On This Day December 31st 1943

1 York & Lancs. relieved a unit of 8 Indian Division, in the line on 22 December.   1 York & Lancs. then moved on to Lanciano on the 31^st.   For three weeks it had remained in the line, but few attacks could be carried out owing to the weather.   Constant patrolling, however, was kept up.

On Boxing Day Italy 1943 Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry

 

On This Day: 26 December 1943 - Italy

C. Whiting and E. Taylor,  “Fighting Tykes”

Boxing Day 1943

1 Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry Regiment

On Boxing Day some of the men were taken out of the line for a few hours to watch the divisional concert party, “The Low Gang”, sitting shivering in their overcoats in an unheated opera house at Luciano where the back of the stage had been removed by a German shell to let in a freezing draught.   But it was a welcome relief from the line, despite repeated German air attacks which had some of the performers leaving the show to man their guns”.

Next On This day: New Years Eve, York & Lancs move to Lanciano .

 

On This Christmas Day Italy 1943 Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry Regiment

 

On This Day: 25 December 1943 - Italy

C. Whiting and E. Taylor,  “Fighting Tykes”

Christmas Day 1943 - 1 Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry Regiment

          1 KOYLI spent the Christmas of 1943 up in the mountains beyond the little town of Luciano.   They ate a miserable Christmas dinner which consisted of cold bully beef, lukewarm tea and hard ration biscuits.   There was none of the traditional beer and very little Italian vino, for the supply routes were virtually impassable save for what could be brought by mules.   On that day three foot of snow fell.   Drifts of up to ten feet were common.   They broke down the timber roofs of the dugouts.   Men shivered on underground sheets or gas capes in freezing temperatures.   Signallers had to sit at their sets in their dugouts up to their knees in icy water.   Their flesh became wrinkled and pasty.   Sometimes their boots had to be cut off them.   To remove them otherwise would tear off the dead flesh.   And all the time the men were under constant fire.

Tomorrow: Boxing Day, Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry

On This Day: Christmas Day Italy 1943 Green Howards Regiment, Albert Roper

 

On This Day: Christmas 1943 - Italy

Albert Roper, Private Diary, 1 Green Howards Regiment

Christmas Day 1943

 Albert Roper, formerly a butcher, made sure that his platoon had a roast on Christmas Day.   He recalled:

“I went outside this shell battered farmhouse on Christmas Eve and saw by the light of a full moon that in the branches of the tree there were guinea fowl roosting.   My mate wanted to get his rifle and shoot one down, but I knew guinea fowl better.   They can be so docile and trusting.   I just shinned up the tree, caught hold of one by the legs and brought it down.   Then I went up again for a few more.   We spent the next hour or so plucking them and on Christmas Day got the farm oven heated  and had a fine old roast dinner – guinea fowl and biscuits washed down with red vino from a huge demijohn we found in one of the out houses”.

Tomorrow: Christmas Day, Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry

On This Day Italy 1943 1 Green Howards Pvt. Hamilton

 

On This Day: Christmas 1943 - Italy

Private Roy Hamilton 1 Green Howards Regiment recorded in his diary:

Christmas Day 1943

Christmas Day 1943 was just another very cold, very wet, very grim day here.   For dinner we had corned beef hash and the inevitable, so-called rice pudding.   As it had been brought forward in containers to us, it was barely warm.   Still, we did manage to say: “Happy Christmas” to each other.”

On This Day: Christmas 1943, Italy, 1 York & Lancs. Regiment

 

On This Day: Christmas 1943 - Italy

22 Dec

Lieut. Geoffrey Winter, 1 York & Lancaster Regiment writes:

“Rain, snow, slush, deep mud, plus hostile Germans. I was then a 21year old infantry Platoon commander in a forward position west of Ortona. Things were fairly quiet at the time, and it was decided that each Company would be taken out of the line to some farm buildings to the rear out of enemy view, for Christmas dinner.   Our turn came.   There were three officers in the company, down from the usual five.   Our bedrolls were brought up from “B” echelon so for one night we would be able to sleep under a roof in comparative comfort.

The following morning, we left and plodded through the slush and mud to our forward positions.   For many of the men I knew in the 1^st Battalion, the York and Lancaster Regiment, Christmas 1943 was to be their last”.

Sadly for my father who was with 1 York & Lancs. it was his last Christmas!

Tomorrow: 1 Green Howards, Christmas Day.

 

On This Day Italy 21 December 1943 - a local view!

 On This Day

21 December 1943

Antonio Lepone writes:

“Without gifts and without dinners, between bombs and pain.

It is Christmas 1943, among the ruins, pains and hopes.   The fighting is fierce along the Gustav Line which cuts the Aurunca area in two.  The centres of Sud Ponti are half-empty, the families going to the nearby countryside and hills to escape shell fire and air raids.  It is not a time for dinners and gifts, but an attempt is made to remember the religious event with the hope of  an early peace.

The Church of the Immaculate Conception of Scauri.   At the end of the Mass of Mezanotte, celebrated by Dom Stephen, the unmistakable notes of “Silent Night” are heard in the small church of SELVACAVA not far from Spigno Saturnia, proposed by a group of Polish soldiers, stationed in the area, united with the faithful present, desiring to overcome the selfishness of war.

Tomorrow: On This Day 22 December 1943, 1 York and Lancaster Regiment

"On This Day" Christmas Italy 1943 - Viewing starts tomorrow!

 

 The next "On This Day" post will be a special Christmas edition posting each day from 21 December to 26 December about World War 2 in Italy! View any time pm on each day. The first episode is an Italian local view of Christmas.

21 December Christmas, A local Italian view - Antonio Lepone writes:

22 December Lieut. Geoffrey Winter, 1 York & Lancs. writes:

23 December Private Roy Hamilton 1 Green Howards recorded in his diary:

Christmas Day 1943

24 December Albert Roper, Private Diary, 1 Green Howards

Christmas Day 1943

25 December C. Whiting and E. Taylor,  “Fighting Tykes” 1 KOYLI

Christmas Day 1943 

26 December C. Whiting and E. Taylor,  “Fighting Tykes” 1KOYLI

Boxing Day 1943 

Comments welcome!

The Italian Battlefield expert - Frank de Planta

 

Frank de Planta

In writing the “Battle for Monte Natale”  I would like to particularly thank Frank de Planta for clarifying various points with his special military knowledge and expertise.   I have been on two battlefield tours in Italy superbly organised by Frank.   They were informative, educational and at times amusing.   Frank has a great sense of humour which he is able to combine with the serious nature of the subject, and I am most grateful to him. For further information about his tours see his web site at:

http://www.cassinobattlefields.co.uk/

Book Launch of "Battle for Monte Natale" in Gerrards Cross 14 Dec 2024

 Book Launch of Battle for Monte Natale in Gerrards Cross

         

  

   

On This Day - Christmas 1943 - Italy

 The next "On This Day" post will be a special Christmas edition posting each day from 21 December to 26 December about the war in Italy! Comments welcome!

Italy - On This Day 10 December 1943

 On This Day: 10 December 1943 - Italy

After a spell in the hills and mountains, 1 York & Lancs. moved East to a line between Orsogna and Ortona, arriving at Crecchio on 10 Dec 43.  

Whilst in the hills between Orsogna and Ortona Lieut. Geoffrey Winter of 1 York & Lancs. described how his Platoon rushed a German machine gun post, captured two wounded prisoners and their guns, wounded four more Germans, and put the rest to flight.

Lieut. Geoffrey Winter, 1 York & Lancs. writes:

“We were going forward with the company to take a series of hill features.   While we waited to go into action we saw one of our planes swoop on a hill and five enemy machine guns opened up on it.   We were half-way to the hill when bombs began to fall around us.   We sprinted forward for about three hundred yards”.   We saw bare headed Germans on top of the hill.   The position was taken at bayonet point when we reached the top.   There we found a mortally wounded German Sergeant-major and a soldier hopping about saying in English “I’m wounded, I’m wounded”   The remainder of the Germans had fled leaving their guns but taking four wounded men with them.”

Read the “Battle for Monte Natale” to discover what happened next! 

 

Battle for Monte Natale - Press Release

 

PRESS RELEASE – Battle for Monte Natale

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Olivia Camozzi-Jones, 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS

 Tel: +44 Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

 Email: marketingps@pen-and-sword.co.uk

 Battle for Monte Natale

 First-Hand Accounts of the Crossing of the River Garigliano on the Gustav Line

 Author: John Ernest Strafford

Highlights

·        Battle for Monte Natale brings together contemporary accounts showing war, not only at the strategic level involving Corps, Division, Brigade, and Battalion , but also the individual level, inspiring stories of heroism and sacrifice. No book about World War II shows a battle in such detail.

·     Minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, by words, pictures and maps, it shows what happened in the three weeks from 17th January to 7th February 1944.

·      Ernest Strafford (father of John Strafford) served with 1 York & Lancs.  On 20 Jan 44 a witness reported that he saw Pte. Ernest Strafford “wounded in the head when a mortar bomb burst among us during our attack. I believe his wounds were serious”.

·        On 4 Feb 44 the body of Ernest Strafford was “recovered, identified & buried by British Troops”. What happened to Ernest Strafford between these two dates is assessed in this book.

 Battle for Monte Natale is part of the first Battle for Monte Cassino – the bloodiest battle of the Italian Campaign. By extensive use of War Diaries, missing person reports, awards for valour, and personal accounts including those of German soldiers, this is the story of those individuals who fought and died in the Battle for Monte Natale. All the action takes place in an area of just nine square kilometres. It is a unique glimpse of an important battle from both sides of the conflict.

 

The casualties of 1 York & Lancs. during the attack on Monte Natale were: Killed 49, Wounded 144, Missing 64. The attacking Companies were about 400 men.

About the Author

John Strafford was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire and now lives in Buckinghamshire. He went to the Duke of York’s Royal Military School from 1954 to 1960. The school was founded in 1803 for the sons of soldiers. Married with three children and two grandchildren he is now a retired Chartered Accountant.

 

One evening in November 2011 he was walking through the Field of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey when at the York & Lancs. section the first wooden cross he saw had his father’s name on it. He broke down in tears. He never knew his father, but the site of the cross made him determined to find out what happened to him.

He has spent over ten years researching the Battle for Monte Natale and has been to the battlefield several times. In 2022 he took part in an interview with Italian Television shown at the Roman Amphitheatre in Minturno, about the war in Italy.

Other published works include “Our Fight for Democracy” - a history of democracy in the United

Kingdom

 

NEW BOOK RELEASE

ISBN: 9781036108182

240 PAGES · HARDBACK

PUBLISHED: NOVEMBER 2024

 PEN & SWORD MILITARY

 

"Battle for Monte Natale" now published at last!

 

Battle of Monte Natale for comments

 For those who may be interested I have now set up the following for "Battle for Monte Natale" under the heading Battle for Monte Natale WhatsApp Group, Facebook Page, Facebook Group and web site at battleformontenatale.blogspot.com all of which I will be posting on a regular basis. They are for discussion, questions and comment. Do join in. John