by Mark Zuehlke
Intelligence staff at I Canadian Corps knew the Germans facing the Canadian front were a grab-bag of units commanded by the 2nd Battalion, 576th Grenadier Regiment of 305th Infantry Division. Present were other battalions from the 305th, three companies of 15th Panzer Grenadier Division’s 115th Grenadier Regiment, three companies of 44th Infantry Division’s 80th Engineer Battalion, two companies of 90th Panzer Grenadier Division’s 190th Engineer Battalion, and a company of antitank gunners from 5th Mountain Division. All these units were considered tired and depleted by casualties. However, disturbingly, some prisoners taken during the day were members of the 361st Grenadier Regiment, 90th Panzer Grenadier Division — a division previously believed held in reserve well behind the front lines.
The Canadian Intelligence Officer also noted that things around Cassino were not normal. In his daily report, he wrote, “A fire burns on Monastery Hill [Monte Cassino], the enemy put down smoke at last light and has mortared the Continental Hotel [a major building in Cassino] — all very strange at this time.” This action, he wrote, “may have been a covering for the withdrawal from the town, for Route 6 must be held if the Monastery force is to be got out.” Contradicting Leese, he predicted the Canadians would face determined resistance, as the 90th deployed its infantry regiments and inherent three troops of assault guns, two troops of tanks, and various antitank companies across the Canadian front.26
While the Canadian Intelligence Officer at I Canadian Corps speculated on a possible withdrawal of the 1st Parachute Division from Cassino and the abbey, Commander-in-Chief Southwest Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring finally accepted the inevitability of surrendering these two remaining bastions of the Gustav Line. That evening, he discussed the situation by phone with Tenth Army commander Generaloberst Heinrich von Vietinghoff. “I consider withdrawal to the Senger position as necessary,” Kesselring said.
Von Vietinghoff replied, “Then it will be necessary to begin the withdrawal north of the Liri. Tanks have broken through there.”
“How far?”
Two miles northwest of Pignataro, von Vietinghoff said. There were another hundred tanks reportedly closing on Highway 6.
Kesselring sighed. “Then we have to give up Cassino.” To which von Veitinghoff offered only one word. “Yes.”27
Having made his decision, Kesselring had to get the withdrawal started. First Parachute Division was without question one of the most determined and well-led units in Italy. Its commander was General Richard Heidrich. Known as “Papa Heidrich” to his men, he bore a startling resemblance to Winston Churchill and shared the same taste for cigars. Heidrich was independent-minded and his troops would follow him anywhere. They had duly followed him into the hell of Cassino and Monte Cassino and had held those positions against overwhelming odds far longer than even Kesselring had truly expected. When Heidrich received orders to effect a withdrawal, he was not inclined to obey. Kesselring later wrote that “1st Parachute Division did not dream of surrendering ‘its’ Monte Cassino. In order to maintain contact with the 14th Panzer Corps I had personally to order these last, recalcitrant as they were, to retire, an example of the drawback of having strong personalities as subordinate commanders.” Kesselring realized that the paratroops would obey his orders but that their withdrawal would be grudgingly slow, as they would not allow the Allies to consider them beaten. Such a withdrawal would force Kesselring to order XIV Panzer Corps defending the Liri Valley to “cling to the intermediate positions longer than seemed advisable in the tactical situation.”28
Having spent most of May 15 and 16 overcoming transportation shortages and fighting its way forward through seemingly endless traffic jams, 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade finally approached the front lines. “Just as dusk was descending in the smoky battle scarred Liri Valley,” wrote Carleton and York Regiment’s war diarist, Major J.P. Ensor, “the men once again took their place in the line, relieving the short, tough, dusky fighters of a Maharatta battalion in the 8th Indian Division. . . . The ruined remains of Pignataro were a mile or two beyond and San Angelo a similar distance behind, but our task was clear: contain and destroy as great a force of the enemy as possible and push on to ROME.
“The first night in a new area is always weird and creates an uneasy feeling in one’s mind. Our position as forward right battalion of the division hardly tended to ease matters, particularly with an enemy so active with artillery, mortars, Moaning Minnies, flares, and indiscriminate firing of MGs.”29
About the same time Ensor recorded his impressions, the Royal 22e Regiment’s war diarist wrote: “At about 1700 hours this evening Royal 22e Regiment arrives in an area just south of Cassino. The main defences of the German Gustav line in this sector have already been breached by Indian Troops from whom we are taking over. Our unit takes over from the 3rd Battalion, 15 Punjab Regiment. To our right are troops of the British 78th Division. Beyond them stands Monte Cassino, on top of which, one can just make out the outline of the Monastery, famed German bastion of the Gustav Line, still firmly and stubbornly held by enemy paratroops. On our left are units of 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade, and beyond them in the mountains there, is the French Expeditionary Corps, now well on its way toward the Hitler Line.”30
The West Nova Scotia Regiment’s war diarist recorded that heavy mortaring and shelling of the battlefield delayed the regiments in finding and relieving their 8th Indian counterparts. However, the relief was completed by 2100 hours. “Morale,” he wrote, “was high and everyone in good spirits at the thought of really getting going again after the long weary winter months on the Ortona front.”31
Vokes, having been urged to haste, wasted no time letting 3 CIB’s regiments settle. He called an Orders Group at 2300 hours and issued orders for a dawn advance. Vokes told 3 CIB Brigadier Paul Bernatchez that at first light his three battalions would advance in leapfrog fashion from their position in front of Pignataro to a height of ground overlooking the Forme d’ Aquino. Meanwhile, Spry’s 1 CIB would press forward, with the 48th Highlanders passing from reserve into the attack between the RCR and Hasty P’s. Supporting 3 CIB would be the Three Rivers Regiment of 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade, as the 51st Tank Regiment of the 25th Tank Brigade could not reach the battle area in time for the dawn attack.32
Unrecognized in Vokes’s plan of attack was Spalla Bassa, an apparently insignificant physical feature. This small catchment stream flowed out of a gentle rise of land situated to the west and north of Pignataro. The stream followed an easterly arc from its source to where it drained into the Liri River, close to a blown bridge that had linked Pignataro to San Giorgio a Liri. At this time of year, the streambed was dry and in places it narrowed to little more than a deep ditch that a man could jump over. Elsewhere, however, it was relatively wide, deep, and steeply banked, so that it formed a natural tank barrier.33 This feature was not as significant as the infamous “Gully” before Ortona that had cost 1 CID so many lives during the December fighting. Yet, although Spalla Bassa was more clearly marked on maps than had been The Gully, divisional intelligence staff completely overlooked the potential hazard it presented.
Such an oversight undoubtedly occurred in part because of the unreliability of the maps used in Italy, a problem that had plagued operations during the Moro River and Ortona battles. While the army drafted and released relevant maps prepared by the British War Office’s Geographical Section, it used Italian military maps as a base. These maps were often in error. In this case, however, the stream was clearly indicated on Sheet 160 of the 1:100,000-scale map as only slightly less wide in most places than the more westerly Forme d’Aquino.34 Even the maps prepared by Eighth Army for the specific use of the armoured formations showed Spalla Bassa clearly enough that its defensive features should have been appreciated. The Armoured Formation map — drawn to a scale of 1:50,000 — detailed the Liri Valley from the Gari River to a point west of Ceprano. In the area of this little creek, the map also indicated that the Germans had constructed on either side of its ban
k numerous antitank defences, with an especially heavy concentration situated in the area through which the 48th Highlanders would advance.35
The Canadians — particularly the 48th Highlanders and the Hasty P’s — would go into the morning’s attack with only the vaguest knowledge of the terrain or possible defences facing them. They would do so with little artillery support, and no engineers on hand to bridge the stream so that tanks could cross. There was no time for reconnaissance patrols to probe and test the German positions. On the right flank, 3 CIB was barely settled in and would attack at dawn. Meanwhile, 1 CIB was still licking its wounds from the day’s fighting and trying to get its battalions into a consistent line that would enable the attack to proceed in the morning along a continuous front.
For his part, Leese expressed uneasy optimism for May 17 in a letter to his wife Margaret. “A good day in our battle — and tomorrow we have another big attack, which with a bit of luck, may lead to the capture of Cassino and the Monastery — it would be wonderful if this came off. This, together with our crossing of the [Gari], would be a great start for the new 8th Army. It is stiff fighting in the Liri Valley, as it is difficult country. He has plenty of troops and it is difficult to outflank him.”36 The new Eighth Army to which Leese referred was really not new, other than being engaged in battle for the first time with himself as army commander. In this and other letters written to his wife in early May, Leese made it clear that he feared this first major engagement might not end in a decisive Eighth Army victory that would confirm his ability and right to the command.
11
THE FOG OF WAR
Lieutenant Colonel Jean Allard was honoured to command the Royal 22e Regiment, nicknamed the Van Doos. Today, the thirty-one-year-old officer knew the regiment would face its severest test since he had taken command at the end of December 1943. Allard, however, expected the day would go well because he believed his to be the finest regiment ever raised. One of three Permanent Force regiments in Italy, R22eR traced its roots back to World War I, when it had become the first all-francophone regiment in the Canadian army.
Although Québécois and commissioned in 1933, Allard had never previously served in a French-Canadian regiment. To understand how francophone soldiers differed from other Canadians under arms, he had spent hours with officers and common soldiers alike. They came, he noted, from “Gaspé, Acadia, the Lower St. Lawrence, the Saguenay, Quebec, Trois-Rivières, St. Maurice, Ottawa, Hull, Manitoba, Edmonton, and Montreal. Their backgrounds and education were different; all they had in common were their names and their language. Yet they all acted like brothers.”
The Van Doos approached discipline differently from other Commonwealth regiments. “The famous English ‘spit and polish’ made our boys laugh, although they applied it as well as their counterparts, but without the degree of seriousness they felt they saw in their English-speaking neighbours. If one of our men appeared to be slacking off a little too much, officers rarely shouted at him. We tended to use ridicule instead: the fellow would soon feel isolated and his ‘regimental pride’ would bring him back into line. . . . The language that best expressed this spirit was, of course, the French of Canada, as understood by the boy from the Gaspé and the Albertan alike.”
Allard enjoyed commanding these men, “for their dedication and pride were written on their faces. The price of this pride in command was the loyalty that the men expected of their officers. We were perceived by the troops not as aristocrats or the rightful possessors of all wisdom and authority. Rather, the officers were chosen from among the men because they had the same spirit and the ability and courage to refuse meaningless adventures and to embark upon only those actions, regardless of the risks involved, in which they themselves were prepared to participate. This willingness on the part of the officers to share everything and to command by example created a unity of spirit which was the strength of the R22eR.”1
Among his officers was twenty-nine-year-old Captain Pierre Potvin, who commanded ‘B’ Company. Potvin had grown up enchanted by the Van Doos, never missing a chance to watch when they paraded out of The Citadel in Quebec City. He had gobbled up everything there was to read about their history, particularly the battles in which they had fought during the Great War. Ypres, Mount Sorrel, the Somme, Ancre Heights, Vimy, Hill 70, Passchendaele, and Amiens were common tales to him. When the war broke out, Potvin enlisted, but as the R22e Regiment was Permanent Force and up to strength there was no place for him there. So he joined the Voltigeurs de Québec, rising to the rank of captain. The Voltigeurs, however, were detailed to guard armouries at home; Potvin wanted to see the sharp end. At the price of a demotion to subaltern rank, he gained acceptance into the Van Doos.
Joining the regiment in Britain, he laboured to prove himself worthy of a commission in a regular force regiment. He forfeited weekend leaves, using the time to pore over training pamphlets and books that would increase his knowledge and proficiency. Potvin trained his platoon equally hard, wanting them to be the best of the best. His diligence paid off when the platoon won a ten-mile race in full battle dress and bearing weapons. The platoon was rewarded with three days’ leave in London. Potvin left the books behind and joined his men in the city.
In Sicily, Potvin had risen to command ‘B’ Company after its captain was wounded. He also won the Military Cross for carrying out a one-man charge against a German machine-gun position. Since then, he had led ‘B’ Company through many battles and was among the regiment’s officers with the longest time served in action.2
At the Orders Group held at 1900 hours on May 16, Allard reported that the Van Doos would lead 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade’s morning assault, with ‘D’ Company under Major Ovila Garceau on the left and Captain Henri Tellier’s ‘A’ Company on the right. ‘B’ and ‘C’ Company would follow. Because ‘A’ was expected to face stiffer opposition, Three Rivers Regiment’s ‘A’ Squadron would support it with tanks. A fifteen-minute artillery barrage starting at 0630 hours would hammer the regiment’s two objectives — two points of high ground halfway between the start line and the Forme d’Aquino. Once these objectives were taken, ‘C’ and ‘B’ companies would lead toward the next objective, another point of high ground closer to the river.3 When this objective was secure, the West Nova Scotia Regiment would pass through. Eventually, the Carleton and York Regiment would leapfrog through the West Novas to maintain the momentum.4
As the artillery fell silent at 0630 hours, the leading companies advanced across the Cassino-Pignataro road. Not far behind followed Potvin’s ‘B’ Company and ‘C’ Company, commanded by Major Charles Bellavance. German fire was intense, but the standard pea-soup fog lying low upon the ground forced the enemy gunners to fire blind. The Van Doos ignored the fire. From a position near the attack’s start point, Three Rivers Regiment Intelligence Officer Captain Horace Dugald Beach thought it “thrilling to see the battle-wise Van Doos march straight forward, spread out and half crouching. They never dug in — but the enemy did come out when presented with this array of marching men and rumbling tanks who never paused.”5
While some Germans surrendered the moment the Canadians approached, many fought. Potvin passed two disabled Shermans; one stuck in mud, the other with a broken track. He could hear Garceau’s ‘D’ Company tangling with some German machine guns, but from the sound he could tell the company was still moving up. Potvin’s company reached ‘D’ Company’s objective only to discover that Garceau’s men had kept going rather than pausing to allow his company to leapfrog through. It was obvious that the Canadian attack had caught the Germans by surprise. The ground was cluttered with cooking pots containing warm food, as if the Germans had been just about to sit down to breakfast when the shelling started. Two Germans lay amid the debris, one with a profusely bleeding leg wound and the other with a hole in his abdomen from which a jet of blood shot every time he breathed. With the fog beginning to burn off, Potvin looked back toward the start line and saw Allard and Bernatchez standing on t
he balcony of a deserted house, observing the advance through binoculars. German shells were exploding around the house, but both men seemed oblivious to the danger. Potvin’s men let out a cheer as they witnessed the “coolness of their chiefs under fire.”6
On the hill’s reverse slope, dead or wounded soldiers lay scattered about in weapon pits. Heavy machine guns, several Nebelwerfers, many rifles, and large stocks of ammunition lay abandoned on the field. With all the booty available, Potvin had to chide his men to leave things alone; this was no time for souvenir gathering. At any moment Potvin expected the 361st Grenadier Regiment’s Panzer Grenadiers to counterattack. He could not afford to lose control of his men.
Potvin was surprised to encounter the tanks that were supposed to be supporting Tellier’s ‘A’ Company. These had become separated from the infantry when they had to swing wide to get around a muddy ditch, where one had become stuck. The crews of the other two tanks agreed to accompany his men. Although ‘A’ and ‘D’ were still far ahead, the two following companies were bumping into numerous pockets of machine-gun and rifle positions bypassed by the leading troops. Once they left the hill behind, Potvin’s men dropped back into thick fog. Supported by the tanks, he and his men mopped up points of resistance. In most cases, when the men and tanks suddenly erupted out of the fog into their midst the Germans fled and the Van Doos, firing from the hip, rushed on to prevent their stopping to form any organized defence.7
