The Battle of the Po
excerpted from One Soldier's Story
by John Bascom
(After nine months of grueling mountain fighting, the Allies break the Gothic Line and the 34th Red Bull Division seizes the key Po Valley city of Bologna, the linchpin in the Nazi's defenses in Northern Italy. All that remains is to finish them off)
In late April, 1945 the Red Bull Division had finally cracked the
Apennine Mountain Gothic Line, driven the Nazi's out of the mountains and taken
the strategic city of Bologna. Now the 34th had bigger fish to fry.
What occurred in the ensuing week was one of the most daring,
chaotic and successful moves in military annals. Rather than the classic pause to regroup and
reconnoiter, General Clark grasped the opportunity to exploit the Germans’
panic and finish them once and for all.
Instead of locating and attacking enemy units one at a time, he resolved
to disorient them and prevent their retreat into the Alps by swiftly enveloping
them in the Po Valley. There, all the
advantages lay with us. Unlike the
commanding and intimidating Apennines, the Po was relatively open, rolling and
crisscrossed by good roads. The terrain
was suitable for our superiority in tanks and equipment to move swiftly. The weather there was more accommodating to
substantial friendly air forces. The
Germans had essentially no air capability left.
Still, abandoning our classic military defensive formations in pursuit
of an elusive brass ring was a risky strategy.
It left many of our units exposed to assaults should the German’s be
able to regroup and reorganize. General
Clark accepted the risk.
Allied units were ordered to race forward, bypassing areas of
light resistance in a blitz of our own designed to disrupt and block the
retreat of the enemy. The 135th
Regiment was ordered to attack west along Highway 9 that ran parallel to the
northern face of the Apennine Range.
Germans were pouring from the mountains in an attempt to cross the Po
River and establish new defenses.
The Regiment was ordered to capture objectives along Highway 9,
initially taking and clearing Modena, then pushing on into Parma, about sixty
miles west of Bologna. Germans continued
to drift out of the mountains and into the towns all along the highway, requiring
brisk fighting to drive them out. A
history of Company L describes it thus:
“The Po Valley was aflame…rolls of powder smoke belching from
thousands of weapons darkened the sky on that otherwise bright day. The resistance was sharp all along the way…”
The 135th continued to fight west along Highway 9,
achieving their assigned objective of Piacenza, a
strategic town on the Po River over a hundred miles west of Bologna. It had taken eight bloody months to advance
from Florence to the approaches of Mount Belmonte. In less than two weeks the 135th
had moved over a hundred-ten miles through enemy territory in late April. In the afternoon of April 26th,
Company L was ordered to Caorso, some ten miles from Piacenza. It had been reported to be a German
stronghold. The Company was advised by
friendly civilians that the Germans had moved out. Our men proceeded cautiously into the town
square where a crowd of civilians including the mayor greeted them. Suddenly, enemy burp guns opened up. The locals dashed wildly for safety while
Company L sought cover and returned fire with BARs, machineguns and small
arms. It became all too obvious that
German elements remained. Outnumbered,
the men of Company L sought refuge wherever they could. There were casualties and a few of our
soldiers were taken captive. German troops,
retreating from the mountains, continued to pour into the village. Night fell and enemy tanks appeared. The Americans were by then scattered, and in
the darkness, it was difficult to tell friend from foe. The Germans hurled hand grenades and directed
tank rounds into the buildings where our forces, increasingly outmanned, were
hunkered down. Eventually an estimated
six thousand Germans had arrived, a considerable force easily outnumbering the
entire nearby 3rd Battalion, not to mention little Company L.
American reinforcements soon arrived, however, and the tide
turned. Most of the Germans escaped
north across the Po, but many were killed in Caorso and seven hundred were
captured. Our casualties, while much
lighter, were still a painful reminder of the unpredictable fortunes of war.
By April 27th, only two weeks after the breakout over Mount Belmonte had begun, the battle for Highway 9 and the Po River south of the Apennines had been won. A total of three German divisions had been captured. Many others had escaped north across the river and were fleeing toward the Alps. The next day, on April 28, the entire Red Bull Division was ordered to move north across the Po River to aid in sealing the Alpine passes. Every conceivable vehicle was pressed into service. Soldiers clung to the hoods, fenders and bumpers of trucks. The 135th sped back to Modena then north, breaching the Po River on a hastily made pontoon bridge.
Orders were changed mid-route, and the unit
raced toward Brescia, fifty miles north of Caorso
where they had been ambushed. Upon
arrival, orders were almost immediately issued to proceed to Milan, the largest
industrial and commercial center in Italy.
News soon came that the Italian resistance had liberated the city, and
captured then brutally killed Mussolini, the Fascist dictator and ally of
Hitler who had led the nation to ruin. His
nude, battered body was infamously hung naked from a balcony in the city
square, a final act of violent defiance.
Overall, our combined forces spread across the valley and sped
along the well-developed road network in the Po. The Germans in turn wheeled, dodged and raced
with frantic zeal. Their units fragmented. Some were simply left behind to be mopped up
later by the Allies. Prisoners began to
pour in, some finding and surrendering to American units on their own
initiative. Others continued futile
resistance. According to eye witnesses,
it was an amazing spectacle, colorful and exciting. The demeanor of the German prisoners was one
of utter dejection, defeat and hopelessness.
With Milan pacified, the 135th was ordered to take and
capture the German 75th Corps.
Upon making contact, that entire corps, tens of thousands of men,
surrendered en masse to the Red Bull 34th Division. In a twist of irony, the German 34th
Division surrendered to my father’s division of the same name. Our forces were given the massive task of
rounding up and taking custody of the POWs.
It was about this time that my father experienced the most
dangerous and terrifying encounter of his time in Italy. A few small German units continued to
resist. They either had not gotten or
refused to heed the orders to surrender.
My father and several fellow soldiers were manning an outpost set up in
a small stone farmhouse on a little hilltop.
They were spotted by a rogue group of Germans, who immediately attacked
their position. A fierce fight
followed. With superior numbers, the
enemy stormed the house and burst into the tiny interior, weapons firing. Dad found himself in the same room with the
German soldier who had knocked the door down and rushed in shooting. My father instinctively fired his weapon, his
BAR, from the hip in a reflexive act of self-preservation. Both men shooting at each other, the German
boy collapsed and died before Dad’s eyes.
My father was unscathed. With the
enemy surrendering and the war virtually over, he had come closer to death,
saved only by chance, than at any other time during his combat. My father was incapable of violent
vengeance. But in an odd way, it seems a
fitting counterbalance to the tragic death of Woody, his young ward, also
before his very eyes. Fate has a way of evening
scores.
Ultimately, we were able to get behind the retreating Germans in
this fashion, and bring things to a whimpering end. On May 2nd, the Germans signed a
surrender of all forces in Italy, and the war there was over. One observer reported
“…the final surrender was received by our troops with a strange
calm almost amounting to complacency.
There was neither shouting nor cheering, no celebration was held. Perhaps it was because the men had foreseen
the inevitability of the enemy’s collapse.
Or perhaps our battle-weary soldiers were just too exhausted…”
It is estimated that
between September, 1943 and April, 1945, 70,000 Allied and 150,000 German soldiers died in Italy. The total number of Allied
casualties including those wounded was about 320,000, and the German figure
(excluding those involved in the final surrender) was over 330,000.
And so the Battle of the Po and all hostilities in Italy came to
an end.
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Next: "COMING HOME", the conclusion of One Soldier's Story
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