Historian chronicles Canada's final battles in Italy at end of World War II

When author Mark Zuehlke started researching Canada's final Canadian military campaign in Italy, he discovered it was a part of the war that few veterans wanted to talk about.

'Nobody wants to be the last Canadian to die in Italy' says author of five-month campaign

Deborah Wilson · CBC News · Posted: Nov 09, 2019 5:10 PM EST | Last Updated: November 10, 2019

Canadian soldiers march through rain toward the next battle, sometime in January 1945. Photographer unknown. (Mark Zuehlke)

When Second World War historian Mark Zuehlke started research on the final Canadian military campaign in Italy, he discovered it was a part of the war that few veterans who had been in it wanted to talk about.

The push across the Emilia-Romagna plain in north-central Italy began in late September 1944, after the liberation of France and as the Soviets advanced toward Germany.

"Everyone knows the war is coming to an end and nobody wants to be the last Canadian to die in Italy," the Victoria-based author told CBC On the Island host Gregor Craigie.

But Allied intelligence made a serious error, based on outdated maps and aerial photos. They assumed German forces could be easily driven back to the Po Valley from the wide Emilia-Romagna plain.

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"It was totally wishful thinking," Zuehlke said.

In reality, the landscape was crisscrossed with rivers, canals and ditches as well as high dikes and destroyed bridges that gave an advantage to the enemy.

Seaforth Highlanders stand on the Savio River dike shortly before the regiment crosses the river on the night of October 21, 1944. Padre Roy Durnford faces the camera to the left. Photographer unknown. ( Photo courtesy of Seaforth Highlanders Regimental Museum.)

Zuelke's newest book, The River Battles: Canada's Final Campaign in World War II Italy, documents the Canadians' nightmarish slog through awful weather, close fighting, exhaustion and mounting casualties over the five-month campaign.

"Because of the nature of the battle and they were fighting so closely and intensely against each other, the Germans and the Canadians were often fighting just right across a little ditch,' Zuehlke said.

"The rivers were only like 20 feet wide and so they were very close and very personal levels of fighting."

For companies such as the Vancouver-based Seaforth Highlanders, the strain was particularly hard to bear after having survived a year-and-a-half of fighting in Italy.

German prisoners carry a wounded Canadian past ruined buildings in Cesena, Italy. Photographer unknown. (Photo provided by Mark Zuehlke)

"They got out of that all together and now they're seeing their friends that are dying as we move into the last months of the war and everyone knows it's the last months of the war," Zuehlke said. "That really started to take a big psychological toll on everybody."

Some regiments actually became almost inoperable partly due to all the casualties they'd suffered and the lack of reinforcements, Zuehlke said, but also because they'd been in combat for almost two years at that time.