Vincent J. Curtis
10 Nov 24
Maj-Gen Chris Vokes CB, CBE,
DSO, CD (13 Apr 1904 – 17 Mar 1985) commanded the 1st Canadian
Infantry and 4th 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 2nd 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 1st 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 1st Div after on 1 Nov 43 after Monty moved Simonds to command the newly formed 5th 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 1st 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 (4th Field Coy RCE), direct fire anti-tank artillery (90th 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, 1st Div. had suffered 502 KIA, and 2339
casualties total. The German figures are
not known, but the 90th PanzerGrenadier Division was, for all
practical purposes, destroyed, while the battalions of the 1st
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 1st 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 1st Div, and Simonds later employed him as GOC 4th 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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