Mussolini's Defeat at Hill 731, March 1941 by John Carr

Author:John Carr [Carr, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Italy, Military, World War II, Greece
ISBN: 9781526765031
Google: cri_zQEACAAJ
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books Limited
Published: 2020-10-15T03:38:01+00:00

Chapter 7

‘We should call it off ’

There was little rest that night for either army. A bitter northerly wind sent the temperature plunging. The soldiers wrapped their greatcoats around them, trying to doze off for a few minutes in their icy holes. Zikos suspected an imminent night attack, and he was right. Under Geloso’s personal order that the attacks ‘be continued with the greatest possible intensity,’ the already exhausted men of the Bari and Cagliari were urged on Hill 731 yet again at 2:30 a.m. in the morning of 14 March. The first to notice them were the outposts of the First Battalion on Hill 717. A detachment of the Cagliari’s 63 Regiment had infiltrated a footpath to the west of the hill; a Greek patrol fired on them but, in the darkness, the fire was ineffectual. The Italians continued their progress.

Lieutenant Georgios Ellinas of 3 Company of the First Battalion (19 Regiment) was killed in a futile attempt to halt the infiltration. The Italian advance rolled over the few defenders; the First Battalion called frantically for reinforcements from the 90 Regiment on the right. The reinforcements finally halted the Italian advance, whereupon the recently-ailing General Gianni, the commander of the Cagliari, called for saturation artillery fire. But that couldn’t stem the inevitable retreat.

Distracted by the unseen fighting on and around Hill 717, the defenders of Hill 731 found that a new wave of the Bari Division had crept up almost to their front trenches. Two soldiers gave the alarm. Zikos went out to look and saw the Italians had dug in a mere one hundred and fifty metres away. It was a clear, cold night and their helmets glinted in the starlight. He ordered his front line to open fire, to be answered by bursts from three light machine guns. Grabbing a mortar, he fired three rounds back, silencing one machine gun. There were two platoons of the Bari in front, giving covering fire for those behind.

Zikos sent a courier to ask for urgent reinforcements. Half an hour later, six men of the Second Battalion under Sergeant Samaras turned up and began shooting. One soldier, however, merely rested his head against the trench parapet, saying he was ill. The case was similar to one in 5 Company in a nearby sector, where an incoming projectile bounced off a soldier’s helmet, denting it, and exploded in a ravine. The soldier had hysterics and was carried, sobbing uncontrollably, to the dressing station in the rear. ‘Hey, dude,’ the battalion commander said after seeing that the soldier was physically unhurt, ‘brave guys don’t cry.’

‘I can’t help it, sir,’ the man stammered, alternating between sobs and hysterical laughter. ‘Look at my helmet!’ The major nodded and addressed a few sober words to the shaken soldier, who was given a couple of days’ rest and then sent back to the lines. In the Greek Army, the officers were generally closer to the men than the Italian officers were. It was not so much a

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