WW II Topic: Battle of Ortona



Battle of OrtonaTook place during the heart of the Italian offensive by the Allied forces in December of 1943. Dec. 21st – Fierce street fighting develops as Canadian forces enter the city – Reporters nicknamed the battle “Little Stalingrad”. After the battle all allied forces studied Canadian street-fighting tacticsGermans block street with rubble to focus their fire. Fighting is house-to-house.Canadians develop “mouse-holing” technique - “beehive” explosive charges set against the ‘shared’ wall on the top floor between buildings. Soldiers burst through to oust the enemy from the adjoining building. In this manner the Canadians cleared whole rows of houses without once appearing in the street. Dec. 28/29th - German garrison final pulls out - Canadians finally take Ortona.Ortona would mark one of the bloodiest battle in the war for Canada. Casualty and shell shock rates rates were high. Without the Italian front, the Germans could have shifted valuable resources to the Western and Eastern fronts which would have certainly made a difference in the Allied offensives in both regions.Canada had sacrificed more than a quarter of the 92,757 individuals who served there: 5,399 dead in battle and 19,486 wounded, 365 other fatalities, and 1,004 taken prisoner. ANECDOTESFrom: The Liri Valley by Mark ZuehlkePrivate Edmund Andrew Kidd found himself the only company stretcher-bearer that was neither dead nor wounded. While tending to one casualty, he was struck by mortar fragments. Ignoring his injuries, Kidd dressed the wounds of two more men and then started crawling forward to help others. With bullets and shrapnel snapping all around him, Kidd tended and evacuated six more men to safety. He remained with the wounded until his own condition became so critical that he was ordered to report to the Regimental Aid Post. He won a Military Medal+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Seeing that one of his forward platoons was pinned down by a German machine-gunner, Capt. John Conway and four HQ section men moved up on the gunner's flank. As one of the men started to throw a grenade at the German, he fumbled it. Conway scooped the grenade off the ground to throw it away. The grenade exploded and tore his right hand off. Since the explosion's full force was absorbed by Conway's hand, nobody else was injured. Ignoring the bleeding stump, Conway led the men in an attack that destroyed the machine-gun position. Conway was awarded the Military Cross for his unhesitating action with the grenade.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Amazing Rescue, Ortona, Italy, 30 December 1943.Soldiers of The Loyal Edmonton Regiment rescue Lance Corporal Roy Boyd. The rubble created from a bomb blast pinned Boyd for three and a half days. Remarkably, he survived his ordeal, but others were not so lucky. In fact, the explosion that buried Boyd killed the rest of the platoon. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Ted Griffiths, a Canadian tank commander, is still haunted by the battle. His hardest task, he remembers, was pounding Ortona's church and hospital to rubble on Christmas day because they were defended by the Germans. Griffiths gives us this account: “I heard footsteps approaching, but I couldn't use my pistol because the shot would have drawn other Germans. I took my knife and stabbed him before he could utter a sound. It was the first time I'd killed someone like that. My war was rather impersonal; I was sitting in a tank turret and I used to shoot people at a distance. Two or three days later I saw this body still lying where I had left it. I took out his field service book, and I found he was 17. It was very hard to live with the memory of that.”LinksLoyal Edmonton Regiment site, article, War Canada, pics, go to Google – Images and enter ‘Ortona’ ................
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