On September 24 as soon as mopping up at the Il Giogo pass was complete Clark wasted no time in setting Keyes going again, with three divisions aligned on the direct route to Bologna and the 88th Division trying a fresh line on Road No. 6528, the road to Imola. Brigadier-General Paul W. Kendall, a great thruster, formerly the deputy-commander during DIADEM, who was shortly to earn his second star in the field, captured the village of Castel del Rio on the 25th. Assisted by a new factor in the war, Italian partisans, he occupied the important height of M. Battaglia (“Battle Mountain” to the Americans) and held it against a number of desperate counter-attacks. However, it was soon found that the road was too small and too badly damaged to carry more than a division. It followed the winding course of the Santerno river along a valley with precipitous sides, long stretches of its corniche sections blown and the bridge at Castel del Rio destroyed. Clark ordered Kirkman to relieve the garrison of “Battle Mountain” and take over the route.
Progress everywhere now became slow. The laconic entry “rain” recurs in Kirkman’s diary, with descriptions of the horrific demolitions: “The sappers under continual shell and mortar fire.” Engineers were once more as important as infantry, their efforts were assisted by Italian labour and any troops who could be spared, such as the now unemployed anti-aircraft artillery. They, under Royal Engineer instruction, soon learnt how to erect Bailey bridging. It was a very difficult period for the 13th Corps, between infantry wastage, lack of replacements and sheer physical exhaustion. When General Clark complained that British officers did not drive their men like his he was perfectly correct. They had no alternative course to keeping the pressure up by small, skilled attacks and tactics designed to economise in life and limb. There was an unofficial phrase in vogue in those days, “leaning on the enemy”. In essence it was based on vigorous patrolling with the aim of locating the forward enemy posts, obtaining prisoners and generally harrying the enemy. Most battalions formed a special patrol unit of selected men, but this cut two ways, as though it made for efficiency it increased the wastage of the best. The artillery observers kept the enemy under close scrutiny and made their lives as uncomfortable as possible. When opportunity offered, exposed positions were taken out, often with the help of tanks. It was a not uncommon sight to see a troop commander and his crews hacking away at rocks and boulders with pick, shovel and crowbar to get a single tank up to a firing platform.
It was a form of warfare unpopular with British soldiers who, if given a choice, would have preferred either a policy of live and let live, or to “have a good bash at the buggers”. The artillery brigadier of the 6th Armoured Division was addicted to strolling about in the front line. On one occasion when a minor operation was taking place, he found the artillery observing officer trying to land a shell on a knife-edge crest, the assault force resting peaceably in some well-chosen ground dead to enemy observation while he alternated his “plus” and “minus” rounds, and the supporting infantry mortar platoon silent. He asked the NCO in charge why he was not engaging the enemy, to receive the reply, “Well, sir, if we shoot at them they’ll only shoot back at us.” It is not suggested that this extreme attitude was typical or widespread, but it was certainly symptomatic.4 There was a certain amount of the inevitable “skiving” in the front line, as in all armies, born of excessive fatigue as much as anything else. Great pains were taken to rest men, especially the junior leaders, rotate units out of the line and if possible send parties to rest camps. The result was that the soldiers, confident that they were not being treated as expendable cannon-fodder, were able to keep going in the line for about twice as long as the hard-driven GIs. When an all-out effort was required they responded, as the 78th Infantry Division was shortly to demonstrate.
Clark’s third drive on Bologna began on October 1, on the same pattern as before, a broad-front offensive with the South Africans on the left and the 34th, 91st, 85th and 88th Divisions astride Highway No. 65, with the objective of forcing the line of the Livergnano escarpment, marked by the peaks M. Adone, M. Belmonte and M. Grande, which continued eastward through another tangle of summits, M. Pieve, M. Spaduro and M. Acqua Salata, ending in an extraordinary feature, the Vena del Gesso, like a black sea-cliff, ending at the Santerno valley opposite Tossignano. Clark had asked for a reinforcement for the 13th Corps and Alexander had sent him the veteran 78th Division, newly returned to the Eighth Army from Egypt, where it had been resting and re-training. It was down to three instead of four rifle companies per battalion, but still full of fight, and Kirkman hoped to strike some heavy blows with it* Clark ordered Kirkman to relieve Kendall’s 88th Division, which had been slowly forcing its way towards M. la Pieve, and move his left boundary once more to the west. Accordingly he introduced the 78th Division, and gave Arbuthnott the mission of capturing the tangle of summits north-east of M. la Pieve.
Ten days of bitter fighting had seen little progress. By the 15th the US 2nd Corps had secured only one of its three objectives, M. Grande, and the 78th Division was not to clear the Pieve-Spaduro-Acqua Salata triangle until the 24th. In the opinion of its veterans that three weeks’ fighting was the most severe of all its battles from the autumn of 1942 to the end of the war. Its 38th all-Irish Brigade arrived on the 5th/6th and attacked an enemy outpost position on Point 382 the following night, and secured it after three attempts. The 11th Brigade made five consecutive attacks on M. la Pieve and occupied it after the sixth, the enemy having abandoned it. The 36th Brigade took M. Acqua Salata at its second attempt. The Irish returned to the attack with two unsuccessful attempts against M. Spaduro, then secured a lodgment half-way up it with the third and took it at the fourth. None of these successes was cheaply bought. The 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers lost 93 men in one attack, leaving it with only 165 in its rifle companies.5
Clark persisted in his offensive with a determination that might have earned the admiration of Earl Haig in the earlier war, but he was defeated by a combination of appalling weather, bitter German resistance and some chilling arithmetic which became apparent by the end of the first fortnight. His casualty rate rose to a level which the US replacement system in Italy could not match, and the supplies of artillery ammunition on which he depended for the intense bombardments now necessary to prepare every advance began to fall short because of the demands of the US armies in France. Deeply chagrined, Clark was forced to halt his offensive on the 27th. He blamed Kirkman, whose divisions, extended over a long front with atrocious communications, were now echeloned well behind the 2nd Corps. His temper became frayed and not only his, Kirkman noted:
Everyone is getting slightly quarrelsome these days. Mark Clark rang me up in a bad temper before I went out and said that it was never his intention that his 88 Div should attack high ground to get 78 Div on and that it should stop at once.(!) I pointed out that 88 Div were attacking within their own boundary as laid down by his own staff and that 78 Div had taken over within their boundary to help them. To this he had no reply. Charles Loewen groused that … 8th Indian had done nothing for days and did not protect his right flank, Russell groused about 1 Div … when he wanted to use their roads they made endless difficulties … Arbuthnott rang up saying that 1 Div were not planning to get along quickly enough to protect his right flank … Everyone sees only their difficulties and never anybody else’s … the fact is every one is getting a bit tired.
Two days later, on the 14th, when Kirkman was making his usual round of his front and clambering up to view-points on mountain tops, he was peremptorily summoned to a meeting with Clark. There he found Gruenther, Keyes, Brann and various staff officers ready to present the latest casualty figures for the Fifth Army, and was virtually arraigned in public for his lack of drive. The significant figures were: US troops, 13,082 casualties, prisoners taken, 2,451; British (Indian and Canadian), 7,087 and 506. Kirkman does not make it clear how he defended himself, if at all. He recorded that “it was all most un-pleasant” and concluded characteristically: “Arrived here [back at his HQ] exhausted
and ill-tempered at 17.30 having been on the road, climbing mountains and listening to Clark for 11 hours.” This was extraordinary behaviour on the part of Clark, even allowing for his deep disappointment, his highly strung nature and his conviction that the British lacked all fighting spirit. He was politically extremely acute and knew perfectly well how a senior Allied officer should be handled, and that it would have been unwise to administer so calculated and public a rebuke to even a senior US Army officer. He had a perfect right to demand greater exertions from a subordinate, but the proper course was to speak to him privately, and if that had no effect, to ask Alexander to relieve him. The fact was he had never failed to cover himself after a failure. Now he smelt complete failure in the autumn air, and he needed a scapegoat, the last in the line of Dawley, Lucas, McCreery and Freyberg.6
Only two miles of the high country separated him from the watershed after which it was downhill for fifteen miles to Bologna. One more heave, 5,000 replacements more might enable his army to make it. He railed at the Eighth Army for keeping five divisions in reserve, and that Alexander had some 50,000 uniformed men in his vast command and logistic organisation. There were 5,000 infantry replacements in the theatre, earmarked for Devers’ army group in France, but he, on the brink of success, was stalled for want of men. His mood was not improved by a letter from Devers telling him that he was driving his troops too hard. It was all the fault of the British, who wished the Eighth Army to get the credit for a victory in Italy. “We are caught in the British Empire machine.” He was sent 3,000 infantry replacements at the end of October, but it was not enough. His divisions were burnt out, and had to be left in peace to recover until the final offensive opened on April 14. The official figure for the Fifth Army’s casualties from September 20 to October 26 was 15,716. The hard-fighting 88th Division alone lost 5,026, and after receiving replacements was short of 1,243 all ranks; the majority combat soldiers. These are terrible statistics.7
Clark did not have long to repine. On November 24 a salve was provided for his bruised spirit. A signal, apparently quite unexpected, arrived from the British Prime Minister, with the glad news that he was to be promoted to command of the Allied Armies in Italy. General Dill, the British representative to the Combined Chiefs of Staff in Washington had died, Maitland Wilson was to replace him and Alexander was to command the Mediterranean theatre. Many changes took place. Leese had left at the end of September for Burma and, to Clark’s disgust, the “feather duster” McCreery had been given command of the Eighth Army.8 Truscott returned from France to command the Fifth. Kirkman was attacked by arthritis and returned to a home command in England. The 13th Corps was returned to the Eighth Army and Harding left HQ AAI to command it in its last battles. Clark assumed command of the Allied armies in mid-December, re-named HQ 15th Army Group once more, taking Gruenther and Brann with him. There were also changes on the other side. On February 15 von Vietinghoff was relieved by Traugott Herr, and on March 9 Hitler appointed Kesselring Commander-in-Chief, West, and so the firm hand that had directed the German defence for so long was removed. His place was taken by von Vietinghoff. Kesselring showed a last flash of his old spirit when von Vietinghoff asked for terms in April. He suspended him at once, and also General Wentzell his chief of staff, but on learning of Hitler’s death, relented.
The Canadian Corps complete was withdrawn by the Canadian Government from Italy and united with the Canadian Army in 21st Army Group in time for the final battles on the frontier of Germany.
Under McCreery’s careful handling that tired old steeple-chaser, the Eighth Army — “good for one more race” — battled on until the end of December.9 On October 24 it crossed the Savio, on the 31st the Ronco, on November 9 it captured Forli and on the 16th Highway No. 64 was cleared through the length of the Apennines. On the 26th it crossed the Lamone, Ravenna fell on December 4, Faenza on the 16th, and all operations ceased on the 29th. The Eighth Army may not have been able to carry the ball alone, but it certainly made a number of touchdowns or, as McCreery might have preferred, could still take a number of stiff fences until it required a rest before the next meeting.
* Loewen was a Canadian officer, late Royal Artillery, in the British service, who was to have a distinguished career. He was refreshingly direct, outspoken and humorous.
* The reader should bear in mind that in all these mountain battles the crude radios of those days were liable to interruption by “shadow”, due to the lie of the land, loud static and interference; to say nothing of being dropped over cliffs, the operators being hit or running out of batteries until the next convoy of porters scaled the mountainside.
* General Keightley had left to command the 5th Corps in Eighth Army, and his successor had fallen ill. It was commanded from October 10 by the most experienced and able officer who for the past year had commanded its 11th Brigade, Major-General R. K. Arbuthnott.
25
BREAKTHROUGH
It brings to a conclusion the work of as gallant an army as ever marched, and brings to a pitch of fame the military reputation of a commander who has always enjoyed the confidence of the House of Commons.
Winston Churchill, in the Commons, May 2, 1945
No one who has followed our account of the Allied operations in Italy is likely to conclude that they were a model of the military art, yet Churchill’s tribute was fairly earned. Alexander, Clark and their generals consistently displayed two qualities — “leadership” and the “maintenance of the aim” — without which all other military virtues are of no value. Their leadership ensured that their much-tried troops were willing to make yet one more effort; in 1945 after an autumn and winter of hard fighting. Condemned to what they perceived as a subsidiary mission, and weakened by further detachments — three Commonwealth divisions to cope with internal strife in Greece, the Canadians and a British infantry division to north-west Europe — their determination to continue to attack the enemy never faltered.
The question of morale was certainly a matter for concern. The winter of 1944–5 was exceptionally cold. Some of the 11th (Ontario) Armoured Regiment, no strangers to arctic conditions, who maintained a vedette on the slopes of M. Grande in the 13th Corps sector with no shelter other than their tanks, asserted that it was by far the most unpleasant period of their service in Italy. The front-line troops dug in more for warmth than protection from fire — burrows they were reluctant to leave — while in the rear the more self-reliant built themselves a wonderful collection of shacks, shanties, hoochies, wigwams and bustees from looted material. Patrols on being sent out to reconnoitre or secure prisoners went to ground once out of sight of their own front line, to return after a plausible interval and report that they had made no contact with the enemy. On the banks of the Senio, where the Tenth and Eighth Armies were separated in places only by the width of the great dykes twenty-five feet high, things were different. When Kesselring had decreed that the German static defence was to be aggressive, and the policy of live and let live was forbidden, the Eighth Army responded in kind.
The morale of the Polish Corps and the US 92nd (Negro) Infantry caused great anxiety. The Polish problem was by far the most serious, as it could have deprived Clark of the services of the whole of the 2nd Polish Corps. The Poles were highly politicised down to the youngest private soldier, and when they heard that Allied leaders had agreed at the Yalta Conference to cede part of eastern Poland to Soviet Russia there was a very real possibility that they would refuse to fight for an alliance that had betrayed them. This was averted by the tactful handling of McCreery and Clark, by the loyalty of Anders and the influence of the Polish Government in exile in London.
The trouble with the 92nd Division arose from the fact that it was, in effect, the American equivalent of a “colonial” division, with black NCOs and rank and file, some black officers, but the command and staff mainly white. Such a unit can only be effective if pride of race is actually encouraged and only the best of white officers employed, and it was precisely these two e
ssentials that were ignored. The weakness of its infantry was aggravated by the general practice of filling the ranks with what was left after the demands of the technical arms and services had been met. Some 13 per cent of the black riflemen were illiterate.
The division held a perhaps over-wide sector of the long US 4th Corps front and, like the rest of General Crittenberger’s units, its defensive localities were widely dispersed and expected to cover the gaps and the front by active patrolling, which it failed to do. The German 51st Mountain Corps had identified the positions of the 92nd Division and after careful observation decided that it was a ripe target for a raid designed to wreck it as an effective fighting unit. On Boxing Day, December 26, 1944 a Kampfgruppe of two line and two mountain infantry battalions with ample artillery support achieved complete surprise, and though some of the infantry fought with great courage the great majority fled the battlefield leaving a wide gap in the 4th Corps front. For a brief period Operation WINTERGEWITTE (“Winter thunder-storm”) caused a considerable “flap” as it was thought that it prefaced a larger offensive. Ironically, the gap was plugged and the raiders chased back by two brigades of the 8th Indian Division lent by the Eighth Army to the Fifth to provide General Crittenberger with a corps reserve. Later, in February, the division was entrusted with a local offensive with the object of improving the corps line, but failed again dismally. It was then reconstituted as a mixed division with one black regiment composed of the best of its infantry, one “Nisei” (US-born Japanese) regiment and a regiment of anti-aircraft artillerymen re-trained as infantry. It fought rather better in the April offensive, when its role was to mount a diversionary attack up the Ligurian coast.1
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