The Regiment

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McClelland and Stewart Limited

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The Regiment

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McClelland and Stewart Limited

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For those who have joined the ranks of the White Battalion of the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment-and for their comrades who remain.

First edition copyright© by McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1955 Second edition copyright © by Farley Mowat, 1973

All rights reserved 0·7710-6575·2

The Canadidri Publilhc1 McClelland and Stewart Limited 25 Hollinger Road, Toronto Printed and bound in Canada

Books by Farley Mowat People of the Deer (1952) The Regiment (1955, new edition 1973) Lost in the Barrens ( 1956) The Dog Who \Vouldn't Be (1957) The Grey Seas Under ( 1959) The Desperate People (1959) Owls in the Family (1961) The Serpcn t's Coil ( i 961) The Black Joke (1962) Never Cry Wolf ( 1963, new edition 1973) Westviking (1965) The Curse of the Viking Crave ( 1966) Canada North (1967) This Rock vVithin the Sea (with John de Visser) (1968) The Boat \Vho \Vouldn't Float (1969) Sibir (1970, new edition 1973) A \Vha1e for the Ki1ling (1972)

Edited by Farley Mowat Coppcrminc Journey ( 1958) THE TOP OF THE WORLD TRILOGY

Ordeal by Ice ( 1960, new edition 1973) The Polar Passion (1967, new edition 1973) Tundra ( 1973)

Foreword

THE STORY OF AN INFANTRY REGIMENT JIAS A HUNDRED FACETS; SOME

obvious, and others most obscure. 1be majority of those that have been turned to the public eye have particularly disclosed what is heroic, what is glittering in deed and memory; or, in sharp contrast, they have reflected what is grotesque and bestial in war and in the men who fight in war. ~ Yet neither the dark mirror of an obsessed realism nor the shallow one of a determined romanticism properly reflects the true shape of that amorphous but vital creation of men's emotions -which is called the regiment. With full understanding of the fact that a regiment is ·the sum of the attributes of its myriad human elements, I have nevertheless chosen to write of it as a substantive entity-a thing possessed of special animation. I have attempted to tell the story of one regiment in birth, in growth, in dissolution; and throughout this book the regiment itself remains entire in all its moods. I have tried to show these moods without partiality, and without exaggerated emphasis on any one of them. The result is not a history in the accepted sense of the word, since I have made no great attempt to evaluate the past through the cold and retrospective eye of the historian. I have chosen instead to concern myself primarily with the living understanding that fighting men had of events that were yet in being; and with the emotions which belonged to those men in the days when war was here-was now. I could not have accomplished my task without the wholehearted assistance of the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment. Nothing was kept from me. The fu11 details of the sombre hours when the Regiment faltered, have been given to me as freely as were VI

the details of its greatest moments. At no time was anv effort made to persuade me to soften or to evade the truth . , These men-these comrades-to whom I owe so much will understand that I cannot acknowledge my immeasurable debt to them individually and can personal1y identify so few of them in this story which touches upon the lives of more than four thousand men. I think they will forgive me when I choose one of their number to be the particular recipient of my gratitude. He is Freddy Goforth -Major F. Goforth, M.C. \Vithout him, there would have been no book. FARLEY MOWAT

Palgrave, Ontario September, 1955

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Maps Italian Campaigns The Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment, 1943-1945 Sicilian Campaign Death Valley

f uly-August 2943

/uly 17I 28 1943

Assoro and Nissoria Regalbuto

August I I z 2943

86 101

October 3-November 2 2943 December 5/ 20 1943

Moro River Crossing

55

76

/uly z1 /25 2943

Actions in the Apennines

xviii

The Moro and the Winter Battles

115

138

December 5 2 943/ anuary 30 1944

May 17I 2 5 1944

Llri Valley Campaign

May 19/ 24 1944

The Hitler Line Assault Actions in the Gothic Line San Maria di Scacciano

August 26-September 20 1944 205 September 3I 5 1944

Capture of San Fortunato Ridge Bulgaria and the Hamlet

September 19/ zo 1944

225

October 11 I 15 i 944 December 4/ 5 1944

The Lamone Crossing

Crossing the Vecchio and Naviglio The Po Valley Approaches viii

December 11/13 1944 273

Winter 1944-1945

Contents Foreword Prelude The Years Before i Phoenix in Uniform 2 The Tiger in Their Midst 3 "Cook's Tour" 4 "The Waiting Years" 5 The Hour Strikes 6 The Sands of Sicily 7 Death Valley 8 Montgomery's Mountain Goats 9 The Flavour of Defeat 10 A Trap Unsprung 11 Interlude in the Apennines 12 The River of Blood 1 3 Battle of the Bulge 14 Winter Front i 5 The Road to Rome 16 The Regiment at Rest 17 The Gothic Line 18 Gateway to the Plains 19 Across the Rubicon 20 Betrayal 21 Operation Chuckle 22 The Battle Without End 23 Resurrection 24 The End in View Aftermath The Years Ahead Glossary Index ix

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1 15 28 36 48

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