January 17, 1944
Some dates live in a history book. Others live in a community.
By January 1944, the Perth Regiment had already learned that Italy was not going to give ground easily. The men had come ashore months earlier into a country carved up by rivers and ravines, where stone farmhouses could mean shelter or a trap depending on who reached them first. Ortona had fallen just before Christmas, but the fighting did not end. It shifted north into winter fields and broken roads, toward high ground overlooking the Arielli Valley, where the enemy had time, experience, and the advantage of position.
The Perths held the line, patrolled forward, and studied that ground with a kind of quiet dread. The approaches were covered. The positions were prepared. Even before orders came, the men knew something was coming.
On January 17 at 5:30 at, the regiment was ordered to move forward.
Before daylight, companies moved out into cold air and wet ground. Boots slipped in mud that wanted to keep them. Rifles were held tighter than usual. Somewhere ahead, German paratroopers were already awake and watching. When firing started, it was sudden and exact. Machine guns stitched the slopes. Mortars dropped into the advancing troops. Communication faltered. Sections lost sight of each other. And still, men pushed on.
It was in this fighting that Private Frederick Arthur Willmore was killed.
Those who remember him remember a young man from Perth whose name would later be carved in metal on the side of the townhall his wife would pass everyday awaiting news of his fate. Oral tradition within the regiment holds that Willmore was the first member of the Perth Regiment to be killed in action. Whether the paperwork confirms it or not, that belief has endured for decades, passed quietly from one generation to the next. The perths sustained 137 casualties in that first day of combat, including more than 40 deaths, in what Johnston called a “baptism by fire.” What is certain is that Willmore fell during the regiment’s first major assault, at the moment when training stopped being practice and became permanent cost.
In the same bitter ground, in the folds of the valley and the confusion of fire and movement, Private William Russell Stewart was also lost. His death is remembered as having occurred “in the Valley,” a phrase that says more than it seems. The Arielli Valley was not one clear place. It was slopes, gullies, exposed approaches, and danger from every direction. It was terrain that could swallow men and moments alike.
The fighting dragged on through the day. Platoons clung to whatever cover they could find. Counterattacks came. Orders were delayed, or never arrived. By nightfall the decision was made to pull back. The objectives could not be held. The wounded were gathered in darkness. The fallen were left behind, not from lack of care, but because war does not always allow the dignity people deserve.
Among those connected to this early period in the regiment’s history was also Corporal John Raymond McRobb, EM. It is said that he joined the Perths at the Fiumicino River, another name that carries weight for those who know the Italian campaign. Rivers marked progress and sacrifice in equal measure. To cross one often meant blood had already been spilled. He would not be a casualty of the day, he would climb out of the bloodied mud that day and go on to continue the fight further into Italy along with many more.
January 17 did not bring a breakthrough. The line did not move north. But it marked something just as important. It was the day the Perth Regiment truly entered the war as a fighting unit, not on paper, not in theory, but in loss. It was the first, and only, time during the entire war that they were unable to achieve their combat objective. But it did not end there. As Allied forces pushed through Italy toward France, the Perths played a pivotal role in other vital campaigns. All told, the Perth Regiment was awarded 10 primary battle honours and four secondary honours for their successful service. By the end of the war, 261 Perth soldiers had lost their lives fighting for home and country.
This year, as we commemorate the Royal Canadian Legion’s 100th anniversary, we want to highlight the names on the Cenotaph, banners, and memorials around St. Marys not as words on a wall, but as people: men and women connected to our shared history, who lived, served, and in some cases, died.
We invite you to read and share their stories, so their names remain living history.
Private Frederick Arthur Willmore
https://rcl236stmarys.ca/cenotaph/willmore-private-frederick-arthur/
Private William Russell Stewart (A-11256)
https://rcl236stmarys.ca/cenotaph/stewart-private-william-russell-a-11256/
Corporal John Raymond McRobb, EM
https://rcl236stmarys.ca/cenotaph/mcrobb-corporal-john-raymond/