INDEPTH: ORTONA
The Ghosts of Ortona
CBC News Online | January 1999 | Updated September 21, 2004
Edited excerpts from a field interview by reporter David Halton with Ortona veteran Ted Griffiths.
DAVID HALTON:
When you got to Ortona, how long did you think it would take to capture the town?
TED GRIFFITHS:
[In the] the original estimate… one company of infantry, and a tank squadron would take the place in a day. That was the original intention. Big Jim Stone (who later became deputy commissioner of Penitentiaries Canada) was the company commander and Frank Johnson, who is here with us on the pilgrimage, was the squadron commander who came in and, as I say, they intended to take the place in a day. But little did we know, Hitler said 'You won't take the place in a day.'
DAVID HALTON:
He said Ortona was as important as Rome.
TED GRIFFITHS:
He [Hitler] said Ortona would be held to the last man. This was the Adriatic end of what they called the Gustav Line, and… it stretched right across the country. But here it was just another insignificant fishing village, no strategic importance, none whatsoever. Then all of a sudden, it grew into a battle that-- at the time-- got world attention.
DAVID HALTON:
What did you find as your tanks came up the Corso [the main street in Ortona]. Describe the scene for us.
TED GRIFFITHS:
In the beginning the stretch behind us here was relatively unscathed. The rubble began from the main square down, and the Germans had taken to blowing in houses into the street, so that we would have to move around into an area selected by them... in military terms we call a killing ground. We had to proceed very carefully, because a tank is quite vulnerable to a determined infantryman. So we had to be protected by the infantry. And then whenever fire occurred, we would then open up with heavier armament than the Germans had.
DAVID HALTON:
So what the Germans had really done was made one big death trap out of Ortona.
TED GRIFFITHS:
Yes, they did indeed. They blew in buildings, and as they …forced us to move in certain areas. Their anti-tank weapons were quite active…I'm not sure at the moment how many tanks we lost...around fifteen… but you could never tell where fire was going to come from. Sometimes it came from rubble piles; sometimes it came from upper stories of a house. It took the infantry two days before they developed the technique of mouseholeing… they would blow a hole through the wall into the house next door, and move through and take it out.
DAVID HALTON:
Paint a picture for us of the sounds and the sights, I mean it must have been a terrifying, almost an inferno, paint a picture of the battle at its worst. When it was raging at its worst.
TED GRIFFITHS:
There was constant noise. If it wasn't our tank weapons or machine guns firing or German mortars--they mortared extensively here in the town...strangely enough during this battle, we couldn't call upon artillery support in here, because… we might want the artillery to land in a certain street, well you just couldn't get artillery that accurate. And given the high rise of the houses and so forth, the trajectory of the normal artillery piece wouldn't fit. As a consequence, the tanks assumed a greater role… sometimes we would put an armor piercing shot through the cement foundation of a building and sort of shatter the cement. Then we would put high explosives through the walls, on a delayed action so that they would burst inside and blow the buildings out and the people with it too.
DAVID HALTON:
What did the Eddies (Loyal Edmonton Regiment) and the Seaforths face down these back alleys around here? What was it like down here?
TED GRIFFITHS:
It was a bloody war. Because you never knew what would happen. The German parachutists were excellent troops. There's a little street down behind us here, where an old lady looked out her front door. The Germans shot her through the forehead, and she slumped up against the wall of her building. The streets were so narrow, when we went down we couldn't miss her [with the tanks]. Gradually her legs were ground into the cobblestones, and all that remained was the torso sitting up against the building.
The noise level in the streets, you can imagine these streets are narrow, they get narrower still down behind us, the sound reverberates and, all in all, it was just one hellish great noise.
DAVID HALTON:
Sounds like a kind of inferno.
TED GRIFFITHS:
It was in many ways yes, in many ways an inferno. Particularly when we get up near the hospital.
When any of the chaps were hit, we always made a very determined effort to get them back to the first aid station as quickly as possible. Sometimes it just wasn't possible, and you know, they died on the spot, whether loss of blood, shock, whatever, but the stretcher bearers that the infantry have in their battalion… did a magnificent job attempting to get the wounded out. There was a first aid station set up just at the outskirts of town, behind us, and that would be the first sort of professional medical help and from there they were evacuated to the field ambulance.
DAVID HALTON:
Paint us a picture of what the infantry guys would find down the streets.
They basically booby-trapped the whole city?
TED GRIFFITHS:
They booby trapped doors, windows, they sowed mines all over, the piles of rubble they knew that we would have to climb over, or the tanks would have to climb over contained mines, and all of a sudden boom-- one would blow up and knock a track off a mine, and the tank would be immobile. Normally they would cover that sight with an anti-tank weapon.
DAVID HALTON:
And this was the killing ground?
TED GRIFFITHS:
Yes, that's right…the square that we're talking about near the hospital here was also a killing ground, because some of the streets were blocked off leading to it, which forced us into this area.
The Italian civilians, for years, afterwards, were being blown up around here, on rubble piles when they attempted their reconstruction.
DAVID HALTON:
We talked to one of the Germans back here for the reconciliation, and I asked him what his worst moment of the battle was, and at first he said I can't tell you, because the Canadians here will kill me. And he said that he was the guy who laid the explosives in that house and blew up 24 Canadians. That was his worst moment. But I guess in a sense it was killed or be killed.
TED GRIFFITHS:
It was kill or be killed, and there was no quarter given, no quarter asked. You killed and you fought and, as your father said in one of his columns, he entered houses and saw German dead and Canadian dead, all linked together, but it was a very bloody close quarter type of battle, that we had never had before.
We'd had many battles, but none before in a built up urban area and the tactics we had to develop tactics, as we went along in the battle. As I said this mouse-holing technique. which the infantry very quickly developed. It was not in any manuals before hand but it was certainly used afterward.
David Halton also asked Griffiths about the famous Christmas dinner at Ortona.
Ted GRIFFITHS:
All I can remember now is it was dark. So it must have been rather late in the afternoon, or early evening, because the meal ran from 11 in the morning to 7 in the evening. The infantry could only pull so many people back at one time, and, cause we were supporting the Seaforths, my squadron, we fed with the Seaforths.
We went and had a nice warm meal, and Wilf Gildersleeve played the organ, and we all sang a carol, and went back to the business of the day.
Some didn't come back, precisely, and, as I say it was a very intense, a very bloody time. I certainly never had a battle like this before, and certainly never saw one afterwards.
One day I had to go up and see the Seaforth company commander, I was going to support the next morning. I'm not very good at finding my way around in the dark, and before long I knew that I wasn't where I was supposed to be. I stopped by this corner, trying to orient myself, and I heard some footsteps approaching, I didn't know who it was, I didn't figure I would use my pistol, because of the noise factor, so I always carried a commando knife which I took out of my sleeve.
These footsteps came nearer, and as the person turned the corner, I could just see the faint glint of an anodized belt buckle. I knew it was German, and I just leaned forward very quickly, with the knife, and I effectively gutted him before he could utter a sound. I then got the hell out of there, went back, found the company commander I was supposed to find.
The next two or three days I saw this body still lying where I had left it. Once I stopped and went through his pockets and I took out his field service book, and I found he wasn't quite seventeen by that point, so, it was very hard thing to live with. It took many many years before I could even talk about it. One of the advantages of coming back to Ortona, it makes it much easier to discuss the battle and certain aspects of it and that was certainly a very traumatic one for me, and as I say I couldn't even talk about it for years.
DAVID HALTON:
Was it the first man you ever killed?
TED GRIFFITHS:
The first one I ever killed at close quarters. My war was rather impersonal; I was sitting in a tank turret. I used to shoot people at a distance, this was the first and only time I was forced to do it hand to hand.
It wasn't a very pleasant situation, but you know I have greatest respect for infantryman. He does the dirty work of the army, which is as you say kill, kill kill.
DAVID HALTON:
You've been back before obviously, but I guess every time you come back to this town it must be quite traumatic for you.
TED GRIFFITHS:
Yes it does in many ways, David, this is a trauma and I find that the return to Ortona each time makes it a little easier, a little easier to live with. And you know since 1943, Christmas has never assumed the same sort of joy and spontaneity that we associate with Christmas, because as soon as I hear Jingle Bells down in the local malls, I get morose thinking of what we were doing here at Christmas time.
DAVID HALTON:
The first time you came back must have been a shock.
TED GRIFFITHS:
It was indeed, it was indeed, it was very traumatic. One of the saving features is the elderly priest who was the priest of the church up behind us, he was here and I met him and we went into his office and drank a bottle of wine and that sort of made the day, it helped a lot.
DAVID HALTON:
You played such an important role in organizing this reconciliation meeting?
TED GRIFFITHS:
It wasn't my idea, David. The idea for reconciliation came originally from the wartime chaplain of our regiment, Father Wilhelm, who in peacetime later became the Archbishop of Kingston. At a regimental reunion a few years ago, we were sitting around talking about whatever old soldiers talk about, and, suddenly the padre said wouldn't it be a nice idea to go back to Ortona, at Christmas time, and have dinner in the church. This time we should invite the Germans… This was the padre's idea, and unfortunately he didn't live to see it.
DAVID HALTON:
I was just chatting to a few of them, when they arrived, they seemed to be in no hurry to meet these Germans.
TED GRIFFITHS:
No. That's right. This took some sort of thinking, you know, it didn't come easy. The Germans were similar position. They finally asked if they could participate in certain events and so forth. As I say, the idea of the Germans coming together with us grew on the fellows. With time and with a little bit of thought, and gradually they melded. The Germans have been accepted with no problem whatever.
DAVID HALTON:
That's gone wonderfully, but before you reach that point, you get people like Smokey and others saying I'll sit on the other side of the table. What were some of the comments you were hearing?
TED GRIFFFITHS:
Frankly, I didn't hear that much in the way of critical approach, from I don't like to say this in particular, people from eastern Canada. I did encounter some occasional caution, some reticence from both the Edmontons and the Seaforths. I think it took a little bit of thought on their part to realize you know that it is fifty some odd years after the war has ended and who the hell's going to carry hatred around all their life. I heard more or less 'No, I'm not that keen on sort of meeting with the German' on occasion some of them used the word 'Kraut,' which I hadn't heard for many years. But as I say, a little bit of thought they came around.
DAVID HALTON:
But things got warmer and warmer?
TED GRIFFITHS:
We've grown extremely close in the last two or three days. And I've heard some of them discuss certain phases of the battle together.
DAVID HALTON:
When you were fighting them, there must have been hatred for them?
TED GRIFFITHS:
The enemy was the enemy and certainly we fought them and killed them. You know, you don't go around thinking he's a Nazi, he's a Nazi, we were just killing Germans period. Fortunately, here in Italy we never ran into the bad ones, the SS, like in northwest Europe. Our war was relatively clean and gentlemanly compared to northwest Europe.
DAVID HALTON:
Except you got incidents like the booby-trapped, house, [where] our boys felt so upset they went and did the same thing to the Germans?
TED GRIFFITHS:
Yes, but as I say this was sort of the tactic that was developed during this intense urban battle. This wasn't a battle out in the countryside where you can move and deploy. This was an area where we were constricted by streets, and by rubble and as a consequence they developed tactics to suit the need. If the need involved blowing up a house, you blew up a bloody house pure and simple. The Germans they blew up houses, we blew up houses, with their people in them.
DAVID HALTON:
Back to the reconciliation, there was a gradual warmth - watching the service there was a kind of redemption?
TED GRIFFITHS:
I think this is in part true David. It's a some would say a shedding of some of the ghosts of Ortona. We've always carried ghosts of Ortona around for years…things we did during the fighting, things that happened to us. As I say this meeting has sort of been a cleansing of the soul in many ways.
Yes, a redemption…they have forgiven us sort of thing, we have forgiven them...we've come together in the spirit of friendship.
^TOP
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