Chapter Eight

Gothic Horror

Manned by Kesselring’s 10th and 14th Armies, the Gothic Line was the last major obstacle between the Allies and the Alps and it proved to be probably the best of all the German defences. The Italian landscape also once more assisted the Germans, for in the valley of the upper Tiber the mountainous backbone of the country twists northwestwards to join the Maritime Alps in Liguria. This forms a huge natural barrier between the flat lands of the northeast and central Italy. After Cassino and Rome fell, the series of delaying battles from Trasimere to Florence had bought the German engineers much-needed time. Unfortunately for the Allies, the French, who were their most experienced and effective mountain troops, were withdrawn to fight in southern France.

As it was the very last line in the series, the Germans had had much greater time to prepare it, not to mention the assistance of 15,000 conscripted Italian labourers. Although the Gothic Line was never finished, it still presented a formidable barrier. The positions included Panther tank turrets set in steel and concrete, bunkers, air raid shelters, gun emplacements, minefields and anti-tank ditches as well as an obstacle zone stretching for 10 miles.

The Germans had done everything conceivable to stop the Allied tanks. Anti-tank defences in depth blocked the approaches to Spezia on the west coast. From Carrara the line passed through the mountains north of Pistoia to the fortifications of the Futa Pass, which included anti-tank ditches and concrete casemates and tank turrets. Eastwards to the Adriatic foothills the defences were concentrated along the Foglia to Pesaro. There deep minefields, a tank ditch, pillboxes and tank turrets protected the coastal belt.

The Allies launched the imaginatively titled Operation Olive in late August 1944 with the 8th Army aiming to break through the sector of the Gothic Line held by General Traugott Herr’s 76th Panzer Corps (which did not contain any panzer or panzergrenadier divisions).Traugott’s positions were assaulted by the Polish 2nd Corps (which included the Polish 2nd Armoured Brigade), the Canadian 1st Corps (Canadian 5th Armoured Division and the British 21 st Tank Brigade) and the British 5th Corps (1st Armoured Division, 7th Armoured Brigade and 25th Tank Brigade).The attack fell into four phases: the advance to the Gothic Line, the penetration of its defences, the battle for the Coriano Ridge and the exploitation of this battle.The reality was that Italy was now very much a secondary theatre of operations, as the battle for Normandy was at its height, and the US 5th Army had lost seven divisions that were sent to take part in Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France, at the end of August. The US 5th Army and the British 8th Army had seen their strengths fall dramatically from 249,000 to 153,000 men, leaving them just eighteen divisions with which to overwhelm the fourteen divisions of the German 10th and 14th Armies.

The Germans rushed reinforcements forwards, including the 26th Panzer Division, but this did not stop the Allies breaking through and pouring towards Rimini on the east coast. The Germans, though, did not give up so easily and by 4 September the 29th Panzergrenadiers and two infantry divisions had arrived to bolster the German line, causing a slowing of the Allied advance towards the Gemmano and Coriano Ridges.The fighting here was some of the toughest of the entire Italian campaign. The Coriano Ridge battle between 12 and 19 September 1944 required both the British 1st and Canadian 5th Armoured Divisions to overcome the German defences.

By this stage the Germans had been able to bring in the 90th Panzergrenadier Division and the 20th Luftwaffe Field Division, giving them ten divisions with which to oppose the 8th Army. However, the German defence was overcome and on 21 September the 8th Army took Rimini and was at last in the valley of the River Po.

This advance had been at a terrible cost to both sides: the 8th Army suffered 14,000 casualties and the 76th Panzer Corps lost 16,000. In the British sector during September the Allies lost 250 tanks destroyed by the enemy and a similar number either bogged or broken down. Losses in manpower were such that battalions had to be reduced from four to three companies. Notably the 1st Armoured Division received such a terrible mauling that it virtually ceased to exist and was disbanded on 1 January 1945.

The British soon discovered that the Po valley was not the excellent tank country that they had hoped for. Instead it proved to be a boggy expanse covered in a series of watercourses that greatly suited the Germans’ finely honed defensive tactics.

On the left the US 5th Army now included the US 1 st, British 6th and South African 6th Armoured Divisions as well as the Canadian 1st Tank Brigade. Facing them was the German 14th Army, which included the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division. By the end of the first week of September the army reserve, consisting of the 29th Panzergrenadiers and the 26th Panzer Division, had been moved to the Adriatic front. On 18 September the British 6th Armoured Division took the San Godenzo Pass on Route 67 to Forli. A month later the US 5th Army gathered its strength for one last push on Bologna; however, the 29th and 90th Panzergrenadiers helped to put an end to any such ambitions, leaving the 5th Army stranded in the mountains over the winter.

A New Zealand welded-hull Sherman tank pictured during the advance towards the city of Florence on 26 July 1944.

(Above and opposite, top): Two late production models of the Tiger knocked out by the New Zealanders south of Florence. Both have the later all-steel disc road wheels. Inevitably they took a heavy toll on enemy tanks before succumbing to superior numbers.

The Gothic Line taking a pounding from a 203mm howitzer during August 1944. The intended speed of the Allies’ attack meant that there was no need for a corps level artillery plan, though Operation Olive, launched on 25 August, was supported by twenty-seven squadrons of fighter-bombers and medium bombers.

A Sexton self-propelled gun crawling up a hairpin bend in the Italian mountains. Such dust clouds often attracted the attention of enemy gunners. By 27 August the 46th Division had captured Monte Bartolo, Monte Grosso and Monte Tombola. However, getting the 142nd Tank Regiment into position delayed the push on Ponte Rosso on the River Ventena until 1 September.The Canadians on the right also made excellent progress.

This vehicle is a Priest Kangaroo.The deployment of the Canadian Ram Kangaroo armoured personnel carrier in northwest Europe in the autumn of 1944 was so successful that the commander of the 8th Army asked for a regiment of tracked APCs for Italy. Between October 1944 and April 1945 a total of 102 M7 Priest self-propelled guns were converted to Kangaroo APCs by removing the gun and mount, the ammunition bins and the plating-in of the hull front. This conversion was also carried out on seventy-five Sherman M4A2 gun tanks. The work was done by 8th Army field workshops.

Sherman crews of the South African 6th Armoured Division getting rid of spent shell cases after a night blitz in support of the opening stages of the spring offensive.

While this British tank crew replenishes their ammunition stocks, the driver plucks a ‘liberated’ chicken.

Further illustrating the multi-national nature of the war in Italy, here an American tank crew is tucking in to a meal beside their Sherman.

Another Sherman negotiates a snowy mountain road.This is an early production M4: note the three-piece nose casting and vision blocks on the glacis plate. Mines and ambushes were occupational hazards on such roads.

British infantry wearing greatcoats to keep out the Italian winter. As in other theatres of operation, the weather was always a problem.

An American quad anti-aircraft gun mounted in a half-track. By this stage of the war the appearance of the Luftwaffe, or indeed the Italian air force in support of their ground troops, was a very rare occurrence.

Assault guns provided the backbone of the German armoured forces in Italy. The vehicle in the foreground appears to be a StuG III Ausf G with the Saukopf gun mantlet. The height of the superstructure on the vehicles in the background indicates they may be Jagdpanzer IVs, which were issued to the tank-hunter detachments of the panzer divisions from March 1944. They first went into action in Italy with the Hermann Göring Division.

The remains of a Semovente assault gun. A German helmet sits perched on the end of the barrel.

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