Tug of War Read online

  Tug of War

  BY SHELFORD BIDWELL

  Gunners at War: A Tactical Study of the Royal Artillery in the Twentieth Century

  Swords for Hire: European Mercenaries in Eighteenth-Century India

  Modern Warfare: A Study of Men, Weapons and Theories

  The Royal Horse Artillery

  The Women’s Royal Army Corps

  The Chindit War: The Campaign in Burma, 1944

  Artillery of the World (Ed.)

  World War 3 (Ed.)

  BY DOMINICK GRAHAM

  Cassino

  British Government and American Defence, 1748–56

  No Substitute for Peace (With Maurice Tugwell and David Charters)

  BIDWELL and GRAHAM

  Fire-Power: British Army Weapons and Theories of War, 1904–1945

  Tug of War

  The battle for Italy, 1943–1945

  Dominick Graham

  and

  Shelford Bidwell

  PEN & SWORD MILITARY CLASSICS

  The extract from “Rural Raid” by Denton Welch which appears on page 191 is reproduced with

  the kind permission of David Highham Associates and is taken from The Terrible Rain: The War

  Poets 1939–1945 published by Methuen.

  First published in 1986 by Hodder & Stoughton.

  Published in 2004, in this format, by

  PEN & SWORD MILITARY CLASSICS

  an imprint of

  Pen & Sword Books Limited

  47 Church Street

  Barnsley

  S. Yorkshire

  S70 2AS

  Copyright © Dominick Graham and Shelford Bidwell, 1986, 2004

  ISBN 1 84415 098 4

  The right of Dominick Graham and Shelford Bidwell to be identified as

  Authors of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  A CIP record for this book

  is available from the British Library.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or

  transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical

  including photocopying, recording or by any information storage a

  nd retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by

  CPI UK

  For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact:

  PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED

  47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England.

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  Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  We are greatly indebted to our fellow historians and other distinguished persons for help we received when working on this study of the Italian campaign. As they are variously located in Canada, England, France, New Zealand and the United States and we consulted them separately, we consider it appropriate to express our gratitude separately.

  Bidwell thanks Lieutenant-General Sir Ian Jacob for an authoritative view of the problems of command and commanders at the highest level; General Sir Frank Simpson and Major-General Eric Sixsmith for answering questions on organisational matters; Major-General Adam Block, Colonel John Mennell, Lieutenant-Colonel P. S. Turner and Michael Glover for their impressions of events at the operational level, together with their perceptions of some commanders and national contingents. He received valuable advice and information from the military historians Correlli Barnett, Carlo D’Este, Nigel Hamilton, the late Ronald Lewin and, in particular, from John Terraine, with whom he has long enjoyed a profitable dialogue. Roy Smith provided useful information concerning air support, and Michael Wasilewsky indicated sources to consult on the Polish Forces. He also consulted W. McAndrew (see under Graham).

  To these names must be added those of J. Harding, Historical Branch (Army), Ministry of Defence; Patricia Methven, The Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, London; Air Commodore H. A. Probert and Group Captain T. Flanagan, Royal Air Force Historical Section; Roderick Suddaby, the Imperial War Museum, and Richard Tubb, Librarian, the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, together with the staffs of those establishments.

  We are both especially indebted to Lieutenant-Colonel H. R. D. Emery, The French Embassy, London, for his help, and to Monsieur le Général Delmas, Chef de Service Historique for the gift of three volumes on the French participation in the Italian campaign.

  Graham thanks Dr Alec Douglas and his staff at the Directorate of History, National Defence Force HQ, Ottawa and in particular Brereton Greenhous and William McAndrew for showing him material concerning their tour of the Gothic Line; Justice Sir John White for recalling events at General Freyberg’s HQ during the Battles of Cassino; the staff of the National Archives in Wellington, New Zealand; Martin Blumenson for conversations concerning Mark Clark and the Italian campaign, and his kindness in allowing him to see his biography of Mark Clark in manuscript; Richard Kohn and the staff at the Office of Air Force History for their kindness; and Richard Sommers at the Archives of the Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania for the trouble he took to find relevant documents. He is immensely grateful to Nick Straker, whose research in the British Cabinet Offices in 1970 laid the foundation for our study of the battles of Salerno, Cassino, Anzio and the Gothic Line. To these names he adds those of the late John Sherman, Robert Tooley, Valerie Graham, Pat Harahan and David Zimmerman for their comments on draft chapters; and of James Parton for providing information about Ira C. Eaker’s part in the operations at Cassino, and also The History of the Mediterranean Air Forces, which he wrote in the spring of 1945.

  We wish to emphasise that though we researched separately we are both equally and jointly grateful to all the above.

  Ion Trewin, now Editorial Director of our publishers, Hodder & Stoughton, provided encouragement, advice and criticism which has resulted, we hope, in a greatly improved and enlarged text. This was polished by the meticulous editing of Christine Medcalf, who also coordinated the sometimes mutually conflicting views of the co-authors with skill and tact. We thank them both.

  Alec Spark drew the maps, adroitly compressing the essential information into a limited space without loss of clarity.

  Jean Walter, whose flair as a sub-editor and reader is equal to her accomplishments as a copy-typist of the books of many authors, decrypted an often chaotic typescript to provide a text fit for the publisher.

  Our last and warmest expression of thanks is to our wives, who provided the moral and logistic support on which we depended as draft chapters and mutual criticisms winged their way back and forth across the Atlantic.

  In conclusion, we state formally that the responsibility for all expressions of opinion advanced by us and for errors of fact is ours alone.

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Illustrations

  Maps

  I–A SOFT TARGET

  1

  Two Armies in Search of a Battlefield

  2

  General Eisenhower’s Problems

  II–SALERNO

  3

  The Board and the Pieces

  4

  Avalanche and Hurricane

  5

  Von Vietinghoff Shoots his Bolt

  6

  Salerno – The Postscript

  III–INTERLUDE

  7

  Mines, Mud and Uncertain Trumpets

  IV–LOST BATTLES

  8

  An Odour of Gallipoli

  9

  The Soldier’s Art

  10

  Fear, Hope and Failure

  11

  The Torch is Thrown

&
nbsp; 12

  A Hateful Tapestry in the Sky

  13

  Scarcely any Goal

  V–INTERLUDE

  14

  Look Out, Fighter-Bombers!

  VI–AT LAST A PLAN

  15

  A Man of Ruthless Logic

  16

  The Battering Ram

  17

  Tiger Drive

  18

  The Battle in the Liri Valley

  VII – FRANCE WINS THE DIADEM

  19

  General Juin’s Plan

  20

  Breaking the Mountain Line

  21

  Juin Triumphant

  22

  The Glittering Prize

  VIII – THE GOTHIC LINE

  23

  Operation Olive

  24

  Clark Agonistes

  25

  Breakthrough

  26

  Reflections

  Chronology of Principal Events

  Sources

  Select Bibliography

  Chapter Notes

  Index of Military Units and Formations

  General Index

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  Harold Alexander1

  Albert Kesselring2

  Montgomery (No. 13677)3

  Clark and Brann4

  Alfred Gruenther4

  Heinrich von Vietinghoff2

  Ernest J. Dawley4

  Richard McCreery1

  Alexander and Leese1

  “John” Harding1

  Fred L. Walker4

  John W. O’Daniel4

  Lucas and Eveleigh4

  Lucian K. Truscott4

  Gerhard von Mackensen2

  Traugott Herr2

  Ernst-Guenther Baade2

  Richard Heidrich2

  Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin1

  Geoffrey G. Keyes1

  Wladyslaw Anders1

  Alphonse Juin1

  Bernard Freyberg1

  Clark, Alexander and McCreery1

  E. L. M. Burns (No. 134178)3

  C. Vokes (No. 116030)3

  B. T. Hoffmeister (No. 115880)3

  Sidney Kirkman1

  Charlie Keightley1

  Acknowledgements

  1. The Imperial War Museum

  2. Bundesarchiv

  3. Public Archive, Canada

  4. United States Historical Archiv

  MAPS

  German Dispositions – September 1, 1943

  Invasion Plans

  Salerno – The Initial Assault

  Salerno – The German Counter-Attack

  The Termoli Landing

  Lost Battles

  The Anzio Bridgehead

  Montecassino

  1st Battle of Cassino

  2nd Battle of Cassino

  3rd Battle of Cassino (1)

  3rd Battle of Cassino (2)

  Allied German Dispositions – March 31, 1944

  The DIADEM Plan

  The Eighth Army in the Liri Valley

  The CEF – Juin’s Plan

  The CEF Offensive

  The 6th Corps Drive to Rome

  The Gothic Line – Alexander’s Final Plan

  The Canadians Break the Gothic Line

  The Canadian Advance – September 3–21, 1944

  The Fifth Army – Battle of the Passes

  Clark’s Plan for the Spring Offensive

  McCreery Breaks Through the River Lines

  I

  A Soft Target

  1

  TWO ARMIES IN SEARCH OF A BATTLEFIELD

  No-one starts a war – or, rather, no-one in his senses should do so – without being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.

  Karl von Clausewitz

  At 4.30 a.m. on September 3, 1943 the citizens of Reggio Calabria, at the tip of Italy’s toe, were awakened by a thunderous bombardment. Cascades of aerial bombs, hundreds of shells from warships and 400 tons of ammunition fired by field artillery on the western shore of the Straits of Messina fell on the beaches north of the town. Then, as the barrage lifted, three brigades of Canadian and British infantry disembarked from landing craft and waded ashore, to claim the honour of being the first Allied troops to set foot on the soil of Nazi-dominated Europe with the firm intention of staying there. Their passage had neither been molested by the legendary monster Scylla, whose habit it was to snatch seamen from the decks of passing ships and devour them, nor troubled by the whirlpools of Charybdis. Nor was there any interference from a more real danger, the 26th Panzer and the 29th Panzer Grenadier Divisions defending the eastern shore of the narrows. Their commanders, alerted by the preliminary bombardment of their gun positions, and following their orders, prudently had faded away into the mountainous interior of Calabria two days before, leaving their Italian comrades to offer what resistance they could, which was little. A few long-range guns opened fire from far inland, to be rapidly silenced by Allied air attack. The Italians in the coastal defences surrendered with alacrity, even lending willing hands to help unload the landing craft.

  The historic return of a British army to continental Europe, three years after the ignominy of Dunkirk, was therefore something of an anti-climax. Not that the soldiers in the ranks cared much about that. They had already sampled the fighting qualities of the German infantry in Sicily, and were only too happy to be ashore safely without having to fire a shot. Nor was the commander of the renowned Eighth Army put out at being so thoroughly hoaxed. He was always careful of his soldiers’ lives, and for him it would have been inconceivable to land his troops on a coast defended by artillery without the elementary precaution of first silencing it. It was only a week since the Royal Navy had tested the defences by sailing through the Straits of Messina, every gun blazing, and part of Montgomery’s mission was to open them for the passage of convoys carrying the troops for another assault on the mainland at Salerno.

  He had, in fact, an inkling that Italian morale was crumbling and that the Germans might be thinning out, for on August 27 a special forces patrol returned from the farther shore and reported that the civil population was taking to the hills and the Italian soldiers deserting in droves, bringing a willing informant, an Italian railway worker, with them to confirm the story. Five more patrols were sent across the Straits that night with orders to find out how widespread this movement was and report by radio. There followed two days of silence, and it was assumed that all five had been captured before they could even open radio communications. Montgomery decided that he had no other course open but to hold to arrangements for an assault crossing preceded by a bombardment.1

  Once ashore the operations proved equally undramatic. There was a little skirmishing, and a sharp fight after a brigade had been sent a short distance up the west coast in landing craft in the hope that it could cut in behind the enemy line of retreat, but the real battle was between the opposing engineers over the problem of marching two mechanised divisions through the gorges and over the crags of the Calabrian mountains. The German engineers had created a web of demolitions along every road from south to north and from coast to coast. Every corniche had been blown down, every junction cratered and every bridge cut. Five days’ toil saw the leading elements of the 13th Corps 100 miles north of Reggio and approaching the narrow neck of land where the “toe” of Italy joins the foot, and the engineers running out of stores and bridging material. On the 8th Montgomery decreed a halt to improve his line of communications and build up stores before resuming his advance.

  On the same day a great Allied invasion fleet was approaching the Bay of Salerno, carrying the United States Fifth Army headquarters and Lieutenant-General Mark Wayne Clark, the US 6th and the British 10th Corps for the main assault on the Italian mainland, the objective being the port of Naples. That evening the ships picked up a broadcast from the Allied Forces station in Algiers with the glad news that the Italian Government wished for an armistice and no longer int
ended to continue the war. This was loudly cheered by the troops. Shortly afterwards they received a rude shock when Luftwaffe bombers launched a fierce attack on the fleet, and a yet ruder one in the early hours of the morning, when they were shelled while still in their landing craft, shot up as they came ashore and then attacked, as some terrified units believed, by hundreds of tanks before they pulled themselves together and began to carve out and consolidate a bridgehead. Their leaders were, perhaps, more alarmed than the troops.

  On September 10, General Sir Harold Alexander, commander-in-chief over both Clark and Montgomery, having received Montgomery’s signal announcing his halt, urged him to accept all administrative risks and hurry to the aid of the Fifth Army. On the 12th he followed it up by sending his own chief of staff to repeat and emphasise the message. In fact the German high command had long been expecting a major descent on the Italian coast, probably in the region of Naples, and the commander-in-chief of the south, Field-Marshal Albert Kesselring, had already deduced that Salerno was the most likely landing place. On the 9th he ordered that all the German divisions in Calabria should withdraw, leaving only the thinnest of screens to watch the Eighth Army, and he prepared for a battle royal between the invaders and the German Tenth Army, with the object of throwing them back into the placid waters of Salerno Bay.

  Marshal Ferdinand Foch once said something to the effect that warfare was not a well-ordered or intellectual affair, but “a dreadful and impassioned drama”. The opening moves of the invasion of Italy were certainly of the stuff of drama: General Montgomery, the victor of Alamein, piqued at being given a minor part and displeased that his advice not to make two landings 200 miles apart separated by difficult country had been ignored, sulked in his caravan. At one stage during the battle for the Salerno bridgehead General Clark prepared to re-embark the US 6th Corps, but the US artillery saved the situation when the German battle-groups were within a couple of miles of HQ Fifth Army. Meanwhile a decisive battle was fought for the control of the air over Salerno Bay between the Luftwaffe and the Allied fighters and the guns of the invasion fleet moored off-shore.