History of the Second World War (79 page)

Alexander’s confidence in the prospects of ‘Operation Avalanche’ is the more surprising because two weeks before it took place the German military commentator, ‘Sertorius’, had broadcast a forecast that the Allies’ main landing would be in the Naples-Salerno sector, with a subsidiary landing on the Calabrian peninsula.

A week earlier still, on August 18, Hitler had issued his orders to meet the threat, and these significantly said:

1.       Sooner or later the capitulation of Italy before enemy pressure Is to be expected.

2.      In preparation for this, 10th Army must keep the line of retreat open. Central Italy, especially the Rome area, is to be held until then by OBS.

3.      In the coastal area from Naples to Salerno, which at first is the most threatened, a strong group consisting of at least three mobile formations from 10th Army is to be assembled. All no longer mobile elements of the Army are to be moved to this area. At first fully mobile elements may remain between Catanzaro and Castrovillari to take part in mobile operations. Elements of 1 Para Div may be employed for the protection of Foggia. In the case of an enemy landing the area Naples-Salerno must be held. South of the defile of Castrovillari there is only to be delaying action. . . .

Kesselring put six of his eight divisions in the south, under General von Vietinghoff’s newly formed 10th Army — which established its headquarters at the inland town of Polla, south-east of Salerno. For Hitler had personally told Vietinghoff on the 22nd, to regard Salerno as ‘the centre of gravity’ (as that Army’s war diary records). Kesselring’s two other divisions were held in reserve near Rome, ready to seize control of the capital and keep open the 10th Army’s line of retreat ‘in the event of Italian treachery’. The six divisions in the south comprised two which had newly arrived in Italy, the 16th and 26th Panzer, and the four which had escaped from Sicily. The two of these which were most depleted by losses, the Hermann Goring and the 15th Panzergrenadier, had been brought back to the Naples area to refit, and the 1st Parachute went to Apulia while the 29th Panzergrenadier had been left in the toe of Italy facing Montgomery. To help it keep him in check, the 26th Panzer, which had arrived without any tanks,* was temporarily sent to Calabria. The 16th Panzer Division, the best armed of the batch, was posted to cover the Gulf of Salerno, the most likely sector for a large landing, and it could be quickly reinforced there by the other divisions. Even so, it comprised only one tank battalion† and only four infantry battalions, although strong in artillery.

* Like most of the German armoured divisions at this period, it had only two tank battalions — one equipped with Panther tanks and one with the lighter Mark IV tanks — and of these the Panther battalion had not been sent to Italy, while the other had been kept near Rome to help in overawing the Italians.

† This battalion had about eighty tanks, of Mark IV type. Its missing Panther battalion had been replaced by an armoured assault-gun battalion, of forty self-propelled pieces — which could be mistaken for tanks on a distant view. Even so, it is difficult to understand how General Mark Clark in his book of war memoirs,
Calculated Risk,
can have arrived at his calculation that the Germans ‘originally had probably about six hundred tanks at Salerno’ (p. 199) — which was nearly eight times the actual number.

That was a slender force to meet the armada which was sailing towards the Gulf of Salerno — with some seven hundred ships and landing craft, carrying some 55,000 troops for the initial landing, and further a 115,000 for the follow up.

The landing was to be made by the U.S. 36th Infantry Division on the right, and the British 46th and 56th Divisions on the left, while part of the U.S. 45th Infantry Division provided a flanking reserve. These divisions were grouped respectively under the U.S. 6th Corps (General Dawley) and the British 10th Corps (General R. L. McCreery). The latter was to land on a seven-mile stretch of the beaches just south of Salerno, near the main road to Naples, which crosses the neck of the mountainous Sorrento peninsula through the Cava Gap, by a low but awkward pass. Its early success was thus of key importance, both in opening the way north to the great port of Naples and in blocking the arrival of German reinforcements from the north. To ease its task, two British Commandos and three battalions of American Rangers were employed for the quick capture of this defile and of the Chiunzi Pass on a neighbouring route.

The main British assault convoy sailed from Tripoli on September 6, and the main American one from Oran the previous evening. Others sailed from Algiers, Bizerta, and the north Sicilian ports of Palermo and Termini. Although their destination was a heavily guarded secret, it was not difficult to deduce or guess in view of the practicable limits of air cover and the need for early capture of a large port, two conditions which here coincided in such a way as to provide a very obvious pointer. The Chinese cook of a water-boat at Tripoli caused some palpitation by his farewell shout ‘See you in Naples’.* But he was only echoing what was a matter of common talk among seamen and soldiers. A fostering factor was the unfortunate choice of the titles ‘Force N’ and ‘Force S’ for the northern and southern attack forces. Nor was it only a matter of guesswork, for one of the administrative orders which had a wide circulation mentioned by name a number of places in and around Salerno.

* Linklater:
The Campaign in Italy,
p. 63.

Since the objective was so obvious, a greater handicap was that the army commander, Mark Clark, persisted in counting on surprise to such an extent that he forbade any preliminary naval bombardment of the defences, despite strong arguments from the commander of the naval task force escorting and supporting the landing force, Vice-Admiral H. Kent Hewitt U.S.N. — who clearly saw that ‘it was fantastic to assume we could obtain tactical surprise’.† But it can be argued, on the other hand, that the advantage of softening up the coast defences might have been offset by a quicker concentration of the enemy’s reserves if the intended landing site had been more definitely made clear in this way.

† S. E. Morison;
History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II,
vol. IX, p. 249.

The approach of the convoys, made round the west and north coasts of Sicily, was spotted and reported to the German headquarters early in the afternoon of the 8th, and at 3.30 p.m. their troops were put on the alert in readiness for the expected landing. At 6.30 p.m. the announcement of the armistice with Italy was broadcast by Eisenhower on Radio Algiers, and at 7.20 p.m. repeated by the B.B.C. News. One or other of these broadcasts was heard by the Allied troops on board the convoys. This news, despite warnings from some of their officers that they still had to deal with the Germans, unfortunately gave them the impression that the landings would be a walkover. They were soon disillusioned. So were those Allied planners who had optimistically forecast the capture of Naples by the third day — a goal that was reached only after three weeks of struggle and a narrow escape from disaster.

During the afternoon of the 8th the approaching convoys came under air attack several times, and again after dark, when German bombers flew over them dropping parachute flares, but the armada was fortunate in suffering little damage. Just after midnight the leading transports arrived at the release points, eight to ten miles off shore, and began lowering their landing-craft. These reached the beaches at or close to the scheduled H-hour of 3.30 a.m. Two hours earlier, a coastal battery taken over by the Germans had opened fire on the landing-craft approaching the northern flank, but had been tackled and silenced by the escorting destroyers, and the final stage had been aided by a short but intense bombardment of the beach defences by naval guns and rocket-craft — a new aid which here made its debut. But in the southern sector no such supporting fire was provided as the American divisional commander stuck to the army commander’s ‘no fire’ instructions in the hope that local surprise might still be achieved by a silent landing. The result was that, in the last lap to the beach, the landing-craft came under a hail of fire from the shore, and many casualties were suffered by the troops.

As the prospects of a quick advance to Naples turned on the capture of the road northward from Salerno through the mountains, it is appropriate to recount the landings from left to right, starting with the northern flank. Here the American Rangers landed unopposed on a small beach at Maiori and within three hours secured the Chiunzi Pass, while establishing themselves on the ridges overlooking the main Salerno-Naples road. The British Commandos also had an easy landing at Vietri, where the road leaves the coast and starts to mount. But the enemy reacted quickly, delaying the clearance of the town, and the Commandos were then held up just north of it in the low pass of La Molina at the start of the Cava Gap.

The main British landings, on beaches a few miles south of Salerno, met a stiff resistance from the start, and their progress was also adversely affected because part of the 46th Division was put ashore by mistake on the beaches of its right-hand neighbour, the 56th, causing confusion and congestion. Although some of the leading troops pushed two miles inland, they suffered many casualties and fell short of securing the important first day objectives — Salerno harbour, Montecorvino airfield, and the road junctions at Battipaglia and Eboli. Moreover, at the end of the day there was still a seven-mile gap between the British right flank north of the Sele and the American left flank south of that river.

The American landings were made on four beaches close to the famous Greek temples at Paestum. The strain of approaching the shore under heavy fire, without support from their own ships, was followed by running into further curtains of fire after landing, as well as a battering from successive German air attacks on the beaches. It was a severe ordeal for the troops of the 36th Division, who had no previous experience of battle. Fortunately, they were now given good support by naval gunfire, from destroyers which drove in boldly through minefields to aid them, and this proved particularly helpful both here and on the British sector in checking counterthrusts by small groups of German tanks, which were the chief menace to the invaders. By nightfall the American left wing had pushed about five miles inland, to the hill town of Capaccio, but the right wing was still pinned down close to the beaches.

The second day, September 10, was a quiet one on the American sector, as the 16th Panzer Division had moved most of its meagre strength north-ward to the British sector, which was strategically the greater menace to their hold on the Salerno area. The Americans profited by the opportunity to expand their bridgehead, and to land the bulk of the 45th Division, their floating reserve. Meanwhile the British 56th Division had occupied Montecorvino airfield and Battipaglia early in the morning, but was later driven back by vigorous counterattack from two German motor infantry battalions along with some tanks — which produced a local panic, even in part of the Guards Brigade, before the tanks of the Royal Scots Greys came to provide support of a similar kind.

That night the 56th Division mounted a three-brigade attack to capture the dominating heights of Mount Eboli, but it made only slight progress, which included a re-entry into Battipaglia. The 46th Division occupied Salerno and sent a brigade to relieve the Commandos, but did not develop a northward push. On the American sector the fresh 45th Division advanced some ten miles inland up the east bank of the Sele through Persano and came near to reaching the road-centre of Ponte Sele, the apex of the desired beachhead line. But it was checked and then led to withdraw by a counterattack from a German motor infantry battalion and eight tanks, switched back across the river from the British sector. Thus at the end of the third day the four Allied divisions that had landed, with extra units equivalent to a fifth, were still confined in two shallow and separate beachheads while the Germans held both the surrounding heights and the approach routes to the flat coastal strip. Allied hopes of reaching Naples on the third day had vanished. The 16th Panzer Division, barely half of the scale of an Allied division in fighting units, had succeeded in curbing the invasion and gaining time for the arrival of German reinforcements.

The first to arrive were the 29th Panzergrenadier Division, which was already on its way back from Calabria, and a battle-group (with two infantry battalions and some twenty tanks) that the refitting Hermann Goring Division had managed to raise. This battle-group, coming from the Naples area, counterattacked and broke through the British line above the La Molina pass, coming close to Vietri before it was stopped, on the 13th, by the re-entry of the Commandos into the fight. Even so, the pass was now firmly sealed. It had become all too clear that the British 10th Corps was penned into the very narrow coastal strip near Salerno with the Germans ensconced on the surrounding heights. Meanwhile Mark Clark’s initial confidence was being still worse shaken by events in the southern sector. For the 29th Panzer- grenadier Division along with part of the 16th Panzer thrust into the gap between the British and Americans. On the evening of September 12, the British right wing was again driven out of Battipaglia, and suffered heavy loss, particularly in prisoners. On the 13th, the Germans exploited the widened gap between the two Allied corps for a stroke against the American left wing, driving it out of Persano and producing a general withdrawal. In the confusion that ensued, the Germans penetrated the line in several places and at one point came within about half a mile of the beaches.

That evening the situation looked so grim that the unloading of all merchant ships was stopped in the southern sector. Moreover Mark Clark sent Admiral Hewitt an urgent request to prepare for re-embarking Fifth Army Headquarters and to make all available craft ready to evacuate the 6th Corps from the beachhead, and re-land it in the British sector, or alternatively to transfer the 10th Corps southward.* Such a large-scale emergency shift was hardly practicable, and the suggestion drew a horrified protest from McCreery and his naval colleague Commodore Oliver, while it caused consternation in higher quarters when reported to Eisenhower and Alexander. But it helped to produce an accelerated reinforcement of the troops on shore, additional landing craft being provided for the purpose by diverting eighteen L.S.T.s which were
en route
to India. The 82nd Airborne Division was put at Mark Clark’s disposal, and in swift response to his emergency call in the afternoon Matt Ridgway managed to drop the first instalment in the southern beachhead that evening. The British 7th Armoured Division began to land in the northern beachhead on the 15th. But by then the crisis had passed, thanks largely to the quicker emergency relief given by Allied seapower and airpower.