Chris Vokes at Friesoythe

Vincent J. Curtis

23 Dec 24

Friesoythe is a town on the river Soeste in Lower Saxony, Germany, with a population of about 23,000. Originating in the 13^th century, modern Friesoythe is said to be influenced by several cultures: German, Anglo-Saxon, Dutch, Friesian, Swedish, and Danish.  In April, 1945, it was razed by elements of the 4^th Canadian Armoured Division on the orders of GOC MGen Chris Vokes.  Vokes further ordered that the town’s rubble be used to repair roads for the advantage of divisional armoured vehicles.

We last saw Chris Vokes December, 1943, at Ortona, Italy, where, as GOC 1st Canadian Infantry Division, he forced back two German divisions, and captured the town that was the Adriatic end of the Gustav Line. Monty took a dim view of Vokes in that, his first battle as a divisional commander, deprecating him as “a mere cook.” By 1945, Vokes was gaining the reputation as “Canada’s Fightingest General.”

Ortona was a vicious, unexpected urban battle in which the Germans sowed the town with booby-traps and mines.  What Vokes saw was a German Parachute Division willing to cause the utter destruction of a beautiful Italian sea-side town for the defence of the German Fatherland.  Friesoythe also happened to be defended by German Parachute troops who, however, seemed much more inclined to preserve, as the end of the war drew near, the Fatherland’s towns.

And the end was drawing near. Everybody knew it.  By the middle of April, 1945, only the most fanatical Germans were resisting stoutly.  Canadian KIAs were running four or five per battalion a day, and the troops were getting tired of it.

In April, 1945, Friesoythe had a population of about 4,000, most of whom had moved to the countryside as the Canadian Army approached.  The town was defended by about 200 German fallschirmjager.  First up to attack was the Lake Superior Regiment, which, on April 13, attacked the town by frontal assault, and were repulsed after taking 2 KIA and 19 WIA.

Next up were the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada, under the command of LCol Frederick Wigle, DSO, OBE.  Wigle had taken command from the much beloved LCol Dave Stewart, of Hill 195 fame, and quickly endeared himself to his men.  Vokes also had a high regard for Wigle, of whom he wrote in his autobiography, “A first-rate officer of mine, for whom I had a special regard and affection, and in whom I had a particular professional interest because of his talent for command.”

“Wigle decided on a daring flank attack” to capture the town after a night march, which “[took] the enemy unawares”, after the previous attack by the Lake Superiors.

The march and attack were successful, the town being taken and secured by 1030 hrs that morning. However, the advancing companies in the dark missed two platoons’ worth of Germans, who attacked an unguarded battalion Tac HQ.  Wigle was killed by a sniper’s bullet in the back, and perhaps the sniper was a civilian.  Or so it was believed at the time.  Alerted, the advancing companies quickly returned and saved Tac HQ from being overrun.  The Argylls were outraged at Wigle’s death and began burning the town.

Vokes wrote in his autobiography, “I summoned my GSO1…. 'Mac,' I roared at him, 'I'm going to raze that goddam town.”  Vokes had many willing hands, and he ordered that flamethrowing armoured vehicles be dispatched to reduce the town with industrial thoroughness and speed.  Friesoythe’s rubble was used to repair district roads.

Vokes said in 1985 he had no remorse over the destruction of Friesoythe.

The destruction of a captured town may seem shocking to modern Canadian eyes, but in the long history of European warfare, the sacking of a town that resisted capture, and whose needless resistance had caused unnecessary deaths among the attackers, was standard operating procedure, and expected. Sacking taught the world a lesson; and was a catharsis, purging anger, stress, and tension from the attacking troops.  As Ortona, so Friesoythe?

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Chris Vokes at Ortona

Vincent J. Curtis

10 Nov 24

Maj-Gen Chris Vokes CB, CBE, DSO, CD (13 Apr 1904 – 17 Mar 1985) commanded the 1^st Canadian Infantry and 4^th Canadian Armoured Divisions in WWII. He also commanded the Canadian Army Occupation Force until its withdrawal from Europe in 1946. He was accused of being unimaginative as a general, a butcher, whom Monty is said to have called a “mere cook”, a reputation established at the Battle of Ortona in December, 1943.  We will be concerned with establishing the validity of that assessment.

Vokes was born in Armagh, Ireland, the son of Maj Patrick Vokes of the British Army.  The Vokes family came to Canada in 1910, where Major Vokes was employed as an engineering officer at RMC; and the family lived in the BMQs on Ridout Row.

Unsurprisingly, Chris Vokes attended RMC as a cadet, from 1921 to 1925; and was commissioned into the RCEs. After commissioning, he attended McGill University from 1928 to 1927, earning a B.Sc. degree. He took the elite Staff College course at Camberley, England, from 1934 to 1935, and while there was promoted to Captain.  Vokes’ lasting claim to fame in this era was to have made the engineering drawings for the rifle range butts at Camp Dundurn.

Brigadier-General Chris Vokes commanded the 2^nd Canadian Infantry Brigade during Operation HUSKY, the invasion and conquest of Sicily, (July – August, 1943) and Op BAYTOWN, the Italy landings, both under division commander Guy Simonds.  The Canadian Permanent Force between the wars was a very small place, and Vokes and Simonds must have known each other well. Simonds also attended RMC between 1921 and 1925, making them classmates.  In addition, both were Brits and sons of military officers, Simonds having been born near Bury St. Edmonds, Suffolk England; and his father having been an officer in the British RRA.  Simonds, however, was, like his father, a gunner, commissioning into the RRCA.  Simonds attended Camberley from 1936 to 1937.

So, why was Simonds picked over Vokes to command 1^st Div after Samson’s death? Simonds’ brilliance was noted at RMC, but the fact that Simonds was a gunner may have played a part in the selection. The GOC Canadian Army in England, Andy McNaughton, was also a gunner, as was Harry Crerar (RMC 1909; Camberley ‘24-‘25). Simonds did not endear himself to McNaughton after advsing diplomatically that McNaughton should step away from operations, and he was banished to Bernard Montgomery in Africa. Monty noticed Simonds’ gifts, and protected him from Canadian Army politics during and after the war.

Vokes was promoted Maj-Gen and given command of 1^st Div after on 1 Nov 43 after Monty moved Simonds to command the newly formed 5^th Canadian Armoured Division, to give Simonds experience with tanks. Thus it was engineer Vokes in command at Ortona. Not that being a gunner would have helped at Ortona; but the experience might have humbled Simonds, or driven him completely mad.

Many studies of Ortona have been written.  Ortona was not a general’s battle. No amount of artillery, no grand maneuver, no combination of fire and maneuver, no thrusting of reserves at the critical point at the critical moment was going to solve the problem of Ortona, given the band-box, and rugged and soggy terrain in which 1^st Div had to operate. Ortona was a soldier’s and a platoon commander’s battle, a combined arms battle at the platoon and company levels.  The capture of Ortona itself was left to 2 CIB, under the command of Bert Hoffmeister, while 1 and 3 CIBs were forcing themselves north and west of the town in an attempt to cut off its defenders.

Ortona, a town with a peacetime population of 10,000, formed the Adriatic end of the Gustav Line. The approach to the town was protected by a feature that came to be called “The Gully.” This feature, a ravine, was three miles long, averaged 200’ deep, and spanned 200 yards across at the sea-shore.

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 “The Gully” was a ravine, three miles long, averaging 200’ deep, and spanned 200 yards across at the sea-shore, tapering to 80 yards at its tip.  A road ran parallel to the ravine on the German side. This enormous ditch provided cover on the counterscarp, or reverse slope, and made the defenders impervious to artillery fire. The road behind it made admin and mobile supporting fire easy.  Recce snuck right up to the edge of the Gully, observed its excellence as a defensive position, that it was strongly-manned, and reported these details to higher.  These items of intelligence did not deter Vokes from ordering frontal attacks upon it.

It was only after crossing the Gully that the town of Ortona itself could be attacked.  Another problem was that the Gully feature was not well, or even correctly, marked on the topo map. Being impervious to artillery fire, the defenders could immediately come out of their hidey-holes and re-man their MG nests immediately after the lifting of fire. Shades of WWI!. Another problem was the ground was so muddy that tank movement was a problem, the ravine itself was too deep and wide for tanks to cross, and the Germans had developed mines and anti-tank weapons in the interim.

It took several attempts to figure out that “artillery conquers, infantry occupies” wasn’t going to work.  Reconnaissance by battle did discover that the Gully had to be turned at its south-western end, and, with the winning of a VC, it was.

C Coy of the Van Doos, 81 men strong, led by Capt Paul Triquet, VC, with the aid of seven tanks of the OntRs, managed on the night of Dec 14-15, to outflank the Gully around its south-western end, burst through German resistance and, with 17 men and 4 tanks remaining, seized a strongpoint, the Casa Berardi farmhouse; the rest of his regiment joined him and held it for four days, eventually the Germans were compelled to abandon the Gully.

The Germans began preparing Ortona for a deliberate defense on Dec 12, starting by rubbling parts of the town to create defensive positions and obstacles to tanks; they mined and booby-trapped everywhere, and made heavy use of snipers to halt movement in the open. Rushes by tanks were impossible.  What to do? Lt Bill Longhurst of the Loyal Eddies came up with “mouseholing.”  Many of the buildings of the town were of stone and masonry construction, and were connected together like so many rowhouses; by mouseholing was meant the placing by engineers of a charge against the wall that separated adjacent buildings, preferably on the top floor, and blowing a hole in the wall.  Bombers would toss in grenades, entrymen would then rush through the breach and seize the room of the next building, shooting any surviving enemy. The rest of the building would then be cleared top-down with grenades, Stens, and rifles. Rinse, and repeat.  Sound familiar?  Ortona was where these concepts were developed, and by mousholing, no one had to venture outside and risk the German snipers. The innovative use of combined arms: infantry (Loyal Eddies, Seaforths), armor (C Sqn 12RBC), engineers (4^th Field Coy RCE), direct fire anti-tank artillery (90^th Anti-Tank Bty) were essential in driving out the Germans.  Nor can we underestimate the morale factor: the belief in inevitable victory.

By the time the battle was over, 1^st Div. had suffered 502 KIA, and 2339 casualties total.  The German figures are not known, but the 90^th PanzerGrenadier Division was, for all practical purposes, destroyed, while the battalions of the 1^st Parachute Division were reduced to company strength.

Assessment: Vokes’ first time in battle was as a brigade commander in Sicily. Three months after the end of the Sicily campaign, he was appointed GOC 1^st Div, replacing Simonds. A month in that job and the battle for Ortona began. Vokes did not know the ground, did not know the enemy, his strength (2 division) or his intent(deliberate defense in urban terrain); lacking experience, he did not know himself; and the weather turned the ground into mud. He was pressured by Monty to hurry up. Not auspicious auguries for his first major battle all by himself, and the battle not being a general’s battle to begin with. The solution to Ortona turned on the discoveries of reconnaissance by battle, the improvisation of mouseholing, and the innovation of combined arms action at the platoon and company levels.  Do these factors support the contention that Vokes was an unimaginative engineer, a butcher, a ‘mere cook’, as Monty said?

Vokes may have been an inexperienced cook at the time, but the war didn’t end at Ortona.  He continued to be employed as GOC 1^st Div, and Simonds later employed him as GOC 4^th Div in Northwest Europe until the end of the war. Being a Simonds associate may have harmed Vokes’ postwar career. he was never promoted above MGen, as E.L.M. Burns eventually was, and he was employed only as commander of military districts until retirement in 1959.  His Italian reputation stuck with him ever afterwards, valid or not.

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Who were the Pharisees?

Vincent J. Curtis

7 Apr 25

Who were the Pharisees, and why do they appear so often in the Gospels? The Gospel of Sunday, April 6, related the story of the casting of the first stone. In the story, a group of Pharisees hauled an adulteress before Jesus, and demanded from him to know how she should be punished, reminding Jesus that, in accordance with Mosaic law, she deserved to be stoned to death.

The Pharisees, I learned from Gibbon, belonged to a sect of Judaism that strictly adhered to the Mosaic law.  They weren’t just pious, they were ostentatiously pious; and they may have been mutely righteous in their expectation that others be pious as well. Self-righteously pious people exist today, afflicting many religions, and the Pharisees formed a cult of them within Judaism.  When Jesus made reference to people who, during times of fasting, made it obvious to others that they were fasting, he was likely referring in particular to Pharisees.  That they gained no credit with God for their ostentatious piety, was likely taken by Pharisees as a biting criticism, not only for undercutting their pretensions to superior piety, but also because Jesus implicitly was claiming to know the mind of God.

Jesus did not respond immediately to the claimant question put to him about the adulteress by the mob of Pharisees; he sat down and began to draw something with his finger in the dirt.  Making them wait had the effect of quietening the mob, and forcing them to think a little.  After being questioned a second time by a quieter mob about what to do with this woman who deserved by the Mosaic law to be stoned to death, Jesus responded, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Jesus caught the Pharisees dead to rights; they were hoisted on their own petard.  Not one of them, in their sanctimonious piety, could claim to be without sin. Avoiding sin was the certainly basis of their piety; but the forgiveness of sins was unknown to Judaism; and not one could claim, in the presence of others of their kind, to have avoided sin entirely during their whole lives.  Having concentrated their minds by delay, and by this challenge to their conceit, Jesus returned to ignoring them; and, one by one, the mob realized the game was up, and departed in defeat, leaving Jesus alone with the woman. “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.” he told the woman.  The prospect of the forgiveness of sins was revolutionary in the Jewish world.

Next Sunday will be Passion Sunday, followed by Holy Week, and finally culminating with Easter. Here again, the Pharisees play a central role in this story.  By claiming to be the fulfillment of the Mosaic Law, Jesus was upsetting to their entire world view: he had to be eliminated, ‘cancelled’ (as we’d say nowadays) in the most emphatic manner possible.  Their plan was for Jesus to be put to death, publicly and officially, by the Roman magistrate, Pontius Pilate.

Palestine was then a province of the Roman empire; it was a particularly rebellious one, as it was peopled by the Jews.  The Jews were monotheists in a world of Polytheism; Yahweh wasn’t simply one god among many, on par with Jupiter of Zeus, but the only god there was; Jupiter and Zeus were utter fictions, as well as all the lesser gods of Polytheism.  The Jews groaned under the weight of a Roman government and the abomination of an official religion of Polytheism; they gained no sympathy for their plight by the rigor of their contempt for the treasured gods of Polytheism.

The Roman magistrate administered justice in accordance with Roman law; it was beneath the majesty of Roman justice to adjudicate disputes of religious doctrine among sects of Judaism.  Another, and even more important, responsibility of the Roman governor was to keep the peace; riots and rebellion in the province which he governed were not favorable indicators of his quality as a Roman administrator.

To have Jesus condemned by Rome, the mob, led by Pharisees, took Jesus before Pilate and claimed that Jesus was disturbing the peace, and saying that he was “King of the Jews.” These accusations were calculated to raise the ire of a Roman magistrate: first, by the spectre of public disturbances; and, second, by the threat characteristic of the Jews of forming their own kingdom on the territory of the Roman empire. Pilate was more impressed by the riotous mob before him than by the capital charges against Jesus when he took Jesus into custody.  Jesus was known to have said, “Render onto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and onto God that which is God’s.”; and, so far as Roman justice was concerned, this was a perfectly lawful position for a Jew to take. When, as Roman magistrate, Pilate questioned Jesus about his ‘kingdom’, and Jesus responded “My kingdom is not of this world,” Pilate knew he was in the presence, not of a criminal rebel, but of yet another Jewish mystic who was embroiled in another, tedious religious dispute.  It was beneath the dignity of Roman justice to execute a man who was guiltless of a crime under Roman law, and Pilate knew he could not be party to an official execution of Jesus.  “Truth? What is that?” spat a very worldly Roman magistrate, pressured by the riotous mob on his hands.

It was permissible under Roman law to employ torture to extract a confession; and after having Jesus scourged and crowned with thorns, Pilate presented the tortured figure of Jesus before the mob and said, “I find no case against him.”  When the Pharisees protested about the religious disturbances Jesus was causing, Pilate said, “Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find not case against him.”  Thus, the effort by the Pharisees to have Jesus discredited, legally and officially by a Roman magistrate, failed; and by turning Jesus over to the bloodlust of a mob, Pilate quieted the incipient riot.  A tawdry murder of Jesus would not achieve the religious end the Pharisees desired; and hence the Pharisees carried out a quasi-official crucifixion of Jesus, undisturbed by Roman authority, by which they expected to ‘cancel’ Jesus and the growing religious movement that percolated around him.

For me, learning who the Pharisees were added a new authenticity to the Gospels.  Now, it makes perfect sense for these Pharisees to be the ones who repeatedly challenged Jesus on his knowledge of, and adhesion to, the Mosaic law.  The shadings of local colour in the story of the casting of the first stone aren’t things a writer of pious fictions could retrospectively invent; that story actually happened, and somebody recorded it

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