On December 21 we entered the town of Ortona, Italy, pushing the Germans out toward the north. The fighting here was new to us. We had been used to being in the open and here we were in close proximity to the enemy with little room to manoeuvre. The enemy were highly skilled and well trained with the advantage of being well acquainted with the town. The streets were narrow and the multi-storied houses towered overhead. We had suffered many casualties and our companies were well under muster. Those of us left had to do double duty and we were tense and exhausted.

Two of us had been set out to guard the intersection in a particular area on Christmas Day, 1943. Down a street to my right a movement caught my eye and a small boy appeared out of a doorway and approached me. I guessed him to be about eight or nine years old.

He made a pretence of eating and repeated the Italian word for food. I had nothing to give him and tried to make him understand in what little Italian I had picked up over the past weeks. He eventually seemed to understand, made his way back down the street and disappeared into the same doorway. Minutes later the door opened again and I could see steam. The child emerged with plates of spaghetti which he gave to me and my companion on the opposite corner. He hadn’t been asking for me to feed him, he had wanted to feed us! How wonderful and unexpected to receive a hot Christmas dinner! The day held more wonderful surprises though.

Tactical headquarters had been set up in a church, The Santa Maria de Constantinopli, just where we had entered at the south end of Ortona on December 20. Knowing we were exhausted both physically and mentally from the strain of fighting in such close quarters to the enemy, and the casualties we had suffered, the Quartermaster (by some miracle) was able to set us up with a Christmas dinner in the church.

They had rows of tables set with white cloths, each of us received one bottle of beer and there were cigarettes and candy and oranges. The meal was pork and vegetables and Christmas pudding. Not the meal we would have sat down to had we been with our families but not what any of us would have dreamed that we would get that day. Being a Scottish Regiment, our entertainment, besides singing carols while one of the officers played the church organ, was having our own piper play for us.

Each Company was in turn replaced by another at the front until all four companies had enjoyed their Christmas dinner in Ortona, only three or four hundred yards from the fighting.

Imagine the contrast of being brought tired and dirty from the front line fighting to be sat down in the midst of white tablecloths and carols. I will never forget the generosity of the Italian family that fed us spaghetti for Christmas, the respite from the war to relax for a short time and a buddy that we lost to a sniper that day. I am now preparing to enjoy my 80th Christmas. There are a lot of special Christmas Days that come to mind; but Christmas in Ortona stands out as my “most memorable Christmas.”