I went on the WW2 in Italy travel study program for the first time in 2008. My nephew Christopher had found this course at UNB and he, his friend Brandon Kelly and I went on the study program. Christopher had told his grandfather (my father) that someday he was going to go to Italy and see where his "grampy" had fought. One of the main highlights of that course was to watch Christopher deliver his battlefield presentation on the first two days of the battle for Ortona as experienced by D Coy of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment (LER) in which his grandfather served. He gave his presentation while standing on Via Giudea in Ortona with his grandfather's kit bag slung over his shoulder. When that kit bag had first arrived in Ortona being worn by his grandfather in December 1943 both Ortona and the world were different places than they were in May, 2008. I am sure that during that presentation I felt my father's spirit looking down with some satisfaction on his grandson who had come to see and learn more about what historical randfather had experienced in "The Courtyard of Helll' and the 'Little Stalingrad" as Ortona came to be known by.
I had such a fantastic, moving and educational experience on the study tour in 2008 that I promised myself I would do this tour àgain. In 2014 Corey, another Nephew and a cousin to Christopher, participated in the study tour. It was his first time outside of Canada and having a family connection with the events that he would be seeing and experiencing first hand he was totally captivated by his experience. He brought back a bottle of wine from the Abruzzo region of Italy, which was used at the family Christmas dinner of 2014 to toast all the Canadian boys who had experienced Christmas 1943 in Ortona.
Prior to my father passing in 2006 I had gone home to spend the weekend with him. As bedtime approached on that Saturday night he said to me "I wonder if I will see the young German 's eyes again when I close my eyes tonight". I asked him what he meant . He explained that during the fighting in Ortona he and another soldier named Smitty had cut two German soldiers in half with a PIAT gun round as they mouse holed their way through the buildings in Oftona. My father said that the younger of the two German soldiers who was trying to get an ammunition belt fed into an MG 42 machine gun locked eyes with him and the German's eyes appeared to stay transfixed on him as the PIAT hit the German soldiers cutting them in half and propelling the upper half of their torsos through the roof as their intestines unravelled from their severed torsos.
Some years prior I had bought my father the book on Ortona written by Mark Zuehlke. This was the only one of the numerous books that I had given him over the years about Italian battles he had been in that he had commented on after reading. He had said to me while tapping the book cover 'this guy got it right about what it was like in Ortona". I pointed out that Zuehlke had indicated that since we were steadily losing our veterans those of us who had family members who were veterans should ask them to record their experiences.My father paused for a few seconds then said; "best let someone else write about what we had to do in Ortona".
Since visiting Ortona in 2008 I have thought about a number of issues associated with this savage battle. Was it really better in the long run for men like my father who had survived yet more than sixty years later were still dealing withe demons from the past than for those who had been killed? Also the well know quotation: "the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing", has rolled around in my head. Certainly, the imposition of Nazism and an "Aryan Super Race" on humanity would have been a very great evil. However, can the men who had to do such terrible things during the Christmas season ever consider themselves as good men again? Do terrible means such as war always justify the end, however noble the end may be?
I think the two main features that made Ortona such a savage battle were it's timing and the urban setting. The armies that opposed each other; German and Canadian, came from what we're predominantly Christian countries. Christmas, which celebrates the birth of Christ is considered as one of the most solemn times in the year for Christians. It is supposed to be time of "goodwill towarda men". Yet, the men on both sides had to continue fighting and killing through the Christmas season. I think this would have weighed heavily on their minds.
The urban setting, which required that buildings be cleared room by room meant that the distance between you and the enemy soldier would be only a few feet in many instances. At this short, "face to face" range, if you shot the enemy soldier you would likely get sprayed by his blood, see his face distort in pain and hear his scream or cry. In the more conventional battlefield setting if you fired at an enemy soldier at say 200 yards range, even if you saw him fall you couldn't be sure that it was your bullet that had struck him and you certainly would not hear his scream. Thus, I think the face to face killing that took place in Ortona caused more physcological damage to the soldiers than that which occured on the more conventional battlefields.
So, here I am back in Ortona in May 2016 with all the above thoughts and more vying for space in my mind. On the second night we were in town the rest of the group went on a winery tour but I stayed in town. My first stop was the church of San Tomaso d'Apostollo. This church was located in the portion of Ortona that the LER was responsible for capturing. It had essentially been cut in half by the fighting and has since been rebuilt. I had not managed to get into the church when I was here in 2008. The interior was smaller than I imaged from the external size of the structure. I said some prayers for the repose of the souls of all the Loyal Eddies killed in Ortona l also included in my prayers the souls of all the men contained in the pile of Canadian and German bodies my father had once said he saw get bulldozed into the ground on the bank of the "GULLY". The battle for the Gully had previously preceeded Ortona. On the way out of the church I also lit a candle.
Later, while standing looking up at bullet holes in the exterior of a building on Via Della Sapienza and wondering if any had been made by my father, I was approached by a group of three men. One of the men spoke to me in English and said: "those are bullet holes you are looking at, is there a reason why you are looking at them"? I replied that I knew they were bullet holes and that my father had fought with D Coy of the LER in Ortona. At this he exclaimed that he knew the story of D Coy very well and had written a book on the battle of Ortona and had given several lectures at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. He took me to Corso Garibaldi where he showed me a wooden door on which the words "Do Drop Inn, No Germans Allowed" had been stenciled in black paint, which was now so faded it was hàrd to see. He said this dated from 1943. We ended up exchanging email addresses and he asked that I contact him when I returned from the study tour.
After wondering the streets of Ortona some more I stopped for a few minutes at the memorial erected by the Italians to the Canadians. It shows a Medic kneeling over a fallen soldier. I am sure this scene repeated itself hundreds of times during the course of the battle. Leaving the monument I was approached by two men. The older man said to me in english: "Excuse me but I noticed you had stopped at the monument, can we help you? I told him that I was with a study tour group from UNB and that my father had fought in Otorna. He said: " thank-you for our freedom". He then said it was a shame how younger Italians were forgetting about what had happened in Ortona. I replied that Canadians will not forget.
I realized as soon as I said this that many Canadians do not know of Ortona or the Italian campaign. One of the main objectives of the UNB travel study program is to introduce a new generation of Canadians to this historical legacy.) He said most of the German soldiers that were here were also mostly young men and shook his head as he exclaimed: "what a tragedy". He said: ""we blèd too, almost 1,400 civilians were killed in the battle". I asked him if he had been here during the battle, he indicated he was born after the war but that his parents had been. They had previously fled from another location in the south of Italy. They ended up staying in Ortona for the rest of their lives. His father had become a policeman. Having noticed no fresh flowers, I asked him about the lady who had put fresh flowers every day on the monument to Canadians for many years. He said she had passed. He stated further that she had been in Ortona as a teenager during the battle.
After stopping to eat a slice a pizza I made my way back to the hotel. With each step I thought about how much blood had been spilled in these streets to make them free. I also felt that as a Canadian I should consider Ortona as a second home provided by a previous generation of Canadians who had fought here.
The next day our study group stopped at the monument. Dr. Cindy Brown asked what we should make of the type of monument that the Italians had created and where they had located it. I had never even consideded these aspects previously. The response that impressed me most was made by a student named Michelle who stated she thought it was good that the Italians had chosen to depict a Medic kneeling over a fallen soldier rather than a soldier in an aggressive battle stance.
Richard McQuade
Prior to my father passing in 2006 I had gone home to spend the weekend with him. As bedtime approached on that Saturday night he said to me "I wonder if I will see the young German 's eyes again when I close my eyes tonight". I asked him what he meant . He explained that during the fighting in Ortona he and another soldier named Smitty had cut two German soldiers in half with a PIAT gun round as they mouse holed their way through the buildings in Oftona. My father said that the younger of the two German soldiers who was trying to get an ammunition belt fed into an MG 42 machine gun locked eyes with him and the German's eyes appeared to stay transfixed on him as the PIAT hit the German soldiers cutting them in half and propelling the upper half of their torsos through the roof as their intestines unravelled from their severed torsos.
Some years prior I had bought my father the book on Ortona written by Mark Zuehlke. This was the only one of the numerous books that I had given him over the years about Italian battles he had been in that he had commented on after reading. He had said to me while tapping the book cover 'this guy got it right about what it was like in Ortona". I pointed out that Zuehlke had indicated that since we were steadily losing our veterans those of us who had family members who were veterans should ask them to record their experiences.My father paused for a few seconds then said; "best let someone else write about what we had to do in Ortona".
Since visiting Ortona in 2008 I have thought about a number of issues associated with this savage battle. Was it really better in the long run for men like my father who had survived yet more than sixty years later were still dealing withe demons from the past than for those who had been killed? Also the well know quotation: "the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing", has rolled around in my head. Certainly, the imposition of Nazism and an "Aryan Super Race" on humanity would have been a very great evil. However, can the men who had to do such terrible things during the Christmas season ever consider themselves as good men again? Do terrible means such as war always justify the end, however noble the end may be?
I think the two main features that made Ortona such a savage battle were it's timing and the urban setting. The armies that opposed each other; German and Canadian, came from what we're predominantly Christian countries. Christmas, which celebrates the birth of Christ is considered as one of the most solemn times in the year for Christians. It is supposed to be time of "goodwill towarda men". Yet, the men on both sides had to continue fighting and killing through the Christmas season. I think this would have weighed heavily on their minds.
The urban setting, which required that buildings be cleared room by room meant that the distance between you and the enemy soldier would be only a few feet in many instances. At this short, "face to face" range, if you shot the enemy soldier you would likely get sprayed by his blood, see his face distort in pain and hear his scream or cry. In the more conventional battlefield setting if you fired at an enemy soldier at say 200 yards range, even if you saw him fall you couldn't be sure that it was your bullet that had struck him and you certainly would not hear his scream. Thus, I think the face to face killing that took place in Ortona caused more physcological damage to the soldiers than that which occured on the more conventional battlefields.
So, here I am back in Ortona in May 2016 with all the above thoughts and more vying for space in my mind. On the second night we were in town the rest of the group went on a winery tour but I stayed in town. My first stop was the church of San Tomaso d'Apostollo. This church was located in the portion of Ortona that the LER was responsible for capturing. It had essentially been cut in half by the fighting and has since been rebuilt. I had not managed to get into the church when I was here in 2008. The interior was smaller than I imaged from the external size of the structure. I said some prayers for the repose of the souls of all the Loyal Eddies killed in Ortona l also included in my prayers the souls of all the men contained in the pile of Canadian and German bodies my father had once said he saw get bulldozed into the ground on the bank of the "GULLY". The battle for the Gully had previously preceeded Ortona. On the way out of the church I also lit a candle.
Later, while standing looking up at bullet holes in the exterior of a building on Via Della Sapienza and wondering if any had been made by my father, I was approached by a group of three men. One of the men spoke to me in English and said: "those are bullet holes you are looking at, is there a reason why you are looking at them"? I replied that I knew they were bullet holes and that my father had fought with D Coy of the LER in Ortona. At this he exclaimed that he knew the story of D Coy very well and had written a book on the battle of Ortona and had given several lectures at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. He took me to Corso Garibaldi where he showed me a wooden door on which the words "Do Drop Inn, No Germans Allowed" had been stenciled in black paint, which was now so faded it was hàrd to see. He said this dated from 1943. We ended up exchanging email addresses and he asked that I contact him when I returned from the study tour.
After wondering the streets of Ortona some more I stopped for a few minutes at the memorial erected by the Italians to the Canadians. It shows a Medic kneeling over a fallen soldier. I am sure this scene repeated itself hundreds of times during the course of the battle. Leaving the monument I was approached by two men. The older man said to me in english: "Excuse me but I noticed you had stopped at the monument, can we help you? I told him that I was with a study tour group from UNB and that my father had fought in Otorna. He said: " thank-you for our freedom". He then said it was a shame how younger Italians were forgetting about what had happened in Ortona. I replied that Canadians will not forget.
I realized as soon as I said this that many Canadians do not know of Ortona or the Italian campaign. One of the main objectives of the UNB travel study program is to introduce a new generation of Canadians to this historical legacy.) He said most of the German soldiers that were here were also mostly young men and shook his head as he exclaimed: "what a tragedy". He said: ""we blèd too, almost 1,400 civilians were killed in the battle". I asked him if he had been here during the battle, he indicated he was born after the war but that his parents had been. They had previously fled from another location in the south of Italy. They ended up staying in Ortona for the rest of their lives. His father had become a policeman. Having noticed no fresh flowers, I asked him about the lady who had put fresh flowers every day on the monument to Canadians for many years. He said she had passed. He stated further that she had been in Ortona as a teenager during the battle.
After stopping to eat a slice a pizza I made my way back to the hotel. With each step I thought about how much blood had been spilled in these streets to make them free. I also felt that as a Canadian I should consider Ortona as a second home provided by a previous generation of Canadians who had fought here.
The next day our study group stopped at the monument. Dr. Cindy Brown asked what we should make of the type of monument that the Italians had created and where they had located it. I had never even consideded these aspects previously. The response that impressed me most was made by a student named Michelle who stated she thought it was good that the Italians had chosen to depict a Medic kneeling over a fallen soldier rather than a soldier in an aggressive battle stance.
Richard McQuade