The Last Great Cavalryman

by Richard Mead

  Keightley was confident of getting through the Argenta Gap within 48 hours, but he needed to move well beyond it before he could achieve the sort of breakthrough that Dick was planning. In particular there were still the Fossa Benvignante and other water obstacles to cross before the way was open to the Po. Further progress was made as Keightley had anticipated and by 18 April V Corps had reached Boccaleone and Consandolo, nearly 5 miles beyond Argenta on the road to Ferrara. Dick now sensed that the time might have come to bring up 6 Armoured Division and summoned Murray to his HQ. Murray wrote later: ‘He [Dick] was not prepared to say whether it was possible to break through there, but he wanted me to go forward and meet Lieutenant General Charles Keightley, the commander of V Corps, to see for myself what the position was and report back to him what were my impressions.’3 Keightley thought that the way was clear, but Arbuthnott, whom Murray also met, was less positive. Murray nevertheless felt that this might be the last chance for the division to get into action and he decided to take it, telling Dick that he was ready to go. Dick placed the division under V Corps immediately, with orders that it should be ready to move at first light on the next day. That evening he went to Bagnocavallo to visit Murray’s HQ and that of 1 Guards Brigade and to wish them well.

  The move to the front was frustratingly slow as the division’s passage through Argenta was made exceptionally difficult by the destruction of the town and competition for the use of the single road with the supply vehicles of 56 and 78 Divisions. When the division reached its jumping-off point in the late afternoon the ground turned out to be still very soft and was far from ideal for armour, criss-crossed as it was by canals and drainage ditches. The infantry was forced to go on foot, rather than in Kangaroos or carriers. The first full day’s operations on 20 April, during which the division struggled to get across the River Po Morto, were disappointing, particularly to Keightley, who arrived at Murray’s HQ in what the latter described as ‘a towering rage’,4 accusing the division of making no progress at all. Dick was also on the ground north of Argenta, where he saw the commander of 26 Armoured Brigade, Neville Mitchell, expressing his own opinion equally trenchantly. Murray responded by going up in his own ‘whizzer’ and looking at the country ahead, spotting a number of opportunities for exploitation.

  On the following day, there was a dramatic improvement. Murray had followed a practice adopted by the armoured divisions in north-west Europe of fighting in regimental groups, each group in this case consisting of a cavalry regiment and a rifle battalion, with attached gunners and sappers: 1 Guards Brigade, composed entirely of infantry, was given the task of reducing the most stubborn defences, whilst the regimental groups were told to follow Dick’s explicit instructions, to move on with all speed and give the enemy no rest. The leading group, the 17th/21st Lancers and the 7th Rifle Brigade, broke right through the German line at last and was followed by the 16th/5th Lancers and the 1st King’s Royal Rifle Corps. By that night they had made rapid progress along the north bank of the Reno, cutting Route 64 from Bologna to Ferrara and establishing themselves at Poggio Renatico. As they prepared to move out on the next day to close the trap on the retreating Germans, this began to look more and more like a classic cavalry manoeuvre.

  In the meantime there had been equally good progress by II Polish Corps and XIII Corps. On the night of 18/19 April the two corps mounted a concerted attack and early on the following morning the New Zealanders entered Budrio, advancing with 10 Indian Division on their right and crossing the last river before Bologna, the Idice. At the same time IV US Corps was sweeping round to the west of Bologna, leaving the defenders perilously close to being cut off. On the night of 20 April, von Vietinghoff evacuated the city, ignoring the orders of Hitler to stand and fight, but a lack of transport and fuel meant that most of his troops were unable to escape the fast-closing pincers. At first light on 21 April 3 Carpathian Division entered Bologna after crushing its old opponents from Monte Cassino, 1 Parachute Division. Two hours later the Poles were joined by 34 US Division from the south.

  Dick was now covering great distances to keep in touch with his army. He had a number of visitors, first Harold Macmillan, whom he took to see Anders, ecstatic after what he described as ‘une belle bataille!’ and with the divisional flag of 1 Parachute Division in his possession. Alexander arrived on the following day and accompanied Dick to meet Keightley, Murray and ‘Pasha’ Russell, whose 8 Indian Division was entering the battlefield again on the right of 6 Armoured Division, and then Freyberg. The envelopment of the German formations defending Bologna was now complete, taking place at the appropriately named town of Finale on 23 April, where the advanced patrols of the 16th/5th Lancers met their equivalents from 6 South African Armoured Division. The first Allied Formation to reach the Po itself was 10 US Mountain Division on the evening of April 22. 6 Armoured Division’s long-serving reconnaissance regiment, the Derbyshire Yeomanry, and the 5th Royal West Kents from 8 Indian Division arrived on the south bank of the great river within 10 minutes of each other the next day.

  Further east V Corps was still meeting opposition as the Germans retreated to the Po, but the destruction of all the fixed and pontoon bridges and the harrying of the ferry landing sites by the Desert Air Force meant that most of the enemy were left with the option of swimming or surrendering. Almost all their tanks, artillery and motor transport had to be abandoned south of the river and the tally of prisoners mounted rapidly. The rest of 29 Panzer Grenadier Division had belatedly arrived only to find that the battle was lost, but that did not stop it from putting up a fight. Notwithstanding, Ferrara was occupied on 24 April and all remaining resistance south of the Po finally crumbled. By the next day V Corps had closed up to the river along a wide front.

  It is rare in the annals of military history that a plan of great complexity succeeds without some modification, but those of both Dick and Lucian Truscott were triumphantly fulfilled in their entirety, enabling them to achieve the envelopment of much of Army Group C. In Dick’s case it was the vindication of the principle of concentration at a vital point, the Argenta Gap, whilst tying down as many of the enemy as possible through a strong attack in another direction, which even Clark was moved to describe as ‘a stunning blow’. It played to his talent for deception, leading the enemy to believe in the likelihood of a seaborne landing, remaining at the same time confident that the flank on Lake Comacchio was unassailable. It also highlighted Dick’s skill in meticulous preparation. All the troops had been highly trained to do the jobs expected of them and the cooperation between the infantry, the artillery, the armour, the ‘funnies’ and the air forces was exceptional. The consolidation of the advance was secured by the efforts of the engineers: no fewer than 173 Bailey bridges were constructed south of the Po, almost all at pre-agreed locations, whilst thousands of tons of stone had been stockpiled and were brought up to improve the poor minor roads along which supply vehicles had to operate.

  Dick’s achievement was even more spectacular in one other respect. He had inherited an army which had seen its hopes dashed of any end to the campaign that year, with the winter ahead, more mountains to climb and many more rivers to cross: if not broken, morale had been at its lowest ebb since August 1942. Dick was no Monty, leaping on the bonnet of his jeep to address the troops and encouraging the cult of personality. Neither was he a ‘hail fellow, well met’ commander in the mould of Leese. Instead he led by example. Horsbrugh-Porter asked one of his troopers what he made of Dick and received this answer: ‘He don’t appear much in the picture papers but a bloke in 3 Troop says he saw the Army Commander up at a place which was very dangerous. It’s a rum go, but he don’t seem to advertise himself much.’5 With no appetite for self-promotion, Dick appeared to the troops as a straightforward soldier, who understood that they had to be nourished mentally as well as physically and that the best way to restore their morale was not only to rest them, but to train them to such a point that their confidence in their own abilities would be undoubted. In
this he succeeded brilliantly: the level of resistance put up by the Germans was no less than it had ever been, but the soldiers of Eighth Army fought skilfully and doggedly through to victory. Dick was to instil a different type of confidence in his more senior commanders, that he knew exactly what he was doing and that, if they continually pushed forward in accordance with his orders, they would have his backing. Keightley reflected all their views when he said: ‘I admired him immensely and trusted him implicitly.’6

  The battle south of the Po had been emphatically won and Clark, visiting Dick on 24 April, had professed himself very pleased, but it was not the end of the campaign. As Fifth US Army fanned out over Northern Italy from the French frontier to Lake Garda, Dick’s task was to drive into north-east Italy towards Austria and Yugoslavia. To do this he changed the disposition of his forces. II Polish Corps and 10 Indian Division had fought their final battles of the War and the remaining formations were reallocated within V and XIII Corps. V Corps, charged with crossing the Po at its seaward end, retained 56 and 78 Divisions and 7 and 9 Armoured Brigades, the former released by the Poles. Keightley was allocated all the remaining Bailey bridges. 6 Armoured Division and 8 Indian Division were moved to join 2 New Zealand Division in XIII Corps, with orders to cross the river as best they might further upstream. Harding told his chief engineer to scrounge at least one pontoon Bailey bridge by hook or by crook.

  On the evening of 23 April both Dick and Harding appeared at Murray’s HQ, where in Murray’s words Dick ‘said what a splendid thing it would be if an Armoured division carried out a crossing of the River Po. I think I looked at him with an expression of complete disbelief, only to discover that he meant what he said.’7 The Po was some 400 yards (366 metres) wide at this point and fast flowing, so it represented a serious obstacle. Freyberg was equally dubious, but hearing that Murray had agreed to cross, he felt that he could not be left behind. On the evening of 24 June Dick met Harding once again. One major problem was on his mind, a shortage of artillery ammunition – no fewer than 1.4 million 25-pounder rounds had been used since the beginning of the battle – but on the positive side, intelligence showed that the Germans were withdrawing from the Po, leaving only light screens behind. He told Harding that he should seize the opportunity as quickly as possible.

  That night and into the next morning 1 Guards Brigade crossed the Po and moved off rapidly in the direction of the next river, the Adige. On its left the New Zealanders also had their leading elements over the river, followed by 8 Indian Division that night. Further downstream in the V Corps sector, 169 Brigade of 56 Division crossed in a motley collection of Buffaloes and DUKWs, but it proved impossible to supply more than this formation, so 167 Brigade and 24 Guards Brigade were grounded, as was the whole of 78 Division. For the first time since the beginning of Operation Buckland, Sherman DD tanks were used, by the 7th Hussars from 7 Armoured Brigade crossing in support of 169 Brigade.

  On 26 April, both corps reached the Adige, 169 Brigade north of Rovigo and 2 New Zealand Division near Badia. This was purportedly the last German defensive position before the Alps, the so-called Venetian Line, and could have represented a considerable obstacle. As it was, Eighth Army’s momentum was unstoppable. The Italian partisans were now everywhere and had managed to seize a few intact bridges, but the engineers were otherwise seriously stretched to keep pace with the advance. On 26 April work was begun on the ‘Po Special’, renamed the Springbok Bridge and erected on the site of the destroyed road bridge carrying Route 16 across the river at Pontelagoscuro north of Ferrara, although it was 4 May before it was fully ready for use. All other crossings had to be made by amphibious vehicles and Dick, aloft in his ‘whizzer’, had the thrill of seeing DD tanks crossing the Po and the Adige at the same time.

  The constraints of supply meant that Dick now had to reduce considerably the formations in the advance. There was no room at all beyond the Adige for 8 Indian Division. 6 Armoured Division had halted its armour and 1 Guards Brigade had also been pinched out by the narrowness of the front, so 61 Brigade remained alone in the field. It protected the left flank of 2 New Zealand Division, which had 43 Gurkha Brigade under command and was now by far the largest active formation in Eighth Army. Harding’s instructions to Freyberg were to make for Trieste as quickly as possible, for which purpose the New Zealanders retained the 12th Lancers, which had come under the division’s command early in the battle. Meanwhile, 169 Brigade, 44 Reconnaissance Regiment and 7 Armoured Brigade, all that remained of V Corps in the advance, were directed towards Venice.

  On the night of 26/27 April, 2 New Zealand Division crossed the Adige in strength. At dawn on 28 April the 12th Lancers set off on what was to become the regiment’s most exhilarating episode of the whole war. By 1500 hrs, with Freyberg himself up with the leading elements in his scout car, they were in Este and by midnight in Padua. The advance moved so fast that the regiment ran out of maps and was compelled to equip itself with a collection of Baedeker guide books and atlases. One squadron was diverted to Venice. Notwithstanding that this was the main objective of 169 Brigade, Freyberg was determined that his division should be in the city first.8 He was particularly anxious to liberate the Danieli Hotel where, by coincidence, both he and Dick had spent their honeymoons. The 12th Lancers’ B Squadron was first across the causeway on the afternoon of 29 April, at the head of a small force from 9 New Zealand Brigade, followed some two hours later by 169 Brigade.9

  The next three days were hectic. German resistance was far from over and many small actions were being fought all along the fast-changing front. On 1 May Udine was liberated by the 7th Rifle Brigade from 61 Brigade, outstripping the rest of Eighth Army to the extent that it was out of radio contact. On the previous day the rest of the 12th Lancers had set out on a 75-mile dash for Trieste at the head of 2 New Zealand Division, with orders not to pause. There was a serious political dimension to the move, as it was now clear that the Yugoslav Partisans were headed towards the city from the opposite direction and it was vital to forestall them before they took control. On the afternoon of 2 May, A Squadron led the New Zealanders into the centre of Trieste. The German garrison surrendered to Freyberg, much to the displeasure of the Fourth Yugoslav Army, elements of which had arrived at much the same time.

  On the same day hostilities ceased in Italy. The first overtures for peace had begun many weeks before, when General Karl Wolff, the head of the SS in Italy, had made approaches through an intermediary in Switzerland to Allen Dulles of the US Office of Strategic Services. By the beginning of the last week of April, with the writing on the wall, von Vietinghoff had accepted that capitulation was the only possible outcome. The Wolff-Dulles negotiations culminated at Alexander’s HQ at Caserta on 29 April, when unconditional surrender documents were signed by the German plenipotentiaries and by Harding’s successor as Alexander’s chief of staff, William ‘Monkey’ Morgan. On 4 May Dick flew in his Expeditor to Florence, where his old adversary von Senger arrived as von Vietinghoff’s emissary to receive Clark’s instructions for the surrender of all the German land forces in Italy. When von Senger entered the room he found Clark waiting with Dick, Truscott and Major General Benjamin W. Chidlaw, the American commander of the Mediterranean Tactical Air Force standing behind him. The formalities over von Senger turned to leave the room, only to be called back when it was realized that he was still wearing a side-arm, which he duly relinquished.

  For Dick at that moment, the War was over. The problems which succeeded it were just beginning.

  Chapter 24

  Aftermath

  Characteristically, Dick’s first action on the cessation of hostilities was to write to every one of his commanders, down to brigade level, to congratulate them on a job well done. He also wrote to Pussy Foster, expressing his gratitude for the exceptional role played by the Desert Air Force. There were a few moments to savour. On 11 May he gave a very successful lunch party for 30 at the Grand Hotel in Venice to celebrate victory, prior to which Clark presente
d Orders of Merit to the Polish Corps commander, Bohusz-Szyszko, and six divisional commanders in front of the Doge’s Palace in St Mark’s Square. Dick closed down the villa he had maintained in Florence for visits to 15th Army Group and commandeered one at the Lido, moving his Main HQ to Mestre.

  One of Dick’s more pleasurable duties was to recommend richly deserved British decorations for his senior commanders and staff. He experienced particular difficulty in deciding on an honour for Freyberg, who already held two orders of knighthood and the VC. He concluded that the most appropriate award was a third bar to Freyberg’s DSO. This was most unusual, only seven other third bars being given for the whole of the Second World War, and was greatly appreciated by the recipient.

  In Churchill’s words on the BBC on VE-Day, ‘the brief period of rejoicing’ was just that for Eighth Army. When Dick wrote to Lettice on 1 May, ‘You have no idea of the number and complexity of my problems here as soon as the fighting stops’, he was probably underestimating what was about to happen. From focusing all his energies on beating the Germans, he now had to turn his mind to a host of politico-military problems which bedevilled the first weeks after the end of the War in Europe. Most of these in the early days involved the Yugoslavs who, it became clear, were set on territorial expansion, both in Italy and in Austria. Tito had his eyes in particular on the peninsula of Istria and on the eastern part of the Italian province of Venezia Giulia, which had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before the Great War and in which the majority of the population were Yugoslavs, primarily Slovenes.

  Dick’s diary first recorded the problems at the most trivial level, on the day he accompanied Clark to Trieste and then went on to Gorizia: ‘Yugoslavs being an awful nuisance, flags, women, requisitioning, looting everywhere.’ There were, however, much more serious noises coming from the Yugoslav side. This was notwithstanding an agreement as to the post-war partition of the area, which had been signed by Tito and Alexander in February and which allocated the whole of Venezia Giulia to the Allied Military Government and Istria to the Yugoslavs. Tito now wanted both Trieste and a large slice of Italy further north. To the Allies this presented a potentially major problem as the port was crucial to the Allied supply line into Austria, which ran through the debatable territory.