Ripi (Point 255)
The Brigadier and John O’Rourke came up near to us at the riverside while James and I were talking. The morning was just like a steam bath with thick haze effervescing up from the Liri beside us and water dripping off the trees. It was nice to be hidden by it for once.
Beyond us lay the Ceprano to Strangolagalli road but this was to be the last time we would see any road for quite a while. The Germans, of course, were sitting astride all of them.
After the usual greetings and exchanges of news, Pat sent us on our separate ways, charged with the task of opening routes forward for the rest of the division and flattening all opposition in our path. We were directed on Ripi, our course diverging from that of the Faughs who had Strangolagalli as their objective. The Faughs, at least, had a road as their axis to start with.
We lost touch with James anyway soon after we started owing to the vile nature of that jungle district. It was trackless and route-less, full of small ravines, scrub and hillocks – and Mike Everleigh said after studying it that it was worst tank going he had ever seen. ’I would have you know,’ said our gallant cavalry commander, ‘that we were trained for the desert.’ (Mike got an MC at Alamein).
Nonetheless, the efforts put in by the hussars to get their tanks over that abominable landscape were quite admirable. We, of course, on our feet raced ahead of them. But it was comforting to know they were there, crawling along behind us. They were somewhere up our sleeves and they would be needed as soon as we bumped in to real trouble.
No other vehicles of any kind were able to follow us – only the tanks, and I left all the A Echelon transport behind with Jerry. It would be his problem how he join up with us again, and I wondered vaguely when we would next see our adjutant – if ever.
Mervyn Davies went ahead of us with E Company in the dual role of forward screen and probing force but, for the next few hours, our problem was the appalling terrain rather than the enemy.
The physical effort of getting forward was very considerable and it entailed our soldiers scrambling over quite deep clefts every hundred yards or so and forcing their way through vast clumps of coppice growth and thickets in between them. They were also continually raising dust clouds sliding down the dry barren sides of the fissures. After a while, both men and weapons were covered in the white chalk dust which was so marked a feature of war in central Italy in dry weather.
Under such circumstances, it was not difficult for the enemy scouts to mark our progress.
Periodically, the silent waste was torn apart as unknown OPs engaged with mortar fire and occasionally they opened up with nebelwerfers. Then all the fiends of hell descended and the nearby scrub fragmented under the blast of their multiple explosions. The air was filled with flying particles and debris for some time afterwards but otherwise this random shooting was ineffective in such thick cover.
We never saw the enemy during that long afternoon and I doubt that they saw much of us either, other than the dust clouds and occasionally glimpsing the tanks as they heaved themselves over the hillocks.
Mervyn’s specific task was to reach and seize Hill 255 – a prominent lump of a feature which dominated the countryside for miles around and, lying as it did beside the road to Ripi, was a tactical feature of the highest importance. Whatever else they did, the enemy were sure to latch on to that one – unless we could get there first and this was the reason for our frantic race through the jungle.
In the late afternoon, E Company emerged from the wilderness after pushing through it for several hours under very hot and sticky conditions. Mervyn said afterwards that he owed the exactness of his landfall to the splendid map reading of his FOO, Alan Parsons, who was now in permanent demand by the forward companies.
They now found themselves with the company moving across a scrubby hillside and, as he came in sight of his objective, Mervyn sent Desmond Fay on with 7 Platoon to investigate.
This hill, Point 255, was covered in small trees and there were scattered houses nearby but, in fact, the whole of the district was rich in small features, which dominated their immediate surroundings – and allowed no obvious access to them. Hill 255 was substantially higher than the others and the enemy rearguard commander had not overlooked it. Mervyn soon found that it was thick with panzergrenadiers backed up with a mortar or two behind it. Fortunately, even the panzergrenadiers backed up with a mortar or two behind them. Fortunately, even the grenadiers had been unable to get tanks in to the place, though they had an SP behind them where the Strangolagalli to Ripi road swept across the rear of the position. That road was the reason for their presence.
Of course, the enemy had chosen the spot with their usual perception. It denied the only route forward in the district and they had already forced us to lose a day with our long haul across country. They now looked like costing us another one as well unless we could do something drastic to unhook them.
The enemy opened fire on E Company at quite long range – as soon as Fay’s scouts came in view of the hill. This was no doubt in accordance with Kesslering’s latest orders to his rearguards. Issued a few days previously, the generalfeldmarschall had instructed, ‘…I must stress particularly that the MGs, which have been set up in depth open fire at maximum range, that is up to 1000 metres with maximum expenditure of ammunition and force the enemy to disperse while he is preparing for, or is at the beginning of, his attack.
Mind you, I do not entirely agree with the field marshal, having learned the value of lying in wait for the enemy and trapping him, if possible. I also knew that that was the only sure way of ending pursuit altogether and it was best achieved at the closest ranges.
But Albert Kesselring, of course, was an airman and thought in more expansive terms.
No doubt, this edict was the reason for his conscientious machine gunners letting go whole belts at a time. It is also worth noting that they only succeeded in hitting two or three of our men in the whole course of the action, though we hit a good many of theirs through the premature disclosure of their positions. Among them, a few days later, was one of their commanders – devotedly carrying his instructions from the all highest in his pocket.
At the conclusion of a string of similar injunctions the C in C Sudwest had added, ‘…and demolitions of every kind must be more than ever executed with sadistic imaginativeness.’
Mervyn’s riflemen dived for cover as the bullets of half a dozen spandaus shredded the bushes and zinged through the trees above them with twigs and branches dropping on them as they crawled forward. For a short space, there was quite a battle as some of our bren teams found lying positions – usually through the crooks of trees as there was no forward vision at ground level. Inevitably, a few of them were hit in this phase of the action.
Mervyn probed through and round for a short while but with an open dip all around the enemy positions, he soon knew that he could get no further in daylight. Also, he then found that they were out of radio range from the guns, which were on the move anyway so they sent back to me instructions and went to ground in the nearby houses.
When I got up to E Company, I found Mervyn in a little farm house tucked in on the end of a narrow spur. Fortunately, his position overlooked the intervening ground in front of him, with the point itself rising up a few hundred yards further on.
The necessity of a staged attack was plain to both of us but, with the rest of the battalion still some distance behind us, it was 830pm before we were satisfactorily concentrated. And it was 10pm before I was in position to give orders. By then, there was bright moonlight and a silvery magical landscape to mirror it all. It was breathtakingly beautiful.
In the meantime, my BC had re-established contact with his gun positions and was busy registering his battery on to the feature. Ian, in fact, only fired a few ranging shells and none of them seemed particularly close. However, after a while he expressed himself satisfied. The rest of the evening then passed off in comparative silence, broken only by the random rifle shots of the snipers of both sides.
Mervyn, naturally, had to do the dirty work. I pointed out to him that apart from the mark of confidence and affection, he was the only one who had had a close up of the ground.
Accordingly, we assaulted the place with E Company only at midnight, after a few minutes concentrated fire from Ian’s regiment. The fewer men launched in that kind of attack the better but, in my opinion, the performance of 17th Field was mainly responsible for what happened. It was one of the most accurate that I have ever seen from our splendid gunners and, in view of the scant initial registration, to this day I do not know how they achieved it. They had only got themselves in to their new gun positions in the late afternoon as the whole regiment had been moving forward, battery by battery.
The other three companies held the ring while E went in – G sending a standing patrol forward to the road on the north side of 255 and H following E’s attack and stopping off in some houses on the nearside of our objective.
The surprise was total and perhaps improved by the company going off its bearing slightly. In consequence, Mervyn soon found himself through the flank of the enemy positions and behind the Germans before they were aware of his presence. He then turned his men half left, somehow, and made for the top of the hill, colliding with the enemy as he did so.
For a quarter of an hour, there was pandemonium and chaos, with bren guns and schmeissers blazing off in to the night intermixed with grenade explosions and the usual showers of sparks as tracer impacted.
The cessation, when it came, was as sudden as the onset had been. Mervyn then knew that his company had carried the place – and they never lost a man in the process.
The enemy fled. There was no point in a rearguard doing otherwise once an attack had gone home like that. But they abandoned most of their rifles and other impedimenta in their weapons pits and we found a number of their dead lying about when we studied the position at the conclusion. They must have been in a hurry that day as the rifle pits were only half dug and, in consequence, they had little chance under that hail from our guns.
A quarter of an hour later, silence descended on the grim little scene, broken only by our noisy riflemen calling to each other out of the darkness and E Company’s NCOs doing likewise as they got their men under control again. A few parachute flares rose lazily into the sky over the distant hills; then everything flickered out as the Irish Rifles subsided onto the damp ground for a space.
A night attack usually ends in a jolly good old mix up but this was less of one than usual. Its brevity helped. Mervyn cheerfully skated over the loss of direction and no tactless questions were asked. He said afterwards that the only order he gave his platoon commanders was, ‘Charge for the place where the shells are landing.’ He also mentioned that I hadn’t given him time for more elaborate instructions.
The companies lay up behind their weapons just where they happened to be without further movement and most of our men had an hour or two’s sleep. I did so myself from 3am to 4am. Then Mike arrived on foot with his tanks still some way behind him.
Ivan Yates appeared too, with a number of jeeps – and breakfast. He came in having used the Via Casilina west of Ceprano and, according to my map reading, his route took him well behind the enemy forward positions before he reached us.
The support company joined us also not long afterwards. S had travelled by more orthodox routes, having followed on into Strangalogalli after the Faughs had stormed into the place. Ivan may have considered himself expendable, but our mortar platoon and the machine gunners had different views. So had I – about all of them.
Ripi – San Giovanni.
Point 255 was only a prelude.
Pat signalled us to push on at first light and get in to Ripi if we could. This was just another perched up hill top town like a miniature Piedimonte, but a long way ahead of us. When the sun rose to light it up in the background, the panoramic scene was a fairyland, with Grimm’s tales needing nothing else for their setting. Ripi was slap in the centre of the picture, nearly six miles off, glinting in the morning light, beckoning and enticing.
In between, and less enticing, was the substantial but straggling village of San Giovanni, looking rather scruffy and out of accord with the rest of the landscape. There were blown up buildings at its approaches – plainly visible through our field glasses but, at least, we now had a road for our axis and that made all things possible.
The road had been opened up rearwards by the Faughs’ night actions round Strangolagalli but, from Point 255 onwards, it ran on past us through the intervening open country before disappearing in to the village. Beyond that again, but out of sight, it continued westwards until eventually joining Highway Six not far from Ripi. The key was Ripi.
Mike and Ian and I studied our assignment from the top of 255 and we were evidently not very careful while we did it as SP began ranging on us almost immediately. We duly dived in to the adequate cover of one of the German trenches as a string of 88s exploded all round us.
Thereafter, we continued more discreetly. The Germans were not up to their usual form either, as there was a good deal of movement visible and there were several of their tanks on the road not far in front of us. We sat and watched for some minutes as their grotesque outlines, like large black beetles, receded towards the village. There could well be others beyond them.
As we scanned the scene through our field glasses, we realised that the place was crawling with the opposition. Small rows of dots were plainly visible both on the road and across the corn – section gruppes on the move and no one seemed to be bothering; apparently the defence was still in the course of being organised. In the meantime, it was obvious to all three of us that there would be hard fighting before the day was done. But the key factor was that of our tanks. None of them were in sight yet and I declined to move without them.
At this stage, matters became rather embarrassing. Pat came on the air again and managed to convey that we are holding up the entire army and that our superiors were getting a little upset. Explaining tactical situations openly over the air was always tricky but I did manage to mention the un-wisdom of attacking armoured opposition without suitable facilities of their own. I said I thought there was a misconception – that we were about to carry out an attack against a position held in depth, not an ordinary advance guard movement – and would he pacify our chiefs until we had done so.
Circumstances like these made it necessary to discuss important matters by radio but I never thought that it mattered when the deed would be done before the enemy could react to our gossip.
Our brigade commander was at his best when provoked like this by higher authority and he accepted what his commanding officers on the spot said, without question. He had a tongue like a whiplash when he cared to use it – and no one was spared however exalted. In reply to even the scent of criticism, Pat could deliver a complex tactical summary in a few devastating sentences and there was little left for anyone to say when he had finished. Even Charles Keightley was known to wilt when Pat had expressed himself, sometimes ending lamely with, ‘Go on, Pat – have it your own way – you are usually right.’ That was just the trouble, Pat was ‘always right’ and no man ever had such a gift for reading the mind of the enemy.
But, of course, pressures on advanced guard commanders came straight from the C in C and the dear general came under the flail like everyone else did. On our part, we knew perfectly well, and Pat knew that, whatever the sins of his subordinate chiefs, at least none of us needed prodding.
There was a short pause over the radio when I switched across to him. ‘I see,’ he said, ‘Take your time and don’t mind what I said,’ and, after a further pause, in reference to the guns, ‘Rollo is standing by – as soon as they say so.’
A few minutes later, Pat called up again to say he was coming to see for himself. He would have done it anyway – and there was a lot to be said for being inaccessible just then. He said so when he arrived, ’There are times, John, when I prefer not to be in my HQ and this is one of them.’ He also said, referring to the general, ‘The man had the neck to ask me what I was bothered about – there was nothing worth mentioning in front of John anyway.’
Much to my relief, our tanks began to arrive in ones and twos shortly afterwards and, by 1100, most of B Squadron were concentrated and hidden in the folds behind us. It was a magnificent feat on the part of the hussars getting there at all across those hills and I had told Mike at the outset that I never expected to see him again.
They had been fifteen hours on route, all of them spent in intense physical labour and using their tanks like bull dozers – flattening out banks and water courses. Several had been abandoned and at least one had capsized.
Our brigadier arrived while the tanks were coming in and, after studying the battlefield in front of us, he needed no further convincing of the need for them. From the brigade point of view, little had to be done while we waited, though according to my recollection, Pat added a few more index numbers, with John O’Rourke’s and Ian’s assistance, to the artillery target code. These would cover isolated buildings and other spots likely to be occupied that we could see in front of us.
Pat stayed with me, with John and his own signallers until the kick off. Much of the time, he spent on the air to division, so I had a close up of his technique in sedating impatient generals. Of course, General Keightley was being much pressed himself just then with the whole of his division halted and, realising this, I also realised how rapidly tension multiplies down the command in such circumstances. But no infantry CO could ever give way to this, or to frustration, and Pat made it his business to shield us when our generals did so.
The operation in front of us was a straightforward encounter battle as we did not know exactly where the enemy was posted, only that he was present in strength. We would, therefore, have to probe forward until we hit them and then deal with events as they happened.
At least the delay enabled us to get the entire battalion fed and that counted for much during operations that one could not see the end of.
Zero hour was at noon and, five minutes later, the leading tank went up on a mine. This blocked the only track of a wall sided defile leading down to the Ripi road and the next hour was spent by our pioneers in clearing it. They had to lift out the mines, at which they were expert, and finished in no time, but excavating the diversion round the wrecked tank was an anxious and arduous business.
F Company then went ahead as the probing force, with E Company, full of their yesterday’s experience, not far behind them. But the hour long delay lying up behind the Rip road, after they had already once started, had been testing enough even for veterans and I think we were glad to be in the move again. Mike Everleigh was immediately behind Mervyn with two of his tank troops and these would work forward from one rise to the next, progressively covering each other from hull down positions.
I stayed with one of the troops myself, with Ian in the tank with me, and we never went far from the road in the whole of the day’s operations. There are serious space restrictions in a Sherman and, owing to my BC’s presence, it had been necessary to dispense with the services of the hussar gunner, who normally manned the 75. This was no worry to Mike, who was short of men anyway, but it was just as well that he gave both of us a run over the handling of the weapon at the outset.
The remaining tanks and the rest of the battalion stayed out of sight behind us, following also up the line of the road and ready for immediate use as soon as the situation required it.
For a short space nothing happened, as the long extended line of F Company spread themselves over the broken ground ahead. But we had not covered the first mile before machine gun bullets were whipping across the road from both sides of us. The long sustained lasts of the spandaus were then thickened up by shelling as one SP after another joined in, firing down the road – with every shell bouncing and fragmenting tarmac and gravel exploding in all directions. Faithful to all their latest instructions, several of their machine gun posts were firing off very long bursts one after the other and the road became alive as the banks dissolved and flying earth showered all over it.
Mike did not have to be told what to do and, in a few minutes his tanks were engaging from their covering positions and firing in to one house after another on the assumption that most of them were occupied. The others edged up while they did so.
There was little difficulty in locating at least some of our targets as we studied the battlefield ahead through our glasses and the 17th Field were in action almost as rapidly as the tanks were. After a while, the small arms fire started to fade and I noticed thin streaks of oil smoke rising in to the sky near the village – one of Mike’s gunners had just clobbered an SP, or thought he had, and shouted his delight back over the air to his squadron commander.
Radioing to E Company to stop and the other companies to deploy, we then put in a full scale attack on the village, while the 17th Field Regiment swung all their three batteries on to the place. They began by saturating it with HE and then added smoke as our men broke in across the rubble in front of it.
G Company went in to the south of the road, F continued on the centre line and H across the north side of the village. With only E Company up my sleeve, this was hardly the best practice; launching one’s whole force, or most of it, simultaneously, wore a faint look of Dettingen and the results that followed were rather similar to King George’s robust action.
The ensuing street fighting set the pattern for future events – though the method would not be repeated. As San Giovanni possessed only its three quarter mile length of high street, with a few minor side alleys, the main part of the battle flowed along its length and F’s role was the decisive one.
On either flank, the other companies found themselves mixed up in the gardens and outbuildings and, with one obstacle after another to contend with, they were soon left behind. Also, with no central axis and most of the town smothered in its smoke cloud, they rapidly lost touch with their own men as well as with each other.
In no time at all, I had half the battalion out of control and all that could be said in favour of the technique was the flank companies’ undoubted success in pulling in prisoners – bolting sideways from our spear thrust down the centre.
In the case of F Company, the forward movement never stopped and the combination with the tanks was irresistible. B Squadron’s forward troop worked up each side of the main street, putting a round or two from their cannon through doorways or windows with our rifleman racing in from behind them with grenades. It was a slow job but a thorough one. It was also a very messy man, and, long before it was over, nearly three hours later, most of the tanks had run out of ammunition.
The scenes, while it was in progress, beggared description, with the dense swirling fog from the smoke shells split by the long flashes of the 75s and the colossal explosions as their shells impacted.
Occasionally, some stout hearted jager let rip with a schmeisser but, otherwise, there was not much last ditch resistance – though stick grenades came sailing over the walls often enough.
Colin became quite enthusiastic over the radio as these events unfolded and he and the troop commander reported continued progress. A little later, they had reached the centre of the village and, at that stage, I drove on into it with Ian to join them.
Forward visibility at the same time was almost nil, with brick dust and artillery smoke following across the street – so thick that one could hardly breathe in it. I must say that we did perhaps push on a bit too far and, emerging through on the other side of this witch’s cauldron, I stopped for a space to talk to the companies.
Sitting in the turret top with the headphones on, one certainly hears very little of other noises but, while talking on the radio to Colin Gibbs, I noticed several of the enemy dart round the corner of one of the buildings a few yards in front of us. They then dived over a nearby wall and the next thing I knew was a hideous explosion as one of their anti-tank rockets brought down part of the house behind the tank. Luckily, Ian was in the gunner’s seat and, as we hurriedly backed off into the smoke, he lowered sights and traversed on to our assailants without a word said between us. He then proceeded to blow the wall to pieces with two or three deft shots from the 75 and, after the rubble had stopped sliding, there was no further sign of life. Some of F Company’s riflemen were on the scene shortly afterwards and found one or two of the enemy lying there frightened. The others had evidently run for it.
At this stage, I pulled E Company into the battle again and sent them up the other side of the street in harness with F.
Almost two hours later, San Giovanni was in our hands. Part of it was burning due to Mervyn’s zeal with 77 grenades – smoke bombs, which his exuberant riflemen had tossed gaily in to one house after another as they came to them. There had been several instances of the enemy jumping out of windows after being attacked in this horrible manner. I expect they were half asphyxiated but none could see to engage them effectively as they ran or hobbled off blindly into the smoke.
With the fall of the town at dusk, the Rifles were in total disarray and it took over an hour to sort out the battalion. No one had the slightest idea where they were after the turmoil had ended. And, as the whole place was thick with smoke, with visibility virtually nil, they could not see where anyone else was either. As the murk deepened, I gradually realised that night was falling. Our riflemen had been fighting for nearly nine hours.
Eventually, Desmond appeared out of the gloom, with H Company filing cheerfully behind them. They were indescribably dirty but, keyed up by their experiences, there was little sign of fatigue. There were just a few rueful grins as I indicated Ripi to Desmond. Then, they shouldered their rifles and were off again into the gloaming.
For the next hour or two, the starry night was punctuated by rifle shots and intermittent explosions as nearby mortars searched after us but, eventually, even this petered out and it was clear that organised opposition had ended. Desmond’s fighting patrol entered and scoured Ripi and they found it abandoned. With that news, I brought the other companies forward and we concentrated the battalion among the scattered houses on the south west fringe of the town.
By the time we had done this, it was about 0100 and I was able to signal our brigadier that we had carried out his instructions. And the enemy had carried out theirs too – it had taken us twelve long hours to overpower them.
Twenty of our men had been hit in the course of the battle. About half of them were grenade casualties and several were only slightly wounded but I do not think that many of the defenders got away from San Giovanni. There were quite a number of German dead lying up and down the street, mostly shot down by the tanks’ besas and F Company found a whole section killed in one house, apparently by a shell bursting inside it. We estimated eighty or more enemy casualties at the time but this was probably exaggerated. Mike’s men had destroyed two SPs near the entry of the village, both burned out and they winged another. We also picked up fifteen panzergrenadier prisoners and a large assortment of machine guns and other weapons.
This German rearguard was a strong one and seems to have been under orders to hold its positions for as long as possible – in other words, to the end. Otherwise, the scrimmage in the village was pointless and achieved nothing save its own destruction. I never learned what it consisted of but as it was well above company strength and backed by a full retinue of support weapons, I expect we were fighting a battalion – if only the skeletal remains of one. The number of weapons captured indicated that but, whatever the composition of the kampfgruppe, it was clearly regarded as expendable by its iron fisted army commander.
I talked to some of the prisoners later. They were quite a nice lot, smart and respectful. We may have caught the enemy on the wrong foot at San Giovanni but it would be a grave error to assume that this would happen next time. The German army was never more dangerous that on the recoil and, after an action like this, had been the exhilaration of victory and pursuit could end in disaster if we dropped our guard for an instant.
Writing to father during these two days, I had mentioned,
‘…and it is a grand feeling to be going forward the whole time. We have not done badly for rest and my faithful QM has fed us wonderfully. He runs a kind of oven and produces cakes to Elizabeth’s pre-war standard.
….pause here for three hours spent in movement. Life is a mad whirl at the moment. In my present HQ, there are two large rabbits….now being pursued by the pioneer platoon.
Our breakfast is now on its way – 625pm. We missed it at the last place. Another two hours – have just been over to Pat, who is in tremendous form. Beginning to get dark now so will have to wind up. Sorry for a short letter.’
And on 31 May, after the battle:
‘My dear Pop….present dwellings are an immense improvement as this war had flowed so fast that buildings etc have not had a chance to get battered in to ruins….we are revelling in clean clothes and a complete wash and feel quite young again. I don’t think we have ever been quite so tired as when we drew rein at 1am this morning. Also, I don’t think I have seen the Master Race run so fast since their performance at Sidi Bel Hadi a year ago.
…..the locals are delighted to see us and crowds gather round to welcome and press vino upon us.
Pat and James Dunnill came in this morning for late breakfast – 11am. The good old Faughs are ok and continue to put across their usual stuff. Anyway, as far as all of us are concerned, nothing can go wrong with Pat at the helm.
….Our turbulent priest Dan (Reverend D Kelleher Roman Catholic padre of the Irish Brigade) had just come in and announced his intention of holding a service this evening. All the warriors like him very much and most of them will go. After that, we have a special celebration with Mike Everleigh and other confederates. The Doc, my Welsh Irishman Rhys Evans, had just come in with a load of Marsala…the Herrenvolk must have been badly shaken to have abandoned it.
L/Cpl Clanachan is now busy with the wash tub in the sun doing all my garments I have been wearing for the last week – rather an overpowering job as they are dirtier than anything I have ever seen before. He is being aided by two small boys.”
Mervyn left us temporarily after the action of San Giovanni. Rhys having doubted his ability to keep him alive much longer at his present pace. Mervyn’s constitution was not quite so durable as his heart and, like several others of our riflemen, he had propelled himself beyond what he could physically cope with in recent days.
Bala said years later, ‘Of course, Mervyn gave his whole heart and soul to the task in hand and he never let up for a minute. No one could keep that up indefinitely.’ So, E Company’s commander had a brief spell in hospital – and was back again to give Bala further service of like quality in the ensuing winter.
Mervyn had been continuously engaged since the first landings in Italy and Ion Goff had appointed him to command E at the beginning of the year; Ion was a good picker of men.