The Germans withdrew to the next river—the Moro—and dug in for another round. On the night of 5–6 December, the 1st Canadian Infantry Division and 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade took over Eighth Army’s lead and drew the job of forcing a crossing of the Moro. In the early morning hours of 6 December, a three-pronged attack began. Only the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI) made headway, winning Villa Rogatti on the left flank. When engineers were unable to erect a bridge across the Moro to enable tanks to support the PPCLI, a withdrawal was ordered. It took until 9 December for the Canadians to win a firm bridgehead. The expectation was that a quick advance around the flank of Ortona, a port and fishing town on the Adriatic Sea, would follow.

There was no expectation that the Germans would make a stand at Ortona.

Unexpectedly, the German 1st Parachute Division only withdrew as far as Ortona. Suddenly the Canadians were confronted with something for which they had no training—a street battle. The Germans had started preparing to defend Ortona on 12 December by using explosives to blow many houses apart to create piles of rubble into which they dug deep fighting positions. Mines were scattered throughout the town. By 19 December, all side streets were clogged with rubble.Two large buildings were blown down to block a street called Corso Vittorio Emanuele, at the entrance to the square facing the town hall. The municipal hall’s clock was removed from its tower and a machine gun mounted in the opening. At dawn on 21 December, German engineers most likely demolished the tower adjacent to the Cattedrale San Tomasso so that the falling structure cleaved the cathedral dome in half. As this destruction was being carried out, the Loyal Edmonton Regiment’s “D” Company was cut apart trying to fight its way into Ortona. Its 60 men were reduced to 17 in mere minutes.

Despite these losses, the company’s survivors gained a foothold on the outskirts and were soon reinforced by other companies of their battalion. The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada and tanks of the Three Rivers Regiment also came alongside.These two infantry battalions and a single tank regiment would carry the fight through the deadly labyrinth of Ortona in eight days of unrelenting battle. So intense was the street battle that war correspondents nicknamed Ortona “Little Stalingrad” because the fighting so resembled the definitive struggle in that Eastern Front city in Russia.

As the hand-to-hand struggle inside Ortona played out, two other Canadian brigades tried outflanking the town to the west. Success on this front would have forced the German paratroopers in Ortona to withdraw or be surrounded. The flanking attacks gained some initial headway before being blocked by the Germans.Christmas Day brought no relief in the fighting either in Ortona or out on its western flank. On a western ridge, the 48th Highlanders were cut off and the supporting artillery officer could only save the situation by circling the Canadians within a ring of shellfire.

Inside Ortona, meanwhile, as Germans and Canadians traded bullets and grenades, the Seaforth’s quartermaster and headquarters staff organized a sumptuous Christmas dinner to which one company at a time was brought out of the line to be fed. The men of the Edmontons, however, had no reprieve. Their rations were delivered to the fighting lines.