Goodbye to the Mountains.
At the end of the month, we were relieved by 36 Brigade.
Brigade Headquarters, the Skins and the Faughs moved back to a first class rest area 4 miles north of Florence. The London Irish remained under command of 11 Brigade and didn’t join us there until 4th February. Whilst with 11 Brigade, they renewed their acquaintance with their old friends, the Salaras and little Spaduro and held this locality without incident. It was much quieter than when they first went there.
Our rest area was admirably chosen. Billets consisted of modern Italian villas situated largely amongst pine trees. The weather remained perfect throughout our stay.
Florence quickly got to know that the Irish Brigade had arrived. Among noteworthy parties, was one given by the officers of the Faughs in rather a quaint basement. All ranks dances were held by the Skins in Florence and the London Irish at their local village. On the more serious side, there was a Divisional Commander’s inspection on February 6th. Both the Faughs and the Skins marched past him, prior to his inspecting billets. The settings for parades were admirably chosen and the Divisional Commander remarked on the smartness of the turnout of battalions and thoroughly enjoyed the Pipes and Drums. On the 7th, he inspected the billets of the London Irish and saw companies carrying out training. General Charles Keightley, Commander of 5 Corps, also paid Brigade Headquarters a visit on this day and he and the Divisional Commander lunched there to the music of the pipes and drums of the London Irish Rifles. His visit was well timed as the Brigade began to move to Forli to come under his command two days later. We were now in the 8th Army again.
Whilst we were reluctant to leave Florence so soon, this move into the Po valley was looked forward to by many of us with interest. We had spent months wondering what the valley would be like and now we could find out.
This new vision of the plains of the Po valley presented an interesting spectacle in those of us, who had spent so long in the mountainous terrain of the Apennines. Even the Liri valley could not be compared with this type of country.
The whole plain was covered in vegetation and dotted with houses. Every field was bounded by rows of vines and tress about six to twelve feet high, affording little observation and restricting any view to a maximum of two hundred yards. Rivers and canals abounded, especially nearer the Adriatic coast, all of them flanked on either side by high dykes as a precaution against flooding.
There was a comprehensive network of roads and tracks, reducing the transport problem to the absolute minimum. The main roads were in excellent condition. What a relief and a joy after the mountain roads where nothing short of a mule track was, more often than not, the lifeline of more than one division. Traffic blocks were unheard of in this part of the world.
Houses, green fields, eggs and fowl were to be found but the green fields were treated with reserve. Stories were liberally circulated about the number of mines that were hidden in them. Maybe those arose from wishful thinking as to the possibility of training being restricted because of this danger but there was certainly a good foundation for them.
The Brigade was again extremely lucky in the location of billets in, or just outside, the town of Forli. They were less lucky as regards the state of the billets themselves. They had been previously occupied by the Italian Army. About three days concentrated shovelling and scraping did wonders. For a few days, training had to take second place but, by the 14th February, all battalions were hard at it, and one heard the usual remarks expressed by people, wishing they were back in the line.
Forli presented a fair amount of entertainment for the chaps and there were quite a number of other sizeable towns well within striking distance. Forli possessed a first class NAAFI called the Dorchester. This magnificent Fascist building provided meals and entertainment for anything up to 10,000 men daily and its scope was terrific. The soldier could do anything there from sending flowers home to his wife, to learning to play the piano.
The dress and bearing of the Brigade when walking out in Forli was of its usual high standard and many were the remarks expressed of praise and surprise by those who lived in this town and had not seen real soldiers for some time.
On February 17th, the massed Pipes and Drums together with the band of the Royal Ulster Rifles beat Retreat in the Prefecture Square, Forli. At the conclusion, the officers of Brigade Headquarters entertained a large number of guests, including the Divisional Commander. The 1st Battalion, London Irish Rifles were also in Forli at the time and the St Patrick’s blue and green hackles were much in evidence.
The Beginning of a New Phase
I got back from leave on the 18th February 1945 and found everyone in excellent spirits. Getting away from mountains and mules had done everyone a power of good. The only major change that had occurred in my absence was the departure of Rollo Baker. On 23rd January, this trusted friend of two years standing, gave up command of the 17th Field Regiment to take up an appointment at home. He was so much a part of the Brigade that his departure was a great blow to us. A farewell party was held for him at Brigade Headquarters on the night of his departure and several of his own officers attended. We wish him well and welcome his successor, Rupert Lecky, from Country Carlow.
A number of people, from the Army and Corps Commander downwards, congratulated us on the smart turn out of all our soldiers. I certainly congratulate them – they added great tone to the streets of Forli.
This period in Forli was one of hard preparatory training and strenuous social gatherings in the evening. Most exhausting. There was not any particular event of noteworthy importance – except to the individuals concerned. The Faughs held most successful Barossa day celebrations in their billet – the one time “Adolph Hitler Barracks” – correctly renamed by them “St Patrick’s Barracks”. I enclose their account:
Barossa Day.
“At precisely 0700 hrs, the band, with Pipes and Drums playing merrily, awakened the battalion from its slumbers in traditional style, Another Barossa Day had dawned.
The first event of the day was the Irish Dancing Competition – this to take the form of a Four Hand reel. By eleven o’clock, the crowd had started to collect. It was easy to pick out the teams from the different companies. The ‘victims’ stood slightly apart from the others looking rather nervous and far from confident and the pipers stood with their various discoveries giving them a parting word of advice. The judges, Brigadier Scott and Brigadier Low, an old Faugh who had come up to see the fun, together with the Drum and Pipe Majors, took up their respective positions. After a short introduction and a word of advice – and warning – to the competitors, Brigadier Scott gave the word for the first team to take the floor. The dauntless four of B Coy stepped forth.
The Piper’s fingers moved swiftly up and down the chanter, the dancers moved gracefully into the ‘Hands In’ and the crowd gazed on enraptured. The crowd remained silent until the last movement when they raised various war whoops and cries, to the delight of all and the discomfiture of the dancers.
And so it went on – ‘D’, ‘C’, ‘HQ’ and ‘S’ Companies one after the other in quick succession, each team trying to bring forth all the Irish blood in their veins in an effort to bring out the best. Indeed RP Bennett was strained to the utmost for he had to produce enough Irish blood for four in his set, the remainder of the team being “furriners”.
Nor should the efforts of ‘C’ Coy be omitted from this record. It may be that they were put there to affect the Irish humour necessary for such a day – they certainly produced the ‘goods’. Their respective movements would have done justice to any herd of bull elephants, as they darted forward to grasp a hand that was not there, or stamped a foot down on to another foot that was there.
Faintly, about the sound of the pipes, one could hear ‘Get on wid ye’…’That’s the wrong hand’ – ‘You’re …… wrong’. The crowd roared. Yet we all enjoyed the dance. I’m sure the dancers did, for they had a good laugh to themselves after the show.
‘D’ Coy were judged the winners with ‘HQ’ second. One of the ‘furriners’ had stepped on the wrong foot, despite the Dublin blood coursing through the team. The winners received prizes from Brigadier Low, after which the Officers performed with grace, followed by a demonstration of how it should be done by the pipers themselves.
The next item on the programme was the Officers v Sergeants Football Match, held at three o’clock in the afternoon, in a small field between the rows of vines at the rear of the barracks.
To any ordinary spectator, it would appear that a major battle was in progress once the game began. Over to the right, a 6 pounder anti tank gun was booming forth with a terrific roar and all the vim and vigour and arduous endeavour possible was applied by both sides. It would be quite impossible to describe the sartorial designs upon which the eye rested owing to the fact that they changed every passing moment: for instance, an officer in a beautiful creation of pale pink pyjamas would flash past and the next moment would flash back – minus the pyjamas. The Sergeants’ goal was ably defended by the RQMS wielding a sack of flour to great effect. Grenades, of course, were much in evidence and the efforts of Sergeant Cross saved at least one goal. It happened thus. CSM Robinson made a magnificent break through and had an open goal before him, he trotted complacently towards it, intending to make a touchdown in the centre of the posts when, without warning, and to his intense amazement, both goal posts suddenly went sailing sky high and the ground was rocked by a great explosion. Another of Sergeant Cross’s specials.
Even the spectators were not immune. RQMS Cheyne found it necessary to chastise the Pipe Major, who was both floored and ‘floured’ in one stroke. Capt Chambers also became white haired through the same deadly implement, although he was only the referee. Major Jack Phelan was there with his usual steamroller tactics, the Adjutant, as usual, was torn to shreds; Capt Broadbent as Longstop; Lieut Molliard with his usual dash and daring – all did their damndest, but eventually the aid of the Royal Artillery had to be called in. Naturally, 26 Battery of 17 Field Regiment obliged and became a danger to both sides as well as to the spectators. Flames belched from the barrel as round after round bellowed forth. It became necessary in the end for the Sergeants to make the field gun their main objective. The gun was charged by a motley throng. It was at this stage that the immunity of the spectators became imperilled. Captain Dickie Richards, who preferred the company of the fair sex to the manly ‘sport’ had dared to bring with him a rather attractive member of the Nursing services. He was taken by a low flying tackle by Captain Broadbent, dragged to earth and set up on by about half a dozen willing aides and finally stuffed with grass and straw from a particularly convenient haystack. After a short sharp scuffle around a shell hole filled with water, in which more than one innocent went for his annual bath, the great match ended.
No one knew to this day who won.
The rest of the day was given up to private parties. There was a good stock of wine available. Stores had been accumulated for weeks past. NAAFI issues had been jealously guarded and brought out for the occasion and, in the evening, the barracks rang with songs and laughter.
The Officers held a dinner party in the evening at which a considerable number of old faces were present. After the dinner, a few speeches were made and then the remaining members of the Brigade Group began to arrive to wind up the evening in wine and song.
Gradually, the parties broke up and the song and laughter died away. Silence reigned, except for the occasional ring of the sentry’s musket on the concrete and another Barossa Day had passed into history”.
The weather was glorious all this time. In fact, there was hardly a drop of rain for two months. It was warm and pleasant. Spring would soon be here. In Spring, new campaigns begin and far reaching plans are made. This was the phase we were now entering so I shall conclude my story for the present.
Preparing for the Final Battles.
I finished my last story on Barrosa Day. I did this because I really could not go any further in telling the story at that time without incurring the wrath of the censors and possibly even worse. I can now tell the full story of the last phase of the war in Europe without any let or hindrance. It is only four months since that Barrosa Day. In retrospect it seems more like a year.
When I got back from leave, I found everyone talking about either the Spring offensive or about “D Day Dodgers.” I had not heard this expression before but now it was almost universal everywhere we went. Apparently Lady Astor was alleged – possibly incorrectly – to have referred in these terms to the Army in Italy. Anyway, it had been taken up, and even ‘Jon’, the 8th Army “Two Types” Cartoonist had produced a cartoon about D Day Dodger. Bala Bredin had reproduced this D Day Dodger business all over his jeep, which was not viewed kindly in some higher quarters. So popular did the theme become that people started to write songs and poems about it. Bill Cooper and the lads of 214 Field Company produced quite a good one, which they were always prepared to sing at any gathering. I have included it as an Appendix.
We had now to prepare for two things. We had to train for the floodbank fighting on the Senio River, an entirely new form of warfare; and we had to prepare for a very mobile, highly armoured pursuit battle with the objective of exterminating the German Armies in Italy.
This floodbank business was the nearest approach we ever met to the type of Iife that I have always visualised the last war to have been.
Ground and, to a lesser extent, weather entirely dominates the type of warfare that one is to indulge in. When I was at home on leave, I was out on a pair of skis one day near Omagh and met a party of recruits from our ITC, doing what I believe is called basic training. They were wandering about disconsolately in the snow. I pulled up on a bridge and had a talk to the Sergeant, who was in charge of them. He had no idea, of course, who I was and probably mistook me for a local farmer. I asked him how he was getting on with his chaps. He said he was not getting on well because the snow was hindering their tactical training on the ground and it was very difficult to do what they were supposed to do. He said how could one train in snow. My answer was, how could one fight in snow? He said he did not know but hoped that they would never have to. His unrealistic attitude was typical of most of us before the war. I asked him if he realised that at the moment, the majority of the British Army were fighting in snow and that therefore to train in snow in the conditions that he was faced with at the moment was probably the most realistic training that he had ever done. He obviously thought I was talking rot and how could I know anyway. Eventually, I lost my patience a little and told him quite a lot of things about training and a variety of other subjects. He probably recognised me two days later when I talked to all the NCOs at the ITC.
I rarely mention this episode because in modern war we seem to be frequently faced with all sorts of freak warfare due to some particular formation of the ground. Whoever thought in England, before the war, of practising the art of war on the tops of the highest hills, in the Lincoln Fens or in the deepest snow of winter such as this Sergeant was doing?
Yet these types of warfare were those that we met most frequently in Italy. Salisbury Plain and the “GS heather” country of the Alder Command were no use to men or beast. Who, in England, would have permitted us to carry out our training through thick vegetation, crops, pheasant coverts and so on? Yet that was the type of country that we fought through in the Liri Valley and we were about to meet again. We have always been too much in the habit of looking for “A nice bit of country for a scheme”, instead of taking any and every type of country and discovering how the devil we shall fight in it with all arms. The principles of fighting remain the same but their application to this variety of ground requires very deep knowledge of them because it must be so different.
We had advanced from the highest snow clad mountains of the Apennines, abrupt and sheer in their minor features, to a flat, fertile plain covered with vines and crops and with very limited visibility. Cutting across this every mile or two were tremendous floodbanks, anything up to 30 feet high and 10 feet wide at the top. They often went up in terraces; terraces wide enough to drive a vehicle along. None of them were exactly the same. Each one had its own character. They were all too steep to drive a tank straight up them. In places, there were cart tracks traversing the side and sometimes ramps that a tank could go up. The rivers between these banks varied too in width, depth and speed of current. They had all been spanned by high level bridges – that is, from the top of one floodbank to the other. I do not think any of them had been left intact. Initially the Army had got across them by blowing through the floodbank and using a low level bridge, the high level bridge being made later.
Any visibility that there was in this flat country was either a floodbank or some high house and neither of these enables you to get a close view over the floodbank on the other side.
There was one good thing about this part of the world. Owing to the agricultural richness, there were plenty of houses and, owing to the nature of the vegetation, it was very difficult for the Germans to see many of them. The Huns had no Air OPs like we had.
There was an absolute network of parallel roads and tracks intersecting the country. We could, therefore, get about anywhere on wheels very quickly. This was a novel experience, which had not met anywhere before. Of course, a lot of them were dirt tracks, which meant driving slowly in forward areas to avoid attracting unpleasant attention from tell tale dust.
I have always been very keen on the sayings of that unpleasant man Bismarck – “Fools buy their own experience; I prefer to profit from the experience of others.” We, therefore, took a great deal of trouble in finding out everything we could of the experiences of others before undertaking this form of warfare. It was evident that two old fashioned virtues were going to play a large play in this contact: the use of small arms of every description and digging. Not just ordinary digging, but digging tunnels, as well as precarious earthworks near the tops of floodbanks. Plenty of shooting, therefore, comprised a large part of the preparation for our next spell.
We still had the major issue to consider in training too – the Spring Offensive. A lot of tank-cum-infantry work was necessary for this, with special regard to the intimate cooperation of platoons and companies with troops of tanks. We had had a good deal of experience of this already but there was always room for improvement and it is always necessary to check over everything very carefully when tanks and infantry come together who have not previously fought before in partnership.
The 2nd Armoured Brigade was to cooperate with the 78th Division during the coming offensive. This Brigade was commanded by John Currie, who had some very interesting experiences in escaping from the Italians earlier on. His Second-in-Command was Peter Payne Gallway, whom we had known well as CO of the Derby Yeomanry in 6th Armoured Division. He was just the sort of person we were looking for, as his knowledge of mountain infantry with tanks would be a great help in the forthcoming operations. The Bays were to be our Regiment. They were commanded by Margot Asquith, who had been at Sandhurst with me, and he had an excellent team under his command. It was evident from the start that this union was going to be a success. Other Regiments were the 9th Lancers and the 10th Hussars. At a later date, we had intimate dealings with them too – they were three magnificent Regiments.
A new form of warfare materialised about this time, the use of ‘Kangaroos’. The ‘Kangaroos’ were either turretless Shermans, which carried a section or “degunned” Priests, which carried two sections. The object of these machines was to enable the infantry to keep up with the tanks and to move over shell and bullet swept ground with a fair degree of ingenuity. We had never found that there was any difficulty in infantry keeping up with tanks on their feet but the second aspect of the use of ‘Kangaroos’ was a most attractive one. Up till now, they had only been used once in battle, in a rather specialised operation where both flanks were secure and visibility was very limited. Official opinion on the correct way to handle ‘Kangaroos’ was divergent and we really had to arrive at the answer to all these things by trial and error on the ground. The difficulty was to get hold of the wretched ‘Kangaroos’ to do this and, in fact, our regiment of tanks was elusive as well. Both had other commitments. Our Armoured Exercise, therefore, formed the other part of any periods we had available for training.
The 4th Hussars had been converted into this ‘Kangaroo Army’. They had been ordered to train with about five different divisions in a very short time and, not unnaturally, about everyone they were dealing with had somewhat different ideas. I was full of admiration for the patience and efficiency with which this distinguished cavalry regiment adapted itself to its very difficult role. They were all out to try anything.
Flame throwing was becoming popular at this period too. Each battalion had four ‘Wasps’, which were carriers carrying a flame throwing apparatus. They also had four ‘Lifebouys’, which were portable Flame Throwers as was the ‘Crocodile’, which was a Churchill tank pulling an armoured container behind it. In our practice in village fighting, we found much use for these Flame Throwers. It was also an attractive thought to singe the stubborn Germans on the floodbanks with this machine. Both ‘Crocodiles’ and ‘Wasps’ emitted a frightening spurt of flame, which the Germans never really got used to. I never heard of any German being seen with flaming trousers, but I think the reason for that was probably due to discretion being the better part of valour in the presence of Flame Throwers!
Various other engines of war were making appearance too. The Assault REs produced their ‘Arks’ and Avres, with which one could pass tanks over minor obstacles with remarkable speed. Sherman bulldozers that prepared the way for this equipment were invaluable – sometimes, they could do it so well that the ‘Arks’ were unnecessary. These things put a new complexion on the use of tanks in this ditch intersected country. Flail tanks which lashed the ground in front of them and blew up any mines in the way were another invaluable piece of equipment. Platypus grousers were fitted to the tracks of tanks, which increased their cross country performance out of all recognition and also their ability to get through boggy ground, which previously had immobilised them. Hidden in the background, a jealously guarded secret from all eyes, were the swimming tanks and the ‘Fantails’, which was to carry the accompanying infantry across rivers.
As well as everything else, a somewhat different technique of river crossing was required. The normal river crossing is generally rather a ponderous affair where the boats are carried slowly and carefully on tiptoe so as to make no noise and the boats are slowly and carefully put into the water without making a splash. It seemed to me that quite a different technique would be required if we had to cross those funny rivers. Boats could be brought up without any difficulty to the back of a floodbank when this was held by our own troops but the difficulty was from then on. Any hope of surprise was quite out of the question. Our technique in training was, therefore, to get the boats as close under the floodbank as possible and probably very near to the top and then go absolutely hell for leather with the boats (or even better kapok bridge), down the other side, across the river and up the far bank in as many places as possible. The drill for this took quite a bit of learning but the chaps got quite good at it. It was yet another thing that we had to work on in this all too short and hectic period.
Our Army was really well equipped for a fast moving battle over the country in front of us.
You will see we had a lot to think about during these days. There were also a lot parties at night and, what with the parties and training, and the thought that was required to arrange both, we were all kept extremely busy.