by Dan Black

It is early afternoon and there is a moment of profound silence at Coriano Ridge War Cemetery in northern Italy. Here–among the weeping willows and rows of white headstones–time seems to have come to a full stop as several Canadian war veterans bow their heads in front of the grave of a man they never knew.

This very moment is about remembrance and how it transforms people of all ages. It is also about Canada’s involvement in the Italian Campaign of WW II and how that bloody experience between July 1943 and early spring 1945 produced an exceptional kind of compassion between comrades.

The veterans–all 53 of them, including Victoria Cross recipient Smokey Smith of Vancouver–are nearing the end of an incredible 13-day journey led by Bob Wood, parliamentary secretary to the minister of Veterans Affairs. Coriano Ridge, which contains 1,940 graves–427 of them Canadian–is the last of more than a dozen Commonwealth war cemeteries they will visit on the tour. And so on this day–minutes after the official wreath-placing ceremony–the veterans have gathered to pray for a soldier and to fulfil a small, but important request from a woman back in Canada who only knew her grandfather from stories told to her by her grandmother.

Darlene Halsey of Morinville, Alta., near Edmonton had read about the government’s plan to mark the 55th anniversary of the Italian Campaign. She knew Veterans Affairs Canada would be leading the group of vets, and so on Oct. 5–four days after the delegation left Ottawa–Halsey sent an e-mail to VAC officials in Italy. Her message was read out loud at Coriano and it brought tears to the eyes of several people, including some of the youth representatives.

Here is what she wrote: “To those of you who are taking part in remembering history by travelling back to a place that holds more unpleasant memories than pleasant ones, I wish you all the very best and my thoughts are with you. With the recent adoption of my daughter, I have begun my family tree and one member of my tree that I am most interested in is my grandfather….”

Halsey explained that she had made a promise to her grandmother that one day the two of them would visit the grave in Italy. “My grandmother has since passed away and now more than ever I want to make that trip. Until such time that I am able to do so, I wonder should someone wish to stand two minutes in silence at his grave I would be most grateful.”

The tearful silence for Halsey’s grandfather, Private William R. Berry of the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment, was measured in minutes, but it was one of the most powerful scenes to unfold during the tour. The poignancy of the little graveside service was found in its simplicity, but also in the knowledge that no one there knew anything about the man they were praying for. All they knew was that he was killed Sept. 20, 1944, the day before the Allies marched into Rimini.

For the veterans, that little bit of knowledge was enough. It was enough to know that the soldier in Grave 3, Row A, Plot 13 was a fellow comrade. The hard part was in realizing that the man died at age 37 and that he left loved ones behind. Why he died and others lived is a question that is difficult to answer. The inscription on his headstone reads:

When your life was brightest

When your years were best

You were called away

To a home of eternal rest

Seventy-four-year-old Sam Doggart of Sutton, Ont., and 77-year-old Bob Wigmore of Belleville, Ont., led the group through the two minutes of silence. Both lowered their heads and without hesitation did something quite unexpected. Doggart slipped his left arm in behind Wigmore’s right and the two old veterans held hands as tears welled up in their eyes. It was a sad, but beautiful moment that left a lingering impression of the love that exists between the survivors of war and between the survivors and the dead.

These men and women who experienced war looked after each other back then and they are still looking after each other today. It is seen in the way they talk to each other, look at each other– accept each other. It is in the way they stare down at a headstone and see beyond the etched surface to the face of a friend. And it is in the way they kneel down and with trembling hands place poppies or little crosses among the flowers. “Beneath this soil. Beneath this sacred soil lay members of Canadian regiments,” said Doggart, quoting from a wartime prayer. “They marched with us in our struggle to free Europe from tyranny. They were the youth of our generation. They were active. They were noisy in their boisterous enthusiasm. Today they are still. Today they are silent. Then let us by our silence remember them. As you go home from here, tell them about us. Tell them we gave our today so that they could have their tomorrow….”

Wigmore followed Doggart’s lead by reciting the battle prayer of the Hasty Ps. The author of the prayer, Major Alex Campbell, was killed near the Moro River–south of Ortona–on Christmas Day 1943. Doggart, who grew up in an orphanage, said it is nice to know Halsey is interested in her grandfather’s war service. “It gives me a good feeling to know that someday she will be sharing information about him with her adopted daughter.”

The feelings or the unequivocal compassion that exists between war veterans was described a couple of days earlier at Ancona War Cemetery where 161 Canadians are buried among more than a thousand Allied soldiers and airmen. “The interdependency of a unit in action is immense,” said Denis Meade of Vancouver, a former sergeant with the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada. “You don’t think about loyalty to your country. You don’t think about the flag and the banners and the marching bands and all that kind of stuff. You feel a very, very strong bond and a very strong duty to not let down your own immediate group whether it is a section or a platoon or anything else. Your comrades are your first priority. They are your first loyalty because you know that they are depending on you and you are depending on them. The interdependency, I think, was the prime motivation for most of the so-called acts of heroism and for just getting the job done.”

The job–as it turned out–began with massive preparations in the United Kingdom, but it really got going just after dawn on July 10, 1943. The Canadians landed in Sicily with an Allied invasion armada of nearly 3,000 ships and landing craft. The invasion was a sight to behold for a young Spitfire pilot named Irving Kennedy of Cumberland, Ont. “We had been escorting a Liberator bomber squadron late in the afternoon on July 9,” recalled the 77-year-old who earned his wings in 1941. “The bombers were attacking Gela aerodrome in southern Sicily and we crossed over from starboard to port above them. We were looking for enemy fighters, but we didn’t see any. As it turned out, the Germans had left Gela a day or two earlier. As we headed back to our base in Malta, we could see the armada steaming towards Sicily. We had front-row seats. The amazing thing was that no German aircraft got up and saw it. By next morning, of course, everything was red hot.”

Kennedy is credited with destroying 14 enemy aircraft and sharing in the destruction of three more. By war’s end, his talent in the air earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross. He went on to practise medicine for 37 years, and during that time helped raise two daughters and also wrote a book entitled Black Crosses off my Wingtip.

Wigmore was a sergeant in B Company of the Hasty Ps. He remembers being handed a bowl of soup just before he piled into an infantry landing craft. He was 21 years old and the plan called for Baker, Charlie and Dog companies to attack and capture two narrow sections of beach, while Able Company waited offshore in reserve. “We left the mother ship–HMS Glengyle–when she was about 10 miles from shore. It had been wet and rough prior to the launch…. The landing craft held more than 30 men and there were three rows of us. One row along each side and one down the middle. I was the front man in the centre row and was to be the first man out once the ramp dropped.”

The little vessels were tossed around by the waves and many men were ill. Just offshore, Wigmore’s landing craft ran aground on a sandbar. The men staggered out and dropped into water up to their shoulders. “I carried my Tommy gun and a Bangalore torpedo over my head. We waded ashore and there were some who couldn’t swim a stroke. When we reached the beach we spread out and fell to ground. I ran forward and placed the torpedo under the barbed wire and then lit the fuse…. The explosion blew a gap in the wire and we all got up and ran through.”

Ted Griffiths, 77, of Ottawa was a major with the Three Rivers Regt. He recalls the night of July 4-5 when enemy submarines sank three ships carrying approximately 500 vehicles, headquarters’ signal equipment, several artillery guns and half the division’s 17-pounder anti-tank guns. He also remembers the severe storm on the afternoon of the 9th that raged for several hours. “Our tanks had been waterproofed up to a depth of six feet. On approaching the beach, the bow doors on the LSTs, Landing Ship Tanks, opened and the ramp dropped. We went into six feet of water. Fortunately, our driver kept moving and we got out without drowning the vehicle.”

Griffiths said the biggest problem on the island–besides the enemy–was the oppressive heat. He said it was like an oven inside the tanks. Outside, the dust was so thick that men felt they could chew it. Near Leonforte, his tank troop was given the task of moving up on the high ground overlooking the town, which from the enemy’s viewpoint was an obvious place for the Canadians to be. And so the enemy zeroed in on this spot. “It was heavily wooded and we moved up through the trees and got up on the top. My troop leader got out and called me out and we were looking at the town through binoculars and all of a sudden we heard some incoming mortar fire…. We jumped back into the tank. I got in and he was right behind me, but the bomb landed on the back deck.”

The troop leader suffered numerous wounds to his upper torso. He fell in on top of Griffiths and soon died.

Robbie Hancock, 77, of Wolfville, N.S., was a trooper with the Royal Canadian Dragoons. “Two or three days after we landed a big enemy shore gun blew up and seven of my friends were burned to death. Twenty-seven others, including myself, went to hospital. I suffered some awful burns to my face, hands and neck. All we were doing was checking it out to see if there was anybody inside, but it must have been booby trapped.”

At the 1st Cdn. Infantry Division Monument in Marza, Sicily, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of Veterans Affairs paid tribute to the men who fought in the first major land campaign the Canadians participated in since the outbreak of the war. “It was a great victory and it came at great cost. More than 93,000 Canadians served in the Italian Campaign and more than a quarter of them became casualties.”

He said the enemy came to recognize the distinctive red patches worn by the men of 1st Div. “Red Devils they called them. And of course the Red Devils fought with distinction in the 38-day fight for Sicily.”

The people of Sicily also remember. There was ample evidence of that at Marza and at ceremonies in Catania and Agira. Ispica Mayor Rosario Gugliotta said “Freedom is our most precious value. For us, this value has a particular significance because in this century we have known the loss of freedom, the deceit of dictatorship and the harshness of Fascism….”

By Aug. 6, 1943, the Canadians had reached the end of their battle duties on the hot, dusty island in the Mediterranean. Soldiers had successfully landed near Pachino, met light resistance from Italian coastal defenders and then advanced 240 kilometres over inhospitable terrain. They moved over mine-filled roads choked with dust and the further inland they got, they met an enemy that fought tough delaying actions from hills that towered over the desert-like valleys. Canadian casualties in Sicily totalled 562 killed, 664 wounded and 84 prisoners of war.

On Sept. 3, 1943, the 8th British Army, which included 1st Cdn. Div, 5th British Div. and the 1st Cdn. Army Tank Div., moved across the Strait of Messina onto the mainland. The Canadians easily took Reggio Calabria because the Germans had withdrawn, but the light resistance there was by no means a precursor of things to come. The fighting was vicious up the boot of Italy as the Canadians fought in four major drives. There was the crossing of the Moro River and the liberation of Ortona on the Adriatic coast; there was the Liri Valley and the battles for the Gustav and Hitler lines; the Gothic Line and the Rimini Line; and the battleground between the Montone River and the Senio River.

Fifty-five years later the immaculate Commonwealth war cemeteries are reminders of the human loss. Veterans on the VAC pilgrimage participated in ceremonies at Beach Head War Cemetery in Anzio, Rome War Cemetery, Cassino War Cemetery and the spectacular Polish War Cemetery on Monte Cassino.

Joe Jamieson, 83, of Guysborough, N.S., served with the First Special Service Force–the Devil’s Brigade. At Anzio he spent a few painful moments in front of a familiar name etched in white stone. “We were out on a patrol one night and he ran into a trip mine,” explained Jamieson. “It was a wire tied between two trees. He was hit in the hip and we patched him up. All he said to me was ‘Joe, don’t let them cut my leg off!’ He was doing fine in the hospital at Anzio, and then they told him he would have to have his leg off. Well, he died before he got to the operating table.”

The VAC delegates travelled to Ortona for ceremonies at the Ortona Civilian Cemetery, the Moro River Canadian War Cemetery and Casa Berardi where Major Paul Triquet of the Royal 22nd Regt. earned his Victoria Cross. The cemetery at Moro River has 1,615 graves, including 1,375 Canadian. “Aging headstones stand in silent witness to their courage,” said Wood. “But they reveal little of the sound and fury of the fighting in December 1943.”

The parliamentary secretary said the crossing of the Moro and the taking of Ortona rank among Canada’s greatest military achievements. The enemy tried desperately to hold the Canadians back and for a time they were successful. “It was a scary time,” explained Wigmore. “I was frightened and scared. I had confidence in my men, but I don’t think I was that confident…. There were times when you went ahead and did things automatically. There were other times when you would stop and think about it….”

This was Wigmore’s first trip back in 55 years. Every night since the war he has had nightmares. Ironically, his bad dreams ended on his first night back in Italy. He says he felt depressed when he walked into the cemetery. It was as if something was closing in on him. “When I walked in further and saw how beautiful the place was I felt that my fellows have got a good home here.”

He said the ceremony was wonderful and he especially appreciated the involvement of students from the nearby Canadian Academy and a local primary school. Wigmore and the other vets were also proud of the Canadian Forces personnel who had attended from Kosovo and Bosnia. “That was a big lift to us. I looked at them and said to myself, Hey, that’s the way we were. We were just like those guys. And you know, they are facing the same terrible things over in Kosovo.”

Captain George Boyuk, 31, of the 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Cdn. Light Inf., placed a wreath on behalf of the Canadian Forces. Afterwards, he called it a very humbling experience. “These veterans who are with us know the people whose names are on the headstones I have just looked at. I never expected to have this opportunity. It hasn’t fully sunk in yet.”

Wood said the battle for Ortona personified every soldier’s worst nightmare, and it was up to the Canadian infantry to dislodge the enemy house by house with a technique known as mouseholing. Maurice White of Edmonton was there in 1943. As a young lance corporal he was a member of A Company of the Loyal Edmonton Regt. “We entered Ortona on Dec. 20. We fought from house to house and from room to room. We had to blow holes through one room to another, and then we’d throw a grenade in to make sure there were no Germans inside…. That was the only way we could make any progress.”

It took eight days of bitter fighting to clear the town, but White said those eight days seemed like eight months.

The highlight for the VAC delegation and for the citizens of Ortona last fall was the unveiling in the Piazza Plebiscito of the Price of Peace monument by Ottawa artist Robert Surette. “It’s not just for the men who fought in Ortona,” said the artist immediately after the unveiling. “It is for all men who fought for our country.”

From Ortona, the VAC pilgrimage moved north up the Adriatic coast and held ceremonies at several war cemeteries, including Gradara, Cesena, Montecchio and the Canadian War Cemetery at Villanova before holding its last one at Coriano. The four youth reps and six reps from various cadet organizations found themselves fighting back tears as they learned about the price of freedom. “I can’t describe the feeling of standing on soil where so much blood was shed,” said Cathy Kaizer of Bickerton West, N.S.

Dominion President Chuck Murphy said he was impressed by the trip and by the people it brought together. “We must never forget what these people did for us back then. Their courage is an example for all Canadians.”