Stalingrad Of The Adriatic: The Moro (Part 2)
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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What does Harry Wilson’s diary reveal about the Battle of the Moro?
It rained hard and then cleared up, leaving the night bright with the full moon, which showed up the ash and olive wooded slopes and caused the swollen sand grow 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. 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 a signals officer. Cipher 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? Yeah. 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 mean, I can send you the whole thing if you want. It'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. And 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. And he spends a lot of his time feeling scared. and well he might
understandably so well welcome everyone to we have ways of making you talk with 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 wend our way episode one was the
sangro and
now
we're the
morrow yeah yeah so not unlike eighth army we're wending our way to autona essentially eventually Eventually. Eventually. Well, you've got to get there river by river, valley by valley, ridge by ridge. And that's exactly what we're doing with these episodes. So Harry and the 8th Indian Division 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?
Why were winter conditions and the Moro Valley so difficult for the Allies?
They really are. They really are a long way from Rome. On the 4th of December. And they do this on a Bailey Bridge. Corps of Engineers, hurrah for the CRE, yet again spanning yet another river in yet another valley in Italy. You know, you could write a history of this purely as a sappering. 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 as we outlined in the previous episode is awful 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 and defeat them but 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... strata bianchi so these are metal roads and so much that they're properly laid and everything but they're not tarmac and 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 eight family pushing up through here it's just it's just endless people pushing guns out of mud and people kind of up to their up to their knees in it and i think
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:02–0:35
2
What does Harry Wilson’s diary reveal about the Battle of the Moro?
0:35–3:10
3
Why were winter conditions and the Moro Valley so difficult for the Allies?
3:10–8:40
4
How did the Irish Brigade fight to clear the German rear guard near San Vito?
8:40–14:41
5
What did Farley Mowat and the incoming Canadian troops find on the Moro front?
14:41–20:28
6
How did the Canadians plan their assault across the River Moro?
20:28–31:36
7
What happened when the Canadian attack on the Moro began?
31:36–43:13
8
Why did the Battle of the Moro become a grinding war of attrition?
43:13–52:39