BREAKTHROUGH INTO THE
VALLEY OF THE PO
April – June 1945
Excerpted from
by John Bascom
April in the Apennines arrived to much improved spring weather and great anticipation among Allied troops. March had been marked by the usual patrols, skirmishes and shelling. It had been a month of holding the line and preparation. My father had been hospitalized in Livorno for much of the time, but returned to his unit in April.
The officers of the Allied Armies were busy planning the great
offensive that would, once and for all, crush the Germans in Italy. Back in Germany proper, American forces had
breached the Rhine River at Remagen, and a metaphorical floodgate had opened
allowing the Allies to pour into central Germany. The Russians were on the doorstep to the
east. German resistance was crumbling;
hundreds of thousands of prisoners had been taken, Hitler was hiding
underground in Berlin, and Nazi officials were already fleeing the
country. Many had surrendered or
committed suicide. The end was in sight.
Conditions and morale among the German officers and men continuing
to resist in Italy must have been abysmal.
Still, the Gothic Line stood strong, stretching across the northern
Apennines from coast to coast in a two-hundred-mile line from the Ligurian Sea
in the Mediterranean west to Rimini on the Adriatic. Their line was opposed along it’s entire
length by the Allies, over one million men strong. Better equipped and motivated, our forces
were ready for the great and final assault to begin.
British forces along the Adriatic and the American 92nd
on the west coast began attacks northward in early April. In addition to pushing the Germans off the
line in those areas, it was designed to pressure them into pulling troops from,
or at the very least prevent them from reinforcing their forces in the center
of the line south of Bologna. It was
there, in the center, that General Clark had planned the final, killing blow. Both coastal attacks met with good results
and fulfilled their objective of pinning the Germans down there.
The Red Bull and other divisions of II Corps continued to be
positioned between Florence and Bologna astride north-running Route 65 and its
parallel byways. On April 14, with
weather fair and troops ready, the great assault commenced. It was marked by an earth-shaking roar of
artillery, followed by air attacks from thousands of bombers dumping countless
tons of high explosive and antipersonnel munitions. Then came the screaming, swooping fighter
planes firing machineguns and rockets.
The massive explosions continued throughout the day.
The air and artillery attacks were followed by a full-force
assault of infantry. The squad and
platoon-sized probes a hill or village at a time were a thing of the past. With improved roads, tanks accompanied our
foot soldiers. Artillery and air
continued to prepare their advance. Once
again, the 135th Regiment found itself positioned south of and ready
to attack Mount Belmonte one last time.
They moved out on command to take the eastern flanks and hills adjacent
to the mountain.
Spring
attack to break the Gothic Line.
Position and planned path of the 34th Division shown right center. Mount Belmonte is shown immediately above and
slightly left of the Division’s starting position
On the eastern Adriatic Coast, the British had achieved a
breakthrough and surged across the Gothic Line defenses into the Po
Valley. Swinging westward, they threated
to continue north behind German lines, trapping the entire German army between
them and the Americans charging northward.
At first German resistance to the advance of the 135th
Regiment was as fierce and stubborn as before.
Casualties ran high on both sides.
But the enemy could not negate the months of Allied preparation,
stockpiling ammunition, and our resolve to end things once and for all. And above all, the devastating air and
artillery bombardments. According to
military historians Jay Roth and Judith Nichols, German prisoners
“…revealed the ordeal that had been theirs during two terrible
days of air and artillery preparation.
Many were still trembling when captured: others stared with vacant eyes,
numbed and speechless. Still others told
of the hell they had endured.”
Realizing their precarious position, the German defenses in the
Apennines began to collapse. The Red
Bull Division and its sister II Corps units surged north, taking objective
after objective. The previously
impregnable Mount Belmonte was quickly overwhelmed. German units, all hopes of successfully
resisting dashed, began a scrambling retreat out of the Apennines and across
the Po River, which defined the southern edge of the Po Valley. Their aim was to form a secondary defensive
line north of the Po River and then retreat further north in an orderly fashion
until the refuge of the Alps could be achieved.
Bologna is an ancient and historic city located about sixty miles
north of Tuscan Florence. It was the
prize the Red Bull Division struggled to attain in the previous eight, bloody
and frustrating months. Bologna has a
rich Renaissance heritage and hosts many historic and architecturally important
sites.
A teaming city—one of Italy’s largest—it is home to over a million
people. The Piazza Maggiore is the
sprawling square with lovely arched colonnades and medieval buildings of
classic beauty. There sits the Fountain
of Neptune and the Basilica di San Petronio.
Graceful towers adorn the city including one that is leaning,
reminiscent of the famous tower in coastal Pisa. Bologna boasts the world’s oldest university,
the 1088 AD University of Bologna.
But the beauty and historical significance were not the reasons it
was coveted by both the Allies and Germans.
It sits squarely in the west – east center of the entrance to the Po
Valley, directly in the middle of the Nazi’s defensive forces. Immediately to the city’s north lies the west
– east oriented Po River, a perfect defensive barrier for the enemy’s
retreating armies. Taking Bologna and
the river were the keys to shattering German lines and opening the Po Valley to
attack by our troops, tanks and aircraft.
As the grand assault in the quest for Bologna began in mid-April,
the 135th Regiment deployed on the right flank of II Corps. While resistance as always was brisk, they
quickly took their objectives around Mount Belmonte and pushed forward east of
and finally astride Route 65. After
several days of fighting the battered and retreating Germans, the 135th
entered Bologna, their original target at the outset of the Gothic Line
campaign back in September 1944. They
and a sister Polish unit fighting with the Allies were the first to gain the
prize. It had taken less than a week to
advance the final twelve miles to the city, something that had not been
accomplished in months of earlier fighting.
The German’s had already withdrawn north across the Po River in an
attempt to establish their next line of defense as planned. The mission of the 135th was to
secure the city and remove any mines or booby traps left by the enemy. Other Allied units along the entire length of
the Gothic Line were making good progress as well.
The Red Bull’s stay in Bologna would be short lived. After securing the city, its defense was handed over to other units. The Division had bigger fish to fry.
___________________________
Next Installment: The Allies defeat the Nazis in a frantic series of battles ranging across the Po Valley and into the far corners of Northern Italy, while our soldier comes closer to death than ever before
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