Mr. Speaker, 60 years ago Canada's 1st Division soldiers advanced on Ortona, a city held on Hitler's orders of “no retreat” by a determined enemy army.
Facing hails of machine gun and mortar fire on fiercely defended streets, they invented the technique of “mouse holing”. Blasting holes through building walls to attack, they forced the enemy out of Ortona.
Soldiers such as Mel McPhee of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, Smokey Smith of the Seaforth Highlanders, Gwylm Jones of the Three Rivers Tank Regiment and Fernand Trépanier of the Royal 22nd Regiment, Vandoos, all prevailed in bloody, hand to hand, street by street fighting to win what became known as Italy's “Battle of Stalingrad”.
The cost, the price of peace, was high. Some 1,700 died and rest forever in Ortona's Morrow River Cemetery. To those who fought, to those who died, we best never forget.