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The sad history of the war
The
Allied invasion of Italy on September 3, 1943 coincided with the
signing of the armistice with Italy itself which subsequently entered
into war again alongside the Allied forces. The campaign was then
fought between the German army of occupation in Italy, still supported
by a scant number of Italian troops and the 15th
Group of Allied Armies which included at the beginning the 8th
Commonwealth Army, the 5th Army composed of
an American Army Corps and a Commonwealth one, together with some
Italian detachments, fighting for the liberation of their Country. With
the continuation of the campaign some French, Polish, Greek and
Brazilian troops joined the 15th Group of Armies.
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The
Allied forces were helped always more and more, as they went on, by the
Partisan movement behind the German lines. The aim of the Allies was to
attract as many German troops as they could from the Russian and the
French fronts, where other allied landings were expected very soon. During
the whole campaign of Italy the preparations for the invasion of Western
Europe had priority in both human and material commitment. This strategy
led not only to the reduction of the amphibious operations, for which the
battlefield was particularly suitable, but it also led to the withdrawal
of some allied divisions, along with a large part of the air-support, to
reinforce the landing preparations in western and southern France and the
subsequent operations in north-western Europe and Greece.
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The
German armies were determined, well equipped and skilfully placed. The
Italian peninsula is formed in large part by a mountainous spine, the
Apennines, from which originate many rivers that flow, through deep
ravines, toward the sea. These ravines were formidable obstacles in
every season for the attackers: swollen with water and snow during the
rigorous winter climate, they were tenaciously defended and thus
became an even harder obstacle. The names of many battles of the
campaign come from the names of the rivers which crossing was
harshly opposed. The
war in the mountain areas was predominant during the fighting in
Italy and it required appropriately trained troops: at the |
beginning of the
Italian operations only the Indian and French divisions had been
trained for this purpose. This kind of war was pointed out the fact that
infantry, supported by artillery and engineers, was the decisive arm
on the battlefield; on the mountains tanks were nothing more than
self-propelled guns. Mules, jeeps and aeroplanes that dropped
provisions became the necessary means of transport to support the
troops on the mountains. The Allies took some time before they were
able to adapt themselves to this kind of war. During this campaign the
three armed forces, each one with its limits, fought almost as if
they were a single force while provisions and reinforcements
were transported by the Merchant Navy. The naval cannons provided
direct support both in the landings and in the subsequent engagement
toward ground targets. The air forces, besides their strategic role in
the bombings, supplied a close support to the troops,
in the form of tactical aid and the launching of provisions.
During the whole campaign the control of the sea and the sky was
constant. If even one of these elements had been missing, the campaign,
which had originated from the sea, could not have been sustained.
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The
landings of the 8th Army at Reggio Calabria on September 3rd
and
at Taranto on 9th met weak
resistance. On the contrary, the landing of the 5th Army at
Salerno, this too on 9th of
September, was harshly opposed and only on 14th, by the help of
powerful air and naval support, the German counteroffensive
was overwhelmed. On 16th
the left wing of the 8th Army
joined the right wing of the 5th Army, and the latter then
advanced along the western coast occupying Naples on 1st of
October, while the 8th Army moved up along the eastern coast again
capturing Termoli on 3rd of the same month. In this way fast
advances were brought to an end. Fierce fighting which lasted till
the end of that year blocked the Allied troops over the Gustav
Line. On 12th January,
1944 a series of attacks was carried out along the this Line,
mostly against the fortress of Cassino
and on 22nd there was an Allied landing at Anzio whose
purpose it was to cut off the German communications lines and to threaten
them from the back. But the Germans held out at Cassino not only
against the first but also the two following attacks and then they
counterattacked at Anzio and so that the bridgehead was kept with
great difficulty. The greater part of the troops of the 8th Army
was later moved to join the 5th
Army
on the western front, leaving only a defence force on the eastern
front. The concentration of these troops was managed in a masterly
manner and three quarters of the forces of the 15th Army Group
were taken to put pressure on the short frontline between Cassino
and the sea.
The attack was launched on May 11th , the base at Cassino was
taken on 18th, the Allied troops in Anzio broke through the
surrounding enemy lines and the Germans gave up the Gustav line on
22nd ; the way through the Liri Valley was thus opened and the
Allied forces entered Rome on June 4th
.
The retreat of the Germans was at first headlong but soon became
orderly and they put up resistance at Arezzo, at Trasimeno Lake,
over the Arno River and all along the Gothic line. Although an
offensive launched on September 10th had opened a breach into the
fortifications of the Gothic line, the mountains themselves later
barred the way except for the Adriatic flank, where the front line
was moved forward up to Ravenna. In December, with the arrival of
winter, the Allied forces went on the defensive, collecting their
forces to launch the spring offensive the following April 9th.
After a week of hard fighting, the German front was broken and the
allied troops of the right wing of the 5th Army and the left wing
of the 8th entered Bologna at the same time. By April 23rd the
majority of the German forces was trapped along the southern bank
of the Po River. On 25th ,
when both the 5th
the 8th
Armies crossed the Po River, there were many popular insurrections
in the towns of Northern Italy and the Partisan movement took
control of the German garrisons. On May 2nd , the day of the
German surrender, the 5th Army
reached Turin westward, while the 8th
reached Trieste eastward. The
final Allied success in this hard and sometimes frustrating
campaign was so complete that its importance would have been more
ample if the Allied Divisions and Air Forces that retreated
because destined to operations on other fronts, had been left in
Italy. This has to be a motif for reflection.
42,000 seamen, soldiers and airmen of the Commonwealth forces died
during the campaign; of these, 38,000 are buried
in the 37 Commonwealth war cemeteries and the names of
1,500, whose remains were cremated, are commemorated on
Memorials in three of these cemeteries. The names of another
4,000 soldiers, whose graves are unknown, are recorded on the
Memorial of Cassino; the names of the missing seamen and airmen
are recorded on the Memorials put up in their ports of departure
and on the Memorial to the fallen heroes of the Air Forces in
Malta.
None of the war cemeteries is simply a cemetery of a particular
battlefield, but each one contains groups of graves of fallen
service-men from large war areas, after the fighting moved away.
Many of them were opened
as battlefield cemeteries however
and all of them have a particular meaning in relation to the
campaign.
ATTENZIONE !!!
La riproduzione o distribuzione, totale o parziale,
non autorizzata del testo riportato in lingua inglese è vietata e
punibile per legge.
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