Stalingrad Of The Adriatic: Death On The Moro (Part 2)

0:02Al Murray: Thank you for listening to We Have Ways of Making You Talk. Sign up to our Patreon to receive bonus content, live streams and our weekly newsletter with money off books and museum visits as well. Plus early access to all live show tickets. That's patreon.com slash we have ways.

0:25Al Murray: This episode is brought to you by WISE. It's only when you start moving money between currencies that you really think about the exchange rate, the fee and what might be hidden away in the small print. Whether you're living abroad, paying someone overseas or just trying to manage your money across borders, you want a fair exchange rate, an easy transfer and no surprises along the way. WISE keeps things simple. Wise is a smart way to move the currencies you need around the globe. It works in more than 160 countries and with over 40 currencies. Most transfers arrive instantly. Wise uses the mid-market exchange rate, like the one you see on Google, with no markups or hidden fees.

1:06Al Murray: So when money needs to move, you can see the rate, know the fee and get on with it. Join millions saving billions on hidden fees by downloading the Wise app today. Be smart, get wise, T's and C's apply.

1:46milligram injection. ZepBound contains terzepatide and should not be used with other terzepatide containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if ZepBound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop ZEPBound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems.

2:22Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia, if you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking ZEPBound with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979 or visit zepbounce.lily.com.

2:5220th Century Studios presents Whale Fall, the most incredible survival thriller of the year. I need the whale! Help me! Now playing in theaters to survive the unthinkable, do the impossible. You're going to become so dangerous that the predators can't help but let you go. Austin Abrams. I'm going home. Josh Brogan. Survivor, survivor. Whale Fall, rated PG-13. Maybe inappropriate for children under 13. Now playing only in theatres.

3:31Al Murray: It rained hard and then cleared up. Leaving the night bright with the full moon, we showed up the ash and olive wooded slopes and caused the swollen sangrow and the snow upon the blue dark apennines to glisten like silver. Bob Heels and I saw a strange sight when a patch of snow white mist crossed over the face of the moon and produced a halo coloured red, violet and green that lasted several minutes. Underneath this beautiful phenomenon, the German artillery was constantly shelling the New Zealand front. The rumble of the guns echoed along the mountain range like the noise of a great wind howling into the mouth of a giant cave.

4:08Al Murray: That was Harry Wilson's diary from Tuesday, the 7th of December, 1943. And who's Harry Wilson, Jim? He's a signals officer, isn't he? Yeah, he's signals officer, Cypher Clark at 8th Indian Division Headquarters. He's a corporal and wrote this just brilliant, brilliant diary. He's so entertaining. He's so funny. But also, you know, he's quite the wordsmith, isn't he? as that little sequence reveals. I mean, very evocative, I think. Where did you find his diary? It's in the Imperial War Museum. And yeah, I photographed it all, got it bound, got it printed. I'm not going to send you the whole thing, if you're not.

4:46It's really, really, really totally brilliant. And actually, I think there's a very good case of reading the whole thing. Maybe not in Irish, but reading it. And putting it on the page, because it's so good. And it's just really funny what he gets up to. And later on, he fancies this Italian girl that he lives with. He's just, you know, for like a week, all he can think about and write about in his diary is this Italian girl and obviously it doesn't go very well and so on. It's just really funny. He's very, very human, I think. Very ordinary. And he spends a lot of his time feeling scared.

5:19Al Murray: And well, he might. Understandably so. Well, welcome everyone to We Have Ways of Making You Talk with me, Al Murray, and James Holland for our second episode of The Stalingrad of the Adriatic. As we've, you know, we're not underselling this story, are we? No, no, no. we're selling it as it is yeah we we went our way episode one was the sangro and now we're the moro yeah yeah so not unlike eighth army we're wending our way to ortona essentially eventually eventually eventually well we got to you got to get there river by river valley by valley uh ridge by ridge um and and that's exactly what we're doing with these episodes so harry and the eighth indian division um uh headquarters they cross the sangro on the 4th of december and you know we're a long way from rome here in a rome by christmas scenario aren't we okay they really are they really are a long way from rome on the 4th of december yeah and uh and this is they do this on a bailey bridge corps of engineers hurrah for the cre yet again spanning yet another river um in yet another valley in italy you know just that you could write a history of this purely as a sapling effort couldn't you and it would be it would be an epic an epic struggle yep And as they go over, the water runs deep and fast because the weather, as we outlined in the previous episode, is awful.

6:38Al Murray: It's not stopped raining. The days it doesn't rain, of course, the Allies are able to bring all of their assets to bear and really, really pummel the Germans and defeat them. But that's the rare days where it doesn't rain. So there's wrecked vehicles, there's tanks and guns and the blackened remains of innumerable mules and horses. because after all this terrain, you can only get so far with mechanisation and they need mules and they need horses. And you can just imagine it. You know, these roads are Strada Bianca. So these are metal roads in so much that they're properly laid and everything, but they're not tarmacked.

7:13And just, you know, they're just simply not designed for this volume of traffic and this weight of traffic. And so they get churned up really, really quickly. And there's a, you know, if you look at photographs of this Eighth Army pushing up through here, It's just endless people putting guns out of mud and people kind of up to their knees in it. And I think there's a very strong image here of the rain coming down. Everything's wet, sort of soggy, rotting corpses all over the place. The detritus of war and battle in a kind of sort of butchered, scarred landscape of smashed villages, smashed towns.

7:52olive groves sort of truncated and splintered it's not hard to picture it and wilson is a great

7:59Al Murray: chronicler of this you know yeah yeah he says mathelgronio was in ruins the streets rubble strewn trees that had prettily adorned the roads had been blown up by the roots snapped across like sticks or barked and chipped by machine gun bullets there were graves everywhere this is interesting though isn't it jim because this this in the end having to fight in these conditions and and the the italy falling apart around you is is part and part of the fact that by the second world war you're not campaigning in the campaigning traditional campaigning season anymore are you you shouldn't be fighting in the winter no sir no one ever did no and certainly not in italy and certainly and certainly not in italy and also there's a reason for it but there's a reason this exactly there's a there's a good reason why you don't fight this time of year and also you know perfectly well somewhere down the line in sort of people's in people's the people planning and organizing this italy is a hot country a warm country where the weather's fine in their minds yes and the wine dark sea the sun is twinkling on it there's lemon groves there's olive groves yeah you know there's charming italian peasants with carafts of wine um you know that's the vibe you know butchered trees butchered mules mud chaos rain wet detritus of war is not what what you're seeing and of course what you've got is you've got this and these rivers they're about kind of you know the gap is 10 to 12 miles you know so one goes across the leg of of italy then you get a you go up onto a hill then some more hills then you drop down to another valley sort of 12 miles further north then that's the next one so they've done the sangro they've they've cleared the germans from that ridge but the germans have just pulled back behind the next valley line which is the river morrow and in a way that's more challenging because the approaches to the sangra are quite sort of gentle and the sangra itself is quite low and and gravelly and and so on the morrow is is a narrower river but in a much steeper inclined valley yeah above which our towns and ridges overlooking it and villages and whatnot and and you know it's just it's a horror story yeah it's just getting away from it yeah anyway we should get back to harry wilson yes yeah well so they set up the divisional headquarters in a farmhouse and because he's got this i mean you could tell this from writing his writing he's naturally curious isn't he so he goes for a nose doesn't he goes for an explore yes and he discovers a dead german sitting upright in a hedge but with both his legs shot away.

10:25Al Murray: He writes that his dead face looks fair, handsome, and wore a smile, totally at odds with his circumstances. And a passing infantryman says to him, I reckon those legs of his went as far as Cairo, which is the level of the humour. It's quite something, isn't it? Yeah. Whatever that means. Yeah, exactly. Whatever that means. Anyway, the thing is, the Germans aren't just going to let this happen though are they in our last episode we went through how they've reinforced this part of their defensive line and that previously had that is the 95th infantry division yes so you've got you've got in a row you've got on the coast you've got the 78th battle axe division which is a british division which includes the irish brigade the 38th irish brigade with the fogs who we've talked about in the past a little bit then you've got the canadians coming up who are about to replace the 78th then you've got the 8th indian coming into line and then on their flank you've got the New Zealanders.

11:24Yeah. Opposite them now are the 19th Panzer Grenadier, who I think we last met in Salerno maybe. You've got 26th Panzer, who were also at Salerno, and they're now starting to launch counterattacks. Yeah. So, you know, 78th Division on the coast, they attack on the 2nd of December, then pause and try again on the 3rd of December with the help from the 4th Armour Brigade, and they reach a little village called San Vito, which is a dark village perched on the ridgeline overlooking both the sea and the plunging wooded escarpment, that wooded escarpment is the Morro Valley. You know, that's the Morro at the bottom of it.

12:03And up ahead from the top of this ridgeline at San Vito, and you can still go to San Vito today and look over exactly the same view. There's the sea. And in the distance, about three miles away, sort of looking all white and twinkly in the sunlight, is Otona, this sort of little coastal fishing port, probably you know two and a half three thousand people in 1943 something like that right and actually a company of the fogs who we've mentioned before in previous episodes remember laurie franklin vale and and so on um they are the most forward troops in the entire eighth army until a company is pulled back into reserve and early the next morning the 4th of december it becomes clear there's still german rear cards on this eastern southern side of the morrow and So B and C companies of the Fogs are ordered forward to clear them off for good.

12:53And what then follows is a sort of awful, ghastly, scrappy, confusing day of difficult fighting in which the Fogs lose yet more officers than men. You know, so Major John McNally, who's been B Company commander, he's wounded. So Major Richard Wood takes command of both C and B companies, but he's then killed by a mortar shell. So then they need someone else because C and B companies are now being merged into one because they're two down. At one point, enemy machine gun fire has been fired straight into the battalion headquarters. So that gives you a sense of kind of, you know, the scale of this and the ranges of this.

13:27And that Aussie captain, Laurie Franklin Vell, who we've mentioned a lot in the past, is now the acting CEO of a company. And the colonel tells him, take what's left of your company as quick as you can, Laurie, and clear the ridge. It's like, thanks very much. All right, boss. So, you know, a company creaks forward, linking up with B and C companies that evening, you know. But it's just it's just it's this sort of grinding attritional kind of. Yeah. No one remembers it in years to come, which is why I think it's a good thing that we are remembering it in this podcast. But but generally it's sort of consigned to the dustbin of history.

14:00But in that day, you know, another seven people have been killed and 15 wounded or something, you know, which which doesn't sound a lot, but is when it's happening every single day. Yeah. It's just, you know, on the quiet day, so to speak.

14:13Al Murray: yeah yeah and this is when you're winning as well yes right so it's you're winning but it's it's at a it's at a horrible cost and everyone's forgotten about it i mean it's bitter stuff so you know you're losing the odd officer here the odd fusilier the odd rifleman there you know they're finally relieved at 9 p.m on the 5th of december yes on a day where they've lost six more and 31 wounded. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And one of Franklin Vale's men in aid company, Lance Corporal Ginger Rhodes, who's 19, is killed in the fighting. And his best friend, who's the commander of his 10-man section, is so distraught at Ginger Rhodes' death that he goes mad and jumps up and begins shouting and shooting wildly.

15:00Al Murray: And one of the other men has to knock him out, knock him unconscious and take him back to an aid post to save his life, because otherwise he's going to go and get himself killed. I mean, it is good to... I tell you what, Jim, I mean, just doing this, it's really striking to look at this granular stuff of the PBI in a bit of the war that, like you say, has sort of fallen off the radar, really. Isn't it? It's a sad business. And Laurie Frankenville writes to his wife that night and he goes, you know, that is war. Stripped of all the nice wireless and newspaper talk. We certainly hated the Hun yesterday.

15:34one man waved a white flag then shot down two of our men and the strain you know that he writes to his wife Olive is just appalling he said we're all desperately tired I've not had a change of clothing for about three weeks and felt absolutely filthy last night I took my boots off for the first time in nine days I mean you know you and I are feeling a little bit jaded this morning after the goal hangover bash at the weekend fandango last night I mean imagine imagine if you're in action all this time yeah I mean, holy moly.

16:06Al Murray: Yes. And also, I mean, as a sidebar, you can see why people hated battle dress if they had to wear it for three weeks. Do you know? It's brilliant for day one. Yeah, exactly. Day 21, kind of like losing his luster. It's a little different, isn't it? You have a different relationship with your clothes after 21 days in the mud and the wet. So the Fogs and the rest of 78th Division are then relieved by the Canadians who come up. Now, in our Sicily series, we met Farley Mowat, who wrote an amazing account of his war. And he's 21 years old. And he's the battalion intelligence officers with the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment, who are known as the Hasty Peas.

16:47Al Murray: Yes. If you're a long-term listener and you listen to our Sicily series, you'll remember the absolutely astonishing actions that they took part in in Sicily. Acero. Yeah. Seizing a mountaintop stronghold in Sicily. Absolutely mind-boggling stuff. Farley Moher ended up in later life, an environmentalist, didn't he? A conservationist and sort of a prominent public figure in that field. But he goes with Major Burt Kennedy, the acting CO, to a divisional briefing at Camp Abasso on the 25th of November. And a brigadier from 8th Army headquarters is there to give them the form. And he says, As you may have guessed, gentlemen, our objective remains Rome.

17:26Al Murray: Can't let the Huns spend the rest of the winter there all nice and comfy cosy. Shall we? So we shall jolly well turf him out. That's what's going to happen. Exactly. By Christmas. I mean, can't spend the rest of the winter. Put with the other one, mate. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And he says that the Americans are going to burst through into the Liri Valley while 8th Army was going to do a colossal crack, grab Pescara and then cross over to Rome. And he makes it all sound pretty simple, pretty easy. and the Canadians, lucky them, are going to spearhead the way once the initial breakthrough has been made.

18:03Al Murray: The thing is, Jim, if an officer came to a briefing and spoke to you like that, would you think, well, he's absolutely right. We're going to sort this out. Or do you think, oh yeah, really? I've been in my battle dress for 21 days. Well, you know, if I was a new one, I'd be a bit green about the gills and my battle dress wasn't filthy after 21 days and it was still in the kind of day two mode. Then I'd be thinking, well, sounds great. His confidence is rubbing off on me and I'm feeling like this is all going to be easy as pie. But if I was Moet and Kennedy and I'd sort of been around a little bit, I would just be thinking, what a load of absolute nonsense.

18:36This is going to be a shocker. Yeah. So, you know, two days later, Farley Moet and Bert Kennedy, they take a Jeep up to the Sangro front to kind of check out where it is they're going to be moving into. And Kennedy had been, he had a really interesting story, actually, because he's been captured by the Germans, but escaped, spent 25 days on the run, rejoined the battalion, just as the commanding officer, Lord Tweedsmere, who was he of climbing up Acero fame, had gone down with jaundice. So, OK, right, well, you can be acting CO, battalion commander, but he's still only a major. so he arrives when when the battalion is out of the line in a little village called castro pinano which i've been to and it's a kind of you got this tiny little road it's sort of one of these villages sort of perched impossibly above a river valley and you wind your way up and there it all is it's actually rather attractive but anyway it looks over the river batherno which is another of those rivers that they've had to get across along with the trino and the uh and the sangro And the men had renamed it Castle Pigface in sort of time-honoured fashion.

19:38And already by this time, Moa is getting browned off. You know, the bank of courage is starting to run out. And he writes a brilliant letter to a friend back in Canada. I hasten to disillusion you about the climate, but it must be the worst in the whole bloody world. he writes that the first travel agent he saw he sees if he ever gets back home with a post of sunny italy is going to get a rock through the window you know he's he's done that rather goes to our point earlier doesn't it yes it well completely yes and and uh the the drive to the front does nothing to lighten his spirits he goes everything that was not solid rock seemed to be turning fluid lines of olive trees gnarled by a hundred winters stood gone as gibbets on dripping ridges above vineyards that have become slimy swamps and in the villages they pass through it seems as though even the little stone houses had somehow shrunk under the weight of the relentless rain and sleet and then once at the front they're given a tour and seeing the number of vehicles motoring slowly through thick syrupy mud halfway up each wheel and the dejected grey atmosphere and levels of destruction it's clear they're not going to be reaching pescara any time soon so that cheery brigadier in Campo Basso.

20:55They're kind of not impressed of him at all. And on the 1st of December, the Hasty Peas move out of Castle Pigface, a long column of trucks and other vehicles heading, you know, towards the Adriatic coast. And this is, again, this is a long, windy kind of, you know, it takes its time. It's not that far, but it is on these roads and in a kind of long column. And they're halted on the other side of the River Sangro. and then the kind of takeover process begins because you've got to get one person, one lot out and one lot in. Yeah. You know, when you're talking about the moving of a whole division of sort of, you know, 14 ,000 men or whatever and thousands of vehicles, it's quite a palaver.

21:33So Moet meets a liaison office for the 78th division who's almost in tears.

21:37Al Murray: Haven't any of the high mucky mucks looked at their frigging maps? There'll be half a dozen sangros before we get to Pescara. If we get to Pescara, thank God you're taking over Canada. We've had this show. They're done. I mean, are you picking up the collective vibes that everyone's quite down on Italy by this stage. It's not for the faint-hearted. No, it isn't. It isn't at all. No. I do like this, though, that we do have someone in the fogs who's told us what it's like and then someone coming in to take over who... It's this intimate a picture of what goes on. So the Hasty Peas take over from the fogs on the afternoon of the 5th of December after the Padre captain the Reverend J.F.

22:16Al Murray: go forth. What a fantastic... who needs hollywood i mean surely his nickname was and multiply holds volunteer church service for the men and farley moat's gone forward with the fogs um intelligence officer right and it's pouring with rain and files of the fogs are coming out of the line and farley moat um describes them yeah yeah he goes their faces were as colorless as paper pulp and they were so exhausted they hardly seemed to notice the intense shelling the coastal road was getting as they straggled down it i mean it's a very vivid picture you're getting here isn't it yeah yeah yeah and how jaded they are and moat's you know he he's taking it all in the front's really grim there's the pervading and rancid smell of cordite not acrid rancid smell of cordite hanging in the air and he finds his heart's pounding and jolting in his chest without rhythm.

23:15Al Murray: And he begins to shiver, even though he's not actually cold. And everything tells him to stop, to turn around and run. So pulling out a cigarette, he offers one to the Irish lieutenant he's with, who lights a match in his cupped hands. But Moet turns away because he's full up of it, isn't he? Yeah, because he says, for in that instant, I realized what was happening to me. I was sickening with the most virulent and deadly of all apprehensions, the fear of fear itself. So he's got, you know, he's got shaking hands, his heart's pounding, and he's just thinking, no, don't send me into this total hell.

23:54Al Murray: Yeah. And they walk on and reach the ridge and lie on their stomachs amongst some sodden bushes, and there's low cloud which blanks out the view. It's a strange landscape, a series of plateaus rather than ridges, which are gently undulating, but they're rather flat and on them are villages farmsteads endless vineyards olive groves and meadows there are a series of gullies scoring these plateaus that one after another which are quite mostly quite narrow but green because they're they're watercourses aren't they and they're covered with acacia with baby oak and and and low growing bushes i mean it's a really weird landscape there because it feels like it's sort of it's like it's like sort of corduroy you know you've got the steep sides and then you've got this sort of slightly kind of there's a sort of bit of camber to it yeah but it's it's not exactly it's not hilly and it's not flat either it's just sort of curved and then it kind of drops down to the next one so you've got it's like a sort of quite a curved top and then a sharp jagged well and then it comes up again and then it's a repeated and it just goes one after the other and it gets and it gets more pronounced the further north you get so once you're getting to the to the morrow this area around the morrow you can go to the edge of the gully and look out and see the top of the other side because it's about the same height when the cloud's not so low but what a place to defend and what an awful place to attack is what you think when you're there i can assure you this is a thing we say quite often though isn't it is that that it's good country is good defensive country um i can't really think of any that isn't when you stop and think about it you know when you put it like that when you put it like that yeah exactly I don't know really well exactly off the top of your head where where isn't easy to defend it's all rubbish it's all rubbish well yes exactly yeah I mean I've just been talking about writing about the Germans attacking at Dunkirk you know around the kind of you know the perimeter they've got terrible you know it's like flat as a board yeah yeah trying to attack the bridges It's a nightmare.

26:01Al Murray: Yeah. So the morrow is only about 10 or 15 yards wide, isn't it, Jim? It's tiny. It's a tiny river. But it's below steep, deep banks. And then you've got this series of villages. So there's Villa Rogati, the Hamlet of La Torre, San Leonardo, which if it's a fine day where there isn't cloud, you can see them. And it's white and stone house. I mean, it's the travel age in Italy again, all sleepily huddled together. And the valley itself is only two thirds of a mile wide. Yes, definitely. And where Folly Moat is as well, the sea is only a mile away. I mean, we're right up on the edge. It's just there.

26:38Al Murray: It's just there. But that obviously means flanking it isn't an option. Is it? Not really. And the Germans are getting good at this now. They know you zero your artillery mortars, you range everything, you have your targets all marked up. You've got areas of beaten ground with your machine gunners. It's going to be a shocker for the Canadians one way or another. you know, beyond them, beyond the villages, there are gullies, so narrow gashes in the plateau, which, you know, which are great for sticking your mortar teams in, which are covered with trees as well. You know, some of them are quite short.

27:12Al Murray: Some of them run down towards the sea, and they're against the Allied thrust, the Allied advance. So this is going to be an infantry bash, isn't it? You could, again, the Allied way of doing things only gets you, can only get you so far. and if you can't use all of it, it's going to have to be infantry. It's going to have to be lads fixing bayonets and getting stuck in. And also on the south side of the Morro Valley are the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada. And Captain Roy Durnford, who's the Padre, is shocked as well by the scenes of desolation as they get closer. And actually, he's from Devon.

27:46Al Murray: He's from Devon. River and banks are profuse. No, you can't do that.

27:53He's just, you know, he's been to a minor public school.

27:56Al Murray: The river and banks are profuse with battered remains of war and a completely ruined bridge. Dead strewn about all German. God help our lads. That cover it? Yeah, that's much better. Yeah, you know, but for anyone arriving here, you know, you're coming up in the rain. You're seeing the 78th Division coming out, looking absolutely shattered. You know, there's more debris and mayhem the closer you get, more mud. So, you know, for anyone entering this very war-torn landscape, Obviously, there's going to be a kind of gnawing sense of approaching hell. You know, and either side of the Bailey Bridges over the Sangra, immense furrows of mud, as well as all this battle debris.

28:34And Padre Durnford crosses over the river on the 3rd of December and immediately sees large numbers of new crosses. Barrage is in full swing. And then ahead stands San Vito, which is where Farnie Moet has been, because Pasty Peas are on the edge to the coast. on their left is the Seaforth Highlanders and Durnford reckons that the remains of the village and the surrounding landscape are worse than anything he's yet seen in terms of absolute devastation and let's face it the fighting sort of you know hasn't really begun yet yeah so the changeover is complete by 7.30pm on the 5th of December and they're then told they're going to attack right away and silently with no artillery managers they're just going to go straight down use the cover of darkness straight down into the Morro Valley and get on with it.

29:20And General Chris Vokes is the new divisional commander because General Simons is ill. He's also got jaundice. And he thinks a silent stealthy attack is their best chance of a success. So he's an experienced soldier, but he does have a reputation for pushing his men pretty hard. I mean, as we shall see. Yeah. But anyway, Burke Kennedy, who is only an acting, so you've got an acting general commanding the division. You've got an acting battalion commander at the Hasty Peas, and he's going spare. You know, he's absolutely crazy at the speed at which they're expected to attack. You know, you want to have time to reconnoiter, get into a new area, work the lay of the land, all the rest of it.

29:57And he can't. So he orders Moa to take a patrol down into the valley and find a crossing point. And of course, Moa, at the thought of this, is absolutely sick to his core. You know, he knows that kind of four months earlier, he'd have been absolutely eager for the chance. And even two months ago, he'd have done it without much thought. But now, because his bank of courage is running out, he's thinking, oh my God. So he collects some scouts, wheels his way forward, and together scrambling down the vine-covered slopes, they do safely reach the river, wade along its overflowing banks until they find a fordable spot, and then scamper up again.

30:28And, you know, he's sort of thinking, oh, God, you know, I've survived. I haven't seen a single German or heard one. But, you know, nothing about this auger's well, I think it's fair to say. No.

30:40Al Murray: But Vokes' plan, aside from this sort of silent, no softening up barrage thing. It's going to be three battalion assaults, Hasty Peas on the right, closest to the mouth of the morrow, close to the sea and the main highway. Highway 16 is setting all the Seaforth Highlands in the middle with the village of San Leonardo, which is pushed up on the plateau and the far side of the valley is their objective. And Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. I mean, I do like Canadian regimental titles. I think they're of a very high quality. Yeah, they're very strong, aren't they? the ppcli bit of a mouthful isn't it it sounds like an advertising firm or like a yeah firm of firm of convincing solicitors yeah they're going to attack the next settlement on the north side the villa ragati so it's three crossings three bridge heads and then push on to ortona and volks has picked out on his maps a crossroads that stands above the southwest end of a particularly long gully just to the south of town as a key objective here the track um north from the plateaus and gullies crosses the main lateral road so it's a that's a you can see why he's chosen that and then it winds its way towards orsonia and immediately parallel to the road there's the railway line and he calls this crossroads cider so that that's the objective and there's now a roundabout there with a canadian sherman tank on it is there very good that's that's about right isn't it but the weather is getting involved in uh chris volk's plans of course it is Of course it is.

32:12Al Murray: I'm back on the Sangro. The torrential rains cause the river to flood and all three pontoon bridges are swept away. So again, again, again, again. Yeah. So the sappers have to start over all over again. And of course, the problem is that this means that supplies, the ammunition, etc. that's coming up for this three battalion assault has been disrupted. So what would you do, Jim? Would you postpone? Yes, of course. Definitely. I'll just say, hold fire. You know, don't worry about it. Let's just pause on this one. Yeah, exactly. But do they postpone? No. No, they don't. Is that what they're going to do?

32:51Al Murray: No. Ain't going to happen. No, sir. So the attack begins at midnight on the night of the 5th into the 6th of December. And we will take a break here. And we'll come back and see how Farley Moet is faring on the morrow.

33:11On that flight, with 350 passengers... We assess, Prime Minister, with high confidence it was Russian. Holding the Russians accountable is World War 3.

33:22Al Murray: They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people. Man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. You've got to ask yourself if you want to play or not. You're the Prime Minister. You've done nothing! We would need to understand the policy context. All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today. Kill the president of Russia. Yes. Who is going to be able to pull this off? Sergeant Tom McDuff! Devised as a technically rigorous geopolitical action thriller. Where Britain plays its strongest hand. He's the best. Against its strongest foe. Bear Hunt. Available now in full wherever you get your podcasts.

34:1220th Century Studios presents Whale Fall, the most incredible survival thriller of the year. I need the whale! Help me! Now playing in theaters to survive the unthinkable. Do the impossible. You're gonna become so dangerous that the predators can't help but let you go. Austin Abrams. I'm going home! Josh Brogan. Survivor, survivor. Whale Fall, rated PG-13. Maybe inappropriate for children under 13. Now playing only in theaters. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for$15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities.

34:49So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at mintmobile.com slash switch.

34:58Al Murray: Upfront payment of$45 for three-month plan, equivalent to$15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. Default terms at MintMobile.com. The real cost of a break-in isn't your valuables. It's the feeling that your home stopped being safe. SimpliSafe keeps danger away from your family with three layers of protection. One, smart AI cameras and live U.S.-based agents help stop intruders before they break in. Two, we sound the alarm at points of entry. Three, our agents request emergency response. Plans starting around$1 a day.

35:29Right now, get 60 % off your new system with professional monitoring at SimpliSafe.com slash Spotify. Outdoor Deterrence plans start at$49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com slash licenses for alarm license information.

35:46Al Murray: Welcome back to We Have Ways to Make You Talk with me, Al Murray and James Holland. Now, Jim, we've just set the hasty peas on their way at midnight on the 5th of December into the 6th. So what happens, Jim? What happens to Farley? So Able Company, which is Moet's old crew from Sicily, are now without Major Alex Campbell, who's also recovering from jaundice. and Moet watches them head off his old platoon leading the way and down they go into the valley of death and then silence and there's no artillery and there's no firing and the rain is still pouring beating a drum on the leaves and on the track and then suddenly starkly cutting across the night is the buzzsaw of machine guns and flares crackling overhead and fire from the enemy artillery and shells screeching over and sucking out the air as they carve their way across the valley and the battle of Ortona has begun and the canadian three crossing points have really mixed results because the ppcli the princess patricias um at villa regati they go pretty well and the hamlet is is pretty swiftly captured but the c4 farlanders have a shocker they really struggle you know and san leonardo is is on the top of the of the ridge but it's sort of inland a tiny bit so they can sort of see you coming um and the acps don't make any progress at all so there's only one thing to do when that that happens is you just try again.

37:03Yeah. Which is exactly what they do on the afternoon of the 6th of December. And Burt Kennedy, who's desperate to kind of for them to impress and get across it as quickly as possible, reckons that, you know, he can get his men across for a bit of help of artillery this time and some heavy 4.2 inch mortars from a squadron of British Shermans placed on the ridge behind them. So, 2pm, Charlie Company sets off this time and after 20 minutes of shell fire, by which time smoke covers much of the valley. And the mortars are tonking away. Foo!

37:34Al Murray: Foo! Foo! There you go. He's like, yeah, perfect. And just ahead of their advance. And Kennedy hopes that C Company, you know, on this afternoon with some Arturo support, might actually be able to force a way through. And Farley Mowat, the intelligence officer, is watching their assault, and he immediately realized to his horror that the enemy had dug in opposite our returning fire with equal ferocity. Pounding the valley floor with shell after shell and of course you know it's quite easy to as you say to zero those in yeah immense fountains of earth stone and steel hurtling into the sky and dog company are then also sent into the inferno right you you go as well and they disappear spectrally as the smoke envelops them um and so too the tanks which have begun working their way down sort of winding their way down this sort of um this this steep slopes and there's a an hour of silence from both companies nothing on the radio or anything like that.

38:30And Kennedy is getting increasingly distraught. And he fears that two of his companies have been completely wiped out and slaughtered in the carnage. And the difference between advancing into this valley in front of them or over no man's land 25 years earlier seems pretty negligible. The only thing that's different really is the terrain. Yeah. So it's pretty bad. I mean... Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the sense of dislocation at battalion headquarters, you just have no idea what the hell's going on.

38:59Al Murray: Yes. So Kennedy now orders Moa and a runner to kind of have a look and decides to lead the way himself because that's the sort of person he is. Down the valley sides through the shattered trees, shattered olive groves and the shattered vineyards and the ground's trembling and there's the overwhelming din of battle. And given how Moa is feeling before this, what must this have been like? You have to pull yourself along and the air's thick with cordite and smoke. It's biting at your throat, making your eyes sting there's the rat the river which is narrow but flowing fast they wade across the water's numbingly cold they scramble up the far side their hands are covered in mud their knees are slick with mud there's mud absolutely everywhere where the hell is everyone and moat is really struggling his mind is saying to him turn and run go flee you've got to get out of here this whole time and there are the tanks are stuck they're bogged down so there's no armored support And they managed to find Charlie Company, who are sheltering in a cave at the foot of the valley.

40:00Al Murray: The company's commanding officer's missing. And there's a sergeant who's really shaken. He can't really tell them anything. And clearly, they've come unstuck. The situation's hopeless. And Kennedy wants to call them back, but he doesn't have a radio. So Kennedy and Moet, they go back up to the ridge. And Moet feels at this point like he's drowning, like he's plunging into the mire. And he's gasping for breath. His brain is, he says, he describes his brain as feeling unreal, as though he is sinking, like being sucked into his sort of quagmire of fear. And they reach the ridge and march back down the road and then get bracketed by enemy shells.

40:40Al Murray: Something hits Moet's boot and the concussive shell, effect of the shell, knocks him face down into the mud. He's dazed, he looks up and ahead of him, Kennedy's on his knees, shaking his head while behind something, someone is screaming in his ears. and moat realizes it's the runner who's this young lad who he's never known he's never known his name he's just you know here's a runner and his body's humping jerkily his leg is a little distance away of him being torn off and he sees this ghastly image a boy who's been reduced to roadkill the runner gives one final shriek of despair and pain and then collapses dead Kennedy shouts, get up, Moat.

41:21Al Murray: God damn you, up. And he says, I can't. I've been hitting the leg. I can't come, boss. I'm sorry. But Kennedy grabs him and pulls into his feet. And they've been bracketed. So there's more coming, obviously. They've been spotted. They're on someone's list. And the salvo of shells whoosh over and crash nearby. But they crouch, they stumble on, they get clear of the ridge. And when Baker Company, some men from Baker Company spot them, they then help Moat onto the forward aid post. and he's he's thinking maybe i've got a blighty hopefully i've got a blighty wound yeah i'll be going home and there's a piece of shrapnel actually sticking out of his ass and they pull that out and the wound on his foot actually isn't isn't much but the state he's in it doesn't matter does it and at this point charlie company are straggling back to their side of this car but there's still no word from dog company kennedy does not he's not going to let one of his companies remain stranded.

42:17Al Murray: So he orders Abel and Baker companies into the fray as well and the dismounted carrier platoon to go and find them, basically, and tidy things up. And Moe is told to accompany them as he leased away, even with a ragged backside and a torn foot. And they cross the river. It's amazing, isn't it? It's just staggering. They managed to reconnect with the missing D company. And the problem is the radio's kaput, defunct. So by dusk, the battalion has cleared the scartman ever thus yeah i mean it's always the radios and begins digging in on the far side so they have actually got this foothold but after a great deal of drama in this business of people being of the of the attrition of the of the the price of it and the night is not comfortable they can hear enemy tanks you know the squealing tracks and all that and tanks nearby there's flares crackling and bursting regularly shells still plunging in and on both sides you've got this sort of ragged panicky firing people people stumbling through the shredded vines and mow it off you go off you go he's sent in to go and fetch what what's left of Charlie company yeah and he returns once more reporting to Kennedy up on the northern ridge and this entire time on the Seaforths front yeah the padre Roy Durnford has been up to the front and is repeatedly trying to bury the dead and I think this is this is striking isn't it because we looked at leslie skinner doing this um in our recent uh series about the sheridan's yeomanry and he saw it as his as his duty to make sure he buried the men personally so he knew where they were buried and he could write to the families and look the men in the eye that he would take care of them and roy roy durnford's the same so he's been up to the front repeatedly to try and bury the dead and he says we are shelled constantly a barrage of artillery is being heard north of us and on our left the like of which has surely never been heard before and he hasn't seen mud like it from a echelon right up to the front he says go up line to front wilson killed we are up against fierce odds war has never been so savage as it is for us now narrow hairbreadth escapes are common amongst us all nerve-wracking in this extreme god i should say it's so vivid isn't it jim yeah the truth is the whole battle is is just is just turning into a kind of classic meat grinder which is what they they they call it this idea that you're just being chucked into a kind of giant mincer yeah yeah and the success of the ppcli can't be exploited because the engineers decide it's impossible to bridge the morrow below villa regatti so further attempts made to clear san lorenzo and expand the toe holder are eked out by by the hasty peas because the c4th islanders can't get into san leonardo and and there's not enough of the ppcli to kind of you know turn it on its flank.

45:04So General Vogts then agrees to shift the entire front to the right and allow the 8th Indians to take over the area around Villa Rigatti. Immediately their sappers bridge the morrow. Yep. And call it the impossible bridge. Anyway, they do it. They do it anyway. So yet another assault is launched on San Leonardo and the original goal, the side of crossroads, is the objective yet again at 4.30pm with a barrage of 350 guns pummeling an area only a few miles wide. I mean, you can imagine what that's doing. An immense, preposterous din and a sort of earthquake between the feet, you know, the whole ground trembling.

45:47The plateau beyond is pitched and turned and tossed, and San Leonardo is just the latest Italian village to be reduced to rubble. I mean, when all fails, have another go, but this time use lots of artillery. I mean, that's basically the motto, isn't it?

46:04Al Murray: I was just going to say that. He doesn't mind using the artillery now, does he? Oh, well. That silent attack didn't work. Yeah, original plan didn't work. Yeah. So we'll plaster the bastards is what he's thinking. We should go over to the other side of the hill, shouldn't we, Jim? And look at the German perspective at this point. We definitely should. Yeah. We've got Grenadier Werner Mork, who's an interesting character. I mean, he doesn't want to be there. He's not interested in fighting. Had quite a cushy job beforehand. Forehand, he's 22 years old, but he's already a veteran of North Africa and Sardinia, part of the 90th Panzer Grenadier Division.

46:36And he doesn't get put in the bag in Tunisia because he's wounded that time or ill or something. I can't quite remember. But anyway, he's been serving in the quartermaster's office, the B echelon, effectively, you know, right at the back, which he's really liked. And he's due some leave because he's engaged to his childhood sweetheart. And they've been told that he's got his marriage license, which is, you know, a euphemism really for permission to kind of leave the front and go home and get married. and he's been told that this is going to be authorised at any moment. He's befriended this older mill worker, this lady who runs the mill, who makes him bread and stuff and he's been buttering her up.

47:12But then his old company commander, who's called Leutnant Cheschow, who he absolutely hates, has returned. And Cheschow demands that Mort go back to the front lines. So his cushy quartermaster's job is over and instead he's now dug in on the plateau to the north of the Morro with the rest of 12 company of the 2nd Battalion of the 200th Panzergrenadier Regiment. So he's in the mud, you know, hoping a shell doesn't land with his name on it and having a pretty bad time, to be fair.

47:41Al Murray: Yeah. And he's number three on a machine gun, but he's not trained for it. Who is at this stage from the German army? Well, and this is the point, because after all, it's the idea how everyone's trained for the job, the next job along, just in case the next man falls and all that. But he isn't trained for it. They may well, that may be the advertised mentality, but he isn't trained for it. And he shares a foxhole with the other two in the team. And when they're firing, he has to pass up belts of ammunition, and then he has to go and get more when they run out. So, you know, he's an ammo monkey.

48:13Al Murray: And the motto that's been drummed into them is, if one falls, another must replace him. Yes. But if he doesn't know what he's doing, fat lot good that is. And he is also beginning to struggle with combat fatigue, like Fali Mowat. His reservoir of courage is running out. And they are being shelled day and night by the Allies. They're being pummeled. Orsonia, which is not far away, it's about a dozen miles to southwest. The Kiwis, New Zealanders, are in the middle of another really tough fight at Orsonia. And the town is strung out along a 1 ,300-foot-high ridge overlooking the morrow, but with steep plunging cliffs down into the valley below.

48:51Al Murray: I mean, there's nothing good here, is there? No. And it's amazing. when you when you you can stand on the other side you can stand on the southern side of the moro valley and look across at orsonia and you just go uh-oh i mean you know because because it's sort of strung out on the top there's a road that kind of winds its way down into valley and then you know it goes back up again and then it's a sort of long gentle approach and then there's another ridge line behind it so there's these sort of two sort of forks come you know that you've got the valley and you've got these two forks with these roads coming out and that's the only way you're getting into it you know because right in front of the main part of the town it just drops it's like a really really steep i mean you'd struggle to climb up it let alone get a vehicle up or anything yeah so there's very good reasons for taking orsonia because it'll help the capture of ortona because it's linked by the same road you know it goes through goes out of the town to the east and goes all the way to ortona yeah it also provides a base for a jump off to the drive to the next town, which is Chieti, and it's a very dominating position, which gives you that kind of a plus-one-minus-one thing.

49:55You know, you're denying it to your enemy, but getting it to your... using it yourself. Yeah. An attempt is made to take it quickly on December 3rd, but it fails, so they pull back and wait for the artillery and everything to catch up and get across these repeatedly blamed bridges. And so that's the plan. You know, let's start again, but let's do an organized attack. But the problem is when you let the time pass to organize your attack, the enemy are also organizing. And they're organizing their defenses. You know, that's the problem. Yeah.

50:25Al Murray: And so there's a new attack. And this is, I'm going to, I think we finally tripped over the worst operational name of this series. I think we finally got there. Operation Torso. I mean, that's. Yeah. No thanks. No, I don't want, I don't want, you know, I'm not doing it. If it's called Torso, I'd call it something else, boss. No. And that's launched on the 7th of December with the 24th Battalion approaching on the Southern Road that runs from the east up to the Brecciaroli Ridge. And the 28th Maori are coming from the Otona Road, which reaches the town along a further ridgeline that leads up to Osonia from the northeast.

51:05Al Murray: So half a mile out of the town, the road passes the town cemetery. So the New Zealanders call it Cemetery Ridge. and Roger Smith and Lieutenant Turbot's platoon join the rest of the battalion in getting to the eastern edge of Asonia, but only after taking considerable casualties. So there's no smooth sailing here. And the town like San Pietro and elsewhere, the Germans have kicked out the civilians, it's been emptied and it's held by units of the 26th Panzer. And the place has already been smashed up and Turbot's platoon managed to storm a village on the edge of the town and they call it the Pink House and they're dug in around it, but they haven't got enough tanks.

51:42Al Murray: Yes. And the Germans have armor. They've got Stugs, they've got Panzer IVs, which they've brought up overnight. And it's obvious that this pink house stronghold, this towhold, isn't going to be effective enough without proper reinforcements. And in fact, actually with armor, they need tanks. But the problem is the only way to get the tanks, the Shermans up the road, up there, is along two roads that run along the two ridges. so yeah what you're going to do and canalizing tanks is a sure way of getting them knocked out but do you remember when we were doing san pietro and and the bernard line and and so on and um the texans going up to monte samucra and everything yeah and they try and send in tanks to san pietro and they'd all have to just go along this one road they all get knocked out i mean it's the same they all get knocked out it's the same problem yeah and the germans the germans know the terrain they they they they're um they've had a lot of practice in the defending business by now and guns are ranged and you know ambush points are identified yeah um so smith and his lads they dig in around the pink house and he's ordered to take a section into an orchard in front of it when he catches his foot on some wire oh dear and he feels a cold chill goose bumps up his back to his head and he says hold it you blokes i've stuck it i can't do kiwi jim you're you're smith what does he say jim hold it you blokes i've struck a tripwire and an s mine sir and turbo then orders him to stay dead still for a couple of minutes while the rest of the men tend to really walk backwards roger it's over to you and if you do happen to pull it drop onto your face if you're close enough to it everything ought to go over the top of you yes not really very reassuring no and you can just imagine you're standing there pins and needles start to numb your foot then you get shakes in your leg and you're thinking no and eventually with the last man um behind him um clear behind him he leans down checks the wire isn't caught in a lace or an anklet and then steps back that's nothing he got away with it i mean oh phew yeah anyway the following morning they're pulled back by that time smith is suffering from concussion after a panzer 4 tank shell has struck the house just above his head but he like most of the battalion have got off actually quite lightly um yeah for the time being this is off you know they're not going through or son yeah so park this one for a moment so plans to roll up ortona from the west will have to be put on hold and ortona is just gonna have to be taken the hard way and join us next episode for the hard way um uh we should call that's what we should call the episode jim the hard way no the next one is the gully oh right okay the next one's the gully the thing is it's just endless bloody gullies isn't it we've got the sangro the morrow the gully the town that's how we're doing it fantastic excellent well thanks for listening everyone if you want to hear um about the gully immediately um then become a patreon and there it is waiting for you with no adverts.

54:54Al Murray: How about that? As well as all the other goodies that are available to our patrons, all the other content, stuff to watch, stuff to listen to and live casts as well. Every other Monday, pretty much, where Jim and I war waffle to our heart's content, often with guests and with listener and viewer interaction. It has been fantastic to go this granular, Jim, and to look at the bitter detail of a battle that perhaps isn't on everyone's shopping list. So thanks for listening. We'll see you all again very soon. Cheerio. Cheerio

55:53Survivor, Survivor. Whale Fall, rated PG-13. Maybe inappropriate for children under 13. Now playing only in theaters.

56:23com slash switch.

56:24Al Murray: Upfront payment of$45 for three month plan,$15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first three months only. Then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com. Shaq here. What's it like to buy a car from Carvana 100 % online and get it delivered to your door? Let me tell you. Your car is here, Mr. Shaq. Thank you, Mr. Carvana guy. Can't wait to take it for a spin. Only the best for you, Mr. Shaq. Hey, have you always been so big, tall, and handsome? Not always. I was 6 '10 once. 7 days to love it or return it Mr. Shaq not that I would you never do no I never do so buy your car today on Carvana delivery fees may apply see our 7 day return policy at Carvana.com