Stalingrad Of The Adriatic: The Sangro (Part 1)
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Why is the battle for Ortona called the ‘Stalingrad of the Adriatic’?
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During the early afternoon, one of the other companies moved up left of us through Marabella. They made little ground opposition but drew a spade of enemy shell fire and had a torrid time. They were pinned down a couple of times, but it was a long-range stuff, and no one could do anything to help them. So they courageously came to their feet and pushed on through the gouting burst of high explosive until they were in comparative safety on the on the far side of some terraces. It was horrible to watch, and it was easy to identify with a feeling of vulnerable helplessness that comes when fire grows so intense that it seems to batter you to the ground in blasting waves of concussion. Then, as the fire snackened, one felt the great sympathy for the moral and physical effort needed to rise up and plod onwards.
We had a bird's eye view from the hill, and it was It's far easier for us to estimate the safest time to move than it was for the participants in the thick of it all. Your heart welled and your fists clenched with effort as you tried to encourage some prime figure still hesitating on the ground. Come on, come on, boy, now's your chance. You can reach that wall in the next move. Then you'll be safe. And then to realise that your effort was in vain. The figure you were urging would never move again. And that, of course, was Corporal Roger Smith of A Company, the twenty fourth Battalion, New Zealand Expeditionary Force.
Yes, and welcome to We Have Ways of Make You Talk with me, Al Murray, James Holland, your Second World War podcast for all your Second World War needs and our needs bring us to, well, I mean, the title of this is is interesting in itself, this series, the little series we're doing. It's the Stalingrad of the Adriatic. Now, the thing is, is if something's being called that, what? Uh within within a year of Stalingrad itself happening. Right. It it it it's gotta be bad.
Yes.
That that's f t tells you two things, doesn't it? It tells you um how Stalingrad have burrowed its way into everyone's imagination as as the sort of worst possible urban fighting the world has ever seen. And how quickly other places picked up that bat on and rang with it, um, so to speak. Um i it it uh and what we're talking about, of course, Jim, is the campaign at Ortona.
So this is very much a sort of Duke series, really. And I think, you know, it it's it's indicative of Eighth Army that has fought through North Africa into Tunisia, and here it is again. Still surging forward in Italy. And it's a Commonwealth force above and beyond anything else, really, isn't it?
Well, uh, for anyone who's joined us in recent years or within the the last few months, Duke is in fact um an acronym that we coined on on uh We Have Ways.
You coined. You coined.
I l I'm gonna give you full credit for this, huh? This is a team effort, Jim. I always see it as that, you know, and uh uh uh Half the acronym is mine, the other half is yours. Um no, uh which we we we coined um, I mean, in the first year or so, 18 months of of of doing the podcast, to try and come up with a way of saying British Commonwealth, Empire, you know. So it's Dominions, UK, Empire. And that I think actually rather neatly sums things up. And what I quite like about it is it puts Dominions first. They're not there. As the they're not there as an afterthought in the way you're thinking about this. And after all, this is how the British fought the First World War. And in the in this theatre, the Mediterranean in particular, this is this was where the the soldiers from New Zealand, Australia were always going to be headed.
This is where they were always going to be used and are used. And it's you know, they only end up having to go east again when things go wrong in in Singapore, where
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why is the battle for Ortona called the ‘Stalingrad of the Adriatic’?
0:02–8:43
2
How did the hosts create the “DUKE” acronym to describe Commonwealth forces?
8:43–16:27
3
What logistical challenges did the Allies face crossing the River Sangro?
16:27–25:02
4
How did weather and terrain shape the planning of Operation Encroach?
25:02–33:14
5
What was the impact of the failed ‘Plan A’ and the shift to ‘Plan B’?
33:14–37:16
6
How did the New Zealand 24th Battalion and Canadian units execute the night assault on the Sangro bridgehead?
37:16–44:53
7
What were the results of the November 28‑29 fighting and the German response?
44:53–50:08
8
What are the key take‑aways and what lies ahead for the Italian campaign?
50:08–52:43