Ortona

On December 25th, 1943, battered Canadian troops gathered for a Christmas meal in the Church of Santa Maria di Costantinopoli, in Ortona, Italy. The soldiers were pulled from the front to have a moment of sanity - a moment of familiarity on a holy day. Once they finished their meal, they returned to their post on the front line. For many, this would be their last meal. History will come to remember this as "Bloody December." The Canadians needed to be trained for this type of street combat. The close-quarters action was so intense and brutal that war correspondents nicknamed Ortona "Little Stalingrad" because the fighting was identical to the chaos that unfolded in the Russian city.

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