That night of Tuesday 13 June, the Faughs came back under brigade command \u2013 and high time too after the futile manner in which they had been employed during the last fortnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately, the heady wine of pursuit had induced strange moods of recklessness and the control of the army seems momentarily to have faltered. Our national fondness for improvising was given free rein and, in the name of flank protection, the need for which had long since ended, the Faughs had been broken up and used in penny packet detachments all over the place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
None of us could see a military purpose in it, but we all knew the ill results that followed from such practices. Also, there were a number of dangerous distractions. I thought that adventure with the Vatican was one of them, but the Faughs, for a short period, seemed to lose all touch with reality and it did not go down with the other two regiments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The German army was never a force to trifle with and for those of us engaged in fighting it undeviating attention was imperative. Unfortunately, some of the 8th<\/sup> Army forgot this in the reaction that followed Cassino.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Inniskillings went on ahead in the small hours of the following morning, with the task of getting across the Paglia at Orvieto and forming a bridgehead beyond it. It was a forestalling operation and the river Paglia could be said then to be the next tactical defensive feature although over ten miles ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pat set us in motion shortly afterwards and ordered me to come up on the right rear of the Skins, securing their position by the seizure of Tordimonte. This place was another typical Italian bastion, with the particular tactical significance of standing at the confluence of the Tiber and Paglia and commanding the crossings of both. Tordimonte was three miles east of Orvieto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At that stage, no one seems to have ascertained whether or not intact German forces stood in our way, and none of our reconnaissance units were ahead of us; nor were we supported. The army commander, of course, was absolutely right to send us on flat out while the enemy was reeling but in the after light one can see the malaise of over confidence creeping in \u2013 and the ranks of the Irish Brigade would not be immune to it. There would be a reckoning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The brigadier had given us our orders at 11pm that night, after several changes of plan, each succeeding one being more ambitious than the last. At 3am, the Rifles were on the move forward again after the usual nocturnal breakfast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On these occasions, Ivan and the company colour sergeants and cooks packed up everything after our departure, following on later with the transport as best they could. They knew our plans as well as we knew them ourselves, where they set down for the next lot of cooking. They were then expected to be feeding their companies in the forward positions as soon as the latter had been captured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We reached Tordimonte unopposed during the morning after forward marching twelve miles. There had only been one halt. However, when we approached the place, we were noticed by a vigilant German OP with a troop of guns nearby and suffered some accurate and destructive shelling. We lost several of our men and I am afraid that we had not been careful enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At noon, we moved in to the Duke\u2019s castle at Tordimonte and this was equal, or even superior, to our last residence. The general drove in not long after our arrival. During this phase, our divisional commander certainly kept the closest watch on his leading troops. On our part, we liked his interest in us, though the necessity for it was self-evident. Our soldiers liked it too. He was always pleasant and usually found time for a word or two with some of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At Tordimonte, our general saw fit to bypass his brigadier and he gave me his orders direct. I came up to him with Clanachan at my heels and saluted. He then seized me by the shoulder and, remarking genially on the speed of our arrival, he went on, \u2019they\u2019re going back fast, John. Get your chaps on after them, forget the river, forget everything, just get over it and keep going….and I\u2019ll tell Pat.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n After listening to this copybook staff college exposition of advance guard orders, I had to explain the need to feed our riflemen if they were going to achieve anything useful. Also, the events of the morning on top of the previous two days made a brief pause imperative. But Charles Keightley rarely pressed matters when points like these were made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The river glinted brightly in the sunlight. I know there was only one road forward and Highway 71 stretching away northwards beckoned to us. Further instructions were unnecessary and the Skins anyway held the bridgehead secure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Corporal Telfer appeared with some wine glasses and that kept both of us occupied for the next five minutes. Then our divisional commander was off again, greeting our sentry and waving to anyone else in sight as he left us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the general\u2019s departure, something else most have happened for I soon found his orders being improved on by my brigade and a much more ambitious project substituted. He came in within the hour having spent most of the morning with the Inniskillings. On receipt of my new lot of orders to push on through the Skins\u2019 bridgehead and storm the ridge of Morrano ten miles ahead, I accused Pat of inventing them for the sole purpose of acquiring my present HQ for himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At that moment, Jerry Cole and I think several others were immersing themselves in the good duke\u2019s marble baths \u2013 and that pleasure came to an abrupt conclusion. The battalion dined splendidly at Tordimonte in the short time available and, at 2pm, we were on the march again in compliance with Pat\u2019s sacrificial instructions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I sent the whole of Support Company on as the advanced guard, thereby providing Jerry Hall with an unusual operational role \u2013 but in the absence of tanks, packing a considerable punch. There was also the cross country mobility of the carriers to speed them into battle when the time came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Desmond Fay, with his 7 Platoon, was borrowed from E Company to provide the forward screen to this strange force. I always had a soft spot for that young man, remembering his arrival in the Rifles \u2013 starry eyed and very untidy. Not even Mervyn ever succeeded in changing him much. He allegedly had some extraordinary political views and seemed disappointed by my lack of interest in them. I told Desmond that I did not care a damn whether he was a fascist, communist or high Tory provided he looked after his men and did his duty in other ways \u2013 which he more that did on all occasions as I soon discovered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to my recollections a month or two later, when resuming the conversation, Desmond then told me that the only thing that now mattered in his life was the Irish Brigade. Thus, Second Lieutenant Desmond Fay. Strangely enough, he was a Faugh by birth, though seconded like myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Morrano ridge was a typical rearguard position, possessing all of the characteristics, which the enemy found so desirable just then. It commanded Highway 71 beside a series of horseshoe bends, where the road heaved itself over the shoulder of the opposite hill with an unfordable river, the Chianti, between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The garrison was apparently unassailable and the route forward itself was tortuous with the ever present risk of ambush. Accordingly, we left the main road and took to the byways a mile or two back from our objective, Desmond moving with his men well spread out and the Vickers detachments coasting along in the carriers slowly behind him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We covered the intervening ten miles in record time even for riflemen and two and a half hours later, our little team was in action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The enemy was much disorganised at Morrano and we surprised them by the rapidity of our approach over so long a distance. Their resistance was uncoordinated and futile \u2013 and they had no pickets out. They were just not ready for us and, as we came within range, we were met only by scattered and ill aimed rifle shots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We unlimbered the machine guns as soon as were close enough and Desmond\u2019s riflemen raced up the feature while the Vickers shredded the top of it. Fitz managed to get several of his guns up there and, after an hour\u2019s confused fighting, we had the hill in our hands and another half dozen bewildered prisoners. Two or three of them had been hit and several others killed but I don\u2019t think there was more than a dozen in position altogether by the time we were on to the feature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The phenomenon at Morrano was that we arrived while the defending contingent was still on the way there and the action was another example of what could be achieved with the enemy caught on the wrong foot and reeling. For once, we had moved faster than he could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the after light, one could say that until that action, the German withdrawal had been skilfully handled and their rearguards had covered it effectively. Certainly, they had gained the time that they needed, though they were not well enough handled tactically to inflict the damage, which they easily could have done. At Morrano, they were quite un-paced and their reactions were needlessly slow and ponderous. Also, it seemed that either their intelligence or communications had failed \u2013 or both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And the fact remains that they were still trying to move their intended garrison into the Morrano position twelve hours after we had captured it. It only needed one dim witted rearguard commander to achieve such results. That perceptive man Nelson Russell, our late brigade commander, once said in a prophetic moment that when things go wrong for the Bosche, they go very wrong indeed. This was now apparent \u2013 but Nelson was usually correct in his prophesies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul and I went up the ridge in one of the carriers \u2013 a means of travel that I always enjoyed though one usually finished the mission on foot. Unfortunately, it never did to be in sight or hearing of the enemy when mounted in these machines. They threw up dust clouds like tanks and were often mistaken for them \u2013 and their armour hardly sufficed to keep out a rifle bullet. Furthermore, due to their tracks slapping on the underside of their bodywork, the noise level exceeded a whole squadron of Shermans. They drew fire like a magnet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we got to the top of the feature and studied the scene through our field glasses, we noticed enemy transport and other vehicles active below us across the whole range of vision. Some of them were still trundling south down Highway 71 towards us in neatly spaced convoys and it seemed as though a small army was on the way in. In consequence, Paul dived for an OP and I saw little of my battery commander for the next hour or two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 17 Field were as prompt and accurate as usual and Paul shifted from one attractive target to another in what remained of the evening light \u2013 though I would hesitate to say what damage was inflicted. Tempting though such targets are, it is extraordinarily difficult to hit spaced out and rapidly moving vehicles with field artillery, even with a whole battery of firing on them. We learned this for ourselves in the early days of the war when we were at the receiving end. Paul, however, was entirely satisfied and I have no doubt that he greatly disturbed our approaching visitors. Time after time, black smoke and flame went shooting up from that road below us as his shells exploded on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Consuming our rum together afterwards, Paul said it had been a wonderful evening but, in artillery terms, our battery commander was an artist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By 7pm, we had the whole battalion into position astride the ridge but, by then, the action had died down into intermittent and sporadic rifle shots. Occasionally, there was the dull thud of an SP opening up \u2013 not far off either, but they could not see where we were and achieved nothing in the gathering darkness. In the last of the light, the colour sergeants, with Murphy and Ivan, came up in the jeeps with the evening meal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our riflemen had exerted themselves that day of the 14th<\/sup> of June, They had force marched twenty two miles with road dust thick upon them and carrying all their weapons with full ammunition scales. Not one had fallen by the wayside that I knew of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At nightfall, Mike Everleigh joined us again with his tanks but there were not as many of them as usual. Wear and tear had had its effect there too. His hussars had been helping the Skins that morning, though the enemy abandoned the river line without seriously contesting the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We pushed our fighting patrols when the light had gone and, after dinner, Peter Grennell sent a standing picket from G Company through the trees some distance ahead of our positions. They had not been out long when our men noticed a dozen or more of the enemy coming up in the dark with slung rifles and apparently oblivious of the fact that we were now in residence. They were not ready to fight, nor behaving in any way circumspectly. Our section commander evidently let them approach unmolested until they were a short distance off, then firing a shot or two into them, a number surrendered and the rest fled. The picket then found that they had a whole gruppe of scruffy looking jagers in custody and a solitary paratrooper, who did not want to know any of either side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We kept our patrols active across our front for the rest of the night and picked up a number of the prisoners \u2013 innocently strolling up on to the ridge in compliance with their outdated orders. No one was hurt though they were much surprised. Then the new day dawned \u2013 dark clouds hiding the sun for once. It was almost silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pat left the Skins and ourselves in relative peace during the next few days and, in fact, the whole brigade was halted for a space while our much extended division closed up its tail. That done, forty eight hours later, the advance was continued and Pat unleashed the Faughs in to the lead to continue the pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus on the 15th<\/sup>, the whole battalion had its first chance of rest after four days of continuous movement and action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wrote to father:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018We are now living in luxury having acquired the mess property of a distinguished Teuton….excellent created silver, crockery, fine linen ….our present abode is simply lovely and we are surrounded by cherry trees (ripe) and peaches (unhappily unripe). There are also chickens, rabbits and pigeons. The latter are now sitting on my window sill.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Murphy, I think is thoroughly enjoying himself here and his attitude to life is particularly good for these boys…he has, of course, made a great name for himself \u2013 notorious might be a better expression. He and my QM are a great pair of knaves and spend their spare time acquiring Bosche QM stores abandoned in their wake. Needless to say, he is an admirable second in command and I don\u2019t have to do too much work.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It has rained here today for the first time for ages. Usually, there is not a cloud in the sky. Everything is now very fresh as a result and it is a relief having no white dust, which the roads and tracks are usually thick with.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The inhabitants here have not seen British soldiers before. They threw flowers and all sorts of things at us. I wonder if they did the same to the Bosche when they arrived. The poor Germans here are having a most awful time and the majority must be very footsore now.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Pat is just coming in to lunch with us. Chicken, I believe, is on the menu but what they will be like I don\u2019t know as their capture was not affected until a late hour this am.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Although happy at this stage, conscious of triumph and with morale at a pinnacle, the 2nd<\/sup> Rifles had a pretty lean look to it in more ways than one. Obviously, our men were as hard now as men ever could be, but there were not a lot of them left and none of the rifle companies were more than seventy strong. H had scarcely fifty and further attrition would inevitably affect what we could do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The same situation existed with the Inniskillings, and the Faughs, alone in the brigade, were still in reasonable fighting strength.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Skins lost one of their subalterns to the enemy on the Paglia \u2013 temporarily. He was probing ahead on a motor bike and had the ill luck to pile into a whole platoon jagers, who were just packing up their kit by the roadside. The German leutnant, in charge of the zug \u2013 aged nineteen \u2013 then carted off his new found friend in to the mountains for forty eight hours until they eventually collided with one of our posts and the Inniskilling escaped in the confusion. The subaltern, Foster, said there was nothing wrong with those young men and they seemed to have got on splendidly together. He brought one of them back with him \u2013 his erstwhile custodian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the 17th<\/sup> onwards, the Faughs were operating with the 56 Recce, and tactically under Kendal\u2019s commander for that reason. Pat said, \u2018I was quite happy about the Faughs and Kendal. He was one himself and, anyway, would never be able to live down losing the Faughs in regimental circles.\u2019 had scarcely H haHa <\/p>\n\n\n\n The combination of the new regiments carried the brigade forward to Citta della Pieve and the shores of Lake Trasimene after a series of stirring adventures together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Faughs fought several sharp little encounter actions, in one of which they caught a German detachment on the move with their mortars and left twenty five of them on the ground. But they failed to carry Citta della Pieve, although they got a patrol in to the place at the outset. Rather like Civitella, this stirred up a hornet\u2019s nest. There was quick reaction and the 1st<\/sup> Paras were back in the town in no time. By nightfall, they had it in strong grip and they missed killing our divisional commander by a whisker. Charles Keightley was pushing his luck once too often with his forward troops at Citta and no one could take liberties with such formidable opponents. One of them shot his field glasses out of his hands when he was studying the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Citta was a bad mistake. The bottleneck there was self-evident and it is extraordinary that the Faughs were not kept together just then. The whole battalion ought to have pitched into the town, not just a detachment. Had that been done the 1st<\/sup> Paras would never have wrenched it back from us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Paras\u2019 defence of Citta della Pieve delayed the attack at Trasimene by several priceless days and, hanging on like that, they brought the forward surge to a crawl in the sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have often thought it affected the whole course of the war, for if the Faughs had secured it as they easily could have done at the outset, the 78th<\/sup> Division would have piled in to the enemy at Trasimene three days earlier \u2013 before they were ready \u2013 and probably rolled the whole lot up in the process. The subsequent events at Trasimene speak for themselves, but this single small incident at Citta perfectly reveals a classic \u2018what might have been\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Brian Clark said, \u2018I do not recollect that we were ordered to do so\u2019 \u2013 referring to seizing the place, \u2018but we should not have needed orders.\u2019 Thus, the Faughs\u2019 adjutant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, according to the divisional history, the German command orders to withdraw were intercepted and Charles had the last laugh as he concentrated the whole of the divisional artillery on the exits of the town at the German zero plus five minutes. 36 Brigade, when they came through the outskirts afterwards, found the dismal evidence of their accuracy. Whatever one might say over the radio, it was very unwise ever to give timings or identifiable map references.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the Faughs had carried on despite this nuisance left in their wake. Finally, they reached Castel di Montalera, which overlooked the southern end of Trasimene. They had taken nearly a hundred prisoners in three days\u2019 fighting\u00a0 and, at the end, a German MT driver took his ration lorry in to their midst as a terminal bonus. It was loaded with brandy and other comforts as well as the daily fare of the soldaten. The poor man had misread his map. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" That night of Tuesday 13 June, the Faughs came back under brigade command \u2013 and high time too after the futile manner in which they had been employed during the last fortnight. Unfortunately, the heady wine of pursuit had induced strange moods of recklessness and the control of the army seems momentarily to have faltered. 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