When in Rome (or at least Italy)

What was Canada’s greatest contribution to the Italian campaign?

One of the best parts of using a large amount of Canadians for the ground force in the Italian campaign is they were already used to a variety of different climates because of Canada’s vast amount of land and biomes. This came in especially handy in the Italian mountains. Valguarena, July 18th as they fought in the town and amongst the ridges they only sustained 40 deaths and 105 wounded. But the Germans lost 240 killed or wounded to what they called the “mountain boys” one of Canada’s greatest contribution to the Italian campaign. 

This was also in part to the Germans gaining respect for their enemies the Canadians. However there was an arguably more important reason for it proving the first USA and Canadian special forces unit. This division was called the 1st special service force commanded by Robert T Fredrick. 

I read a short story about him beating up a policeman and I’m not sure if it’s true but it was awesome. It said that because he was young a policeman at a bar thought he couldn’t possibly be a major general and threw Robert’s ID card on the ground. He trained his men so they were ready for all sorts of conditions like Norwegian snow and even training for Romania to take out German oil fields. This training combined with the Canadians residence to the cold made them highly effective at taking the Mediterranean peninsula. 

More proof of the mountain boys came later on as the next 17 days wore on. Leonforte the allies were kept busy with typical house to house fighting while the Hastings and prince Edward regiment did almost the impossible. With little more than rifles and Bren guns and a forty minute climb they arrived at the top of 904 meter mountain to the village of Assoro surprising the Germans. All this in partial moonlight. This resulted in heavy German casualties.