Mouse Holing

Interviewer: The next major engagement was, of course, the taking of Ortona.

Yeah, that's right, yeah.

Interviewer: And that would have been started on December 21st, 1943.

Yeah, right through Christmas.

Interviewer: Yes. It's my understanding that, that the Royal Edmonton Regiment and the Seaforth Highlanders were the two regiments that split the town.

Yeah.

Interviewer: Can you tell me a little bit about how that developed.

It was a, it was a terrible place. You know it, it was practically door to door, you know. For miles, they had, you know, everything's close together you, to get to the next place, the next room. We got, so we'd blow, blow holes through the wall, you know, so we go through that way. Cause if you walk out into the street they'd get ya.

Interviewer: This was called mouse-holing wasn't it?

Mouse-holing, yeah.

Interviewer: And it was the first time that anyone had ever done that.

That's right. That was a good thing but for that ole PIAT (projector, infantry, anti-tank) gun to blow holes in the walls. Suppose the only thing I ever found it good for. I knocked out a few tanks with it but it wasn't much good for anything else. I think Chris Vokes, after Ortona was over, he says, "Well," what did he say, "everything was a nursery rhyme before this," he said.

Interviewer: Commander, the Commander was Mr., was General Vokes. Is that who your referring to?

Yeah, sure, Chris. I told him his mother should have called him ‘Crusty.' After I got the VC, I couldn't tell him that before.