Battle for Ortona

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Battle for Ortona
date 20th bis 28. December 1943
place Ortona ( Italy )
output Canadians victory
Parties to the conflict

Canada 1921Canada Canada

German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire

Commander

Canada 1921Canada Christopher Vokes

German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) Richard Heidrich

Troop strength
2 battalions 2 battalions
losses

262 dead,
200 wounded

200 dead

1300 dead civilians
Major military operations in Italy during World War II
A memorial in Piazza Plebscito for the Canadian fallen in Ortona

The Battle of Ortona (December 20-28, 1943) was a small but extremely bitterly fought battle between the German paratroopers of III. Battalion , the 3rd Parachute Regiment of the 1st Paratrooper Division under Lieutenant General Richard Heidrich and the attacking Canadian forces of the Canadian 1st Infantry Division under Major General Christopher Vokes during the "bloody December". The battle, also known as "Little Stalingrad " or "Italian Stalingrad" because of the deadly house-to-house fighting , took place in the small town of Ortona on the Adriatic Sea , which had 20,000 inhabitants in peacetime.

Starting position

After the landing operations of the Allied forces in southern Italy ( Operation Avalanche and Baytown) and the problems in the landing head of Salerno, the operations of the US and British armed forces - measured by the later advance in the first half of 1944 - gained ground relatively quickly. While the US Army worked its way along Italy's west coast, the British Army advanced along the Adriatic coast.

Already on September 27th, it was able to occupy the airfields near Foggia and thus achieve an important goal of the Allied operation. However, the advance came to a halt when the first defensive positions were reached. Under General Field Marshal Kesselring, the German Wehrmacht had set up several lines of defense across the Italian boot.

The breakthrough through the first two positions - the Volturno and the Barbara lines - was achieved by the British armed forces in early October and early November 1943. The third line of defense - the Gustav or Winter Line - was a major obstacle, however. Its eastern flank was leaning close to the Adriatic Sea in the area of ​​the mouth of the Moro or in the vicinity of Ortona. With the conquest of Ortona, the 8th Army could not only have broken the winter line and secured a natural deep-sea harbor. As the advance northwards, Pescara with its direct connection to Rome was within reach.

The British 8th Army's offensive against the Winter Line began east of the Apennine Mountains on November 23, 1943, when British troops moved against the front defensive positions of the Gustav Line on the north bank of the Sangro. After a few days, the German defenders withdrew in the direction of the Moro, whose mouth is four kilometers south of Ortona. For the crossing of the Moro, the British 78th Infantry Division on the right flank of the Allies was replaced by the Canadian 1st Infantry Division. Parallel to the further advance of the Canadian 1st Infantry Division, the planning of Montgomery envisaged the advance of the 2nd New Zealand Division on Orsogna.

German defense positions in southern Italy

At first glance, Ortona was of great strategic value as it had one of the few deep-water ports on the east coast of Italy. For the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, taking it would have meant a considerable shortening of the supply lines, which at the time extended to Bari and Taranto.

However, at the beginning of the attack on Ortona, the port was of dubious value for the Allies, since at the beginning of October 1943 a German pioneer unit had started to blow up the pier and several blockade ships were sunk. The Allied troops were nevertheless ordered to begin the offensive in December 1943 and advance towards Ortona / Pescara. The British units of the Canadian 1st Infantry Division encountered fierce resistance not only in the immediate vicinity of Ortona.

Riflemen of the 48th Highlanders of Canada take cover north of San Leonardo during a German counterattack on December 10, 1943

Even in the run-up to the actual fighting for the urban area, the advance turned out to be extremely difficult. When crossing the Moro south of Ortona, the Canadian 1st Infantry Division faced parts of the 90th Panzer Grenadier Division (Lieutenant General Carl-Hans Lungershausen) and the 26th Infantry Division Panzer Division (Lieutenant General Smilo Freiherr von Lüttwitz ) opposite, which not only made the formation of bridgeheads more difficult, which began on December 6, 1943, but also forced deployed units to prepare to withdraw from their bridgeheads. Only on December 9th did Allied troops displace the German defenders from the banks of the Moro into the depths of the German defensive positions. The way to Ortona was not yet open to the Canadians.

After crossing the Moro, the 1st Infantry Division reached a valley, the southern flank of which the German defenders had excellently developed and prepared for the defensive. The scene known as "The Gully" delayed the advance on Ortona considerably. Here the 90th Panzer Grenadier Division successfully fended off attacks by the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade and 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade. On the evening of December 13, 1943, the division, weakened by losses, was finally replaced by the 1st Paratrooper Division.

Only after further attacks by Canadians and German counterattacks could the area be finally secured on December 19. The German units withdrawing from “The Gully” moved into prepared defensive positions in Ortona. In preparation for this, German units had set up a large number of cleverly interlocking defense positions throughout the city, mined the area and blocked important thoroughfares by blowing up surrounding houses. This defense system and the order to fight “for every last house and tree” made the city a considerable obstacle for any attacker.

Involved troops

British 8th Army

  • 1st Canadian Infantry Division (Major-General Christopher Vokes )
    • The Saskatoon Light Infantry (The North Saskatchewan Regiment) - machine gun battalion
    • 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade
      • The Royal Canadian Regiment
      • The Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment
      • 48th Highlanders of Canada
    • 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade
      • Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry
      • The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada
      • The Loyal Edmonton Regiment
    • 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade
      • Royal 22e Régiment | Royal 22 e Régiment
      • The Carleton and York Regiment
      • The West Nova Scotia Regiment
  • 1st Canadian Tank Brigade
    • 11th Canadian Tank Regiment (The Ontario Regiment)
    • 12th Canadian Tank Regiment (Three Rivers Regiment)
    • 14th Canadian Tank Regiment (The King's Own Calgary Regiment)

Wehrmacht, LXXVI Panzer Corps

  • 26th Panzer Division (Lieutenant General Smilo Freiherr von Lüttwitz )
    • Panzergrenadier Regiment 9
    • Panzer Grenadier Regiment 67
    • 26th Panzer Regiment
    • 93rd Panzer Artillery Regiment
    • Panzer Reconnaissance Division 26
    • Panzerjäger detachment 93
    • Panzer Pioneer Battalion 93
    • Army Flak Artillery Department 304
    • Panzer News Department 93
  • 1st Paratrooper Division (Major General Richard Heidrich )
    • Paratrooper Regiment 1
    • Paratrooper Regiment 3
    • Paratrooper Regiment 4
    • Parachute Artillery Regiment 1
    • Parachute anti-tank battalion 1
    • Parachute Engineer Battalion 1
    • Parachute MG Battalion 1
  • 90th Panzer Grenadier Division (Lieutenant General Carl-Hans Lungershausen, from December 20, 1943 Lieutenant General Ernst-Günther Baade)
    • Panzer Grenadier Regiment 200
    • 361th Panzer Grenadier Regiment
    • Panzer Division 190
    • Panzerjäger-Company 1./190
    • Artillery Regiment 190

course

The Canadians faced the troops of the famous 1st Paratrooper Division at Ortona . Their soldiers were battle-tested for several years and received orders from Adolf Hitler to keep Ortona at all costs.

The Canadians' attack on the city began on December 20th by the Loyal Edmonton Regiment of the Canadian 2nd Brigade together with subordinate parts of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada . Meanwhile, parts of the 3rd Infantry Brigade of the Canadian 1st Infantry Division began the attack from the north and then flanked off the rear of the Germans on the west side of the city , but made slow progress due to the difficult terrain and the sophisticated German defense.

In the city itself, the Germans erected various barricades and distributed rubble in the narrow side streets that surrounded the Piazza Municipale. The only remaining route for the Canadian tanks was via Corso Vittorio Emanuele, which was heavily mined and littered with numerous traps; Traps that served the Germans with deadly efficiency through the eight days of fighting.

The Germans also hid several machine guns and anti-tank positions throughout the city, which made it difficult for tanks and infantry to advance. The brutal door-to-door struggle led the Canadians to use a new tactic known as “ mouse-holing ” (access to rooms or buildings by means of blasting through walls).

This tactic used weapons such as the PIAT (or clumsy anti-tank guns ) to break through the wall of a building and push forward, since the houses in Ortona were built together. After a breakthrough, the soldiers threw hand grenades and then stormed through the "mouse holes", cleared up the upper floors and then made their way back down, where the two opponents again wrestled in house-to-house combat. The "mouse-holing" was also used to pierce adjacent walls of rooms with the intention of surprising the enemy troops behind. This tactic found increasing use, as advancing on the road was associated with high losses on the Canadian and German sides. A particularly fatal event was the destruction of a complete house occupied by the Canadians by the German corporal and parachute pioneer Karl Bayerlein (3rd Company, Paratrooper Pioneer Battalion 1, 1st Paratrooper Division). A train of 1 officer and 22 men of the Edmonton regiment was buried and only one man was recovered alive days later. The Canadians retaliated by demolishing another building that housed two German groups and killing them in the collapse.

After six days of bitter fighting, the III. Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry , 2nd Brigade, together with tanks of the Three Rivers Regiment ( Régiment de Trois-Rivières ), 1st Canadian Armored Brigade to the fighting troops.

On December 28, the decimated German troops, who lacked supplies, withdrew after eight days of combat. In December 1943, around 1200 Canadian soldiers fell across Italy.

The first lieutenant of the paratrooper Harald Quandt , foster son of Joseph Goebbels , from the first marriage of his wife Magda Goebbels , also took part in the fighting in Ortona . A few months later he was taken prisoner by the British near Bologna .

gallery

  • Canadian Sherman tank of the 12th Canadian Armored Regiment in the Ortona war cemetery

  • The military cemetery at Ortona consists of 1,615 graves; 52 of them with unknown names. Number of graves by nation: Canada 1,375, United Kingdom 169, New Zealand 42, South Africa 16, India 5, Australia 4, other allies 2, completely unknown 2.

literature

  • David J. Bercuson: Maple leaf against the Axis: Canada's Second World War . Stoddart, Toronto 1995, ISBN 0-7737-2861-9 .
  • Farley Mowat: And No Birds Sang . McClelland & Stewart, Toronto 1979, ISBN 0-316-58695-1 ( online ).
  • Mark Zuehlke: Ortona: Canada's epic World War II battle . Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver 2004, ISBN 1-55054-557-4 ( online ).
  • Hans Martin Stimpel: The German Parachute Troops 1942–1945: Operations in the theaters of war in the south . ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-8132-0577-0 .
  • India, Defense Department: The tiger triumphs, the story of three great divisions in Italy . HM Stationery Office for the Government of India, London 1946.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d WWII: The Battle of Ortona - Canada at War ( English ) Retrieved June 11, 2012.
  2. ^ A b c Mark Zuehlke: Ortona Street Fight . Raven Books, Victoria (British Columbia) 2011, ISBN 978-1-55469-398-6 , pp. 137 ( online ).
  3. ^ Mark Zuehlke: Ortona Street Fight . Raven Books, Victoria (British Columbia) 2011, ISBN 978-1-55469-398-6 , pp. 122 ( online ).
  4. ↑ Mark Zuehlke: Ortona: Canada's epic World War II battle . Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver 2004, ISBN 1-55054-557-4 , pp. 17 ( online ).
  5. ^ Farley Mowat, And No Birds Sang .
  6. ↑ a b c Mark Zuehlke: Ortona: Canada's epic World War II battle . Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver 2004, ISBN 1-55054-557-4 , pp. 176 ( online ).
  7. ^ A b c David J. Bercuson: Maple leaf against the Axis: Canada's Second World War . Stoddart, Toronto 1995, ISBN 0-7737-2861-9 , pp. 175 .
  8. ↑ Mark Zuehlke: The Gothic line: Canada's month of hell in World War II Italy . Douglas & McIntyr, Vancouver 2003, ISBN 1-55365-023-9 , pp. 62 ( online ).
  9. ↑ Hans Martin Stimpel: The German Parachute Troops 1942–1945: Operations in the theaters of war in the south . ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-8132-0577-0 , p. 276 .

Web links

Commons : Ortona military cemetery  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 42 ° 21 ′ 0 ″  N , 14 ° 24 ′ 0 ″  E