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LITTLE STALINGRAD

Writing The Book On Street Fighting

The desperate battle in the streets of Ortona quickly attracted attention from press correspondents accompanying the Canadian army.

Here was something different, a battle in a built up area rather than fighting through fields and forests. And it was obvious that the Germans were seeking desperately to retain control of the place.

Some of the media began referring to Ortona as "Little Stalingrad," evoking the epic four and a half month battle for the Russian city on the banks of the Volga which had ended in ignominious defeat for the Germans at the start of 1943. The fight for Ortona was no where near the scale of the fighting at Stalingrad, but it was every bit as vicious for the men involved in it. And issues of prestige soon became involved, the German leader Adolf Hitler decreed that Ortona must be held, there was to be no retreat.

There was a more immediate link to Stalingrad. Some of the German paratroopers trying to keep possession of Ortona had fought at Stalingrad before Soviet troops encircled the German army there. What they had learned about fighting in a built up area was now put to good use in their new battle.

For the Canadians, however, it was a matter of what later became called "on the job training". They were apt learners.