Canadas role in the battle of Ortona

The battle of Ortona is legendary in Canada’s military’s history; it was one of Canada’s greatest victories during World War II. A total of 1375 men were killed and 964 were injured, of those 1375 men, 650 were Canadians. For Canadian’s the battle was the bloodiest battle of the Italian campaign with numerous causalities in just a short amount of time.

Canada’s role in the battle of Ortona was to take control over the town from Germany so that we could advance towards the coastline. Canadians made a long trek crossing rivers and ridgelines until they made it to Ortona to lead the attack. We fought in a short but brutal battle that lasted through Christmas in the freezing temperatures. The battle took place in the streets where all occupants evacuated, Germany and Canada would then lure each other into buildings and bomb each other. The battle was extremely tough so Canada developed a technique called mouse holing. Mouse holing was when soldiers would create access to rooms by blasting through a wall, by doing this Canadians were able to avoid Germans in the open streets and weren’t easily targeted by snipers and machine guns. If Canada hadn’t used the technique we wouldn’t have been as successful in the battle as we were.

The battle was one of Canada’s well-known battles because of its horrors and because of the nature of it. This battle built a strong reputation for Canada and proved the courage of our soldiers to our allies. Without Canada’s help overtaking Ortona, Germany would have been in control and the battle wouldn’t have gone down in Canada’s military’s history.