Ortona by Mark Zuehlke

leading down to the Moro. At 2200 hours, Fraser decided the engineerseither got to work or failed in their task. 19 He took six sappers and a D-7 bulldozer, driven by Sapper Milton C. McNaughton, down to the river. Fraser later wrote in the company’s war diary, “That D-7 seems to make as much noise as an entire tank brigade as it moves down to the job.” 20 Deciding that no bulldozer work was required on the southern side of the river, Fraser told McNaughton to find a way to get his machine over to the other side and start grading the diversion needed there. McNaughton clanked eastward across the rough country until he found a possible crossing point. By this time, however, the sound of the bulldozer had attracted the attention of the Panzer Grenadiers. Shelling of the river valley intensified, and some machine-gun positions dug in on the valley in front of San Leonardo started searching for the bulldozer with bursts of fire. McNaughton paused, waiting for things to quiet down. When the Germans kept firing, he finally said, “Aw, the hell with this,” and drove his D-7 into the riverbed. 21
    The bulldozer boiled up out of the river onto the other bank and rumbled back toward the planned bridge site. But the dense foliage and other obstructions along the shoreline forced him to detour away from the river and toward the enemy positions. A fretting Fraser saw the bulldozer moving across the skyline a good quarter mile inside what was still enemy territory. The Germans saw McNaughton, too, and raked his machine with heavy machine-gun fire. Miraculously, McNaughton and the bulldozer drove through the intense fire virtually unscathed and returned safely to the riverbank.
    By now Fraser had four lorries, two loaded with barrels and the others with timbers, down at the river. 22 A team of sappers set about installing the culvert and then laying down the timber bridging, while McNaughton cut the diversion up to the roadway. The cut he graded varied from zero elevation to twelve feet over a distance of only eighty feet, requiring extensive shifting and shoring of natural terrain. It took McNaughton seven hours to complete the task. 23 Despite heavy enemy fire, the engineers suffered surprisingly few casualties during their night’s work. Only three men required evacuation for wounds. Fraser and a few others received minor wounds, but stuck to their jobs. 24
    One thing was increasingly obvious. The Royal Canadian Regiment did not possess San Leonardo, nor was it anywhere near the easternedge of the village. Fire from both positions never faltered. While Fraser had no idea what had happened to the RCR, he knew that their failure boded ill for his ability to keep the bridge open come morning. But he was determined the engineers would do their job regardless of enemy fire. 25

    In fact, the RCR was still a good mile short of San Leonardo and engaged in a costly punching match with the 200th Regiment and supporting armour. The battalion’s attack plan had been dashed within minutes of ‘A’ Company, under Captain Ronald Gordon “Slim” Liddell, crossing its start line at 1630 hours. The company had passed through the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment’s front-line positions into an orchard immediately south of the road running along the ridge from San Donato to San Leonardo. Major Strome Galloway’s ‘B’ Company was scheduled to follow in five minutes. Once these lead companies secured a position on the road about halfway to San Leonardo, ‘C’ and ‘D’ companies would jump past to a point just outside the village. Leapfrogging through this new strong-point, ‘A’ and ‘B’ companies would secure the community.
    The entire movement required an advance laterally across the 200th Regiment’s front line, and would depend on surprise and bold execution. Once the RCR left the lines of the Hasty P’s, it would be dependent on its own