping and crackling small-arms fire, was now filled with the whizz and hum of mortar fragments. It took a lot of guts to run down that flaming gap. Seventy-five yards of pure unadulterated hell. And every man in Dog Company rushed down that corridor of death. Once they were on their way through the gauntlet the only thing they could do was pump their legs as hard as fear and adrenaline could propel them. The Battle of the Fosso Munio

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While Dog Company was passing through the doorway to hell, Able Company under Major Bob Cole swung around in a right hook through the open fields. Although the entire area was devoid of cover, darkness allowed the company to find an opening in the German line, allowing them to advance all the way up to a group of farm buildings three quarters of a mile beyond the Munio. Along the way they bypassed German posts whose sentries had fallen asleep, while others they overcame silently, with a dispatch one would only expect from a commando unit. When they reached the group of farmhouses and outbuildings, Cole promptly organized the platoons into a defensive perimeter. The men knew they were out on a limb, they could expect the enemy to counter-attack sooner than later. The Germans were never known to waste time launching a counterattack once they'd lost a position. The cluster of farm buildings went under the name of Casa Delia Congregazione. On battle-maps it went under the code-name of MEASURE. As expected, it didn't take long for the enemy to realize that a strong force of Canadians had penetrated their lines, and with characteristic Teutonic vigour they surrounded Able Company. Once the Jerries encircled Able Company, they attacked from two directions. Time and again they worked their way in with guns blazing to within twenty yards of Able Company platoons, and each time were driven back, leaving their dead and wounded scattered in the soggy pastures. With each thrust the Fusiliers of the 98th Battalion were met by concentrated and sustained fire from every rifle, Bren and Tommy gun. Even the major's seldom-used Webley revolver added to the din. Dozens of No. 36 grenades were hurled into the flashing darkness, their blasts far more damaging to the attackers than the tin-can grenades the enemy heaved at the Perths. Not only did the enemy suffer heavy casualties from small-arms fire, they also received the cutting edge of good old Canadian verbal venom. They knew then that they had run up against an opponent a hell of a lot tougher than they expected Throughout it all, Major Cole was all over the defence perimeter — directing fire, charging back and forth across the farmyards from post to post, spurring his men with the force of his presence. With this kind of leadership, the company took everything the enemy threw at them and gave back double. Of such spirit are battles won. And then, at the first grey light of dawn the attacks diminished into a few stray bursts of fire. The battle had come to an end, and by daylight twenty Fusiliers had been taken prisoner. Though the enemy had been hit hard, it wasn't recorded how many casualties they had suffered in this relatively short but fierce confrontation. 332

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It was a victory, however small, for the Perths in an otherwise dispiriting long night. In the cold damp of the early morning the prisoners stood about in sullen silence in the farmyards, under the watchful eyes and itchy trigger fingers of their Canadian captors. All through the night, back at the Munio crossing where Dog Company had gone to ground or taken cover in nearby houses, a horrendous rain of shells and mortars came down on top of the men. With each passing minute the plunging fire of shells and mortars rose to an incredible pitch. To rise and move forward into the whirlwind was to die. Pressed hard against the soggy turf in the drainage ditches, in the shellholes, field furrows and even slight depressions of wagon tracks, the men could only pray in frozen fear. The lucky ones somehow managed to scoop out reasonable facsimiles of slit-trenches, and here they spent the next fourteen hours, their ears ringing to the overwhelming thunder of shells pounding into the fields around them. Still others, in the earliest moments of the shelling, had been able to scurry for the protection offered by the sturdy houses close by, one on the very lip of the Munio dike. The two larger houses on the right side of the road, about thirty yards back from the Munio, rapidly filled with stragglers from at least three companies. Eighteen Platoon rushed pell mell into the cover of the house closest to the Munio dike, scrambling over the rubble of what only moments before had been an entire back wall and part of the roof. They took shelter inside the shaky walls, even though battle sense told them a slit-trench was safer. But this applied only when slit-trenches or other excavations were close at hand, or when one could dig one without getting killed at the job. Here, that was impossible. Their philosophy: "Any old port in a storm!" As long as there was a part of the roof and a couple of walls still standing, the house was better than being caught out in the open, where everything but the kitchen sink was homing in on them. Buried under the four-foot high pile of rubble at the back of the house lay the broken bodies of three Perths. One of them, it's generally believed, was that of Sergeant-Major Earl Weaver of Dog Company, who had distinguished himself at the Lamone River only ten days before, when he retrieved the assault boats while under fire. The other two bodies were from Baker Company. The three died in the crush of the collapsing wall and part of the slate roof when a heavy-calibre shell slammed into the house. After hurdling over the rubble into the relative safety of the heavily damaged house, we groped in the impenetrable darkness, stumbling over broken furniture and kitchenware scattered about the floor. Jim Hanagan and I found our way into a room on the north side, inside of which the Germans, the previous occupants, had piled bales of straw against the two The Battle of the Fosso Munio

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outer walls for added protection. With the night echoing to the steady banging of shells and mortars bombs, we expected we'd be staying there till some time the next day, so we made ourselves comfortable in the straw spread out on the floor. Shortly after we plunked ourselves down, unknown to us, 18 Platoon moved out of the house and moved across the Munio. It wasn't till about a half-hour later, when I decided to see how the others were making out in the other rooms, that I found we were alone. Where had everybody gone? With every calibre of shell, from 40mm to 210, coming in all over the place, churning and pulverizing the fields on both sides of the road in a crescendo beyond imagination, we saw no way of crossing the Munio to hunt up our boys. Much as we ached to go we couldn't get ourselves to take that first step. With the volume of shells landing all over the place, we wouldn't have lasted five seconds. Eighteen Platoon was out there somewhere, but where? We assumed, naturally, they were all either dead or not far from it. We learned the next day, however, that they'd gotten across the Munio and into the ploughed field about a hundred yards, where they were driven to ground and had to dig in; most of them survived. All through the night they'd been under heavy shelling and mortaring, ten times worse than they'd ever known before. And as was bound to happen, one shell made a direct hit on a trench. The shell found Corporal Jimmy Eves' trench, but miraculously failed to kill him. That it didn't was another one of those unexplainable bits of good fortune that happen in battle. The only explanation for his survival that I can think of was that the shell came in from over his shoulder and exploded between his feet as he lay outstretched, with most of the blast going forward and taking both feet off just below the knees. Even then, that the blast in that confined space didn't kill him will forever mystify me. With his horribly mangled lower limbs needing prompt medical attention that didn't come for all of that night, it was beyond comprehension that Jimmy didn't die from shock or loss of blood. To everyone on and around the Fosso Munio, whether in slit-trench, ditch or houses, it must have looked as though the whole world was coming to an end. Back in our straw-buttressed shelter in the house on the lip of the Munio, Jim Hanagan and I heard shells striking the upper storey and heard the clatter of cascading masonry. A few more hits and we figured the house would cave in on top of us. We had to get out of there, and right soon. But where else could we go? Nowhere. While Jim and I, considerably agitated over our dire predicament, tried to decide what to do next, a shell screamed in and exploded practically up against the house with a bang that stunned me silly. It hit at the base of the house about a 334

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foot off the doorway, punching a small hole in the wall in direct line with my head. If it hadn't have been for the straw bale between me and the blast, I'd have had it. We had to get out soon or end up buried alive, because the shells were slowly knocking the house down around our ears. We tried twice to make a run for the house across the road but were driven back each time by the density of mortar bombs and shells. We gave up and decided to spend the night where we were and hope for the best. There was no use trying to get any sleep; the all-night thunder outside wouldn't allow any. We'd have to wait for morning and hope by then things had slackened up. Either we'd cross over to the house across the road or see if we could cross the Munio and rejoin our platoon, wherever it might be. Morning came, but there was not much slackening of the fire. In fact it increased when the three attempts to bridge the Munio were in progress. From a narrow window Jim and I took turns watching the activity going on, and were especially enthralled by the bravery of a sapper in his thinarmoured bulldozer. His aim was to fill the ditch so that our tanks could get across. His coolness before the firestorm was beyond belief. Back and forth he went, maneuvering his straining machine as steel fragments clanged off his 'dozer. Those who saw his incredible bravery must have momentarily forgotten their own fears. During a brief mid-morning lull we decided it was about time to get the hell out and get going. While we were getting set to go, we saw three M-lOs rounding the S and heading our way. We watched them get knocked out one after the other, but felt better when we saw the crews pile out and make tracks for the safety of the two large houses on the east side of the road. While Jim and I stood at the back of the house waiting for the right moment to make our move, what had to be a 210mm hit the roof, sending slate flying all over the place in a cloud of reddish dust. After that we needed no more urging; we took off. Jim was in the lead, with me right on his tail. It wasn't easy for me to keep up, what with the weight and ungainliness of the PIAT. We hadn't gone twenty yards when two MGs opened up on us, the line of their bursts slapping into the soggy turf on both sides of our unmarked path. With legs pumping as fast we could make them, we pounded along that narrow corridor of "made in Germany" 7.92 mm rounds. We made it to the house without being nicked, but the damn door was locked, and though we pounded on it, it remained shut. The only thing for us now was to backtrack to the round-topped bake-oven we'd passed on our way to the house, and hope to ride things out inside. But even here we had no better luck. On opening the iron door The Battle of the Fosso Munio

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we found to our surprise the dark interior fully occupied. How many were in there, we couldn't tell, and didn't wait around to find out. So all we could do was run to the big house and pound on the door till someone did open it. Which they did. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw how many had crowded into the place. There were enough men inside to form a couple of platoons, and every one of the guys looked to be in poor shape. We were all in a state of shock. It wasn't until mid-afternoon, when the troop of Lord Strathcona tanks crossed the Munio and went up the road towards the Senio, that the shelling and mortaring stopped abruptly. Not long after, Jimmy Hanagan and I, anxious to dissociate ourselves from the depressing throng of fearstricken men in the house, and eager to get back to where we belonged, set off on the Chiara Road to rejoin our buddies. Once again it surprised me on how quick I could recover from extreme stress. I didn't feel at all nervous or low in morale, only glad that I was still alive and kicking, and glad to be back with my platoon. After rejoining 18 Platoon, we moved down the lane to a larger farmhouse, where a farmer and his family played nervous hosts. A little over an hour later, old Tommy Wilson and his kitchen crew drove into the farmyard with dixies full of hot food and tea. I was at the head of the line-up for my ration as usual, and hurried inside to scawf it down. I had just stepped into the house when a flurry of mortar-bombs fell in the yard just off from the kitchen crew doling out the food. Five of our crowd were wounded, amongst them, Blackie Rowe and Walter Thomas, though none suffered serious wounds. Only one person died and that was the head of the household, a man of about sixty who was outside idly watching the men lined up for their food when the bombs came down. When they carried his body inside and laid him out on the bed, the household of some two dozen Italians — men, women and children — went into hysterics with grief. I never heard such a caterwauling in all my life and I was more than glad when word came shortly after that we'd be taking over positions along the Senio from one of the other regiments. Nothing upset me more than seeing the Italians carry on whenever one of their kind was killed. The house we took over on the Via Rossetta was about fifty yards from the fifteen-foot-high Senio dike. It was the largest one in the district, and had been the home of the local land baron, a well-known Fascist. He and his family and several others were still in the house when we arrived, among them a very pretty, raven-tressed young lady in her early twenties. As the English would say, she was a "smasher." The next morning all the Italians were evacuated to Ravenna, and now we had the big house all to ourselves and went through it like pack rats. 336

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going through every drawer and cabinet and closet looking for loot. And we found plenty, so much so that when the Lanark & Renfrews relieved us a couple of days after Christmas, and we marched out to our waiting trucks somewhere around the Fosso Munio, we looked more like a crowd of refugees than infantrymen. All sorts of household goods hung from our packs or were carried out under our arms—pots and pans, rolled-up mattresses, pillowcases full of clothing and linen goods, almost anything that could be found in any given house, we had it. One guy carried out a guitar, and another guy had an alarm clock hanging from his shoulder strap. Now, what use in the world would he have for an alarm clock? The presence of snipers on the Senio dike and in the upper storeys of the houses across the river made travel between platoon positions a very hazardous proposition. And I got a quick introduction to it. Off to the west side of the house was a stable, about fifteen feet away, and in that stable was a cow whose mooing got me to thinking about the milk I could be drinking. My thirst for it became overpowering, so I was determined to go across to milk her. With a bucket in hand, I stepped out the door and was startled by a shot that hit the jamb a foot from my head. I fell back inside, but I was not to be denied. "Give me room, you guys," I said to the fellows who were in my way, "I'm going across." And with that I backed up to give myself running room. I hesitated for a moment or two, telling myself, "Goddamnit, youVe got to be crazy to do this." And before I could talk myself out of it, I was off and running. I went so fast the Jerry sniper didn't have a chance to get a shot off, and I was in the stable home free. But I had never milked a cow, and it showed. No matter how I squeezed and pulled, not so much as a drop of milk came. In desperation I hollered over to my guys that I needed help, and was soon joined by Jimmy Heaton who promptly filled the pail in seconds flat. I stood in awe as I watched the milk shooting out from two teats in full spurts. And now to get back to the house without getting shot. Again we were too fast for the sniper to get a bead on us. One of the most surprising things about the house we occupied was the fact that the gas had not been turned off. The house was furnished with all the conveniences that most other farmhouses didn't have, and in this case, there was a gas stove with oven. It was like we never left home. Instead of just drinking my milk, I decided to heat it up and break bread into it like I used to do at home, and eat it like soup. A glorious meal in itself. Two days later, on Christmas Eve, we were wondering how we might celebrate Christmas morning in some reasonable fashion with decorations and a dinner. There was a cow just outside the door we could slaughter to cook up steaks and a roast — not exactly Christmas fare, but good enough. The Battle of the Fosso Munio

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But some of the boys decided that instead of killing our milk provider, we get one from the next farm over. So that night, Tony Wanner, Bun Welsh, Jimmy Heaton and Mosionier went out with their Tommy guns to get the morning's Christmas dinner. I was on sentry duty on the Bren. I listened to the usual sounds of intermittent machine-gun fire, ours and the enemy's, the dull thud of mortars going off some distance off to the west and behind us. Otherwise my two-hour stint at the post went easy, though agonizingly slow. In the last half hour, 8:30 to 9:00, a light snow began falling, and then I realized everything was quiet—not a shot, not a sound of any kind disturbed the peacefulness that had suddenly descended on the battlefield. I remember thinking, as the minutes ticked away towards nine, that maybe the Germans would be decent enough to honour some sort of truce for Christmas, as they did in World War I. And when my relief came, I said to him that I hadn't heard a single shot since 8:30, and he replied, "Oh oh, maybe the Jerries are up to something. I bet they're going to throw a big attack in on us." I said, "I don't think so." and with that, went downstairs to my humble bed in front of the fireplace with its glowing embers giving off a sleep-inducing warmth. I awoke bright and early next morning to a hustle and bustle in the kitchen. Our intrepid hunting party had gone some four hundred yards east, where they killed a cow near the Senio dike with a couple of shots from a Tommy gun and dragged it all the way back to our quarters. I couldn't understand why they didn't walk the cow all the way back and shoot it on our property. It would have made their job so much easier. Jim Heaton did all the butchering, and the guys involved in preparing the Christmas meal were hard at it all morning cooking steaks. Those of us not disposed to the culinary arts got busy preparing the table with dishes, cutlery and a few decorations and candles we could find around the house. Shades of home. What was truly surprising about Christmas morning was the fact that you could now walk around outside between platoon positions free from fear of being sniped at. Who the first man was that "tested the waters" I wouldn't know, but it must have taken some guts. But out in the open on the far Senio dike, a bunch of Germans were singing and brandishing bottles of vino. One of the Jerries, riding an old gray mare bareback, holding on to her mane with one hand and waving a bottle of the potent stuff with the other hand, went galloping along the top of the dike whooping and hollering up a storm, every now and then tipping the bottle to his mouth for a long swallow. We could hear a loud chorus of voices, far better modulated than we ever achieved, singing Christmas carols. It was 338

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really heartwarming to hear them sing "Silent Night." How could you hate them, even after what they's done to us only four nights before? Apparently some of the Germans even shouted to some of our men to come over and join in the celebration, and from what I heard, more than a few were all set to go. Officers and senior NCOs put a quick kibosh on any such foolish thoughts, however. Things were so safe on this bright, though somewhat frosty afternoon at the front that Sammy Ridge drove up with a Jeepload of goodies, which included Canadian turkey, nuts and candies, and one quart bottle per man of Molson's beer, all this to enhance the Christmas party we were enjoying. This was the one and only time I got myself half looped-up in the drink that cheers. I got into a bottle or two of "apple-jack" (cider) and was having myself one heck of a good time singing and carrying on. What a Christmas it was! Certainly one I'd never forget. Four days later we were relieved by the Lanark & Renfrews and shortly thereafter were billeted in a music conservatory in the heart of Ravenna. Thus ended for us what proved to be a most frightening and hectic Christmas season, beginning with tragedy and ending with celebration.

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CHAPTER 1O

THE PUSH TO THE BONIFICA CAN/XL

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ur holiday rest period in Ravenna lasted only four days, a good part of which was spent selling and bartering all the loot we'd brought back from the front. So much of this underground trade was being done, that the Provost Corps had orders to put a halt to it. But as usual they weren't too successful. All they did was chase the traders out of the street and into the city's kitchens and back rooms, where the big deals were consummated without interference. Aside from that and some wining and dining at the Trattorias in town, I didn't do much of anything worth telling here. I was just too damn exhausted to raise hell. And besides, I wasn't the type to go helling around the town. We had hopes of spending at least a week in Ravenna, but as was the case far too often, our hopes were dashed when our holiday week was cut short after just three days. We should have known that in this man's army, you can't bank on anything going exactly the way you wanted it to go. You took things as they came, did the usual bitching, and carried on as per syllabus. Then word came that we were moving out of our billets in the Conservatory of Music sometime that night —New Year's Day, 1945 — for one more go 'round at the front, hoping it would be the last. Although it was pretty clear to everyone that the war was coming into the home stretch, we could only guess when the happy day would come. One month? Two? Maybe three? But, knowing the Germans' remarkable capacity to recover from catastrophic defeats, some of us felt that the war

might even go on for another year. A depressing thought, to be sure! And so, until that joyous and delirious day when the big guns would stop their hammering, we could expect to bleed for a little while yet. There was still plenty of time to die. As tragic as it is to die at any time, there was something about dying near or at the war's end that was about as unthinkable as anything could be. One is reluctant to take any more chances than absolutely necessary. Requests for volunteers for hazardous missions elicited little response. If you were ordered to go, you went. But to volunteer—you damn well kept your mouth shut. The three days spent in Ravenna, if not all that boisterous and enjoyable, were at least spent in relative comfort, free from the tensions and the constant fear that were part and parcel of an infantryman's life. But when word came down that we were on our way up the line again, in fact that very night, everything went flat. How could anyone be expected to stay "upbeat" when we knew what might be waiting for us up at the front? The bravado we'd taken into battle on that grim day the previous January had long since evaporated. We were much too wise now to look forward to glorious action. To a man, we had only one goal, and that was to return to Canada and our families in about the same physical condition we had brought with us to Italy. Nothing more—nothing less. As far as most of us were concerned, those who handed out the medals could shove them! One hour before midnight, loaded down in full fighting gear, we stepped out into the biting cold and clear sky of the January night to climb aboard the battalion vehicles for the less-than-spirited ride to wherever battle awaited us. We damn near froze our butts and balls off on the short ride up to the dropoff point near a sugar factory a few miles north of Ravenna. Longjohns, cardigans, Battledress, leather jerkins and two pairs of socks simply didn't do the job of keeping out the well-below-freezing cold, especially when we had to sit near motionless on the cold steel benches of our three-ton Dodge trucks. It was a welcome relief then when we were offloaded at the FUP just short of a string of houses where the deep crump of mortar-bombs came to our ears. Able Company had taken the lead and within minutes came under mortar fire. While the company worked its way slowly through the builtup area in a houseclearing operation, taking prisoners as they went, Dog Company followed close behind in reserve and occupied three substantial two and a half storey houses on the fringe of the hamlet. After stand-to at first light we were on our way through the backyards where we soon passed through the forward positions of an English battalion, the King's Royal Rifles. 342

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Sergeant George Grant, the epitome of the classic British paradeground soldier, had come up to take command of 18 Platoon after Blackie Rowe had been wounded at the Senio River. Seeing him for the first time at Camp Barton Stacey in England, I'd thought of Grant as a perfect model for a recruiting poster. I hadn't held a high regard for him — not because he'd done anything to me, only because he gave me the impression of being a "chickenshit aristocracy" type of guy, from the top of his helmet to the hobnails of his boots. It didn't take me long to reverse that low opinion. Grant soon showed me and the others just what he was really all about. There wasn't anything chickenshit about him at all. He was amiable. He was efficient. He listened to what the old timers in the platoon had to say. And from what I could see early on in the advance he was quite an unflappable and natural leader. Once we were through the Royal Rifles' forward posts we spread out into prescribed arrowhead formation for the battle-drill tactics we were prepared to go into automatically should we come under small-arms fire. All was quiet as 18 Platoon, under the leadership of Lieutenant Dave Dooley, started out across a wide acreage of fallow farmland, lightly dusted with snow. We hadn't gone more than fifty yards when suddenly a flight of thick-bodied Thunderbolts (RAF) swooped in at no more than a couple hundred feet altitude off to our right, their wing guns yammering a deadly tune as they strafed a target somewhere on the far side of a cluster of houses. We couldn't see what they were firing at, but about fifteen minutes later we saw the evidence of their attack. They'd ripped apart an entire bicycle platoon. On their second pass, the planes went into their dives and let fly with rockets this time, and though we couldn't see their target, they must have hit a vehicle or tank, because a thick column of black smoke shot skyward. We found out later that day that the planes had knocked out a Panther tank, though we never came across it in our advance. This was the first time we'd seen rocket-firing planes, and they so grabbed our attention that we were quite unaware of a curtain of mortar bombs moving our way, until we were smack dab in the middle of it. By all rights we should have all been killed, with no cover of any kind in sight. What could we do but run straight through it, hoping to somehow make it. And make it we did! Still another one of those unexplainable pieces of battle luck that came our way every so often. Pounding hard on the heels of the man ahead, I didn't know whether I was in the lead section or not, but I really didn't care. All I was concerned about was getting out from under all the high explosive beating up the frozen soil all around me. I ran with fingers mentally crossed and a half The Push to the Bonifica Canal

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mumbled prayer on my lips. We had only seventy-five yards to go to reach salvation of a sort: six rather small houses, three to each side of the road, dead ahead of us. Strange decisions are often made in the high heat of danger, and we made one here in running through the gauntlet of mortar-bombs. Instead of barreling through the front door of the nearest houses, we sailed on by and went flying into the third house on the left. One by one we charged through the door, almost knocking over people who were already there. It wasn't long before what seemed like half of Dog Company had crowded into this one cottage-size house. In the ten minutes we stayed under cover, hoping the slate roofing would withstand the shock of a bomb explosion, nerves returned to normal. No matter what our officers had tried to impress upon us time and time again — that we were a lot safer under cover in slit-trenches or any hole in the ground than in buildings — we still preferred a roof and four walls over our heads. While waiting for the mortaring to subside I tried my scant bit of German on one of the prisoners, more for release of tension and to take my mind off what might come next. However, with all the bombs going off outside with concussive regularity, conversation was out of the question. And then all of a sudden it was quiet. No time to be wasted, so Grant had us up and on our way again. Running along a narrow path on the margin of a wide, grassy field, we came upon the widely scattered and riddled bodies of the bicycle platoon. From what I could make of it, not one of the Jerries had gotten away. There had to be at least two dozen bicycles out there in the field, with riders sprawled either atop or underneath them. A couple of the Jerries cyclists, apparently, had dropped their bikes and made a run for it as the planes came swooping in with wing guns blazing, but the poor bastards got no farther than twenty feet away when the bullets slammed into their backsides. They lay face down in the grass, their backs crimson with blood. One of the dead men lying just off the path had a big, black leather holster sitting on his hip — inside of which, I knew, there had to be either a P .38 or a Luger. Although I'd never been a gun fancier, I did see trade value in enemy pistols, so I practically skidded to a stop to unhook the holster. A sharply barked order from Grant who was on my heels, however, sent me on my way, muttering darkly over the lost opportunity. The mortaring in the general area of our push slowed appreciably by the time we came to a shallow drainage ditch, where we took up firing positions in support of 16 Platoon's assault on what was believed to be an enemy-held house about two hundred yards away. We were seconds away from opening fire when, to our surprise, a gaggle of civilians poured out of 344

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the house and started off across the field, running, stumbling, and falling in their hurry to get away from the fighting. There were at least two dozen helpless and innocent souls out there, all women and small children. With the Germans lobbing their bombs indiscriminately all through the area, I feared that this terrified group of innocents might come under a stonk, knowing that if they did, few would come out of it alive. I held my breath, lifted my eyes heavenward and begged God to protect them. Even under some of the worst shelling I'd experienced, I'd never prayed for myself as fervently as I did then. It was pathetic, especially to watch the tinier tots clinging desperately to their mothers' dresses as they fled. God answered my prayer: not a single mortar bomb or 88 came over all the while. For this I had to give the enemy credit in mercifully holding their fire. As I lay there in the shallow drainage ditch waiting to give covering fire for 16 Platoon, I considered that not all of our enemy were evil and cruel as we tended to believe, but that there had to be some good guys out there too. 16 Platoon went into the assault shortly after, firing their weapons as they ran towards the house from which the women and children had fled. We added our own fire, but cut it short. It wasn't needed. The house was undefended. Only a few unarmed middle-aged Italian farmers were the occupants. As soon as the fire broke out they began waving bedsheets out the windows. And a welcome sight it was indeed. With the house secured, 18 Platoon crossed the field to join up with 16, followed minutes later by 17 Platoon. While the officers and sergeants busied themselves setting up defence posts around the farm-house in anticipation of an enemy counter-attack, I slipped away unnoticed and went upstairs to do a little rummaging. Nothing in the bedrooms was worth taking, but when I opened an old shipping trunk on the landing between the first and second floor, my eyes took in a most delightful sight. In the trunk there had to be at least three dozen cans of Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk. My hands literally trembled as I used my clasp knife to open one. Never had I tasted such nectar since joining the army! Never had I wallowed in sweetness as I did with spoonful after spoonful of this thick, creamy delicacy, I gorged myself on two cans before my appetite was sated. I crammed as many of these small cans on my person as I could carry, and with this added weight, it was no wonder my tunic was about to split and trousers sagged so much I could scarcely walk. If I expected to keep up with the boys on our next move, I would either have to pass most of them around the platoon, or jettison them along the way. I thought it more prudent to pass them around, keeping only six for myself and consuming them before nightfall the next day. The Push to the Bonifica Canal

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That evening, after the company was firmly in position and ready for "come what may" Captain Pete Fisher (second in command of Dog Company, having taken over command for this operation) called for a recce patrol to find out how far the enemy had pulled back. Fisher, a fairhaired, good-looking officer with an uncommonly deep baritone voice for his size and boyish features, handed the job to Sergeant Grant, who quickly selected Corporal Tony Wanner, Lance-Corporal Ray (Bun) Welsh, Privates Remi Heyninck, Maxie Pincombe, and Ernie De Cheno, and a fellow identified only as "Mad" The patrol set out following what they thought was the Lamone River dike, but which was, in reality, a raised roadway known as the Via Molinazza. They thought it would be a simple operation, a quick "check-out" of the open farmland to their front, and then a quick return to their own lines. They had no intention of stirring up trouble. The patrol went out about four hundred yards to a farmhouse close by the Fosso Vetro, one of the many diked drainage canals flowing eastward to their Adriatic outlet. Checking to see if it might be a German outpost, they found the only occupants to be three Italian families consisting of several children, their mothers, and some elderly people, quite likely the children's grandparents. None of the children appeared to be older than eight. Rather than go on to see if other houses farther along the dike harboured the enemy, the men doffed their boots and sat themselves comfortably in front of the great canopied fireplace to warm their bare feet; they accepted the bottles of vino and black bread offered them by the friendly, though somewhat nervous head of the household. Two of the patrol were delegated to stand guard in front of the house, where they took up position in a concealed spot close by the road. A smart thing to do, because it couldn't have been more than five minutes later that a Jerry patrol approached along the narrow, gravelled road running past the house. They were tense moments for the two sentries watching from their hiding place as the large enemy party marched off down the road without bothering to check the house out. Once the sound of footsteps died away, they scooted inside to tell Grant and the others that a German patrol had just gone by the house. Knowing that the seven of them couldn't hope to hold off for long an attack by the much larger enemy patrol, Grant wisely decided to return with his men to Dog Company lines and relay word of the enemy patrol to Captain Fisher, asking permission to go back with added firepower in hopes of waylaying the enemy party. The seven exchanged their rifles for the shorter-ranged but harder-hitting .45-calibre Tommy guns for the close fighting they knew would likely take place. With a Bren now in hand, plus 346

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extra magazines and several No. 36 grenades apiece, the patrol hurried back to the same house, where once again they were greeted by the owners, although with somewhat less enthusiasm than had met their earlier arrival. Two men took up positions at windows overlooking the road. DeCheno stationed himself with his Bren in a room downstairs a little back from the entrance, which, as events turned out, was a shrewd and lifesaving move. Meanwhile, as they had done earlier, Heyninck and Welsh removed their boots to warm their feet by the fire. In the patrol's brief absence, one of the families had gone back to their own home, afraid, no doubt, of the impending firefight. In their hasty departure, they unknowingly left the side door ajar. For perhaps half an hour or so, all was quiet, and the men downstairs sipped their wine, ate black bread, and conversed in broken Italian with their hosts in front of the cheery fire. But this peaceful idyll was soon to come to a jarring halt. The boys upstairs saw the Jerry patrol coming back down the road and warned the men downstairs of their approach. All ran upstairs to their posts at windows, flicked safety catches off their weapons, and waited to see what the Jerries would do. The Jerry patrol, instead of going by, turned into the yard this time, and as they approached the door they were met by another family on their way back to their own home. A woman was questioned and it was assumed that she informed the officer that there were Canadians inside. At this point that Bun Welsh, standing at the window directly overhead, had his No. 36 grenade with the pin pulled, ready to drop it into the gathering. At the very moment he was about to drop it, he heard children's voices and saw three of them standing close beside their mother. Now, he couldn't bring himself to drop the grenade or to open up with his Tommy on the closed-up group below. With word from the woman of the presence of Canadians inside the house, the Jerry patrol hit the ground, some scattering into the cover of the drainage ditch alongside the road. Their officer, however, pulled open the front door, tossed in a stick grenade, and after it went off charged through the doorway — only to be cut down in his tracks by a burst from DeCheno's Bren. When the Jerry went down, his men sprawled out in the yard and in the drainage ditch let loose with bursts from their Schmeissers. It was ineffectual fire, as the bullets slapped harmlessly against the thick fortress-like walls. From windows upstairs, Tommy guns in the hands of Bun Welsh, Maxie Pincombe and Remi Heyninck blazed away in short bursts. The fight was on in earnest. After ten minutes of a hot and heavy exchange of small-arms fire, the Germans fired off two Panzerfaust bombs at the house but neither one hit. The Push to the Bonifica Canal

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The first went wide, and the second went over the roof and hit the embankment at the right rear of the house. Whoever fired off these deadly anti-tank weapons couldn't have been experienced in handling them; there was no way he should have missed the target. A fusillade of Bren and Tommy gun bursts drove this threat away. From that time on, right up until first light, the battle was strictly a small-arms affair, with the gutsy Perths giving almost as much as they took. Had the enemy known that a side door had been inadvertently left open, they could have come in from the blind side and it'd have been either curtains or a POW camp for our boys. Luckily for them, though, this particular group of SS men weren't terribly battle-wise, or else they'd have worked their way around to the flanks and gone in from both directions, where there were no windows out of which weapons could be fired. These SS troops — well-known for reckless and even fanatical courage, ready to die for their Fuhrer — were fought to a standstill by seven undergunned men. At the height of the fight, the beleaguered patrol banked their survival on Captain Fisher hearing the racket and quickly dispatching a strong patrol in support. But as the night and the fight wore on and no help seemed forthcoming, the situation for Grant and his boys looked pretty bleak. In the gathering grayness of the new day, with the realization that their stock of ammo was almost gone, fears of having to walk out into surrender looked imminent. Then, in answer to their desperate hopes, suddenly they heard Bren fire — but to their dismay, the rounds were slapping up against the stuccoed rear walls of the house. Caught between two fires! By this time, however, it was light enough for their rescuers to see a Canadian helmet swinging back and forth on the muzzle of a Tommy gun in an upstairs window, and they knew the house was occupied by their own men. It was time to make a break for the lines, especially when a troop of BCD tanks came across the fields firing their hull-mounted MGs and their 75s at the enemy. From a hundred yards away the troop laid down machine-gun fire on the enemy party in the drainage ditch, forcing them to keep their heads down. And in that interval, our boys broke from cover one at a time, hoping to make it to the rear of the house before the Germans came up firing again. Though the tank machine-gunners kept the enemy's heads down, every now and then one of the gutsier Jerries off to the flank would stick his head up and fire off a short burst at our men as they made their mad dash for cover. One burst almost caught Bun Welsh as he sprinted across the yard in his bare feet, in a frantic dash to turn the corner and get out of the line of fire. Bullets snapped viciously in the air past his ears, propelling him into a head-first dive into a trench a few feet away. To 348

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his surprise he landed smack on top of Jerry crouched in the shallow hole. Reacting instinctively, Bun locked his fingers around the Jerry's throat. The German lost all will to fight and threw his hands up in surrender. Not having the instinct of a killer, Welsh relaxed his grip, grabbed the man's Schmeisser and threw it as far as he could towards the steep embankment and then took off. As it so happened, the SS trooper showed his heart wasn't in the SS or with Hitler. He was only interested in saving his own skin. When Bun Welsh set sail again, right behind him came the German, and in a few more strides the SS man went right by him, his down-to-the heels, horse-blanket greatcoat flapping wildly as he ran. To him, a Canadian POW camp was far preferable to dying for his Fuhrer. Which more or less proved that not all SS were fanatics. Meanwhile, Remi Heyninck made tracks for a haystack on the opposite side of the house not thirty yards away from the door. On emerging from around the corner of the house, a gunner in one of the BCD tanks moving up in cooperation with the Perth rescue patrol thought he was a Jerry and gave him a long burst, kicking up dirt around his feet. Heyninck threw himself into the rearward side of the haystack. He heard the .303s snicking into the hay above his head but he couldn't tell how close they were coming. Then tracers set fire to the stack. A few whiffs of the acrid smoke curling up from the highly combustible hay told Heyninck that if he didn't get his ass moving out of the stack pretty damn soon, he'd either roast alive or die slowly from smoke inhalation. Either way he had no choice but to make a run for it and hope to bloody hell the tankers would see he was a Canuck. With the flames getting closer by the second, Heyninck could stay no longer. He jumped up and ran straight towards the nearest tank, now only a hundred yards away, waving his arms and hoping the gunner would see that he was shooting at the wrong man. Luck was with him; the gunner recognized him as a Canadian and swung his weapon a couple of notches to the left, where he spotted movement in the ditch and opened up again. Thinking the tank was firing at him, Heyninck hit the ground on the fly and considered himself a dead duck, bracing himself for the next burst which he knew would rip his body apart. But it never came. He would live to fight another day. In the light of what had transpired, it was nothing short of incredible that not one of our patrol was lost or even nicked in the incident. Except for bruised and cut feet suffered by Heyninck and Welsh who'd left their boots resting in front of the fireplace, the patrol returned to the company lines unharmed. The Push to the Bonifica Canal

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In retrospect, the staff at Brigade and Division were apparently not aware just how important a part this patrol of seven lightly armed men played in the outcome of the hot and heavy battle that took place the following morning—a resounding defeat of a powerful enemy counteroffensive against 5th Armoured's clearing action below the Commacchio lagoon. The 16th SS Panzer-Grenadier Division's intention, as subsequently revealed, was to cut in behind 5th Armoured and isolate it from its base at Ravenna, and then follow up by driving it into the boggy terrain north of the city, where it could be cut up piecemeal. The Jerry patrol, it appeared likely, had been directed to find a weak spot in the Canadian line at which point a four-battalion battle group would smash into the weak spot, opening a hole for Panzers to go through and start picking off the undergunned Shermans of 5th Armoured Brigade. The holdup of the patrol by these seven unfazed Canadians delayed the attack by at least twenty-four hours. By that time the disposition of the Canadian infantry and armoured battalions was such that when the attack did go in, the ragged ranks of SS plodded straight into a slaughterhouse. It was nothing less than a turkey-shoot. The SS counterattack kicked off at 4:30 a.m on the morning of January 4. Situated in defence were the Westminsters of the 12th Brigade on the left just east of the village of Conventello, while to their left were the British Regiments, the King's Royal Rifles and dismounted elements of the 12th Lancers, a recce regiment. In the shadow of the elevated Molinazza Road running side by side with the high-diked Lamone River, were deployed the Westminsters' Support Company with their mortars and six-pounder anti-tanks guns, augmented by several seventeenpounders that could knock out the enemy Panthers and Tiger tanks. In support also were BCD tanks scattered throughout the area near the dike, in direct line of the attack. According to the book The Westminster War Diary by Major J.E. Oldfield, MC, the German commander wasn't quite ready to launch the attack when his plans were thrown out of kilter by the sudden "clearing attack" from llth Infantry Brigade. Thrown into some confusion, he ordered the operation to get underway anyway. His intention was to strike at once in the rear of the Canadian troops, drive them into the trackless wastes below the Commacchio lagoon, and push on to retake Ravenna. It was an exceptionally bold undertaking that could have wreaked havoc with the overall 8th Army progress if successful. As it so happened, it led only to outright defeat. Minutes after the first waves of SS troops swept across the open ground, looking more like a rabble than a disciplined, well-coordinated battle group, 350

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they immediately came under heavy small-arms fire from the Westminsters and the British battalions on the Westies' left, to which was added the full fury of the Westminster Support Company's three-inch mortars and Vickers machine guns firing over open sights. The SS had walked into a meatgrinder. For once the Germans found out what it was like to advance across open ground against a well-armed, well dug-in enemy, a situation the Canadians had had to face more than enough times ever since landing in Sicily. Along with the blizzard of small-arms fire lashing into their ranks, the SS came also under a heavy twenty-five pounder shoot, causing even heavier casualties and stopping the attack dead in its tracks. Only a few worked their way close enough to the Westminster positions to give some concern to the Westies as to whether they could hold their positions for long or not, but they were quickly disposed of by grenades and the concentrated fire of every weapon in the vicinity of the threat. Being SS troops, however, the Germans were not to be denied. They pulled back, regrouped, and went forward again, stoically and foolishly, into the shooting gallery. Three times they did this, and each time they left behind them on the blood-saturated battlefield scores of their men in wounded and dead. By rough count, it was estimated that the enemy left more than two hundred dead, with as many wounded (many of the latter having been taken prisoner.) It was about as complete a victory for Canadian and British arms as could be expected and hoped for. Although the Perths didn't play a direct part in the fight, it was their flanking advance along the line of the Strada Molinazza, where it swings abruptly eastward close by the village of Conventello, that gave the German commander the idea of launching a sharp counter-attack to cut in behind the Perths and the Canadian tanks moving in the direction of the Bonifica Canal and San Alberto on its northern bank. Not long after the patrol's action, Sergeant Grant was cited for a Military Medal. The citation, written in the stilted argot of the military awards people, described his courage, tenacity and leadership in directing his tiny group in fighting off a force known to be at least four times larger. Why didn't the others with him, who fought just as bravely through the long night, also receive some recognition? Within Dog Company ranks it was a unanimous opinion that all seven should have won an award — if not the MM, then at least Mentions in Despatches. Having been relieved by the Westminsters, the Perths advanced on the right flank, following the base of a high embankment, atop which ran a substantial road known as the Strada Molinazza. The night was dark, making it tough for each man to keep up with the man ahead and resulting in frequent stops. The Push to the Bonifica Canal

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We bedded down for the night in a house close up against the twentyfoot-high embankment, with the necessary guard details set up in abandoned enemy slit-trenches in the barnyard and on the side of the house facing the east. We spent a cold but quiet night here, with the only sounds the muted small-arms fire farther inland. Except for the disruption of sleep caused by the usual guard duties, it turned out to be a restful and undisturbed night. Daylight revealed an eerie landscape covered in frost and a heavy ground mist, perfect cover for enemy patrols or raiding parties. For this reason we had to be doubly alert to the possibility that the enemy was monitoring our progress, ready to unleash a lightning bolt of small-arms fire. After a couple of hours, with the mist gradually dissipating, we could now see far enough across the vineyards, olive orchards and patches of open country to be ready for almost anything the Jerry might throw our way. The way things looked, we had little to worry about. There wasn't a soul or machine of war to be seen anywhere. There was nothing out there but frost-covered ground, frost-covered trees, and frost-covered rooftops — a pretty picture-postcard scene. By mid-morning, in what turned out to be a sunny, almost spring-like day, we crossed the elevated Strada, and shortly thereafter married up with a squadron of BCD tanks for a quick thrust to seize a bridge over the Bonifica Canal. Clambering aboard the steel behemoths, one section per tank, we were soon on our way full belt across the flat, featureless country, where not a farmhouse, vineyard or even trees broke the openness of it all. The speed at which the tanks crossed that prairie-like ground was surprising. It didn't take us long to learn to our dismay and discomfort what rodeo performers had to contend with, as we clung like leeches to the tank's hull, afraid of falling off and being crushed under the treads of a following tank. Eight Section's tank, "Agincourt," went across the flat countryside of narrow irrigation ditches, odd shell-holes and half-frozen furrowed fields like a bucking bronco, making straight for one of the bridges across the Bonifica, which we reached without opposition only to find, though not to our great disappointment, that a second squadron of BCD tanks (carrying Charlie Company) had already secured the substantial concrete structure. This battle-group had reached the canal a half-mile to the left ,where they found that particular bridge already blown — so the force sped on to the next, seizing it intact without firing a shot. Shortly after the bridge was secured we heard the story of how a magnificently brave Jerry sapper tried to reach a demolitions charge placed under the span, to reconnect wires cut by shrapnel, but was driven back by tank machine guns. Three times he broke from cover in an 352

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attempt to reach the charge, and on his third try was cut down in a hail of bullets less than ten feet from his objective. How can you not admire courage like that, even in an enemy? Once this last threat had been eliminated, engineers came on the scene to remove the charge, which amounted to more than a ton of explosives. Morale soared that afternoon, and for good reason. We'd come this far in a modern-day "Charge of the Light Brigade," this one having a happier ending. It was a great feeling to know we finally had the Jerries on the run. This was the kind of war I'd always thought we'd be fighting, not mucking about in the mud, crouching in the bottom of slit-trenches, heart thumping so loud you could almost hear it (or at least feel it), praying like you never had before as mortar bombs and shells plunged from the sky to explode with ear-shattering violence all around your trench. But now, on what was to be our last push in Italy, we finally got to show our stuff as an armoured juggernaut. The BCD tanks, loaded with Perth infantry, raced across the featureless countryside immediately below the great salt-pans of the Commacchio lagoon on a wide, pool-table-flat plain, something like Essex County where I grew up. It was a spectacular move on our part, a move that really got the adrenalin flowing. We dismounted at the bridge, and after cooling our heels for about half an hour, got moving on foot. On the far side of the canal we came upon another tank troop, stuck in the mud in the fields off the side of the road. I could see right off they weren't going anywhere, at least for awhile. Try as they might with racing engines they could go neither forward or backward in the thick gumbo. The only things that came out of their efforts were thick blue exhaust and one hell of a racket. We were supposed to have climbed aboard these tanks for another quick ramble that would take us right through to the coast at Casal Borsetti, but after waiting more than twenty minutes with growing impatience as the tanks strained to free themselves, we were anxious to get the hell out of the area, the sooner the better. We didn't care to be hanging around waiting for the Germans to unleash their mortars and artillery on us. What a relief it was when we went on without the tanks! All along the road lay scattered a hodgepodge of enemy equipment, gas-mask canisters, ammunition boxes, helmets, and all kinds of other odds and ends of personal equipment, but we couldn't stop to pick through it. The discarded items indicated that prisoners had been taken, most likely by surprise. It was dusk by the time we got underway. As night came on, it seemed like every haystack for miles around was set on fire. Whether they'd been set alight by the Germans to reveal our movements, or by tracers fired by The Push to the Bonifica Canal

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our tanks, we couldn't be sure. It was one hell of a hair-raising affair to run through the backyards past all those burning stacks lighting up our every move. I felt like every enemy weapon in the vicinity was trained on me and me alone. I expected to live, at that time, no more than another minute. As we pelted along through the unfenced yards, bang on each other's heels, I was momentarily distracted by the sight of our elongated and grotesque shadows following us across the yards and moving surrealistically along the walls of the houses. The fiercely burning stacks and the shadows gave to the scene an almost unworldly aspect, a scene right out of Dante's Inferno. Imagination sure can play bloody hell with the nerves! Dog Company made good time, not hitting into any opposition until 17 Platoon ran up against enemy troops holed up around a large house about fifty yards back from the road. After a brief exchange of fire, the platoon charged into the yard and overwhelmed the defenders in their slittrenches, and then convinced those in the house to throw down their arms and surrender. Twelve well-built brutes came out to join the six we had taken moments earlier. It was a fast-run, boldly executed operation achieved without a single casualty. Everything was coming up diamonds! Sullen prisoners and their captors crowded together cheek to jowl in a tiny house close up against the road, there being as many of the enemy as there were 18 Platoon men. I was able to get a close-up look at Hitler's pride, and although a few looked relieved that their war was over, a few, on the other hand, appeared to be "pissed off." I assumed we'd collared some 16th SS boys, survivors from the debacle they had just recently suffered. Generally speaking, the Wehrmacht types, when captured, were quite docile and cooperative, whereas the SS and the paratroopers were almost always in surly moods and had to be watched closely all the way from point of capture right through to when they walked up the gangplank of the boat that would take them to Canada and the POW camps. My immediate estimation of this particular lot was that they were on the whole taller than us, looked to be well-fed, and would have made for tough opponents in a hand-to-hand struggle. I was glad it never came to that. The two nearest me were especially defiant, looking me straight in the eye with a look that could have made even a fearless man shy away. I gave them back what I thought was just as fierce a look, but saw it was having no effect. I kept a watchful eye on the pair, afraid they might make some kind of aggressive move. I often wonder what I'd have done to defend myself in that instant. I had no personal weapon, not even a knife, with which to fight back. You can't do much holding onto a PIAT, especially packed in as close as we were. But nothing so rash happened, and shortly afterward the prisoners were taken off our hands and marched off into the night. 354

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The night's action wasn't over for us yet. An order came down from Brigade for a heavily armed patrol to clear the area from Mandriole on the Bonifica Canal, all the way to the coast at Casal Borsetti, two and a half miles away. Eighteen Platoon, with Bren groups from 16 and 17 attached, was selected for the job. As the PIAT man, I brought up the tail-end of the thirty-six-man patrol under Sergeant Grant. Besides the PIAT and the usual four Bren mags in my pouches, I carried two No. 36 grenades and a No. 75 anti-vehicle Hawkins grenade tucked into my web-belt. The patrol hadn't gone a mile when the point of the column came under fire of an MG 42 post in a farmyard. We went to ground while those up front took the post under fire. In the brief exchange of machinegun fire, some enemy rounds thwacked into the ground close beside me; it couldn't have been more than inches away. I realized that if one of the rounds had struck the pressure-plate of the Hawkins mine I carried in my belt, there wouldn't have been enough of me left to scrape off the ground to bury. With this morbid thought in mind, I promptly divested myself of the loathsome burden. There was no way I was going to risk that kind of finish to my active service career. Dying a clean death, a bullet between the eyes or through the heart was something I never allowed myself to worry about, but to imagine my gory remains being splattered all over the countryside in the kind of gruesome death a Hawkins grenade would have brought, was something no one would ever want. As it happened we ran into no more opposition, and did what had to be done without further incident. On our way back, as we walked along the top of the Bonifica Canal embankment, we came under fire of a machine gun that didn't sound anything at all like the all-too-familiar 42. This one was quite a bit slower, although a little faster than a Bren. The sweep of fire came from across the canal, snapping the air a few feet over the heads of the point men in the patrol. The column hit the ground and then rolled down the embankment out of the line of fire. Being at the tail-end of the column I had no way of knowing who or what was firing on us. And while I was pondering this, someone came running back motioning for me that the PIAT was wanted up front. In excitement I picked up the cumbersome weapon, and with Curran tagging on my heels, lugging two cases holding three bombs each, I ran along the base of the embankment, thrilled over the opportunity to take on what I thought for sure would be a Panther or even perhaps a Tiger tank. At last! My chance for heroics and a medal had arrived, a chance to prove something to myself, that I had what it took to knock out one of these monsters with that dreaded 88 sticking out from its massive turret. In the tenseness of the situation, however, I was the most tanglefooted guy in The Push to the Bonifica Canal

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the whole damn Canadian Army. I stumbled, stepped on, tripped and fell over every second pair of outstretched legs of the boys sitting at the base of the embankment waiting out the emergency. You'd think they were on a scheme back in England instead of fighting a real war. If I hadn't been so clumsy of foot, who knows, I might have earned my first "kill." But as it turned out, if I'd gotten up to where they wanted me in time, I most likely would have unwittingly knocked out one of our own tanks — and the crew with it. It was a BCD Sherman south of the canal that had fired on us, the crew commander mistakenly thinking we were Jerries trying to sneak through our lines back to their own. If that BCD tank crew had only known how close they came to getting themselves roasted they would have thanked their lucky stars that it was me and not someone else who was stumbling up with the PIAT. Had it been any other PIAT man in the Canadian Army, their fate would have been sealed. Realization of the mistaken identity came only after one of our boys at the head of the column let loose a string of good old North American four letter words — no sooner did he end his vituperation when an answering shout of foul language came from across the canal, confirming the identities of both adversaries. This ended the confrontation Almost immediately after we made it back to our starting point, the company marched off to a farmyard at the bridge entrance on the other side of the Bonifica where we spent the night in a warm, cocoon-like structure made out of reeds and branches and thin saplings woven together and thatched over. It looked something like the Indian longhouses I'd seen pictured in Canadian history texts. It was as cozy and comfortable as anyone could have wanted under the circumstances: a spacious affair, a good hundred feet long, fifty feet wide and at least twenty feet high, it was a good deal warmer than most of the houses we'd made our bed and board in since the beginning of December. With plenty hay piled at one end, it made for a great place to sleep — and sleep we did. At 8:00 p.m., Cec Vanderbeck and I took over slit-trench duty about fifty yards to the rear of the longhouse, when we caught sight of shadowy figures scrambling over a low embankment dead ahead some forty yards away. There was no question in our minds — they had to be Germans. To make sure they were not our own people, Cec called out the password — no countersign. And suddenly the shadowy figures dropped out of sight. Taking no chances, I let go a short burst straight down the well-worn path running past our trench. That two-second burst did the trick. Someone yelped out in pain, and then we heard one of them crying out, "Ich bin vounded!" Ich bin vounded! Nicht scheisen! Nicht Scheisen!" ("I'm wounded! Don't shoot!") 356

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Cec and I, excited over the prospect of bringing in our first prisoners, pulled off what had to be one of the stupidest moves an infantryman could make. Ignoring the fact that the Germans might be faking wounds and might in fact be waiting to ambush us, we climbed out from the protection of the trench, foolishly leaving our weapons behind, and ran up the path to bring them in. Visions of a pistol, a watch or two, or even one of those much-coveted Zeiss binoculars danced through my head. At the same time, six of the guys in the platoon, alerted to the firing, came charging out of the longhouse to see what was going on, also without their weapons, and seeing us running up the path, came hard on our heels. Four Jerries, their hands in the air waited for us, crying out in unison in surrender, "Kameraden! Kameraden! Kameraden!" The wounded one had only a minor flesh wound in the upper thigh. We frisked them, looking for something of value, but as luck would have it I latched onto the man who didn't have a damn thing on him worth taking. On the other hand, the guys who hadn't had a hand in nabbing the Jerries picked up a couple of P-38s, watches, rings and wallets. What lousy luck! After we got them into the candle-lit longhouse, Tony Wanner, who spoke German fluently, ordered them brusquely to take off their helmets, which they did, except for one man who didn't seem to like the idea. Humphrey gave him a little jab in the ass with his spike bayonet, causing him to jump. Thoroughly incensed at being prodded in the ass, he slammed his helmet on the ground at Wanner's feet and let loose a Teutonic tirade. Tony, of German lineage, knew exactly what he'd said and shot back a few nasty Germanic phrases of his own. Then someone jerked the Jerry around and damn near drove a fist into his face. That calmed him down right smartly. A few minutes later they were whisked away. And as Cec and I went back to our post to finish out the last fifteen minutes of our shift, I was still upset over having come away from this incident with nothing but a tiny two-by-two-inch diary of blank pages — hardly worth keeping. January 5, 1945, with the fabled Italian sun out in all its glory, felt more like spring than the dead of winter. By noon, the temperature had climbed several degrees above freezing. Off to the side of our longhouse was an inordinately large, rectangular, baled strawstack about twenty feet high, on top of which, someone (presumably the Germans) had carved out a gallery for observation purposes. A perfect OP. I spent the better part of the afternoon up there with field-glasses to my eyes, scanning the surrounding country to see if I could spot enemy activity, but saw buggerall. What I did see when I turned the glasses north was the snow-capped Alps. It surprised me no end, since I hadn't thought that we were that close, even though we were halfway into the Po Plains. The Push to the Bonifica Canal

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The Regiment's final static positions in Italy were about three miles west of San Alberto, where we spent four days until the Italian Cremona battle group came up to relieve us on the evening of January 13. On the very night they relieved us, Dog Company's listening post came under attack by a strong German fighting patrol, and the Jerries succeeded in taking prisoner two of our boys from 17 Platoon, one of them wounded. Four others managed to bolt for the fields and get away. Alex Reid was one of the two captured by the Jerries, and therein lies a mystery as to what really happened to him that night. His name is inscribed on the memorial in the Cassino War Cemetery (made up of twelve tall columns of green marble panels, six on each side of a long and narrow rectangular pool), which commemorates Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave. How did he die, and why has he no known grave? Did he try to make a break for it only to be shot and killed? And if they did shoot him, did the Germans bury him in an unmarked grave? It would seem that way. Eight Section (consisting only of six men, because no reinforcements had arrived to replace those lost at the Munio affair), each man armed with a Tommy gun and a couple of No. 36 grenades, had spent the past twenty-four hours in the shell-battered listening post keeping a sharp lookout for enemy patrols that might be making their way towards our lines. The post was in touch with Company HQ by phone line. There were four lookout posts. Two men were in the front part of the house facing our lines. One man was in what had been a bedroom, also in the front half of the house. Two more manned posts in the stable at the rear of the house, while I held the fort in a lean-to winekeep abutting the stable at the rear. The roof at the front half of the house had sustained shell damage, leaving a gaping hole and a pile of clay tiles and masonry heaped on the floor beneath. With a five-foot-wide hole in the front wall, and no glass in the windows or doors to keep out the cold wind, it was a bloody bastard trying to keep from freezing our asses off and keeping our mind on the job at the same time. I was in the winekeep, where I stood facing the narrow opening of the slightly ajar barn door. To my right were two six-foot-diameter vino casks propped up on cement blocks. It was a long and bitingly cold night, made almost unbearable because we dared not stamp our feet to bring circulation to them in case an enemy patrol happened to be nearby. The only way I got some relief and blood flowing to my toes was by leaving my post for a minute or two to check out how the others were making out. Not a wise thing to do, but had I not done so, I could very well have ended up with severely frostbitten toes. As it was, my feet felt more like blocks of ice than flesh and bone. 358

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It wasn't as nerve-wracking keeping an eye out for the enemy during daylight hours because we could see far enough across the field to catch any sign of movement. Night was altogether a different story; nerves were on edge right through till daybreak. While standing at my post trying desperately to shake off the cold and in desperate need for sleep, I mulled over the impossibility of defending ourselves against a German fighting patrol. It was ludicrous to think that six men armed only with Tommy guns could beat off at least as many or more of the enemy wielding wicked little Schmeissers, and possibly the deadly tank-destroying Panzerfaust. They could be anywhere out there in the field, even surrounding us, and we wouldn't know exactly where, whereas they'd know precisely where we were. One or two hits from the snub-nosed, hollow-charge bombs and we'd be finished. With this in mind, it was only natural when our relief arrived the following evening shortly before six, that I was more than a little glad to see them. I could have kissed every one of the scruffy, rough-bearded bastards. But since we were anxious to get our asses back to where we could thaw out in front of a fire and have a decent bite to eat, we wasted no time in idle chit-chat. We just gave them what little information we had as to the lie of the land, and away we went, leaving them to whatever fate had in store for them. How could we know that in less than an hour later these same fellows would be fighting for their lives. Back at the perimeter, after knocking off a half-tin of New Zealand canned cheese and hardtack, I quickly found a comfortable place to lay my sleep-weary, half-frozen and aching body down — a door set atop two vino barrels — covered myself with two blankets, and settled down for what I thought would be a night of uninterrupted sleep. But it wasn't to be. First the jeezly euchre players slamming their bony knuckles on the table, along with their constant yakking, made it tough for me to fall asleep. Then came the electrifying word that the listening post was under attack. There was nothing I could do about it, so, with my face to the wall and feigning sleep, I listened to the excitement going on behind me. Then I heard Sergeant Grant getting together a rescue patrol to race out to the post to help our boys beat off the enemy. "They won't ask me," I assumed. "Hell, I just came back from spending twenty-four hours up there." Grant's call for volunteers got no response. No one wanted to be a hero. Grant spoke up again, this time with contempt in the tone of his voice: "Okay you guys, if I can't get any volunteers, we draw cards to see who goes." I pretended to be asleep, thinking I'd not have to be in on the draw. "Everybody draws a card," the sergeant called out sharply, "and that means you, Scislowski! Come on, get off those goddamned barrels and The Push to the Bonifica Canal

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draw a card." I made no move to get up. Once more, "Snap it up, Stan! Get your ass over here right now, do you hear me? On the double!" I turned over bitching that I had only just came back after spending twenty-four miserable hours there. I could have bitched and cried till the cows came home and it wouldn't have done do me any good, so I gave up. Grant shuffled the cards a few times, riffled the two halves of the deck, brought them together and said, "Okay, who wants to draw first? The highest cards go." I don't remember what the other fellows drew from the deck, but I'll never forget the Queen of Spades that came up for me. And so, with eight other equally unlucky souls and another eight drawn from Baker Company (in reserve on the other side of the elevated road), we hurried out into the frosty night to see if we could save our boys in the listening post. Corporal Tony Wanner was in charge of the rescue patrol. A three-quarter moon in an almost cloud-free sky enabled us to see for quite some distance. Fine and dandy, but then, I couldn't help but think, if it helped us to see better, so would it help the Jerries see us coming from a long way off. And the advantage lay with the Germans. They could lie in wait under cover while we had to approach across an open with no cover at all except shallow furrows. We made good time, all the while keeping a wary eye on the whitened field to our left, the likely direction from which the Jerry patrol would take us under fire. About halfway to the post, just as we were passing a small house close up against the wagon track, we heard noises inside and were getting ready to rush it when out came a long-horned Brahma steer. The beast had blundered its way in through an open door, and like a bull in a china shop, beat about the rooms until it found the door. With this perceived threat out of our way, we continued on down the path and then cut obliquely across the ploughed field towards the outpost. By this time though, all firing around the listening post had stopped. Within a long stone's throw of the listening post, we passed close by the monstrous hulk of a knocked-out Panther tank. I'd always known they were huge but I never expected them to be as big as they were until I stood beside one. "Holy Jeez!" I whispered to the guy behind me. "And they expect me to go up against that sonofabitch with my little peashooter of a PIAT?" Now I could well understand why our tanks had always taken such a shitkicking every time they ran up against the Panthers and Tigers. The sonsabitches were mobile carbide-steel fortresses with cannons that made our short-barreled 75mms look like B.B. guns. It was a bloody crime that our troopers and tank commanders had to go into battle in their comparatively thinner-skinned Shermans, with much less range and less powerful short-barreled 75s, against the 360

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behemoth Tigers and Panthers, with their thicker and specially hardened armour, and much more powerful long-barreled 88s. All was deathly still in and around the listening post as we approached in stealth along the line of a shallow ditch on the west side. We took up position in the ditch partially concealed by scraggly shrubbery and an irregular line of small trees about forty yards out from the house. Wanner crawled back to me. "Stan, you take the front half of the patrol and go straight for the house while I take the other half and go in by the way of the stable. Give me a couple of minutes and then shoot for the house, I've got a feeling the Jerries are gone, but you never know." Much as I felt good about Tony picking me over any of the others to lead the charge, I cursed him under my breath. "Goddamnit, he takes the easy part and hands me the dirty end of the stick!" But then I thought, "If he's got that much confidence in me, then I can't let him down." With everything so quiet, I had the reassuring feeling that the Jerries had indeed gone back to their lines. But I couldn't be sure. And the only way I'd find out was when we rushed the house. If Jerry was inside, he'd have us dead to rights. We probably wouldn't take more than ten running steps across the yard before being ripped to pieces. While Tony was taking his eight men in the flanking approach to the stable, I waited with my eyes fixed on the luminous dial of the watch. After two minutes were up I gritted my teeth, sucked in my breath and said to the guys around me, "Okay, let's go!" We took off across the open space at full gallop. I felt like the biggest damn target in the world. When no shots spit out as we charged across that open space, I pretty well knew that Jerry was gone. After reaching the house without a shot being fired, by all rights I should have taken the patrol inside, but instead I led the boys around the corner with intention of entering by the lean-to winecellar where I'd been relieved. I tip-toed towards the lean-to from the blind side, and as I was about to enter, I stopped in my tracks when I heard someone speak. I rapped out the password—"Honey!" and waited for the countersign, "Comb!". No reply. "Honey!" I called out again, louder this time. From inside came a muffled voice, gutturally Germanic in what sounded to me like "Coker! Coker!" In that split second I didn't know whether to open fire with my Tommy or toss in a grenade. Maybe I should have let fly with a short burst, but then I thought, what if it's one of our guys in there.? Not knowing what to do, I scuttled back to the corner of the house. Young Johnny Turcotte, who'd come up as a reinforcement only a couple of months before, asked in a low, calm voice , "What's the matter, Stan, how come you backed off?" The Push to the Bonifica Canal

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"Jeez, I'm not sure. But I heard someone in there and it sounded like a Jerry." Turcotte didn't think so. "Naw, there can't be any Jerries in there, they'd have been shooting at us by now." And he was right. Then the young lad — whose helmet looked to be two times too large for his head — started to go by me to see for himself. The kid had guts, I had to admit it, but I wasn't about to let him make me look bad, so a bit of a shoving match developed as I edged my way to the partly open door, making sure I'd be the one to go inside first,. With Turcotte practically riding my back, I stepped inside like I owned the place, assuming everybody was close behind, backing me up. But everybody except Turcotte had disappeared. They'd taken off across the snow-covered fields to the company lines like a bunch of scared cottontails. The lily-livered bastards! While Turcotte and I stumbled around in the debris-strewn interior trying to find where the plaintive voice was coming from, Corporal Wanner had come around from the stable, also with only one man in support. The others, like my crew, had also taken a powder. "What a lousy show on their part!" was all I could think. The only guy that stayed with Wanner was a fellow by the surname of Oliver. We found no one at the posts and no bodies lying about on the piles of debris, so we assumed all had been taken prisoner. Then, we heard a weak voice coming from the winekeep, where we found Corporal Al Mclnnis lying under a wine cask, wounded and bleeding badly. He'd been hit in the legs and lower body by fragments from a German grenade. Although weak and in deep pain, Mclnnis told us what had happened. After a heavy exchange of gunfire, it had quickly become apparent that Jerry would soon overrun the post. Four of the boys made a run for it, and as luck would have it, made it all the way back to the company lines. Very shortly thereafter —it couldn't have been more than ten minutes, the Germans rushed the house from front and rear, taking Alex Reid and one other man prisoner. Just before the enemy broke in, Mclnnis crawled under a cask, hoping they wouldn't find him. After a quick search of the premises, the Jerries headed back to their line with their two prisoners, but as they were leaving, the last man in the party pulled the firing string on his potato-masher grenade and flipped it behind him. The grenade rolled under the cask and went off at Mclnnis's feet, lacerating them and driving shards of the grenade deep into his feet and lower limbs. He was in intense pain when we found him. It was obvious we'd have to carry him out, and since he was a pretty big broth of a lad, we knew we had a real job on our hands. With only the four of us to carry Mclnnis out, the only way we could do it was to sit him on a rifle supported between us. And so we set out, 362

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Oliver and myself taking first turn. As we were getting ready to go back, the clear skies of earlier evening had clouded up, and a misty rain began falling, freezing as it hit the ground. It would have been tough enough to carry Mac out on dry, level ground, but as we soon found out, carrying a man through a stretch of icy-slick furrows, and then on a pathway that was like a skating rink, was almost more than we could handle. A short trip wouldn't have been so bad, but we had at least four hundred yards to go In the first fifty yards Oliver and I went hard to our knees at least four times as our boots slipped on the ice-slick sides of the furrows. Our shoulders were already feeling the strain, both from trying to keep our balance and from bearing the weight of a 180-pound man sitting on a rifle carried between us. After another fifty yards of slipping and sliding and going to our knees, Oliver and I had to turn the job over to Wanner and Turcotte. They carried Mclnnis no more than seventy-five yards and were done in. Here I have to give credit to Mclnnis for the stoicism he showed throughout our stumbling, sliding and falling journey back to Company HQ. Not once did he let out a yelp of protest or pain, only an occasional low-level groan. We felt sorry for him for the additional pain and discomfort we were causing, but there was nothing we could have done to prevent it. I don't know what, if any, after-effects Wanner, Oliver and Turcotte ended up with, but I'd guess that their arms and shoulders were as sore as mine were. But what bothered me more was my right knee. It had taken quite a pounding. It seemed like every time we went down, I landed on that knee. Although I felt some pain at the time, it began to stiffen up even before we were through, affecting my ability to carry on. With some fifty or more yards yet to go I didn't think I could do it anymore. But then I didn't have to. Four of our boys came running up from our lines to take Mclnnis off our hands. What a relief! A few more good whacks and they'd have had to carry me in, too. On arriving back at our platoon quarters in one of the four houses nestling at the base of the Molinazza road embankment, what should we come upon but a roomful of babbling Italian soldiers. What a loud bunch they were! All seemed to be talking at the same time and at high speed, with no one seeming to pay attention to what the other was saying. They were from the Cremona Gruppa, an Italian Army infantry brigade we'd been hearing about of late. They had arrived to take over the sector from us. My immediate impression of these, big, sturdy-looking fellows was that they were seriously lacking in field discipline. What an unholy racket they made! You couldn't help but wonder if they realized how dangerous it was The Push to the Bonifica Canal

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for them to carry on in the front lines in such noisy fashion. But as noisy as these guys were, the next company coming down the road sounded more like a circus parade than an army convoy. Horns were blaring, and every engine seemed to be revving. Added to this were the raucous shouts of officers and NCOs. A study in chaos. They would also light up cigarettes out in the open, out of sheer ignorance or plain stupidity. We had learned long ago that night smoking in the open at the front was taboo. If you simply had to have your nicotine fix, you did your smoking under cover of a blanket or groundsheet. And if you had to say something, you spoke in near whispers. Now, though, Jerry would have to be deaf or blind not to hear or see what was going on in our lines. He probably saw easy pickings in the days ahead. We couldn't get out of there fast enough. With all the commotion around us, I naturally expected Jerry to open up full bore at any moment. Though slower of foot because of the growing stiffness in my right knee, I was nimble enough to hustle up onto the elevated Via Molinazza road — eager to get out of there before all hell broke loose. But getting away as fast as we wanted was no easy undertaking, what with freezing rain building up ice on the road, making it the longest skating rink any of us had ever glided on. It was next to impossible to make good time. The two-mile march to the trucks was nothing but a series of pratfalls and headlong sprawls. It would have been a hilarious affair had I not been a victim myself so many times. And each time I went down I jammed the knee that had taken so much punishment earlier. It was sorer than blazes and for awhile I wasn't at all sure I'd make it to the trucks, but I did. Our destination was Cattolica, a good eighty miles south — still not far enough by my way of thinking, but certainly preferable to being anywhere up at the front, quiet sector or not. By this late stage in my military career, even three miles behind the lines was a holiday of a sort. Reinforcements came up while we were in Cattolica, and who should one of them be but none other than my old buddy Harry Hanley. He was one guy I never expected to see again. After his court-martial following the Liri Valley "do" I thought he'd be spending the rest of the war doing hard labour. Yet here he was larger than life and looking not much the worse for wear. In fact, the hard labour seemed to have done him good. I only hoped it had straightened him out, because I most certainly wasn't looking forward to going into action with him again, especially if he started carrying on like he used to every time we shared slit-trenches. I never held anything against Harry for what he'd done to himself in the Liri Valley. He just couldn't take it, that's all. Not all of us are brave. Not all of us are cut out for combat. It takes a special kind of courage to keep on going when all hell's flying about every which way, and men are dying 364

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brutally all around you. Most can somehow take it for a reasonable length of time — some crack the very first time they come under fire. Harry had paid his penalty, and I respected him for it. IVe seen guys break who I never thought would; Tve also seen guys who I thought were unlikely fighting men turn out to be lions on the battlefield. There's just no way of knowing what a man will turn out to be when he steps out onto the field where bullets and shrapnel are whizzing about his head like bees around a hive, and the ground around him dances and heaves with the pounding of shells. As for me, there wasn't a single instance when I was under shell or mortar fire that I wasn't terrified. But once the crap stopped flying I bounced right back to almost normal in every way, as though nothing lifethreatening had just occurred. I never fell into a morose, self-pitying mood, brooding about my chances of making it back home. Nor did I wallow in thoughts of home, family and friends. Things were tough enough without that kind of behaviour, which would be a sure way to an early breakdown. Once out of danger I simply resumed whatever I'd been doing, went about my duty or nosed around the area for loot — anything I could sell or barter, or that would bring a little comfort to my spartan life. I always managed to find something to occupy my thoughts other than home and circumstances. When the weather was bad and there was nothing to lure me outside, I played solitaire for hours on end, even at times when the world outside our door was being torn apart by the thunder of shellfire. Not for a moment did I worry myself over what might happen to me in the next minute, the next hour or the next day. Since I could do nothing to change things, I decided that I might as well take things as they were and make the best of it. What else could I have done? It was my way of handling a bad situation, to keep from going out of my mind. I think most of us eventually were hoping to get what we called "a holiday wound," a wound just serious enough to get us out of action for a couple of weeks — or better still, a couple of months. It got so I'd even settle for a wound serious enough to give me a trip back to Blighty. With the Italian campaign apparently winding down, I was only too willing to finish the war in an unheroic job back in some rear echelon —digging latrines, peeling potatoes, washing dishes, doing almost anything that got me away from the front and the likelihood of being killed. Winning the VC no longer interested me. Even the DCM and the MM I'd long ago discarded from my list of aspirations. There were times when, in my vivid imagination, I fantasized being honoured by my home town with a ticker-tape parade, but that was all behind me now. What I wanted more at this stage of the game was a nice cushy job as far back as they'd send me. The Push to the Bonifica Canal

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I've often wondered what kept me going as long as I had without becoming a basket case. In my case a lot of unlikely things made me hang in when things looked too grim to bear. In addition to scrounging around for souvenirs, I was forever looking forward to something, anything that could give me a lift. I looked forward to an eight-day leave. I looked forward to getting parcels and mail from home. I looked forward to the occasional surprise of a decent meal. I looked forward to meeting up with some pretty and accommodating young signorina. I even looked forward to something so trivial as a free chocolate bar issue. And whenever we were up at the front or putting in an attack, I was always looking forward to what I'd find in the next house we'd occupy, whether loot or just simply a warm and reasonably comfortable place to sleep. I never let myself withdraw from reality, or lose interest in what was going on around me. I kept busy all the time, even when I endangered myself and my platoon mates with my reckless treasure-hunting escapades. My buddies may have had their ways of maintaining integrity of mind — I had my own. And they served me well. I awoke the next morning in Cattolica to find that my right leg, from the knee to the ankle, had swollen to the same girth as my thighs. I remember pressing my thumb into my shin and it would go right down to its full length, and when I pulled it out it would leave a deep hole that took a couple of minutes to fill up again. I was so intrigued by it all I kept showing it to whoever wanted to see me do it. I felt no pain, although the leg was so stiff I couldn't bend it. Sergeant Grant came over, took one look at it and promptly directed me to the MO. He gave my leg a cursory examination and then had a driver take me down the road a piece to No. 3 Canadian General Hospital, where no one even bothered to examine my leg or read the report on my condition. A couple of strong, healthy-looking characters, who I thought should have been in the infantry instead of at a hospital, promptly loaded me onto an ambulance for the long drive south to No. 1 General Hospital in Jesi. I spent only four days there, receiving no medication or treatment except to have my temperature taken twice a day. I can't recall having a doctor examine my leg, although one probably did. From there they sent me across the peninsula by ambulance train to Rome, where I was admitted to No. 104 British General Hospital. From mid-January until July I was as good as lost, and the regiment apparently hadn't been informed where I'd been sent. They struck me off strength effective January 13, 1945. Besides losing my shaving gear, writing kit and other personal items, I lost all the good stuff I'd liberated in my travels, everything from a stripped-down sniper's rifle — telescopic sights and all — a pair of brand-new, soft leather soccer boots, a pair of ski-boots, 366

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odds and ends of jewelry, assorted coins, a silver lady's purse, scads of Italian lire in small denominations, a made-in-Germany twenty-four-carat gold fountain pen, and other items too numerous to mention. It troubled me no end to know that some no-good thieving bastard in echelon would be the beneficiary of all my hard-earned and perilously acquired treasure. Not two days after admittance to 104th General, a peculiar feeling of malaise came over me. I couldn't explain it. I should have been at peace with myself and the world around me, even celebrating my good fortune — what with the comfort of clean, white sheets to sleep between on a comfortable mattress, warm meals served morning, noon and evenings, and tea every day at 4:00 p.m. No night patrols, no guard duty in cold and clammy slit-trenches, no wallowing about in muck, no squatting over a jury-rigged latrine. I should have been as content as any man could hope to be. Yet, here I was in a state of extreme uneasiness, which simply wouldn't go away. At times it got so bad I thought I was on the verge of cracking up. As the days wore on, not an hour went by when I could say I was free of the tension that was stretching my nerves to the breaking point. I gritted my teeth constantly and would go into spasms of shivering as though I was freezing. At times, there came over me an almost irresistible urge to let loose a mighty yell, as though to release explosive pressure building up inside me. It got so that I was even finding it hard to carry on a conversation. When I did, it was a staccato stop-and-go sort of thing. I had to pause after every two or three words, groping for what I wanted to say next. It was hell. What I didn't know at the time, and it took me forty years to find out what it was I'd been going through: I was suffering from what's known as post-battle traumatic stress syndrome. According to a book on battle neuroses, it's was a psychological condition that may affect a man who's seen too much battle, once he's removed from the dangers. It usually came as a delayed reaction. For some it could manifest itself within a week. For some, it took a month. For others it might take years. Recovery would usually come, but some would never get over it, having recurring attacks. The book I read on this condition described symptoms which I immediately pinpointed as having affected me. In the two months or so that I spent in 104th British General, I hardly knew an hour free from nervous tension. Only sleep brought me relief. The worst moments came while I was at No. 28 General Hospital at Avellino, just prior to my release; however, the crowing of a rooster below my window, the cackling of hens, the harsh sound of a buzz-saw cutting wood, the sight of the snow-capped mountains in the distance, and the peacefulness of the barnyards outside The Push to the Bonifica Canal

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the hospital grounds all becalmed me. From that day on, although the symptoms gradually lessened in intensity and frequency as the weeks went by, it took another four months, give or take a couple of weeks, before they diminished to a degree that I could enjoy complete peace of mind. My stay in England at C Wing, 10 Repatriation Depot (near Esher) after the war was the tonic I needed to snap back to my old self. On January 6,1946 I walked up the gangplank of the former great luxury liner, the Queen Elizabeth (now a troopship), the five-day journey across the Atlantic, docking in New York Harbour. So ended an odyssey that I'll never likely forget, as long as Alzheimer's disease doesn't attack my brain cells. Ask any veteran — whether they were in the navy, army or air force — what they thought about their time in the service and I'll lay even money that they wouldn't take a million dollars for the experience, nor would they pay a plugged nickel to go through it again, if this were possible. The way I look at it, it was an adventure that not only changed me from a callow youth to an adult; it brought into focus the kind of man I really was. All pretensions had been stripped away. I was no hero type, neither was I a coward (though I use this latter term nowadays with reservation.) In our services, cowardice in the ranks was defined as IMF — lack of moral fibre. Both meant the same thing: inability to control fear when in the heat of action or under extreme stress. Neither a hero nor an LMF case, I was just one of the hundreds of thousands who were somewhere between these two extremes. I did my job to the best of my ability, governed as I could the fear that was always present. Although deeply disappointed that I didn't come out of the war with a medal, I nonetheless had good cause to be proud that I didn't run away, even when circumstances gave me a good reason to do so. As a result, I've never been saddled with or tormented by guilt. There were moments, although not great in number, when I can say with conviction that my contribution towards my regiment's victories, although trifling by comparison to what others had given, were in every way proud moments for me. I'll never forget them; the good, the not-sogood, the funny and the sad, the beautiful and the ugly, they are memories to treasure, memories in which I'll dip into from time to time when good comrades get together and talk about them.

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