Ortona Street Fight by Mark Zuehlke

Author:Mark Zuehlke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS027100, book
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2011-05-03T16:00:00+00:00

The Canadians in Ortona were in a bad way when night fell on December 22. They had suffered many casualties during the past two weeks. Both infantry battalions were at about half their normal strength. These men were scattered throughout the town in small groups. Each little party settled down for the night inside a building or behind one of the many piles of rubble. Their job was to maintain some semblance of a continuous front line. It was a difficult task in the darkness and unfamiliar streets.

To make it impossible for the Canadians to rest, the Germans kept firing machine guns and rifles. Both sides continued to pound the other with artillery and mortar fire throughout the night. The resulting racket was hellish. There was also the constant danger of the paratroopers creeping up to attack their positions. So it was necessary for at least half the men in each party to be awake at all times.

Conditions were better for the Germans. They had deployed just one battalion inside Ortona for the day’s fighting. It had about as many men as the two Canadian battalions together. These men were well rested. In a street battle the defender always had the advantage. Paratroopers could wait in their prepared positions for the Canadians to come to them. Men watching from the rooftops could follow the progress of the Edmontons and Seaforths and direct others to positions facing them. This enabled the Germans to only commit some of the battalion to the fighting. The others were able to rest in the railroad tunnels. They were safe from the Canadian artillery fire.

The paratroopers were well trained in street fighting. They were used to operating in small independent groups. They were skilled at slipping small parties of men behind the enemy. Once they got inside the Canadian lines, the paratroopers could carry out a lightning-fast raid on a single position. Or they could set up a machine gun and shoot up a large part of the Canadian rear area. Getting a reaction force organized to counterattack the machine gun required at least a few minutes. Before the Seaforths or Edmontons could get moving, the machine-gun crew usually slipped away into the darkness. And struck again at another spot.

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