Holding the Line in the Apennines

 

Excerpted from

One Soldier's Story

by John Bascom

HOLDING THE LINE

January – April 1945

 

 

By early January 1945 both sides in Italy had ceased large-scale military operations. In addition to the winter weather, five British Eighth Army divisions that had been attacking the Gothic Line to the east of our 5^th Army had been moved to northern Europe.  This continuing drain of people and equipment added to the growing Allied shortages in Italy, and made defeating the entrenched and tenacious Germans more difficult than ever. The generals decided to go on the defensive and use the winter months to prepare for new offensive operations scheduled for April 1945, when the weather would be better and resupply and reinforcements would have, at least to a small degree, occurred. Despite four months of planning, bloody offensives, and staggering casualties, Allied units came to rest on a defensive line in a position that had changed very little since early autumn.

Troops of the Red Bull Division were set to work constructing our own defensive winter line south of the Po Valley.  Since September, their assaults had carried them nearly fifty hard-fought miles up Route 65, stopping just a dozen or so miles south of Bologna and the Po.  The line ran east to west across Route 65, just south of the as yet unconquered section of the German Gothic Line near Mount Belmonte.  The men of the 34^th constructed bunkers, machine gun pits, artillery emplacements, barbed wire, mine fields and other obstacles to a German attack.  Heavy snow made construction difficult, and at times totally covered and concealed prepared positions, requiring them to be marked with poles so they could be found by our soldiers later. 

Neither side could nor wanted to launch a major offensive.  Still, patrols were sent out regularly to assess the enemy’s position and intentions, which resulted in frequent clashes.  Any enemy movements were struck with artillery and machine guns, and they likewise struck us.  On several occasions, based on information from local civilians who despised the Germans, enemy agents dressed in American uniforms seeking to infiltrate our positions were captured by Dad’s Company L.  The 135^th Regiment and its 3^rd Battalion were moved to the very front of our lines near Mount Belmonte, which had previously been the site of the fierce battles that had failed to dislodge the Germans.  Conditions were slippery, which made vehicle traffic up the icy mountain lanes virtually impossible.  Our men were forced to march for long distances in blinding snow storms and through partially frozen slush when required to change locations.  Conditions for the men entrenched on Mount Belmonte were grueling.  Trench foot became epidemic in Company L and its sister companies of the 135^th. 

Firefights continued to break out.  On January 9^th, four German soldiers approached Company L and indicated they wanted to surrender.  However, the ruse turned into a fierce clash and three of the four Germans were killed with the fourth captured.  The next day a detachment of sixty enemy was spotted.  When they took shelter in a small building, they were shelled by our artillery.  The building was completely destroyed.  A mortar duel erupted, and two men from Company L were
wounded.  Soon after, a five-man enemy contingent attempted to raid the company.  Four were killed by our troops.  For the remainder of January, these kinds of scattered encounters continued.  Company L was tasked with setting up ambush patrols closer to German lines.  At times, the dug-in troops received coordinated, intense artillery bombardments augmented by bombing from Germany’s few remaining planes in the theater.  My father wrote that at one point during this winter deployment on the front, he spent thirty miserable, consecutive days living in the same cold, wet foxhole. 

Heavy patrolling continued through February.  In early February, several more aggressive and organized raids were launched against German positions with limited results.  Dad related that they had been eating rations from cans for nearly a month, when a cow was spotted by his patrol.  It was dispatched by their M-1s, and the men dined on steaks for several days.  By the middle of the month, the 135^th was pulled briefly into reserve, then quickly redeployed to another nearby sector.  What had become the customary patrols, shelling and intermittent gunfights continued throughout the balance of the month.

My father had earlier in the campaign been twice wounded by shrapnel during enemy artillery bombardments.  Fortunately, the injuries were minor and he was
treated at the nearby field medical facility, then quickly returned to his unit.  However, in late February Dad was taken ill with jaundice and hepatitis, probably from coming into contact with contaminated water.  Soldiers in the field sometimes washed their hands or faces in streams or pools, and it was impossible to know what pollutants lurked just upstream.  The men of course had to relieve themselves in the field.  Also, food occasionally obtained from local villages was suspect.

Since hepatitis is infectious and disease had become a problem among the troops, he was evacuated to a military hospital in Livorno on the Mediterranean coast, southwest of Florence and well behind the action.  He not only enjoyed a clean, comfortable bed, but the weather was also considerably warmer.  Despite being ill, it must have been a welcome break from six straight months of fighting, shelling, death and misery.  After several weeks of treatment and convalescence, he recovered and returned to his unit in the Apennines to continue the fight.