THE ROYAL CANADIAN LEGION ALBERTA-NWT COMMAND www.abnwtlegion.com 211 September 1944 saw the major operation of Operation Olive, the assault on the heavily defended Gothic Line. This involved bridge building, road maintenance, tank track construction, and clearing of booby-trapped enemy obstacles. Training emphasized pontoon bridges, folding boat equipment, rafting, ropes and knots, as river crossings would be critical for the advance. At times, they constructed Bailey bridges while under enemy shelling. Their headquarters base was shelled by enemy, though fortunately there were no casualties. The same goes for an accidental bombing of the base by the RAF (no casualties). October 1944 saw the breaking of the Gothic Line, though the terrain made it difficult to exploit the victory to the extent that was planned. 12 Fld Coy did more mine sweeping and pulling, constructed and fixed more roads and tank tracks, did demolitions and constructed a casualty clearing station. As was usual during the Italian campaign, many Bailey bridges were needed. They also helped the artillery with positioning of guns and the de-mining of gun sites. During that month, a tremendous rain caused flooding which swept away most of the bridges that engineers had built over the previous two months, further delaying the advance. During November 1944, the company was assigned to an ad-hoc unit called Porterforce to act as their assault engineer company. In this capacity, they swept and cleared mines for assault troops while under fire. They also built a Bailey bridge while under enemy fire to allow Dragoons with armoured cars to get across a river in aid of a successful assault on enemy positions. A number of engineer casualties were suffered during these attacks, including some deaths, and the sappers made use of their infantry training, killing some of the enemy in return. A number of medals were won by 12 Fld Coy personnel at this time. It is of some interest that Porterforce included “Popski’s Private Army” a rather notable irregular force at this time, who had made a name for themselves, staging small raids against the enemy during the desert war and earlier in Italy. There was also significant cooperation with Italian partisans, who were now fighting to expel the German Army from Italy. After release from Porterforce, 12 Fld Coy returned to their usual duties. While in Reserve, they experimented with new tank-assisted bridgelaying techniques, cleared mines and helped the navy recover sunken boats from a harbour in a nearby town. They also participated in training for gas warfare, should it come to that. (Fortunately, it didn’t.) December 1944 saw Operation Chuckle, then a move on to Ravenna, within the Po Valley. This operation was intended to continue the advance into Northern Italy right into the Alps. However, this was a country with many rivers, canals and dikes, many of which went back to the days of the Roman Empire. Thus, it was slow going. The company was constantly involved in building Bailey bridges at or near the front, some of which were considerable size. This area was heavily mined, so there were casualties from that. Bridge building was sometimes done under fire at this time as well. Some ruined bridges had to be demolished. A short informal truce prevailed at Christmas, but didn’t last long, however it did give troops some time to celebrate Christmas and NewYear’s. Late in the month, 12 Fld Coy worked on clearing mines from dikes in the area that had been used as gun positions by the enemy. In January 1945, there was a Winter Lull at Ravenna. Though there was still patrolling and sporadic fighting, a so-called winter lull set in. Nevertheless, the company continued building bridges, maintaining routes and sweeping for mines. They also did some construction and maintenance on buildings now under allied control, as well as building an air strip for the US Army Air Force. Near the end of the month, they became heavily involved in “uncovering and clearing mines on the dikes with explosives”, which was to result in some engineer casualties, including Martin Olausen. In February 1945, Martin Olausen was wounded by a mine, likely working on clearing mines from dikes along the Montone River in and around Ravenna. His convalescence took some months, as it was a foot wound, which could become difficult to treat. Martin Olausen was sent to a series of casualty centres in Italy and North Africa (they were actually British hospitals, as there were few Canadians left in the Mediterranean by then), ultimately ending up back in England by April 1945. 12 Fld Coy left Italy later in February, to rejoin the Canadian Army in Northwestern Europe. They took part in several campaigns there, in the Netherlands and Germany. After being discharged, Martin Olausen was not able to rejoin 12 Fld Coy, as hostilities were drawing to a close. However, he was reported to have volunteered for the Canadian Pacific Force, which was recruited to become part of the Allied Force which was to invade the Japanese homelands. The atom bombs that were used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki made that unnecessary, so he was discharged back to Canada in November 1945. Martin Olausen received several campaign medals earned for service in the various wartime theatres. They include the 1939-1945 Star, Italy Star, Canadian Volunteer Service Medal with Silver Maple Leaf Bar, Defence Medal and the War Medal 1939-1945. A few personal anecdotes and remembrances regarding Martin Olausen’s wartime experiences A Narrow Escape Within the family, there is a celebrated story that Martin and some comrades ended up behind enemy lines – perhaps this was on a recce. As the tale goes, they ended up getting captured by some Germans for a short time. Fortunately, the situation was very fluid, and they managed to escape and get back to the safety of their own lines after a few hours. It was never stated precisely where in Italy this happened. Perhaps it was during the Liri Valley campaign, perhaps somewhere else. Suffice to say that they were close enough to the front to accidentally cross the line into enemy territory. Olausen, Martin Olaf (continued) (continued)
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM0NTk1OA==