John Kerr says in his narrative that his companies were in on their objectives and consolidating during the night, though it is clear that they were no more consolidating than we were when the dawn came.
Fighting went on in Pucciarelli all night with rifle shots, the screech of schmeissers and grenade explosions erupting every few minutes. And between times, there was the continual plop of flares as the Skins vainly tried to locate their persistent opponents.
During the night, John nearly lost his driver and signallers, who overshot in the darkness and drove straight into a German picket. Two of them survived the ensuing fireworks somehow and finished up under their wrecked machine. They had driven over a precipice, dodging backwards in reverse through the schmeisser bursts.
At first light, the Skins, in their turn, were counter attacked. A German infantry company came in through the orchards with one or two tanks behind them and massive artillery support. They were in to Pucciarelli in the half light and immediately the confusion increased.
The Vickers team of the Kensingtons were soon in the limelight as a number of determined jagers broke in to the buildings round them. Cullen’s machine guns were not at their best in such circumstances and Teddy had the strange experience of finding his opponents storming through the floors below them. Here, he acquired permanent fame in his regiment by unshipping one of the tripods and, using the gun like a pneumatic drill against the denizens beneath. Eventually, they set the place on fire and the Germans started to blow it to bits with one of their SPs. After that, the devoted machine gunners had to move out hurriedly.
Possession of Pucciarelli remained in dispute for the rest of the day and, unfortunately, the adjoining territory was still firmly in German hands. The ground that they held was vital, and while denied to us, made further movement by either battalion impossible.
Between the Inniskillings and ourselves were two tactical strong points and both involved substantial groups of buildings. One of these sat squarely on the top of the Pucciarelli ridge, half way between E Company and the Skins’ nearest points, and the other in the centre of the slopes running east from the crossroads. A few hundred yards apart, both were mutually supporting, but it seemed that if we captured the former, the latter would be untenable, being isolated and surrounded.
But again I was wrong. Not one of our opponents quit easily at Trasimene.
At 0845, we resumed our attack on the ridge to clear out these strong points. As G Company alone remained in any substantial strength, we mounted the assault with a solitary platoon from them under John Gartside – Peter’s remaining subaltern. Lieutenant Bob Sheriff, with three of B Squadron’s tanks went with him – all that Douglas had left just then, save for his own machine and mine.
As we discovered later, the position was held by an infantry company, battered and weakened but still resolute. They were about seventy strong, with one or two mortar detachments and other specialists.
The attack began with the usual concentrations from the 17th Field, followed up as the movement began with several of our guns putting smoke down. The enemy retaliated immediately with heavy defensive fire on all our positions, evidently assuming that we were continuing the main offensive.
The tanks worked up along the ridge in the cover of the olive trees, screened from the front for the most part by the smoke. As B Squadron closed on the buildings, our mortars did some spectacular shooting, ending with further smoke as John Gartside’s men crept up. A few signal lights soared into the air from the German posts as their spandaus opened up, but that soul searching howl stopped abruptly as our tanks fired in to them
Watching through my field glasses near the crossroads, I saw again the colossal explosions of the 75s as they tore chunks out of the buildings and, moments later, John’s men were racing in to the nearest one. They then carried on with our usual technique, working from one house to the next, while the tanks ground slowly through gardens and yards – and achieved everything short of climbing the stairs.
Then we lost one of them as armour piercing shot from an 88 clanged into it from the north. The smoke had ebbed or lifted momentarily and that was enough for our vigilant adversaries. In a few more minutes, as other shots went home, the machine was throwing out black smoke and adding to the murk now shrouding the buildings.
Eventually, the other tanks stooped firing as they could no longer see, but the dull thud of grenades continued and then died away in silence. The seconds passed, then the pause was shattered by a storm of musketry as the garrison took to its heels and our bren teams opened up on them. For a space, the corn was alive with scattered grey clad figures running flat out northwards.
The tanks joined in with their besas for a few exhilarating minutes and the scene was reminiscent of bolting rabbits at harvest time.
At 11am, John signalled success, having cleared every building in both positions, house by house and room by room. Five or six men had been hit, though several were minor injuries and the 11th CAR had lost another of their tank crews. John found a dozen German dead or dying in the buildings and he brought in seventeen prisoners. The effect of our fire on the retreating gentry could never be known as the corn, itself, hid all beneath it. When running figures went down like that, some would have done so anyway, diving for cover as fire became personal and bullets cracked by within inches. They would crawl back to their friends later. I don’t think our excited riflemen would have hit many of them, nor should it be thought that these men had panicked. When their posts were no longer tenable, they had to pull out like that. They all went together so someone had given the order.
Rhys went up with his jeeps to bring in the casualties and met some of John’s coming back, the file of forlorn jagers preceding them. Injured men of both sides were hanging on to the tanks. Others were carried in on rifle slings by Germans and our men together. Such was the aftermath of action, and enmity was never personal anyway.
I called up John Kerr and found we had a united front for the first time, without strangers coming between us. While we had been busy, so had he, and the Skins were gradually ridding the village of its tenacious defenders. But it took them all day to do it.
During the afternoon, there was little movement by either side, but snipers were active in both and our 6 pounder platoon amused themselves periodically by putting shots through nearby farm buildings. The district was a sniper’s paradise with concealed approaches everywhere. The trees and the orchards – and above all that corn – gave perfect cover, whoever might need it.
Later in the afternoon, there was movement in front of F Company. Colin’s men were dug in or lying up in the scattered buildings just beyond the crossroads and in some discomfort. So were the Germans, who had gone to ground a few hundred yards to the north of them. Colin had been watching them closely through his field glasses for some time and, after a while, noticed small groups of figures scurrying back along the ditches – and not being overly careful while doing so. Always perceptive in such matters, he realised suddenly that they were pulling out, although the company was under heavy fire at the time – probably for that reason.
Eventually the shelling abated and, deducing what had happened, Colin sent some of his men forward. As this drew no further fire, he continued cautiously with the remainder. A few minutes later, he made an unopposed entry into the next group of farm buildings, the Casa Montemera, a quarter of mile on, while the occupants were waiting to welcome some of their own side. There was only a picket in the place and they had neither posted sentries nor taken up firing positions.
The surprise was mutual. Most of the jagers ran for it with hardly a shot fired and an interval of silence followed, but not for long. At 745pm, there was pandemonium and the farm went alive with sparks and explosions as one spandau after other opened up. Then a whole company of the enemy came charging in on them.
Several minutes of heavy firing followed in both directions, as our riflemen broke up the counter attack and the jagers disappeared into nearby ditches or scattered behind trees.
Paul’s forward FOO, Alan Parsons, who was with Colin, then began some masterly single gun shooting all around the farm, pitching shells down scarcely fifty yards from the buildings.
F’s position was now even more isolated and, with less than fifty men left, Colin knew he was vulnerable. Still he was safer in those buildings than at the focal point of the crossroads – and he knew that he could not be rushed. But I had no one else to put up beside him.
After a while, the position stabilised, if it could ever be said to be stabilised with the enemy round it in a ring at comfortable gun range. A number of them had crawled up into the out buildings and, once more, the mix up was complete – though, again, exhaustion was creeping up on both sides.
The day was drawing to a close. While it lasted, there were few quiet spells and we systematically shot at every known or suspected German location with Paul’s battery and our own mortars, 6 pounders and Vickers guns. The enemy equally systematically shot back. Throughout the day, the German stretcher bearers were active everywhere around us. Several had Red Cross flags and moved openly and fearlessly, never hesitating to close on our positions. I expect that they picked up most of their people and I never saw them molested. We had lost another twenty of our men by nightfall, but none to the enemy, and twenty eight more of theirs were now in our hands.
At one stage, Paul mentioned that his 25 pounder barrels were wearing, which was hardly surprising. At the end in Africa, accurate artillery support was impossible for that reason.
The same could be said for the mortars and, with four thousand rounds now expended in two days’ firing. Ken remarked cheerfully that the barrels were too thin to be safe any longer. However, they still continued firing them.
The Kensingtons’ 4.2” mortars had been equally involved both with us and the Inniskillings and they had the problem of their worn out barrels solved for them as they had exhausted the DMA’s ammunition stocks. Moreover, their detachments, stuck out on their own between Sanfatucchio snd Pucciarelli, came under personal attack from the jagers, who had surged round E Company. They, too, had to fight for their lives with their pistols and hand grenades. They had nothing else with which to fight.
In the late evening, the enemy brought some of their nebelwerfers in to action for the first time at Trasimene. Only satanic angels could have devised the rising shriek of those winged monstrosities falling in sixes – but they only added to the general din and achieve little. At least, one could hear them coming.
One of the war correspondents came into my HQ, ignoring the chaos around him – Eric Linklater. I knew then, without Pat telling me, that we held the star part, however badly conducted.
Linklater later wrote about our men:
’In the ruins of what had been a little country church about half a dozen soldiers were sitting on a pile of rubble. Partly buried by the fallen stones were the torn vestments of the priest, blue silk and purple and, from a shattered glass case, a wax figure of St Anne, I think, in a dusty black dress leaned towards the door in an attitude of surprise.
On the rubbish heap in front of here, there were….clips of ammunition, the splintered butt of a rifle and fragments of web equipment.
The soldiers were dirty and dishevelled and their cheeks were grey, partly with dust and partly with the weariness of battle. They had fought hard for the church and for the low walled cemetery beyond it…
I said to them, “I suppose you’re feeling very well pleased with yourselves,”…” Feeling bloody sorry for ourselves” was the answer I got. I looked at the speaker with new respect and….recognised the voice of the British infantry. They were proud….and because of their pride, they would presently buckle on their dirty equipment and take up their newly cleaned weapons…’
He headed the article, ‘The 78th….The BBC is telling Britain’.