I Am Canada: Sniper Fire

by Jonathan Webb

  CRACK!

  CRACK!

  The shots are coming from the hospital. Two Germans go down, both struck in the back.

  BRRRCK!

  A Seaforth returns fire. An officer shouts, “Hold it!”

  There are screams, curses, orders. Scores of voices making noise. The mass of people in the square surges forward. The two surviving Germans start to run. An officer calls out orders and a platoon moves up.

  CRACK! CRACK!

  More fire from the hospital. Incredibly, fanatical Germans inside the building are picking off the ones who surrendered. Another German goes down. More screams. More shouts. I dodge into the ragged crowd. Teresa is bent over a figure on a stretcher that has been dropped onto the ground. The child, Tomas, is crouched beside her. I peer past them and see Claudia’s face, pale and bloody. Something — a bullet or shrapnel — has sliced into her neck. I kneel beside her.

  Doug curses under his breath.

  I glance at Teresa. Tears course down her cheeks.

  The Germans are still shooting. Bullets are zipping past us, stone chips are flying up from under our feet. A section of Seaforths is herding the mass of civilians away from the field of fire. I don’t wait. I rise up and run for the hospital door. Doug’s hand is on my shoulder.

  “Paul —”

  I keep running. He follows me. I grab and swing open the hospital door.

  * * *

  I was an idiot to charge in like that. No one has to tell me.

  Doug gets killed the moment we enter the hall. I feel rather than see him fall. I roll a hand grenade down the corridor. I hear screams when it explodes. A moment later the Seaforths are running past me. The sergeant I spoke to earlier stops briefly at my side. He looks at Doug and he looks at me.

  He hisses at me, “What in blazes were you thinking?”

  I can’t say.

  Why did Doug follow me? Why did he die instead of me?

  * * *

  I find Teresa later in Piazza Risorgimento, off Piazza Municipale, where the trucks and ambulances are waiting. Tomas is beside her. There’s a sort of reception committee here, handing out food to the hungry and tending to those who are injured or sick. Teresa has a mug of tea in her hands, but she hasn’t sipped from it. I sit down at her side.

  “Where’s Claudia?”

  She turns her head and I see the bodies laid out in neat rows beside a wall. I put an arm around her shoulders. She rests her head under my chin. She’s shivering. Cold.

  “Cosa farai?” I ask her. What will you do?

  “Cosa posso fare?” she says. What can I do? Then she says she will stay here, in Ortona.

  “How will you live?”

  “We have the land. And family.”

  “You have people you can stay with?”

  “Not everyone is dead.”

  I stay with her a while longer. Someone gives us a blanket and Tomas falls asleep wrapped in the blanket in her arms. But then the quartermaster’s crew starts herding people into the vehicles. The first of the ambulances starts up and drives away. A lieutenant is saying, “Come along now! Let’s get moving!” Teresa stirs and I help her to her feet.

  “Sono cosi’ stanca,” she says. I’m so tired.

  But then she straightens up. She picks up Tomas and looks at me. I don’t want to say goodbye. I guess she doesn’t want to, either. We look at one another. I reach out and touch her cheek.

  “Maybe someday …” I say.

  “Si,” she says. When this is over.

  More engines start up, officers shout orders and in the background the sounds of war echo through the town. Tomas watches me solemnly over Teresa’s shoulder as she walks away.

  * * *

  I feel numb as I make my way back to the Piazza Municipale. The inside of my head has gone dark. I can’t think straight. I scarcely understand what I’m seeing.

  The town is ruined. The remains of houses are heaped like stone corpses in the streets. Bits and pieces of people’s lives are scattered among them. An upturned table, a torn book, a copper pot … random items that once meant something, but now are garbage. It seems to me that this is the end of everything.

  Somehow I find my way back to the platoon. The Gaffer is bent over maps, talking to Lieutenant Gold. He sees me, says a word to the lieutenant and then strides towards me.

  I say, “Doug’s dead.”

  He says, “I know.” He looks at me and says, “Are you okay?”

  “Sergeant?”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No.”

  He puts his hands on my shoulders, holds my gaze for a moment and then gives me a shake.

  “Are you all there, Paul?” he says. “Do I need to send you back to the aid post?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I’m not sure, but Specs brews tea and I sip some.

  Strong John, cleaning his Bren gun, shakes his head sadly. Derrick is seated in a corner, leaning heavily against the wall. He has hardly spoken since Paddy was carried away. His eyes are closed.

  I look at this handful of men and think, This is all of us. All who came through Ortona.

  The Gaffer is watching me. He says, “It’s not over yet. You know that?”

  It takes me a moment to think about this. Finally, I laugh, sort of. “No,” I say. “I guess not.”

  * * *

  If any of us thought it was over, the enemy soon sets us straight.

  8 Platoon, working its way up Matteotti, chases a bunch of Paras out of some kind of workshop or warehouse. The whole platoon — twenty-four men — piles into the building. Minutes later, it explodes.

  The shock wave, the smoke and the dust blow our way. Even Strong John, who is bothered by nothing, looks up and says, “What was that?” God only knows how much explosive the Germans planted there. They’re devils when it comes to demolition. Our boys are buried. Everyone is killed.

  Or almost everyone. A work crew moves in immediately. They throw themselves into the work, tugging aside timbers and pushing away rubble, with shovels and their bare hands. And even while they work to save the buried soldiers, the Germans toss potato mashers at them.

  Bastards.

  Loon says, “We have to pay them back,” which sounds like something you might hear on a playground, not a battlefield, but it’s what all of us are thinking. Lieutenant Gold, grim-faced, consults Captain Trehan, while Chudleigh’s section moves to push the Germans back from the wrecked building. When the lieutenant comes back with a pair of sappers, he and the Gaffer put their heads together to plot the next move.

  Meanwhile, we keep moving towards the cathedral square.

  We’re all furious, but Loon, especially, is red-faced with rage. At every step, he is out in front of the rest of us. He shinnies up drainpipes and squirms through mouse holes. He crawls across rooftops and slides into attics. It’s all we can do to keep up.

  It’s mid-afternoon when he disappears. We’re in another smoking, roofless ruin. The Gaffer is looking at us, counting heads. Before he asks the question we’re all thinking, Loon reappears.

  “There’s Jerries in the next house,” he says. “Lots of them. An officer was shouting. I heard others moving around.”

  “Where were you?”

  “There’s a basement.”

  Loon shows the way and the sappers go to work. Somehow they plant explosives under the floor the Germans are standing on while the rest of us in 7 Platoon do everything we can to distract the enemy and keep them pinned down. The captain is on hand when the building goes up. The sappers must have planted high explosive by the bagful because the noise when it explodes is tremendous. The dust carries for blocks, and the building, when the smoke clears, looks like something a giant squashed. We lost twenty-three men on Matteotti. Just one was saved. Loon’s revenge took at least as many Germans. The Gaffer is pleased.

  * * *

  On Monday we clear the square in front of what was left of the cathedral. By evening, the Eddies
and the Seaforths are within yards of the cemetery and the castle. The next morning, when we wake up, the streets are quiet. The enemy has pulled out.

  I run into Freddy on Tuesday. He says headquarters is crawling with reporters. The newspapers back home are calling the battle of Ortona “Little Stalingrad” after the siege of the Russian city last winter. Stalingrad was a lot bigger than Ortona, but I doubt if the fighting was fiercer. The mystery, says Freddy, is why the Germans fought so hard to hold it.

  “Stalingrad was a big deal and everyone knew it,” says Freddy. “When the Jerries lost Stalingrad, they lost Russia. But Ortona?”

  “It’s not like it’s Rome,” I say. “You could see why they would fight for the capital.”

  “The port’s a small one. And anyway, they destroyed it.”

  “Maybe they couldn’t bear the thought of losing. Maybe they thought they couldn’t lose.”

  “I guess we showed them.”

  But did they lose? I’m not sure.

  * * *

  We get word before we move out that Paddy died. Derrick just nods his head when he’s told the news.

  “I saw him on the night he died,” he tells me later. “You could call it a dream if you like, but I don’t think it was a dream. He came to see me before he crossed over. He said not to worry. He was okay.”

  We buried Doug. Padre conducted the service. He spoke of Paddy, Jimmy and some of the others who lost their lives. He said they were brave, good-hearted young men who gave up their lives for their country. I would have said they gave everything they could to stay alive. Their lives were taken from them … but I suppose it makes no difference. They’re not with us now.

  I miss Doug. I’m surprised how much.

  We have taken in new recruits. Loon has been promoted to corporal. Things change fast in this man’s army.

  I start on the letter the night before we pull out. I think of Doug’s father, who already has lost his wife.

  Dear Mr. MacDonald,

  I was with Doug when he died. He was my friend and a brave soldier …

  Dammit, this is hard.

  Historical Note

  By late 1943, Hitler’s Germany was on the defensive. It had failed to conquer Britain, had lost the initiative in the Battle of the Atlantic, and was engaged in a desperate, losing battle on the Russian front. The Allied High Command was planning Operation Overlord, the landing in Normandy that, beginning in June 1944, would mark the beginning of the main thrust by the Western Allies through France and Belgium into Germany. Against this background, the Italian campaign was a sideshow. It was a distraction intended to force the Germans to take significant forces away from Northern Europe. For those who fought in Italy, however, this “sideshow” was a terrible, bloody campaign.

  In December 1943, the First Canadian Division was part of the British Eighth Army, commanded by General Montgomery. While the United States Fifth Army was fighting its way up the western side of Italy, the Eighth Army was on the eastern, Adriatic side. Monty’s strategy was to push past the port of Ortona to Pescara and then swing west along the Pescara road in a pincer movement with the Americans, aimed at the liberation of Rome. He planned to use Ortona as a port and winter base.

  Two factors undermined Monty’s strategy: the weather and the Germans. The weather should not have been a surprise. Italy in December was, as usual, cold and wet. The rivers from the mountains were swollen and the earth turned easily to mud. Allied air superiority was nullified by cloud cover and tanks were frequently stopped in their tracks. The strength of German resistance was less predictable. But Hitler, at this stage of the war, was micromanaging his generals, and the order to hold Ortona came from him.

  It has been suggested by some that the Allies could have avoided the battle, bypassing the town and cutting off the German supply line to the north. In fact, while the 2nd Brigade of the Canadian 1st Division (including the Loyal Edmonton Regiment and the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, with the Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry in reserve) assaulted the town directly, the 1st Brigade (made up of the 48th Highlanders, the Royal Canadian Regiment and the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment, the latter known as the Hasty P’s) moved up their left flank with the intention of encircling the town. What the division commander Major-General Chris Vokes did not (and could not) anticipate was the determination with which the Germans reinforced their defensive positions — bringing in elite, battle-hardened troops — and the ferocity with which they fought.

  Ortona was a vicious battle, one that the Germans expected to win. When they lost, they believed at the time it was because they were outnumbered. They weren’t. The record shows that the two sides were numerically nearly equally matched. The Canadians demonstrated in the streets of Ortona, as they had demonstrated before and would demonstrate again, that they were hardy, determined and, when necessary, ingenious soldiers, as good as any in the world. The Loyal Edmonton Regiment and Seaforth Highlanders of Canada between them lost 104 men killed, as well as 171 men wounded in Ortona’s streets. The toll in December for all Canadian units was 1,837 wounded or sick and 502 killed. The Germans also paid a heavy price — and so did the local population. In a town of some 15,000 people in 1943, 1,314 civilians are said to have died.

  The Italian campaign is overshadowed by the tremendous achievement of the D-Day landings, and the arduous drive to victory that ended with the death of Hitler and Germany’s collapse. But Italy was a tremendous test for the men who endured it. Great feats were accomplished there and many tragedies unfolded. And Ortona still bears the scars.

  Images and Documents

  Image 1: The strain of fighting between the Moro River and Ortona is obvious in the faces of the Loyal Edmonton riflemen.

  Image 2: A company of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada makes its way along the coastal path towards Ortona.

  Image 3: German demolition teams destroyed the cathedral of St. Thomas before the Canadians were close to the square where it is situated.

  Image 4: Riflemen from the Loyal Edmontons, supported by Sherman tanks of the Three Rivers Regiment, in Ortona two days before Christmas, 1943.

  Image 5: A Sherman tank of the Three Rivers Regiment advances down Corso Vittorio Emanuele in Ortona, December 23, 1943.

  Image 6: Brigade headquarters staff enjoy Christmas dinner, December 25, 1943, at San Vito Chietino, a couple of kilometres behind the lines.

  Image 7: The radioman had a heavy load to carry. Worse, he was often the first to be targeted by enemy snipers.

  Image 8: Just one man survived the booby trap on Via Matteotti: Lance-Corporal Roy Boyd of the Edmontons.

  Image 9: Boyd was buried in the rubble for thee and a half days before he was dug out and a stretcher crew could carry him back to the aid post.

  Image 10: The townspeople start life again in January 1943 amid the ruins of their town.

  Image 11: Two months after Ortona was taken, the Canadians continued the fight north of the town. Members of the Royal Canadian Artillery emerge from their dugout.

  Image 12: As winter of 1943 approached, the Allies moved in on Rome as the German army tried to slow the Allied advance.

  Image 13: The port town of Ortona became the focal point for intense fighting along its narrow streets.

  Credits

  Cover cameo: Mr. Maurice Guerin, by permission of The Memory Project/Historica Canada.

  Cover scene: Platoon Commander Lieutenant I. Macdonald (with binoculars) ready to give order to attack at S. Leonardo di Ortona, Italy, 10 December 1943; Lieut. Frederick G. Whitcombe, Canada, Dept. of National Defence, Library and Archives Canada PA-163411.

  Cover details: journal vintage grungy yellow book cover © Dreamstime 55496615; set of grungy adhesive labels, price stickers, tags, free copy space © Shutterstock 27571093; grungy old paper with frayed edges © iStock Photo 3019095; belly band © ranplett/istockphoto; back cover label © Thomas Bethge/Shutterstock.

  Image 1: Personnel of The Loyal Edmonton Regiment during Street
Fighting, San Leonardo di Ortona, Italy, 10 December 1943; Credit: Canada. Dept. of National Defence, Library and Archives Canada PA-114487.

  Image 2: Men of B Company, Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, filing along mined coastal path. Town of Ortona in distance; F.G. Whitcombe, Canada, Dept. of National Defence, Library and Archives Canada PA-152749.

  Image 3: Ruins of unidentified church [possibly the cathedral of San Tommaso in Ortona]; Terry F. Rowe, Library and Archives Canada, Canada Dept. of National Defence PA-136308.

  Image 4: Infantry of the Edmonton Regiment supported by “Sherman” tanks of the Three Rivers Regiment, Ortona, Italy, 23 December 1943; T.F. Rowe, Canada, Dept. of National Defence, Library and Archives Canada PA-114030.

  Image 5: “Sherman” tank of the Three Rivers Regiment, Ortona, Italy, 23 December 1943; Canada, Dept. of National Defence, Library and Archives Canada PA-114029.

  Image 6: General view of Brigade Headquarters at Christmas dinner; Terry F. Rowe, Canada, Dept. of National Defence, Library and Archives Canada PA-152839.

  Image 7: Infantrymen of The Loyal Edmonton Regiment using a walkie-talkie radio during an advance, Ortona, Italy, 21 December 1943; Terry F. Rowe, National Archives of Canada, MIKAN No. 3227873, PA-163932.

  Image 8: Infantrymen of The Loyal Edmonton Regiment rescuing Lance-Corporal Roy Boyd, who was trapped under rubble for 3 1/2 days, Ortona, Italy, 30 December 1943; Lieut. Terry F. Rowe, Canada, Dept. of National Defence, Library and Archives Canada PA-152748.

  Image 9: Men of B Company, rescuing L. Cpl. Roy Boyd, Loyal Edmonton Reg...Ortona, 30 Dec., 1943; Lieut. Terry F. Rowe, Canada. Dept. of National Defence, Library and Archives Canada MIKAN no. 4113916.

  Image 10: [Girl hanging out washing Ortona, Italy.]; Terry F. Rowe, Department of National Defence, National Archives of Canada PA-114040.