Tanks at Ortona

I recently saw a short documentry on The Battle of Ortona, a vicious house-by-house fight between a unit of the Canadian Army and a German parachute battalion. I noticed that tanks were involved in the action. Can anyone comment on how much use the Canadian Army made of tanks in this particular battle and in general? Did the Canadians have a proportionally equal number of tank units in their army as did the Americans and the British? Thank you for any replies.

: parachute battalion. I noticed that tanks were involved in the action. : Can anyone comment on how much use the Canadian Army made of tanks in : this particular battle and in general? Did the Canadians have a : proportionally equal number of tank units in their army as did the : Americans and the British? Thank you for any replies.

Going for the 'in general' comment . . .

The Canadian Army use of tanks was much like that of the British Army (or, of commonwealth units in general).

Often, Armour was in independent brigades (three regiments together), usually attached to an (armourless) infantry division. Troops in Ortona were part of 1 Cdn Inf Div supplemented by 1 Cdn Armd Bde.

The Canadian Army also had Armoured Divisions on the UK model (Brigade of Armour, Brigade of Infantry, Motorized Infantry Regiment, guns etc.), used in both the North- West Europe and Italian theatres (4th Armd in NWE, 5th in Italy and later NWE).

As in the British forces, there was a bit of a divide between ex-cavalry types (use tanks for pursuit) and tankers-by-origin (more limited, since only F. F. Worthington of our armoured training centre could be viewed as promoting this role). There are few dazzling examples of Cdn Armd Divs achievements (the breakthrough and pursuit to the Po River is about the only one I can think of off hand).

Regards,

Hello Rider- Ortona is sometimes referred to as Canada's Stalingrad. You may find this of interest.